I’m Tyson Franklin and today; I’m diving into a solo episode to discuss a powerful concept known as the Proximity Principle. This principle highlights how our relationships are influenced by physical closeness and frequent interactions. By the end of this episode, you’ll understand how this concept impacts your personal and professional life and why embracing it can transform your practice.
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Full Transcript
325 – The Proximity Principle
[00:00:00] Hi, I’m Tyson Franklin and welcome to this week’s episode of the Podiatry Legends Podcast. The podcast designed to help you feel, see, and think differently about the podiatry profession. Before I get on to today’s topic, just a reminder everyone, if you’re enjoying this podcast, please tell your podiatry friends and really consider leaving a rating, review, or whatever podcast platform you happen to be listening to this podcast on.
[00:00:31] It really benefits the show. Okay, so today’s. episode is a solo episode. And I want to talk about a concept called the proximity principle. This is such an important principle to understand. And by the time I finish this episode, I think you will agree. You’ll go, wow, I’m glad I actually listened right to the end.
[00:00:51] So you could hear how this whole thing actually unfolds. So what is the proximity principle? It’s the tendency for individuals. [00:01:00] To form interpersonal relationships with those who are close. So to give you a brief example that we can probably all understand. Think about kids. Kids seeing the same kids at school every day will form closer interpersonal relationships than with other kids that go to different schools.
[00:01:20] So to give you a perfect example, my next door neighbour Paul, who was one year older than me, Younger than myself. I went to one particular school. I went to Serviceton. He went to Serviceton South School Even though we were neighbors and we sort of related with each other that way we really had nothing to do with each other at a school level.
[00:01:40] And then when we went to high school, we did actually go to the same high school and we started to relate with each other a little bit more. We had a bit more of a sort of interpersonal relationship. But his younger brother who was one year younger than both of us, I hardly had anything to do with him because he got a scholarship to play football at a different school.
[00:01:58] The same principle [00:02:00] applies if you have a local corner store that you visit on a regular basis. You will often see the same people in that shop and also the same shopkeeper. And over a period of time, that relationship will grow. On a recent holiday when I was in Nashville, I stayed at a friend’s music studio.
[00:02:16] In Music Grove, Jeff Peterson, who was on episode 238 and we did the episode together called Care Differently. Now down the road from his music studio, there was a coffee shop called Osa Coffee, O S A. And the first day I went down there, I was there for five nights, so first day I went down there, said hello, I didn’t actually have the right money on me, or I had the right money, but I didn’t have the coins.
[00:02:38] And I’m hunting around looking for them and the guy behind the counter said, ah, don’t worry about it. So not a problem. So the next day I went down there again, this time I had the right money. By about the fifth day, him and I are talking. like we’d known each other for ages. And also there were other people who turned up at this particular, which was little like a hole in the wall type coffee shop.
[00:02:58] And all of a sudden, a [00:03:00] few of us are talking to each other and that was only after five days of going to the same place. So therefore I’m going to read the principle again, the tendency for individuals to form interpersonal relationships with those who are close. And there’s another part of this people who encounter each other more frequently Develop stronger relationships.
[00:03:19] So going back to the school example, when you’re at school, if you did the same subjects with a number of people, you actually built a closer relationship with them. And the more subjects you actually did with someone, there was a chance that you actually sat closer to each other. And then if you did after school activities as well, Your relationship with them also grew.
[00:03:39] You may have also done sport after school with some of the people you went to school with. Therefore in the workplace, think about your coworkers, think about your employer, think about your employees, the ones that you are the closest to. If you have similar hobbies, if you play the same sports outside of work, and you encounter each other on a more frequent [00:04:00] basis, you will develop stronger relationships.
[00:04:03] When I had my podiatry clinic, we had two sports teams that we had set up. We had a beach volleyball team called the Sandy Cracks, and we also had a touch football team called Two Jam. Now we had certain people that worked in our clinics who, We’re not new to neither sport. Then we had some people in our clinic that worked there who loved both and some who only played one.
