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get some statistics speak to council members
LAC support coordinators
use your naivety in the beginning as a business
don’t pretend that you’re a big business
don’t try and fall into that
use your naivety and go hey look
I’m starting an NDIS business
this is what I’m thinking of doing
where do you think the gaps in the market are
or just ask questions as a naive business owner
Hello everybody
and welcome to the Healthy Business Lab Podcast
where we interview allied health
and related business owners
to share their golden nuggets
their learnings and their experience
and today
I’m super excited that we’ve got Greg Chadwick
on the episode today
from Chadwick Digital and Simply Stronger Supports
multi faceted
multi varied experience here for to one pick Greg
welcome to the episode yeah
thank you so much for having me Craig
yeah it’s great to have you on board
because again I think you’ve got a vast wealth of
sort of experience
across different perspectives around the NDIS world
and so I’d love for you again
we always let our guest introduce themselves
they usually do it better than I ever will
but love you to share
you got a fascinating background and story
as to how you’ve ended up doing what you do today
yeah
so I started off in the care sector prior to the NDIS
working in the disability sector
twenty years ago
I worked in the criminal justice program
helping people
kind of integrate from prison back into society
who had disability then kind of moved on to
I LED over 300 STA camps and along the way
I’ve always had a real passion for digital marketing
and just marketing in general
so I’ve had a website design agency
and a digital marketing agency
about five years ago I combined those
two passions and I started consulting
I just started uh
coaching helping people uh
build their brands helping people market
and really helping people start
and be able to get referrals
in the disability sector so
I guess my title is an NDIS Strategic Marketer
and a business startup coach
and website designs quite a few things
but I’m also a provider myself
like you mentioned as well
yeah and I think that’s the interesting part
of somebody who does span across
living and breathing or walking the talk
so to speak yeah
and then you’re out there
helping people do this same thing
which you know
leads very nicely into
what we like to share on this podcast is
you know
many experiments that people have done in business
because we all often learn from things that have worked
haven’t worked learnings along the way
and across that 20 years experience
I’m seeing a little nodding there
there’s definitely many experiments
that you would have tried over the years
let’s just throw a few out there
what are some of the experiments
that stick front of mind
for you that from running your business
and I
yeah so I’ll speak from the perspective of
of I guess
helping providers at the moment
so I started in this sector doing Google ads
Facebook ads and I really wanted to
you know I’m like OK
people can get referrals through Google ads
Facebook ads that’s the thing
and I really want to help people do do that
but unfortunately
we live in a world of a cap price market
where you can only charge a certain amount
so if you would have wanted to hire someone like me
like two to three thousand dollars
as a strategic marketing agent
on a retainer per month
then it’s not really in the budget for most people
so I started diving a little bit deeper
and really just hit the ground
and just spoke to people like you do with your podcast
whether it’s in person and I basically set up
you can call me and I’ll give you free coaching session
and so I coached hundreds of people for free
completely free and it was yes
I was helping people
and that really is something that gave me um
a passion for coaching and kind of secured that okay
this is definitely what I wanna do
is to help people but along the way
I was finding out pain points and problems
and how can I actually implement these expertise
that I have for people that don’t have the budget to
do it so now I kind of
I guess I have a bit of an agnostic view
to what channels we’re using messaging
all that sort of stuff so
I’ve really built quite a lot of framework
so that I can teach people without a budget
and I give a man a fish for a day
teach me how to fish and I’ll eat forever
so I teach people how to market for their own business
because in the beginning
we have a whole heap of different hats
especially like when we’re first starting out
first couple of years we’re wearing them all
until you can start buying back some of your time
my focus now is really on trust first
especially in these sectors
when we have to understand
that the people that we’re helping
are super super vulnerable
and their parents and their primary carers and everyone
you know we
we need to be able to more than any industry
allied health NDIS
uh aged care
more than any industry
trust is probably the biggest factor
and how can we build that trust quickly
how can we stand out
how can we provide something unique and different
so
that’s probably been my focus for the last five years
and just
really focusing on
different ways that we can build trust and
I guess build a relationship quicker than having to
you know spend
and a really long time
building those connections and relationships
yeah I love that
as you say so integral to that
so
I’d love to delve down into that a little bit further
of what’s been the evolution of approaches
to be able to accelerate that whole trust
because again
there’s a lot of great providers in there
but there are you know
