In Episode 395 of the Podiatry Legends Podcast, my guest was Paul Macaulay, also known online as Paul the Podiatrist @paulthepodiatrist. He is a UK podiatrist now living and practising in Singapore, with 500,000+ followers across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
What makes Paul’s story remarkable isn’t just the size of his audience, but the impact content creation has had on his personal brand, his confidence, his career opportunities, and his business.
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This episode is all about why podiatrists NEED to be creating content, how Paul got started, what worked (and what didn’t), and how social media has completely transformed his career and business opportunities. In fact, Paul opened his own Singapore clinic not too long ago, and he is already quite busy, primarily because of social media.
We dive deep into:
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How he went from zero to viral within weeks
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The exact type of videos that launched his growth
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How he got 20 new patients in one month purely from Instagram
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Why podiatrists should stop worrying about negative comments
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How to find unlimited content ideas
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Why a messy Instagram profile is killing your ability to grow
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The importance of hooks, audio, and faceless filming
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And why content creation is one of the most powerful business tools podiatrists have available
Paul shares practical, straightforward advice any podiatrist can implement immediately, even if you’ve never shot a single video.
If you’ve ever thought about creating content but talked yourself out of it… this is the episode that will change your mind.
If you’d like to connect with Paul, you can email him at paul@paulthepodiatrist.com or follow him on Instagram @paulthepodiatrist.
If you’re looking for a speaker for an upcoming event or a facilitator to run a pre-conference workshop, please visit my Speaker Page to see the range of topics I cover.
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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT (unedited)
Tyson E Franklin: [00:00:00] Hi, I’m Tyson Franklin and welcome to this week’s episode of the Podiatry Legends Podcast. The podcast design people you feel, see, and think differently about the Podiatry profession. With me today is Paul Macaulay. He’s a musculoskeletal podiatrist, and he is based in Singapore, but he is from the uk so he is been in Singapore for about four years now.
He. Has a really good online following. He has about 500,000 people on different platforms and he talks a lot about foot health education. So he works part-time in his clinic and also works part-time as a content creator on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, which is what we’re gonna talk about today.
’cause I think this is a fantastic subject. So Paul, welcome to the podcast.
Paul Macaulay: Thanks a lot for having me, Tyson. Really appreciate it. I’m very excited to talk about this topic today.
Tyson E Franklin: I think you must have posted something on, it might have been LinkedIn. And when I saw your podiatrist, whatever comment you made, I went, okay, I need to get you on the podcast, but I didn’t know you lived in Singapore at the [00:01:00] time.
Mm-hmm.
Paul Macaulay: A lot of people still reach out to me thinking that I’m based in the uk for appointments, and then I’m like, oh, it’s a bit further than that.
Tyson E Franklin: Yeah. Yeah. You want a home visit, it’s gonna cost you. Quick question though, before we get into the content very quickly. What got you into Podiatry and why you in Singapore?
What happened?
Paul Macaulay: So got into Podiatry, like, a number of other people was very sporty when I was a kid. Got injured a lot ended up going to see a Podiatry and a few physios. And at the time, you really want to go into physio because it’s the cool one, you see ’em on the football pitch, that’s what you want.
So initially. I tried to do that, didn’t get the grades, and so my physio at the time suggested to be a Podiatry. I went to the open days and I thought, yeah, it, it does sound like a bit of me. So I ended up just taking a risk, going for it and doing it and I absolutely loved it.
I loved just making a small change and making a big difference to people’s lives.
Yeah, it is light.
As soon as I graduated, it [00:02:00] was like, yeah, this is awesome. And then I went into, yeah, I suppose I went into a really good job straight out of uni, private practice, really structured learned a lot.
I was doing mainly derma at that time, which I did really enjoy. I was treating my older ladies just chitchat. Yeah, again, doing small thing and making a big difference to their lives. And then after four years around COVID time, I was, you’ve been locked up. And I thought, oh, I really got an itch to travel.
I hadn’t been to Asia much. I had lived in Australia when I was younger just for a year. And I thought, oh, Asia will be somewhere that I’d like to go to. And I’d heard that Singapore was really good place to live. They spoke English, which is perk mm-hmm. Tilt. And so I looked for a few jobs.
And a few of the listeners may know that Louis Nerney came on the podcast yes. Maybe a year or two ago. And Louis. Employed me. Lewis is from Yorkshire as well, and he obviously saw that connection and he took me in under his wing and we worked together for about a year in Singapore.
It was actually a really easy transition to move to Singapore. They speak English, podiatry’s, no different. [00:03:00] And yeah, I suppose a few like cultural differences between the types of patients you would see. But. Otherwise, yeah, it was smooth.