[00:04:24] And we found that over a period of time, the people that we played touch football with and also beach volleyball, we were closer to them than the people that we worked with who didn’t do anything with us outside of work. At the Muay Thai gym that I go to, initially when you first turn up at a new gym, whether it’s kickboxing, doesn’t matter what it is, when you turn up and you have to find a partner, you’ll normally just pick the person who is the closest to you.
[00:04:49] And then as time goes on, you start to form habits. You all put your bags in the same place. Everybody sort of goes to the same corner and then you start teaming up or pairing up with the [00:05:00] same people week in, week out. Even at the Muay Thai gym now, there’s a small group of us that one person one day was doing a plank.
[00:05:07] And then somebody said, Oh, I’m going to do that with you. Now there’s a small group of us that at the end of every session, we’re doing a plank and the goal at the moment is to get up to four minutes, which. It’s really, really painful. Now, if you also live near each other, there’s a chance you’ll cross paths more often and possibly even on a social level, you may know the same people.
[00:05:27] Therefore you end up at the same barbecues. The parents you meet at your kid’s school can often become friends because you’re always crossing paths when you’re talking. This happens a lot more probably in smaller towns, like. Cairns is a regional area, 150, 000 people, more likely it happened there in much smaller towns than it would be in larger cities of one, two, you know, five million people.
[00:05:48] But why does this happen? It all comes back to humans like familiarity and because familiarity makes us feel safe. Think about the environment around you, where [00:06:00] you work, where you shop, the takeaways that you probably go to more often than others, the restaurants you go to, the gym you attend, and think about even where you park your car.
[00:06:09] Familiarity makes us feel safe. Okay. So I want you to think about the people in your life that you are the closest to right now, excluding family. They do not count. Why are you close to them? Just give that some thought. We’ve got some really good friends in Cairns, uh, Scott and Kerry Brown. And our relationship then began purely as a business relationship.
[00:06:31] I was a judge at the Australian Institute of Management Awards, and Scott had actually applied for those awards, and he actually won the awards that night. So that got us talking on that particular evening. We then crossed paths at other events over the next couple of months, over the next year. We found that we had similar sporting interests.
[00:06:49] Yeah, we both liked rugby league. He enjoyed, he, his team was the Melbourne Storm, mine was the Sydney Roosters. Good thing is we didn’t hate each other’s team either, which was great. We had financially similar [00:07:00] thinking. We were both positive thinkers and then our wives also got on really, really well. As time went on, we became friends because we kept crossing paths with each other.
[00:07:10] And now we’ve actually had three overseas holidays together. I think two of them were cruisers and it all started. By me being a judge at the Australian Institute of Management Awards and Scott actually applying for those awards. So this is how relationships develop over a period of time. And the more you cross paths with each other, the more the proximity principle applies.
[00:07:32] Another really close friend of mine, Nikki Jerd, which you will probably recognize the name because she’s been on the podcast multiple times and also has the business podiatry clinic websites and precedents that does all my websites for me. And Nikki Jerd and I initially. Sort of met each other at different business events.
[00:07:51] And that’s sort of the only relationship we really had. Then when I wrote my book, well, the world’s greatest podiatry book, it’s no secret there’s money in podiatry. When I wrote [00:08:00] that book, Nikki and I were part of a writing group. There were four of us that decided we all wanted to write books. So Nikki and I spent.
[00:08:06] Many, many months together, having these meetings and we actually became really good friends from that. And what’s quite funny is in that same writing group was Sam Harrop, who has also been on this podcast a few times. Once again, it’s the more you cross paths, the more things you find out about each other, the more similarities you have, that relationship will keep growing.
[00:08:31] Let’s look at podiatry. Most podiatrists would know a lot of other podiatrists, but you’re probably not close to many when you first graduate, except for your uni friends or the people that graduated the year before you or the year behind you. But over the years, the more often you cross paths at events, conferences, workshops, you start to form relationships.
[00:08:54] And this is why it’s important to To attend events, because you’re not just attending an event, [00:09:00] you’re building relationships long term. I often say you should dig the well before you near the border. If you wait until you’re thirsty before you start digging the well, you will die of thirst. Building relationships is important.