the media likes to promote the ones that aren’t so much
how do people out there sort of
really hone in on that trust element
and be able to accelerate that for themselves
yes well
we live in what’s called a Red Ocean market
which means basically
there’s a whole heap of competition
and we need to figure out
why we’re still in this same marketplace
we need to figure out
what is the blue ocean strategy that we want to
kind of approach
so when we’re looking for blue ocean strategy
I think what happens is people start an NDIS business
and they skip a whole heap of steps first
rather than
going through the ideation of their business
they go I’m really good at being a support worker
or I’m really good at this
and I’m gonna start a disability sector
and whether it be because registration consultants
or website designers or SEOs
they convince them all you gotta do is this
throw up a website and you’ll get clients
and lead that to kind of a false truth
and I hate seeing that so my
one of my goals
has really been to try and fix the sequence that
we kind of do things in before we get to a website
which you know
I make a lot of my revenue off website design
but before we get to that
what is the ideation of your business
what is your product what is your offer
what is it that we can put in front of someone
that’s really unique
so I describe it as being a specialist by design
gone are the days that you can come into the NDIS
and you can just start a business and get clients
being a specialist by design means niching down
so finding that niche
hopefully something that you connect with
relate to you know
my organisation we support young men with autism
and intellectual disabilities
femforge supports
they support women to lead an active lifestyle
real supports
they support people through fishing and mental health
so understanding okay
that’s our niche let’s dive down
if you wanna expand later
that’s fine the mindset of people like oh
I don’t wanna limit myself
but there’s some really
unfortunately you limit yourself by not niching down
and actually there’s some really
unethical things about not niching down
so the first step is really to find that niche
but you need to go further than just finding that niche
cause in a couple years from now
there’s gonna be a Red Ocean Market in niches
so you need to go further
you need to become that
super duper expert at that niche
so how much time have you spent googling
you know at least go out
in bare minimum Google for 10 hours
on the problems that your target audience faces
get some statistics speak to council members
L a C support coordinators
use your naivety in the beginning as a business
don’t pretend that you’re a big business
don’t try and fall into that
use your naivety and go hey look
I’m starting an NDIS business
this is what I’m thinking of doing
where do you think the gaps in the market are
or just ask questions as a naive business owner
I love that
I love that simplicity of leverage and naivety
that gave me the little goosebumps
because
I know we all try to pretend to be big businesses
and then we know stuff
cause we don’t wanna look silly sometimes
when we start our businesses
or in different conversations
I love you to go into that now a little bit further
because you know as a human
that can be hard to do in many ways
so how have you seen people approach that idea of again
getting the research being naive
being super curious again
I love how it sort of obviously
there’s quite a interplay
with curiosity and naive idea
but I think there
there’s obviously a difference between them
that I’d love you to hmm
share your thoughts on well
the fact of the matter is
there’s a lot of unknown unknowns right now
you’re starting a new business
and you don’t have a lot of skill sets yet
and that’s okay
double down on the skill sets that you do have
which is like
providing really good support and being genuine
if you come into this industry
like especially in this sector
I think as support
we’ve all started off mostly support workers
or that sort of stuff
we have the ability to sniff out someone who’s BS
and whether it just be an inherent
something’s wrong about this guy
something’s weird you know
whether it just be that inherent intuition
we know when something’s not right
so buy into your genuineness and your naivety of like
you know my specialty is this
I’ve worked with so many people with autism
and intellectual disabilities
I see the gaps in the market being this
what do you think and understand that this is like a
a co design
I know it’s a bit of a buzzword at the moment
but it’s a co design a genuine discussion around
I wanna make this business that’s really
really good at solving a particular set of skills
like Liam Neeson would say in his
that I have a particular set of skills
solving your particular set of skills
and becoming an absolute legend
at solving those particular set of skills
once you’ve mastered that
once you’ve tapped out your market whatever
sure move on
to women living with autism
and intellectual disabilities whatever
but one of the issues with not niching
down in the beginning is that
let’s say you accidentally get a
you’re focused on young men with autism
intellectual disabilities
all your staff everyone like that
are really good at providing those kind of support
if you then move on
and then you accidentally get a referral
who’s high complexity dementia or
you know
sometimes referrals just come through and you’re like
OK I gotta take that cause of the money
now you have to take someone who’s really good at this
one particular skill set and put it over there
and that’s where businesses end up on 60 Minutes