And then, my first job didn’t quite work out for me even though Lewis is a great bloke. Yeah. We, I moved on to my foot doctor, which a lot of Australians will know. Yes. Is a a big chain in Australia. But they have one practice in, in Singapore and I worked there for three years.
And on the side, yeah, just started creating content.
Tyson E Franklin: Okay. So now you’re working for yourself. Are you still with my foot doctor?
Paul Macaulay: Now I’m working for myself. So yeah, part of creating this big personal brand was that I started to get patients coming out and looking for me and coming to see me in clinic.
So I started my clinic only eight weeks ago, but back in June I had my, like best month when I was working, still working for my foot doctor, and I got 20 new patients from social media. I’d managed to persuade my boss to pay me like a in introduction fee. So yeah, at that point, like I was starting to make a bit more money, so it was help having this social media following was really like helping to [00:04:00] so build up my potential income.
And I just felt like at that point. Twenties a lot. I could have a clinic on that. So I’m gonna make it happen. And yeah, eight weeks ago I started and two days a week. Which is, to be honest, it is enough to pay yourself. And that is so true. Yeah. I’m fully booked.
Which is great.
Tyson E Franklin: That is so true because you can be an employee working somewhere, or you could work two days a week, but see really good patients and have a nice clinic set up. And make really good money.
Paul Macaulay: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s something about it. It’s really good patience. And the reason I believe it’s really good patience is ’cause I create this content online.
Yeah. I build that trust with people online. And the people that come and see me are all from my social media. And so they already believe what I’m saying. They already trust me. They’re willing to say, yes, Paul, I’ll do whatever you say. And I get really great outcomes from it. And I absolutely love the whole journey of that.
So yeah, it is been, it’s been really rewarding.
Tyson E Franklin: So with working in Singapore though, did you have to get a, like a work visa?
Paul Macaulay: Yeah. Yeah. So you get these [00:05:00] work passes. Yeah. And you have to move to Singapore to work, you have to have one of these visas.
So they last two years. And initially yeah. When I joined the company that I joined they, they do all the application and stuff. They apply for it once it gets approved, and then, yeah, swapping. Swapping around companies is a bit like nervy. Will I get the work pass? Yeah. So you have always have to work.
You have to wait until you get that work pass and then swap. And setting up the business was a bit more complicated because I had to set the business up initially and then I had to have a local director. And that local director actually can just be a company that you pay. So I had a local director and I had non-local directors.
My non-local directors actually my brothers, yeah. Who were shareholders in my company. So then we’ve got that set up, then they apply for the employment pass. Now I’ve got, now I’ve got the pass, I then become the local director. And so as long as they keep approving my work pass, then I should still have the company as well.
And my brothers are now [00:06:00] no longer directors. I’ve kicked them back down to just shareholders for now. But yeah. Yeah, that’s how it worked. And it was actually easy and I thought it went well. And now the business is going, which is great.
Tyson E Franklin: Yeah. I’ve been to Singapore twice, and I reckon it’s a great place.
It’s, yeah, clean. Everything just runs perfect. Everything just runs, everything just works there. You never see any drunks ’cause alcohol is too expensive.
Paul Macaulay: Yeah. Yeah. And people know that if they are drunk, they’ll, the risk is that they get kicked out for something stupid, so, yeah. Yeah. So I think if you are a, if you’re an
Tyson E Franklin: alcoholic and you wanna clean out, go to Singapore.
It’s a great place to food’s fantastic, great environment, and alcohol is too expensive to pay for. So that will may help you out.
Paul Macaulay: Yeah.
Tyson E Franklin: So what got you onto the creating content in the first place? Was it something that you had your Podiatry clinic? And you went, oh, but I’ve always wanted to be a content creator.
Or did it just happen accidentally and you went, holy crap, I’m actually good at this and I enjoy it.
Paul Macaulay: Yeah. Yeah. So I [00:07:00] actually, I saw an opportunity after COVID, we saw a massive rise in the amount of content creators in like personal training in physio, in psychology. And I was seeing all these people doing it, and I felt like there’s no Podiatry doing it.
Yeah. And.
I came to Singapore and to the first company, I said look, we should do TikTok. A lot of people are doing it. A lot of people use it in Singapore. And the company were like, oh no, it’s not on brand with us. The director actually wanted to control everything that we posted, so that was a no.
And then I moved to my foot doctor, and my boss he thought they had tried it and it doesn’t work. And have you ever had to deal with
Tyson E Franklin: the, my foot doctor marketing department? When I sold my clinic to my foot doctor and when I first sold it to ’em, they said, oh, can you stay on board and just help out with some of the marketing?
I went, yeah, not a problem. I lasted a very short period of time because the marketing department, I’m just shaking my head going, you guys have no idea. And I was just banging heads with ’em. And yeah. Then [00:08:00] they just said, yeah, maybe you should leave.