[00:09:13] is exactly the same. It follows the same principles. If you form relationships at events and you do this over a number of years, those podiatrists will have your back. If something happens in your business, something happens in your life, you’ll have a lot of podiatry friends that will immediately put their hand up, will stand up and they will help you out where they can.
[00:09:33] But if you hide in your clinic, do not attend anything, think I’ll just do things online because that’s all I need to do. Do my CPD and then something happens. No one even knows who you are. So dig the well before you need the water. And I know podiatrists that have attended my podiatry business reboot usually form lasting relationships.
[00:09:53] If you want to know more about the reboot, always just go to my website, tysonfranklin. com. Details are there. Now, it doesn’t matter when you’re [00:10:00] actually listening to this episode. Yes, I have one this year. And the reboot will be something I’ll be doing for a long time. Go to my website, tysonfranklin. com.
[00:10:08] Information will be there, just follow all the links. So, how does this relate to our careers, our patients and our referrers? Remember I said people who encounter each other more frequently develop stronger relationships. It’s funny, in a recent article I read, it also said that around 60 percent of people prioritise proximity when selecting healthcare providers.
[00:10:30] So convenience is always going to be a factor. That’s why you can be a very average podiatrist. www. cairns. com Actually, you could be a terrible podiatrist, but if you’re close, a large percentage of people will still choose you until they figure out that you’re no good. But initially, like they’re saying, statistically 60 percent will come and see you because of proximity.
[00:10:51] There’s also that familiarity aspect to consider. Living nearby means familiarity with the location. They trust the local area. And for [00:11:00] persons elderly, they’ll feel safer driving on roads that are close at home that they are very familiar with because. It makes them feel safe. The bottom line is it’s up to us to establish and maintain these relationships.
[00:11:14] And we do this by developing patient contact points, treatment journeys, and another thing that I call touch points. And just so you know, a touch point. is a contact point with emotion added before, during and after a patient’s appointment. This is something that I talk about in the reboot. Anyway, so whether it’s a contact point, a touch point, a patient journey, a nurturing process, what are you doing?
[00:11:38] These are all opportunities to build relationships. Your newsletter. They’re answering machine message. They are all relationship building opportunities. That’s why loyalty cards work like in coffee shops and other businesses. It gets people coming back and the more often they come back, the more the relationship builds.
[00:11:58] Also, if the business owner [00:12:00] opens up and shares a little bit about themselves, the relationship becomes even stronger. That’s why when you go to a coffee shop or you go to another business and you cross paths with the same person that’s working there on a regular basis and you start talking, you open up a little bit about who you are, what you do, your interests, your hobbies, things outside of that initial relationship, you will find that, that your overall relationship gets stronger and that’s why podiatrists who engage with their patients on a more personal level, will also build even stronger, longer lasting relationships.
[00:12:36] I know some podiatrists want to keep their work life and their personal life separate and therefore they don’t want to share anything about themselves. But I think seriously, you’re not that important. Feel free to share things about yourself to build that relationship a little bit more. And the reason I tell people to do this in my marketing workshops, I talk a lot about micro storytelling, which is all about sharing a little [00:13:00] bit about yourself.
[00:13:01] Over a long period of time. So your patients think they know you. TV shows do this all the time. You can watch any show like Law and Order, CSI, and there will be a particular character. And as the seasons go on, you learn a little bit about that character, until after 10 seasons, you know a lot about that character.
[00:13:19] And that’s all micro storytelling is, is giving, sharing a little bit of information, but you get to control the narrative. And the best thing about it is it helps people relate to you. If you post a photo with your family eating a burger. What does that actually say? It says that you like spending time with your family and you like eating burgers.
[00:13:40] Who is your favorite sporting team? It’s about providing micro content and when put together It basically tells a story and the story you tell will have overlapping components or possible Encounters with your patients like the restaurants that you visit or hobbies that you do The wine that you drink, maybe clubs that you’re [00:14:00] part of, a particular beach that you go to and you watch the sunset.