that’s where people get in trouble
they put unskilled workers with
in a position where they’re not trained
and it’s bad for the
it’s unethical for you to put the worker in there
it’s unethical for you to actually think
that you’re providing good support
for the person living with a disability
and as your business grows
and I’ve worked with like
multi million dollar companies
as your business grows now
you have solving so many different problems
and you’re that person at the head of the CEO
at the head of the company
that’s just tearing your hair out
because you can’t do the rosters
cause you just
there’s so many different things going on
so yeah
so that’s I guess one of the issues of niching down
uh not niching down and just back to
I know I go off a Tangent
but that’s that’s my I love a good Tangent
that’s what this podcast is all about
we wanna see where people go
it’s great in case you haven’t figured out
I’m neurodivergent I have ADHD
so that’s where sorry
that’s where some of this sort of stuff might go
so yeah
like one of the approaches is that
especially when people go into this
is they just email support coordinators
and they just start saying hey
can I get some clients can I get some clients
and back to your question is
buying into that naivety gives you a
I guess a leg up
because you can have a genuine connection
and conversation in a
as a rule of thumb in marketing
seven touch points
before someone wants to work with you and
and that’s actually blown out to about 11 touch points
in this digital age
so we wanna have more and more touch points
so when I’m when I’m calling a support coordinator
what like cold calling
that’s fine I’m OK with you attempting cold calling
but you gotta have something to offer them
something to unique cool
I’ve got this on
Dungeons and Dragons event coming up on the weekend
I’d love to send you some more information
can I send you an email now
you got permission to send an email
I understand your time’s important
then you connect with them on LinkedIn
then you call them a week later
hey did you get my email
that’s four touch points right
there and then hopefully hey
which networking events do you like to go to
more and more and more touch points with people
yeah that’s cool
and I that’s actually interesting you went there
cause you were talking earlier
around the sequencing matters
and you say I was going to touch upon that idea
hey you’ve got your niche
you know who you’re talking to
who you want to go to what of your experience of seeing
you know many of the business that you work within
getting their offer right
and how your offers evolve over time
that’s as you said there
I’ve got this offer
so I love you to sort of talk in that sequence
it’s obviously I know
I found in my own business
once you’ve got super clear on that offer
it can be an absolute game changer
so what some of the experiments that you’ve seen
in people evolving their offers over time
yes and exactly
and that’s the point
a good point that you just mentioned
your first offer very potentially will suck
there’s a good chance that it’s not gonna work
but you will collect some data
and that’s what we we
you just have to understand
you have to in perfect action
you have to try something
definitely do your research
understand the problems of the people facing it
always has to roll around the problems that they face
um and can you get someone a quick win in that offer
you know I always say
barbecue in the park is not a good offer
that is just feeding someone’s stomach
it is not attacking a pain point
maybe if you did barbecue in the park
and I’m gonna teach you how to use a barbecue
and do some daily living skills
or something like that
if you were to involve something like that
one of my students frontline friends
he started a a disability gaming company
and they did a big open day
had a heap of people come and they did a barbecue
so that was I guess
added value to this tournament
this event was really successful
he gots a bunch of leads out of it
so that’s just kind of an example
so when we look at offers
so I’m really big on offers
I’ve actually developed inside the NDA space
what I would call IKEA framework
which is basically there’s six different offers that I
we’ll go through with people to see if we can
you know one’s the identity offer
which is understanding your niche
the other one’s an attraction offer
which is getting your target audience with the room
collaboration offers retention offers
all these sorts of things
so focusing on you know
what are different offers
we can can provide what another one is going to be um
an end goal offer so that’s like a transformation
in 10 weeks I’m gonna
we’re gonna um
teach you how to cook 10 different recipes
and you’re gonna leave with this skill set
kind of thing yeah
and that’s so good and even in
in what you’ve just outlined there
the idea that there’s six
within your frameworks that you’re using actively
you got six types of offers
that you could experiment with
within each of those six there’s countless
sort of
potential options that come off the back of that
as well and so with that idea of
I’d love to hear your sort of
what sort of time frames do you often talk to people in
around as to how long to try an experiment of say
a different offer if we’re talking offers
to work out whether it’s getting that feedback
enough time to get the feedback
you know some people give up very early
sometimes you do need to nip something in the bud
how do you find that
part of experimenting with how long to stick with
you know a chosen path
yeah exactly
it is a bit of an um
every situation is different
but it’s a very good point