I said, probably a good idea.
Paul Macaulay: Yeah. So I, we didn’t, we, ’cause we’re in Singapore, we didn’t really have a con massive connection to the Australian one. So yeah, we didn’t really have to deal with them, but. It was like, just the fact that I’ve been shot down telling me it wasn’t gonna work.
And he wanted me to go out and meet other meet doctors and network with them. And I did go out and meet some doctors, but I never got any referrals. And I was like, well, I’m still sat out with no patients. And I’ve seen these personal trainers and physios, they clearly get a lot of business from what they’re doing.
So I decided to start posting content. So in May. 2022, I started posting content really regularly. I was going daily posts on TikTok, and within a week I had a viral video and it had 2.8 million views. Yeah. Within, later in the end of June, I had. Nine videos over a hundred thousand views. I’d gained 15,000 followers.
I was monetised on TikTok [00:09:00] and I was like, yeah, I think this could work.
Tyson E Franklin: And what was the first video you did that went viral? What was the one that sparked it all off?
Paul Macaulay: It was actually a really simple video bit. It was
Tyson E Franklin: like
Paul Macaulay: lighting was terrible. Like even my mic was rubbish. And it was just like three shoes that I wouldn’t wear as a podiatrist.
And the three shoes were thongs stilettos and slip on like flexible shoes. I actually mentioned a brand name, sketches at the time. Yeah. And yeah, and know, and a lot of the comments were people like berating me, so I mean, I’m wrong.
Tyson E Franklin: Yeah. Well I must admit I’ve bought all three, so, I do have my own personal opinion on all three of those.
Yeah. Footwear. I thought you
Paul Macaulay: Yeah. I thought you might view Yeah. On the stilettos Definitely.
Tyson E Franklin: I dunno how women wear ’em. They’re deter, they’re terrible. Long story on why I put them on. That’s for a different podcast, but it’s yeah, thongs.
Yeah. I do it. Yeah.
Paul Macaulay: Very Australian interview.
Yeah. Yeah. I, so that video, really made me realise that the power of social media, at that point in my parents [00:10:00] were still like, Paul, be careful. Yeah. Oh, I dunno if that’s okay. Check with my foot doctor, that it’s all right. And my boss, , he.
Throughout the whole thing, he just didn’t care. He, yeah, he didn’t care when I had no followers. He didn’t care when I had loads of followers. Yeah,
Tyson E Franklin: I’ve said to a lot of younger podiatrists who have still students and or who have just recently graduated, and I’ve said to him, just go and create if you have an interest in a particular area of Podiatry, and even if where you’re working, it might be all routine.
If that’s boring, you senseless, then go and create your own YouTube channel. Create content around what you like, start getting your own followers and eventually if you go from one employee to another, if you are leaving and you’ve got a group that are actually following you, you’re a valuable employee.
Paul Macaulay: Yeah, exactly. You can use it as leverage to, to get whatever you want and I did. There was a period where I was know that I wanted to leave my previous job and essentially go somewhere else, and I basically got [00:11:00] offered three great opportunities just because I had loads of followers.
Yeah. And lots of people that could come with me and that were just business right there. Basically that companies were gonna get me. Business, which are just free money. So yeah, they were pretty, pretty keen. And I’d definitely recommend to other people to do it because when I started posting, I didn’t know anything.
Like I the topics I was posting about, often I would read an article, watch someone else’s video, absorb that content, write down some notes, and then just produce that content. So I was learning as I was going and that’s where it should be. Yeah, exactly. If
Tyson E Franklin: you wait, I always say if you wait until you are perfect before you shoot your first video.
You’ll never shoot your first video. I go back, like on my YouTube channel, I, it was over 800 videos on there, but this is back when I had the Podiatry clinic as well. I go back to some of my earlier ones though, and the lighting is terrible. I had hair back then too. That’s how long ago some of these videos were.
But the lighting’s terrible. The audio’s no good, [00:12:00] but as time progressed, things slowly just get better and you test and you try something new. It’s all start. You’ve gotta get started first.
Paul Macaulay: Yeah. I encourage people, if they’re gonna start content and they’re looking at my content, they’re like, oh my God, Paul, you got pro set.
What camera have you got? I’m like, don’t look at any of that. Just scroll back to my first video on TikTok. Yeah. And watch it and watch that and create content like that because you don’t, it doesn’t need to be perfect. I’ve just , I’m just, , three years ahead. I create content in a particular way because I want to do that and I understand the basics now and have more time to, to go a bit more advanced than that, but they don’t need to worry about it.