[00:14:03] I think hiding this from your patients is a missed opportunity to form relationships. The proximity principle is a tendency for individuals to form interpersonal relationships with those who are close and with people who encounter each other more frequently, develop stronger relationships. So if there was a particular place that you go to or something that you do, on a regular basis.
[00:14:26] And even though you don’t see your patients there, if you share that, hey, this is what we do every now and then, and they do the same thing, that is going to form a connection. And as I mentioned, the proximity principle also applies to your professional referrers because people who encounter each other more frequently develop stronger relationships.
[00:14:46] It’s irrelevant if the GP is across the road or on the other side of town. Yes, initially they may refer to you. If you’re directly across the road, but not if they have a stronger relationship with another provider, you must [00:15:00] cross paths to build that relationship. Regular visits, email marketing. You may have a professional newsletter, maybe part of Rotary clubs or similar clubs that they’re part of and other interests.
[00:15:13] You need to become almost like a detective. You need to learn things about them so that you can cross paths. You need to develop contact points and touch points. And remember, a touch point is a contact point with emotion added. So if the GP, Physio, Osteo across the road doesn’t refer to you, it’s not that they don’t like you.
[00:15:35] It’s just, you haven’t developed that relationship with them yet. Now I want to discuss the proximity principle in the digital age, where we are right now, even though digital communication technology can increase our ability to communicate outside the normal proximity model, as it used to be, there still needs to be a pre existing circumstance or a pre existing encounter or [00:16:00] multiple encounters.
[00:16:01] To give you an example, I can reach out to someone I’ve never met and ask if they’d like to come on the podcast. Some say yes and some say no. But if I’ve met them at an event or a conference and I ask them, 99. 9 percent of the time they always say yes. Pre existing encounters are a massive benefit to all digital communications.
[00:16:21] Think about it, an email to a professional referrer you’ve never met will be far less effective than to a professional referrer that you have met before. And this is why I get really annoyed when I see marketing companies and they are, there’s so many of them around telling podiatrists and other health professionals about their email marketing campaign that will get you 50, 70, 90 new patients next month.
[00:16:45] It annoys me because it’s not exactly the truth. What you’re really doing is sending a sequence of emails to your existing patient database and by doing this a Percentage will come back and see you. They are not new patients [00:17:00] They are existing patients And this is why these marketing companies will also not work with a health provider who has just opened up a new business Because they’re guaranteed new patient system will not work if you do not have an existing database And I bet that those patients that do come back are the ones that you’ve developed a stronger relationship with.
[00:17:22] And I don’t even think these marketing companies understand the proximity principle. It’s about building relationships first. If you don’t have the relationship, your clever email campaigns, they just will not work as well if you’ve already built those relationships. So why is the proximity principle important?
[00:17:41] Why have I chosen it as a topic for this podcast? It’s because you should never let yourself get in a fair fight. Now, I know that sounds like a strange quote, but it’s actually a military quote. And the quote is the last thing you want is a fair fight. All military, doesn’t matter [00:18:00] what country it is, want the advantage.
[00:18:02] They want the upper hand and the upper hand means having more power. control or an unfair advantage in a situation compared to the others that are involved. When someone has the upper hand, they can make decisions and influence outcomes. Overall, having the upper hand means having an advantage or more control in any given situation.
[00:18:25] And as far as they’re concerned, if you’re in a fair fight, that means your tactics suck. Knowing and understanding the Proximity Principle gives you that unfair advantage. There will be a number of podiatrists that will look at this particular podcast title, the Proximity Principle, and they’re going to move straight past it.
[00:18:42] They’re going to look at that and go, nah, this is crap. Or, they listened to the first minute and they went, nah, this is just rubbish, I don’t need to listen to Tyson rave on. All I can say is is you silly buggers, but congratulations to you who have listened to it this far. You now have [00:19:00] an unfair advantage over those that have not actually listened to this, but you need to use it and you need to speed up the process of the proximity principle as fast as you can.