because all we’re doing like
from a marketing perspective
is we’re collecting data so you have to test
and so many one of the biggest issues I see is
people give up too early they say
I tried Facebook ads I tried this and I tried that
well how much did you do
well I called five people
okay well
my rule of thumb for my students is minimum
of 20 new connections per month
and then reconnect with 10 older connections
cause you gotta maintain relationships
now I work with people who do 50 a week
so you could see you know
the volume discrepancy and
and this sort of stuff really compound
you just make 20 connections per month in a year’s time
yeah is that 160
you got a whole heap of 2:40
you’re right
good one um yeah
so it compounds it and it compounds out of control
and within those connections
there might be a handful of people
that you actually show with
you connect with and you build genuine relationships
that might become referral partners
but we don’t go into it with that mentality
we go into it with reciprocity
you know give and
and you shall receive and it will come back to you
so yeah cool
love that I just want
I just want to talk about transformations now
now that I think about it
because again I think it actually sequencing
I’ll go back to sequencing
cause I again
I love the idea of sequencing again
I know that my own personal experience has been
when sequencing really refined
so what’s your you know
niching offer what’s your wider framework of the
the sequencing side of things
yeah so um
it’s really ideation and then coming up with a minimal
viable product so when I say ideation
I mean like
first you need to understand who your target market is
like who do you wanna support
and that could be I think personally
that should be something that you have
had a relationship with that you love to work with
you don’t wanna start a business
that you’re gonna hate in five years
there might be a gap in the market there
and you’re like oh
I see a gap in the market that I can attack
but should you
so I understand that this is my skill set
don’t start from the beginning
this is my skill set
I don’t have to start from the beginning
because I already have this skill set
now how can I leverage that skill set
so in our group program that I run
we figure out who your target market is
and then the next step
is to write down 10 problems that they face
on a daily basis you can write more if you want to
but just look at the 10 problems
and what are the three most important problems
because while they might
those 10 might be important to you
they might not be as important
to the person living with a disability
and you might have to have a conversation
with someone with autism or their parents
or support coordinators
to find out what is the most poignant problem
so once we’ve done that
we figured out their pain points
then it’s time to come up with some kind of
proof of concept so I would actually
even before you choose your business name
you can do this
especially as an independent support worker
put on a free event test it
if people are willing to if you can put on a free event
put it on a Facebook group
and people go yeah cool
interested and it’s really interesting
you’ve got your target audience in a room
now that you can talk to them
now you can build a relationship
build some research let them know hey
I’m actually gonna start a business
supporting young men with autism
and intellectual disabilities
and I was thinking of running this group actually
more often maybe I’m gonna run it six weekly
maybe I’m gonna run it monthly or whatever
so when we create attraction events
you can have like
weekly ones you can have six weekly ones
you can have once a year quarterly
and it all depends on like
how big and how much of an effort
and you know
a simple boxer size class or something like that
that’s a weekly thing easy to pull off
low friction
so once we’ve got that minimal viable product
and we know that there’s an audience there
that we could actually support
then we can build a disability service
and we can start offering the line items
of daily living and community access
and all that sort of stuff
but we have to connect with our audience first
yeah it’s cool
and you touch on minimum viable product some
a few times within that
and I’ll throw a little spin in there
I love using the term minimum lovable product
okay it comes from the software side of things
which is kind of like a step before viable
in as much as you
you talk about some of these free events
like will people love these
yeah it’s like oh
that gets over the line
and then you ask the question is kind of
then can this be viable which ties into
I guess what you’re talking about before of right
offer in the light items and different stuff like that
so yeah it’s an interesting one there
but now I do wanna get to
into some of the transformations you’ve seen
when people have you know
put these things into in place
the sequencing and just getting this all lined up
and being curious and naive and the like
well what have you seen happen off the back of that
so in my experience it is not an overnight thing
this is like a four to six month process
by four months we probably have enough data
and you’re probably starting to get some traction
and starting to build some connections
if you’ve put in the work
if you understand that early days you have to work hard
definitely you have to grind
you have to put in the work
and you have to do those 16 hour days
it’s just starting a business
unfortunately you might be working at the same time
and you’re starting a business
you have to just grind and
and things will get easier