Just make it simple. I actually did a talk last week at the lower limb conference and I was talking about that is how
Tyson E Franklin: we I came across your name. I saw you post something that you were going to be speaking at the Lower Limb Conference. And I reached out to you and you said, oh, [00:13:00] you’re gonna be there.
And I went, no, I wasn’t invited, but
But I said, oh, but I definitely need to get you on the podcast then. ’cause I wanted to talk to you about this. And I thought other people that weren’t at the lower limb conference, they probably want to know this information as well.
Paul Macaulay: Yeah. That, that talk Yeah. Was, it was based on I was giving out like four pieces of information on how to create content really easily.
Yeah. And not over complicate it. And actually it did seem like people enjoyed the talk, which is great. And I. I really enjoyed doing the talk because for me, I don’t do a lot of public speaking, but I create a lot of content, so then I get asked to talk a lot and often I’m saying, no I don’t wanna do it, and the only reason I don’t wanna do it’s ’cause I’m scared and it’s ’cause I haven’t Yeah.
Put myself in that situation. So I really wanted to do this for myself. How old are you now? 31.
Tyson E Franklin: Okay. When I was 32, I managed to get through primary school, high school, university without ever getting up and doing a talk in front of anybody. Then at 32, a doctor contacted me, said, Hey, we need [00:14:00] someone to do this sports medicine talk.
The other person fell like, can you do it? And for some reason I said yes.
Paul Macaulay: Mm-hmm.
Tyson E Franklin: Now, I’d never done any public speaking before ’cause I was scared to death. So I went there and did it. And I turned a 45 minute talk into about four and a half minutes. And I’m sure I had gassed coming over everywhere.
It was dreadful. The doctor walked out and I thought he was gonna give me a couple of words of encouragement and he said that was. The worst presentation I’ve ever seen in my life. If you’re ever asked again to talk, just say no.
Paul Macaulay: Oh my God. And I,
Tyson E Franklin: oh shit. That was bad. Yeah. But anyway, I sat down and went, if that’s as bad as it can get and I didn’t die, I can only get better.
Yeah. So I just, I kept saying yes. And yeah, I’ve stood up in front of a thousand people, and I’ll admit when I’m walking up there, I sometimes wish I had brown pants on because I’m a little nervous. The more you do it, the better you will get. So I reckon if you love this subject and you’re invited to talk [00:15:00] about it and it’s gonna help Podiatry and help yourself, just say yes and just do it.
Don’t,
Paul Macaulay: yeah.
Tyson E Franklin: Don’t let fear get in the way. You will get better.
Paul Macaulay: Yeah. Yeah. I learned so much. Doing like the process of just putting the talk together just to practice and adjusting the slides. Initially I had six slides talking about myself. Yeah. And then by the end of it, I had one slide talking about myself and I’m glad I did, and focused on what people could get out of it.
And it seems people got a lot of it, and I loved doing it , so much. , I feel so good this week because of it. And I’m looking forward to hopefully next year’s topic. If Cam will have me back, hopefully I’ll be sending this podcast to him to make sure that he listens.
Tyson E Franklin: Yeah.
Send him a copy. Maybe I’ll get invited to speak next year and then I’ll be there. Yeah. But I’m doing a talk at a dental conference this weekend coming up in Brisbane. Yeah. And. They said to me, oh, you haven’t sent us your PowerPoint presentation. I said, I haven’t got one. I said, I’m not even doing one for this one.
I said, I’m just getting up there. I said, have you got a whiteboard for me? They went, yeah. I said, ah, we draw on heaps of pictures and we’re gonna have a bit of fun and I’m gonna get everybody [00:16:00] involved and get everybody out moving around. And they went, oh, thank God they is, they’ll really love the idea of not death by PowerPoint.
Yeah. Even though I do a lot of PowerPoint presentations, which I enjoy doing, but, okay. Let me ask you this. When you finished your talk, when it was done. You left the stage, you walked away. How much of a high were you on? Yeah, I
Paul Macaulay: was I was on a, I was on a big high. I actually, I’d had a couple of beers the night before.
You know, my friend Lewis. I was with Lewis. Yeah. Lewis was recommending me to have a couple of beers to count on the nerves. And I was feeling like slightly I suppose it was like slightly hung over, but by the end of it, I felt like a new man, but I felt so good. Because of it. Yeah. I was so pumped and I’m still living off that.
Definitely.
Tyson E Franklin: Yeah. And I reckon if you are not nervous before you go up on stage, like I said I’ll do a few talks a year or I’ll run a workshop. I am nervous every single time. I’ve never got up there and going, geez, I feel confident. I’m feeling super cool. I’m gonna get up there. I’m going, don’t trip over [00:17:00] as you’re getting up on stage.