[00:19:11] And what do I mean by speeding it up? You know, you now understand What the principle is all about. Individuals, and that means patients, form interpersonal relationships with those who are close. And as I said, 60 percent prioritize proximity when choosing health provider, but people who encounter each other more frequently develop stronger relationships.
[00:19:32] So if you can speed up that process of the frequency, is be in front of them, have the contact touch points. More often than you’re going to build that relationship faster. It applies with your patients and it also applies with your referrers. There may be a podiatrist across the road from a professional referrer, but that will send their patients to you if you develop stronger relationships and patients will do exactly the same.
[00:19:57] We all know patients. that have come to [00:20:00] us who have gone past four other podiatry clinics to get to you. Why did they do that? Yes, your marketing may have brought them in, but it’s the relationship you build with them long term and the consistency, the frequency of that contact that keeps them coming back.
[00:20:17] Otherwise they’ll eventually just go to the guy who’s the closest if you’re all the same and they can’t tell any difference between you. So that pretty much wraps up this episode. If you have any questions about this particular topic, the Proximity Principle, please feel free to send me an email. You can send it to tf at tysonfranklin.
[00:20:35] com or tyson at podiatrylegends. com. If you want to learn more about contact points, treatment journeys, touch points, which as I’ve mentioned a few times, contact points with emotion added, or how to nurture your current patients, consider attending the next two day live podiatry business reboot. Like I said, these are always going to be ongoing.
[00:20:57] They’ll be doing one each year. Go to my website, [00:21:00] TysonFranklin. com, all the details there. Or if you just want to jump on a free 30 minute discovery call with me, you might have a certain area of podiatry. You might just have a question that you just need to get off your chest. Go to my website, TysonFranklin.
[00:21:13] com, click on the coaching section and organize the 30 minute discovery call. It costs you nothing, but I guarantee right now what you walk away with May just solve a few of the questions going on your head. Okay, that’s it from me I want you to look after yourself. Look after your family and I will talk to you again next week.
[00:21:32] Bye for now[00:22:00]
[00:22:06] Well, if you’re still here, I thought I’d just give you a little bit of bonus content on this particular episode. And it was a thought that I came across the other day, and I’d read this somewhere else once before. And a lot of the times we find it hard to create content, whether it’s a blog article, whether you’re shooting a video, and sometimes there’s so many platforms that you can post things onto.
[00:22:29] And It gets confusing. It looks like a lot of work, so we don’t tend to do it. An easy idea is, for example, say you’ve got five of the most common exercises that you give your patients. You could shoot one video of the five exercises that you do, or you might have 10 exercises. Shoot one really long video of those 10 exercises.
[00:22:54] Then, you Once you’ve done that is break those 10 exercises up into [00:23:00] 10 short little videos, and then from those videos you may even write a particular blog article that relates to why you would do that particular exercise and what problem that actually relates to. So you’ve got the larger, bigger video that you’ve done that you can post.
[00:23:17] Whether it’s on your YouTube channel, on your website, and then 5 smaller videos or 10 smaller videos from that large one, and that just automatically creates content. You’ve already done the work, so you may as well reuse it. And then, in there, you write a blog article describing what that exercise is about, and then, where that exercise can be used and a particular problem that goes with it.
[00:23:43] And what you can do with it from there is unlimited. Whether you create an infographic, you might have different screenshots of that actual exercise and then information next to it. So just give that some thought. Think about the big picture first. What’s something that you know really well that you can create a lot [00:24:00] of or a simple video on that has a lot of components to it, shoot one long video and then break it down.
[00:24:07] into smaller parts. You might find that useful. You may not. You may take that idea and expand upon it and come up with something else. It’s also an idea when you have a thought like that, or you hear something like that, don’t just reject it. Take it back to your team. If you’re having a team meeting, sit down with them and go, Hey, this is what I heard.
[00:24:25] What’s everybody’s thoughts and surprising how one idea can lead onto another idea. There’s this thing that’s called free ideas, which I’m not going to dig into now. I might use that for a. at the end of another episode, but it’s, uh, it’s called Ideas for Free. Okay. I’ll talk to you later on. Hope you got something from that.
[00:24:44] Okay. Bye.