when you start to buy back some of your time
so um I
I guess I’ll use an example of Celestine
from inner knowing respite
so what we did with her
and I actually recorded this whole video
our video if anyone like a copy
definitely reach out to me
I’m happy to send it to you
but it’s inside of my coaching group
so you won’t find it online anywhere
so basically we went through
and we built what I would call her perfect month
and that’s what I help people do
is to get enough data
so that we can build their perfect month
and what are the 10 things that
I guess OK
if I do this this and this and this
we don’t see like huge spikes of referrals
no referrals we just see a steady
we might have a down month every now and then
and it’s probably because
you didn’t have as many connections
or you didn’t stick to your perfect month or whatever
sometimes it can be the market
but usually it’s just
maybe it’s been Christmas and it’s in
in and you took some time off
and it’s a little bit inconsistent
so um
with her basically
we started out and we
we did a big open day gala event where um
she had like
belly dancers and her
her target audience is mature
aged women with mental health
like belly dancers mandala making crafts
meditation all that sort of stuff
worked fantastic um
got a heap of people to it
at the end of it when we reflected
she’s like I can’t do that thing that
that on a regular basis
that was massive and it took it out of me
it was a lot of energy
but sometimes you gotta do that to launch
your launch is is a big thing
so put a lot of effort into it
she learnt a lot there was a heap of takeaways
that we could have from that
and then we decided OK
let’s go in and do
we figured out what was the most popular thing
which was a data we took and it was the sewing group
which was her skill set anyway
so she started a sewing group
and she filled her sewing group
and now that’s full every week
it kind of sucks
because we can’t actually leverage that as
as an attraction event anymore
so she’s got to do another attraction event
so that’s full which is fantastic
about month four she completely sold out
so she completely she got four respite in one month
um completely sold out her community access
and had a full sewing group
and that was just from us collecting data
doubling down at what works
and then keep testing new stuff
collect data double down what works
until you get a list of things of like OK
all of these things are the things that work
and this is my and some of them was like
let’s say cold calling she was like
I’m okay doing cold calling
but I’m not doing more than like
eight a month like that it’s not something I enjoy
I don’t like it
so that’s something you have to consider too
in the beginning you have to do things you don’t like
you just kinda have to but eventually
hopefully you can build something
where you can either outsource it
or you can um
buy back your time or you just go
I just don’t like it not doing it
so I’m getting enough other places
it’s a it’s a cool transformation in
and again showing that sequencing and the process
and the data and the experimenting
and also
I can just picture the ripple effects of Celeste
having filled those glasses
and the impact that then
flows on or off the back of that
so that’s super cool
there was a whole heap of different thing
like it was like it
it was like networking meetings
it was the big launch it was the
so there was like 10 things that we
well actually we ended up with eight
cause we took away two things
cause she didn’t like to do it
there’s a couple cold calls
there was a whole deep of different things
we throw stuff at the wall
see what sticks in the beginning um
and then you double down on what’s working
and don’t put as much effort into other things
and just keep testing yeah
so good testing and experimenting
and a lot of just throwing stuff at the wall
but again the data is key in that
so you’re making sure you’ve got the process
to actually capture that and then if you’ve got that
then you can make intentional
informed decisions at the end of the day
so yeah
that’s so good and it’s uh
it’s very aligned with how we talk and
and the like as well that get the data
be clear and then you can
at the end of the day
you can just make intentional decisions and
and it doesn’t have to be perfect data either
like imperfect data is okay
in the beginning um yeah
you know
a little sheet where you just ticking boxes is a
is a great way to collect some data
that’s how I do it yeah
something that that I’m doing right now actually
so yeah
yeah it’s great
awesome well
appreciate you having you on the episode today
there’s been a bunch of little nuggets that obviously
the listeners will get that can help them
you know step through those processes
but
highly recommend people coming to have a chat with you
as well to help them with that
where is the best place for people to find you Greg
definitely my website Chadwick Digital
I’ve got all the ways that you can connect with me
as should you and yeah
if you need help with your website design or
anything around referrals in the allied health space
cause that’s my niche and yes
I don’t help anyone else love it
so as always
we’ll be including those details in the show notes and
and once again
I really highly recommend following Greg’s content
cause that’s what I’ve been doing
and that’s how we got connected
so that’s been great thanks again Greg
thanks so much for having me man
over and out from the Healthy Business Lab Podcast
which is what I usually do
stuff the intro and the outro
you know what to do like subscribe
do all those things to great
see great content like this
catch you later everybody bye