That’s the first thing. I reckon if you don’t trip over getting up on stage you’re already a winner. And you can move on from there, but that’s good. I’m glad you were you were pumped afterwards.
Paul Macaulay: Yeah, for sure. It was great.
Tyson E Franklin: So what was the four things that you shared outta curiosity?
Paul Macaulay: Yeah, so the first thing that I shared is like how to set up your profile to be found because so this is mainly on Instagram. A lot of people just like they, Instagram’s like very searchable now, especially it’s linked up to Google, so you wanna be able to be found. So it’s just talking about how to do that and then how.
Your profile picture matters, like what’s in your bio matters. So people click on your profile and instantly they’re gonna make a decision whether you’re worth following. If they look at your profile and it looks like a jumble cell, they won’t follow you. Yeah. So yeah, that was my number one.
Number two was how to find ideas to post about. I reckon I, everyone walked away with 20 ideas of what they could post about for the next month. So I was talking about like FAQ section of your website. You can get quite a lot of good nuggets from that. And then most commonly asked questions in [00:18:00] clinic.
And then you can also ask your audience for ideas and then post about that. And I was showing them, can I throw an
Tyson E Franklin: idea in if people are looking for ideas, is have your tell your receptionist every time the phone rings, whatever the question is that when you answer the phone, whatever the questions they ask.
Write it down on a piece of paper, A4 sheet of paper at the end of the week. Take that piece of paper and you will probably have 20 video ideas right there and then, yeah, and you’ll probably find the same questions are being asked. So if those questions are being asked, more than likely, they’re probably searching for that information as well.
Paul Macaulay: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And then the final part was like how to search for ideas as well. So I was just I did shared my phone and showed people how I do it so that they can do it too. Then we talked about hooks. So how, what our hooks and like how we can utilize them in Podiatry and the fact that hook doesn’t really matter.
What the hook is in comparison to the video, the contents of the video is important, but you need to get people to actually stay on to, to watch the rest of the [00:19:00] video. So we had a weird discussion about that. And then finally was faceless filming. So talking about how you don’t have to put your face on camera to actually film good content and get followers and get your point across.
So I showed some examples of that and how to best record good audio for that. So yeah, I think it went pretty well.
Tyson E Franklin: I think the audio is very important because I’m, I like. I love my audio. Yeah. But I like the idea too. I did a video ages ago about, it might been about knee pain or something, but it was, I wasn’t talking about knee pain.
I was just doing an example where you could talk about knee pain, but not even being in the video, just using images and photos and blending ’em all in and just talking over the top, just your normal tone. And I actually, sometimes I enjoy those videos more than seeing someone with their head bobbing around all over the place.
Paul Macaulay: Yeah. I agree. I agree. So, yeah, that was, yeah, that was also on, on point. And visuals are important too.
Tyson E Franklin: Did you talk about timing in each of those platforms like TikTok, Instagram, [00:20:00] YouTube?
Paul Macaulay: Not particularly. I, unless someone asks a question about it. But I, we were just really talking about Instagram in, in mainly because Instagram’s the one which you’re gonna get the most business from.
Okay. I did TikTok for a long time, and I didn’t find that. It got me. A lot of people know me and know about me and follow me, but they didn’t necessarily come into clinic to see me. And then on, once I swapped to posting more on Instagram, everyone started to come see me in clinic. And then now YouTube is purely I suppose, like it’s just to take my content everywhere and hit a really different type of person.
So, which I do notice, like on Instagram, I see I have a lot of lady followers, like middle-aged ladies like 75%. Yeah. And then on, on YouTube it’s men, 75% men. Similar age category, but yeah, they obviously like different types of content.
Tyson E Franklin: Yeah. I know going back about, oh, probably about 12 years ago I met a podiatrist and he said something like four or 6% of his new patients came [00:21:00] from Pinterest at the time.
And he didn’t wanna have anything to do with it, but it was one of his female staff members said, I’m on Pinterest all the time. So they just started setting up some shoe profiles and all of a sudden he is going, wait. And that was his first introduction to social media and that made him start looking at other things.
But on episode 3 91, I had Ted Nelson, who’s a lawyer, super lawyer in Texas. He actually said on there, he said, any business owner that does not have a social media platform is just leaving money on the table. He goes, yeah, competition are gonna do it, so you need to learn how to do it. And he’s the same age as me.
He’s 59 or 60, and he just said he loves doing them. He said, just the more he does it, the better he gets at it.
Paul Macaulay: Yeah. Yeah, that’s definitely true. I, if people aren’t doing socials, like they’re failing. Really. I. I just see it’s where most people are spending most of their time and people are using as a search [00:22:00] engine.
In Singapore we’re all about spending time in the cool places. We want aesthetic places to hang out at. And so searching to see what that place is yeah. Is an important decision maker for us. And so I, I encourage people, yeah, to make sure that if they’ve got nice, if they’ve got a nice clinic.
Have that all whacked all over your social so people can see and then they’ll come and see you
Tyson E Franklin: because of it. So, okay. Question for you, we’ll talk at Instagram, since that was the main thing you discussed at the lower limb Conference. When you are posting information up there, how much of it is always Podiatry or foot health education?
Do you ever post something in between that might just be, Hey, this is a beautiful area in Singapore that you visited. Do you mix it up with a little bit about, , who Paul Macaulay is and not just the information.
Paul Macaulay: Yeah. Well, I post a lot of healthcare content. I do post story content to do with my life.
Like I play a bit of tennis and cricket and maybe a bit of travel, but not [00:23:00] too much.
Yeah.
I post my engagement photos on there, so that was quite a big. Thing for me. I think like my audience grew like massively over a very short amount of time where I went from 60 k followers to 200 k and that made me, I suppose scared a bit, scared to post too much about my life.
Yeah. Because I didn’t, it suddenly , loads of people all over the world knowing about me and so I was a bit hesitant. And then now. I, in the re most recent sort of eight weeks when I’ve built my business, I’ve decided to try to get people to know me a bit better. But I am very, I think through my posts a lot a lot more than I used to, where I just use to wack it up and wouldn’t care.
Tyson E Franklin: Yeah I do think I think you need to bring out some of your personality, who you are, things you do, so they can see you as the practitioner, but also, ah, he’s actually a real person.
Paul Macaulay: Yeah,
Tyson E Franklin: just don’t take a photo of yourself out the front of your house. Just don’t gimme your address. Yeah. I think that’s the main thing.[00:24:00]
Paul Macaulay: Yeah. Yeah. ’cause
Tyson E Franklin: I always say to people, if you’re worried about social media, I go, don’t worry. If someone really wants to harm you, they’ll just follow you home one day. It’s a terrible thought.
Paul Macaulay: Hopefully not in s, hopefully not in Singapore.
Tyson E Franklin: No. But it’s one of those things that, yeah, if you get a stalker, it means you made it.
Yeah. Yeah. That’s terrible, isn’t it? That’s
Paul Macaulay: classic. Classic. But I do understand classic aussie joke,
Tyson E Franklin: but I do understand, I reckon people who’ve got children, I totally get that they don’t necessarily want their children to be on social media or be seen. Whereas I know other people, they think kids are a great marketing tool as well because they can be interactive and people can say, oh, you have children, I have children.
Therefore you are like me.
Paul Macaulay: Yeah. Yeah. I do. I’ve got a friend who wants to start on socials a bit, and I was talking to him about the profile and not looking like a jumble sail.
Yeah.
And he has every other post is like him playing tennis or like training for high rocks. Then that’s too [00:25:00] much for me.
If someone goes into profile and can’t tell, if you are posting Podiatry content or like lifestyle and they’re looking for peary content, then it needs to be a bit cleaner than that. Yeah. True. But I do think like stories are really good way to build that connection where you can literally just talk directly to that person and more casual way.
And so I, I do. Some posts on that and it is something that I wanna do more of, but it’s just actually you’re trying to remember to do it regularly as well. Is tough with everything going on.
Tyson E Franklin: Yeah. Yeah. My YouTube channel, not YouTube, my Instagram channel, it’s a mismatch of everything.
I’ll put some Podiatry business stuff there. I’ll put something to do with my holiday. I always post my burger photos. Everyone knows I love hamburgers.
Paul Macaulay: Nice.
Tyson E Franklin: But I don’t, I’m not using it to try and build my profile. It’s just, it was there.
Paul Macaulay: Yeah. Yeah. So someone told me that if I post a lot of different things, then the algorithm might not understand what I’m posting about.
Yeah.
And ’cause I was posting some podcast content over a period and I was wondering why my Instagram wasn’t [00:26:00] growing. And once I stopped posting the podcast stuff and started focusing on just like foot health, it grew a lot more.
And since that point, I think. He had a decent point about that.
Tyson E Franklin: Do you ever go back and delete any content you posted? If you think back and go, oh, you go through stuff from six months, a year ago and go, that didn’t really resonate. You get rid of it, or you just leave it there and don’t worry about it.
Paul Macaulay: I leave most there. I don’t think I post much, which I don’t agree with. Although after going to the low limb conference I’ve learned some new stuff and I think, oh, maybe I. That video’s a bit off.
Yeah.
But also the videos I know have helped people as well. Even if it’s, well, even if the research maybe isn’t up to date, it still helped them.
So I kind of think, oh, should it still be there?
Tyson E Franklin: Yeah. But research is still just research. It’s not real.
Paul Macaulay: Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Tyson E Franklin: I was listening to do you ever listen to the Huberman podcast?
Paul Macaulay: Yeah. Huberman
Tyson E Franklin: Lab. He was there, guy on there, and they were [00:27:00] talking about research that they’re doing and they go, there’s a difference between research results and reality.
Yeah. And the guy was just saying we can have the best conditions in a lab and be doing all these different things under perfect conditions and we can tweak things. ’cause sometimes this is how we really want the result to go, even though we don’t mean to, we’re a little bit biased, he said. But then when you take it and you’re actively go and use it in the real world.
Doesn’t apply. You have to do something different.
Paul Macaulay: Yeah. And I think it’s important
Tyson E Franklin: for everyone to understand that.
Paul Macaulay: I agree too. Yeah. And like people’s lives are very different to Yeah. The research lab.
Tyson E Franklin: That’s why I always don’t find it funny when a Podiatry will make a comment on a social media.
They go, well, the research says, okay, who cares what the research says? Does it work? Does it, yeah. Does it, have you tried it? Does it work? If it works, then just tell us what you did in your clinic. I’d rather know that.
Paul Macaulay: Exactly. I think like there are a lot of healthcare practitioners and podiatrists who might look at my content and go, oh, [00:28:00] that’s not right.
I mean, I had a, I did have a recent thing where I got called out being a healthcare sellout supposedly.
Tyson E Franklin: Yeah.
Paul Macaulay: And I reflected at the content that I created and I was, it was the five most common shoes I recommend to my patients, and they are the five shoes that I recommend the most to my patients, and I recommend ’em for certain conditions and it works.
And I was like, well, my healthcare sellout. Is he telling me that I’m bad at my job? But it works like either. So yeah, it’s
Tyson E Franklin: yeah. But some people online if they were directly in front of you face to face, they probably wouldn’t say anything. Yeah. Like I know when I wrote the World’s greatest Podiatry business book, it’s no secret there’s money in Podiatry.
Man, I got comments from people just telling me this is the biggest load of crap ever written. And I just went, it’s your opinion.
Paul Macaulay: Yeah. I’ve had
Tyson E Franklin: hundreds of other comments telling me that was absolutely fantastic. So I’m gonna take that on board, not the one or two people Yeah. Who usually have an agenda and there’s a reason why they don’t like something.
Paul Macaulay: [00:29:00] Yeah. I mean, you are, you’re definitely right that I think posting publicly on a comment, I just think is if you disagree with me and you’re a healthcare professional, talk to me about it. Yeah, talk to me in the dms, hit me in the dms. You tell me what you think.
Then we have a discussion about it and we discuss what it’s about. Because content, at the end of the day, if it’s only 60 to 90 seconds long, you cannot get a whole thesis into that section.
Tyson E Franklin: No.
Paul Macaulay: And the fact is that video or all these videos. Will have a good impact on a lot of people who may not have access to healthcare.
And that’s all I’m trying to achieve is like that these people who potentially do not have access get some access and they get that bit better, like making that doing a small thing, making a big difference to their lives. That’s my like, ultimate goal is, I think it’s
Tyson E Franklin: brilliant though. I just think what you’re doing is great.
Like, it’s like when you said before the three things, you don’t wear thongs, I wear them stiletos No anymore. But the sketches. I had a conversation with someone last [00:30:00] week, one of my coaching clients. We were talking about sketches. She doesn’t like them. Yeah. And I said, well, this is gonna sound really funny. I said, I just got back from America.
I bought a pair of sketches for the plane. I said they would just slip on once. I said they were the most comfortable airplane shoe I’ve ever worn in my life. I said, I just wore ’em around for a few days and wore ’em back home again. Are they the shoe that I would recommend that my patients wear if you’re getting on an airplane?
Yes.
Paul Macaulay: If you’re gonna
Tyson E Franklin: jogging them. No,
Paul Macaulay: That’s an interesting topic about getting on an airplane because that’s what makes me laugh is like, yeah, a lot of my patients will tell me they’ll just get a slip on once go on the airplane. Yeah. But then they go to s Singapore airport and they gotta walk like five Ks to get to the gate.
So, , that’s one of, one of our videos is basically based on that topic. So I, I completely get like, and everyone’s got slightly different opinion on that. I know, and
Tyson E Franklin: I’ll admit when I got to LA Airport, because they’d moved the Qantas terminal somewhere else from where I landed coming in from Seattle, it was a two kilometer walk [00:31:00] to get to my gate.
Paul Macaulay: Yeah. They were not great
Tyson E Franklin: for a two kilometer walk that you had to do in a very quick period of time.
Paul Macaulay: Yeah.
Tyson E Franklin: But just as a for the purpose of wearing ’em, just short walk. Short walk out again in the hotel. They were great, but I wouldn’t do much else in them. Yeah.
Paul Macaulay: Yeah. I think , yeah, so overall my, the content which I’m creating I’m just trying to serve like a sort of general population and Yeah.
And making that those small impacts that go a long way for them. Yeah. And I am hitting like people. In these different era, I’m hitting people in Africa who probably don’t have a Podiatry. I’m hitting people I a lot of people in Turkey, so they get, watch my content. People in Mexico, and they may not have a local Podiatry that they can go to, but they see this like sort of generalized content and maybe it makes a bit of a difference to their lives and helps them to continue on with their like, day-to-day, which is important to me.
Tyson E Franklin: Yeah. But like I said, I think it’s important, but I also think the people who Yeah. Might be a little bit negative towards what you do or make a [00:32:00] comment. I always think shame on them because , their trolls normally sit behind the keyboard super tough, but sometimes their comments is what prevents other podiatrists from getting in front of a camera.
’cause they’re scared what people will think. And I’m going, just do it. Don’t worry about if you get one or two negative comments, you’re probably helping a hundred other people.
Paul Macaulay: Yeah. You get, I get. Thousands of comments.
Tyson E Franklin: Yeah.
Paul Macaulay: And I don’t always have a chance to read them all, but so many people telling me that, it changed their life.
Tyson E Franklin: That’s what you want.
Paul Macaulay: It’s so good to feel that.
Tyson E Franklin: So if people, what are all your handles for the different platforms? So if people want to reach out to you, if they want your email address, or if they wanna find your platforms, what are they?
Paul Macaulay: So for my platforms, it’s all under the same handle Paul the Podiatrist, very simple.
And if they want to drop me an email see maybe how I’ve done it, maybe any top tips. Then it’d [00:33:00] be paul@paulthepodiatrist.com.
Tyson E Franklin: Okay. That’s nice and simple. Paul, the Podiatry, how can you forget that?
Paul Macaulay: Yeah, exactly. Very lucky. Very lucky to have that name.
Tyson E Franklin: So look, I think what you’re doing is great.
I think it’s gonna help the Podiatry profession if more people get involved and start doing this, it’s gonna help the general public as well. Have you got anything else you wanna mention before we wrap up?
Paul Macaulay: Yeah. I would go back to your point about. Other people being put off by people’s, talking negatively.
I do think it’s quite a small point. It’s happened to me like twice in three years. Yeah. But when people are just giving you so much, they are talking so positively about the advice they’ve had, and then you see the benefit it has to your business. It’s so amazing that you can just build a business off creating content and a really engaged following too.
So yeah, I just recommend that everyone should do it and the more people that do it, the better it is for our profession as [00:34:00] podiatrists.
Tyson E Franklin: Yeah, and I think if you’re not getting any negative comments, then you’re probably not working hard enough. I get, I not, like I said, I have never, I haven’t had a lot, couple, when did the book.
Probably half a dozen since I’ve been doing the podcast, which has come close to 400 episodes. And they’re out there. But I remember someone saying once that nobody has ever built a statue for a critic. So of all the critics in the world, no one’s ever built a statue going. They were the world’s best critic.
Yeah. And usually people that are critical to say you or myself or anybody else, they’re not usually doing too much themselves.
Paul Macaulay: Yeah.
Tyson E Franklin: Which is why they’re, they sit back and comment ’cause they’re probably just too scared to do it.
Paul Macaulay: Yeah. I’d say that no point. I was scared. I was scared to like, post, I was scared to do my talk, but, you know.
Were you scared to
Tyson E Franklin: post because you were concerned what people were gonna say?
Paul Macaulay: No. , I wasn’t, I was just, I suppose scared to fail.
Okay.
With most things. But then once you start doing it and you see the success that you can have, [00:35:00] then you just continue. And now I just, yeah, just crack on, don’t look back and hopefully I can become, yeah, the pretty big and do do a good thing for pod world.
Tyson E Franklin: No, I think it’s fantastic. So Paul, the Podiatry, I want to thank you for coming on the Podiatry legends podcast, sharing your wisdom in this area because I think it’s an area that everybody needs to jump on board with. And I’d love to get you back on again, like saying 12 months time, get you back on and just go.
Okay. What have you done between now just finishing the low limb conference to probably after you do the next one and maybe we might even do it live while we’re down there. That’d be cool.
Paul Macaulay: Yeah. Yeah, that would be cool. That’d be awesome. Turn
Tyson E Franklin: into a video as well.
Paul Macaulay: Okay, cool.
Tyson E Franklin: Thanks a lot. Thank you very much.
Paul Macaulay: Thank, thanks so much for having me. Have a good day.