Take Good Care: Season 5 Episode 4 – The Rebrand, Part 2: The Process

Dr. Mironda Williams:

Welcome to Take Good Care podcast,

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

An endeavor that grew out of our love for obstetrics and gynecology.

Dr. Karen Greene:

Our aim and mission is to serve as a source of vital information for women of all races, ages, and walks in life.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

I am Dr. Mironda Williams.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

I’m Dr. Deanna Guthrie.

Dr. Karen Greene:

And I’m Dr. Karen Greene.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

Welcome to our show.

Welcome to this episode of Take Good Care podcast. I’m Dr. Mironda Williams.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

I’m Dr. Deanna Guthrie.

Dr. Karen Greene:

And I’m Dr. Karen Greene.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

As those of you who’ve been following us know that this season we started with a recap of season four. In season four, we did a book review on Michelle Obama’s latest book, The Light We Carry. In that season, we started with our take on a lot of the concepts that she talked about in her book.

With the second episode for this season, we launched into a review of our history. We called it The Origin Story Version Two. As I’m thinking about today’s episode and some of the things that we’re doing as a part of season five, but also with our practice journey and evolution of being business owners and woman physicians, I think the light we carry, that topic and that concept really does summarize our view for how we care for this practice.

This practice was entrusted to us by the woman who founded our practice, Dr. Rosemarie Schultz. As she transitioned and went on to doing other things in her life and the other physicians as well who’ve come through outdoors and been a part of our journey so far, the three of us are here as we continue in this journey of our medical practice and now the care of women with gynecology, it is about The Light We Carry.

I think we very much understand that we did not get here on our own, and that we stand on the shoulders of many. People in our family, as well as people in our professional lives who have afforded us this wonderful opportunity to do what we do every day, which is take care of women.

In that episode of The Origin Story, that was episode two for season five, Dr. Greene made a statement as we were going back, looking over our history, remembering the kinds of transitions that our practice has gone through, she made a statement that what she quickly came to understand after being with us for a while in those early days, that women taking care of women was not just a nice concept. She said it’s absolutely necessary.

That really struck a chord with me because we always talk about and are conscious of representation and why representation matters in all forms. African-American, race, religion, creed, gender. In this instance, I think she’s absolutely right. Women taking care of women is necessary because we do have the ability to understand things in a way that perhaps male physicians would not in terms of gynecology. Not that they can’t, but it just brings something else to the care of women when it’s being done by another female physician.

The third episode, we went into something that we really want to jump into today. In this practice, we talked about with that last episode that the only constant is change and that if you don’t change with the times and evolve to remain relevant, then sometimes you get left behind.

As a function of that, our practice and the three of us, we really launched into what has been just about a year long’s journey looking at a rebrand. Not that again, our foundation, our origin has lost value because it hasn’t. We stand on that, that is our foundation. But sometimes we need to check things up a little bit to change, to evolve, sometimes to even start a revolution.

As we go into today’s topic, we’re going to talk about that a little bit more. We’re going to give you an inside look into our thought processes, as well as some of the things that we’ve done as we evaluate PTCOBGYN, the rebrand. Dr. Greene, you want to start talking about why we decided now as the time to do that?

Dr. Karen Greene:

Thank you, Dr. Williams. It’s funny that it’s not the first time that someone has mentioned maybe you should change your name. Our name wasn’t always PTC Obstetrics and Gynecology, it started off as Peachtree City Gynecology when Rosemary Schultz started the practice. But in the delivering of babies, you add the obstetrics, so here we are.

The taking care of women hadn’t changed, it was always a woman to woman. That hadn’t changed. But as time went on and we dropped OB, someone said, “Are you going to change your name?” Why would we? We still take care of women, we still helped them get pregnant, so why would we do that kind of change?

I think that as far as a practice, PTCOBGYN was part of us, is part of us, will always be part of us. So letting go of the name, at the time when people would ask, was important. In this past year, the topic came up again. I think for the first time we said maybe. It’s like okay, if we do this, why are we going to do it now? My wonderful colleague here said other places have changed their name and here are the reasons.

I was speaking to someone about just name changes, literally just yesterday. One of the things they said was when you joined this company, you knew the history of it. You understood what they represented. For us, for people understanding what we represented is very important.

Coming into this era of very electronic and very less paper, and very quick, and very catchy things is a reason to change your name or shorten it so that people will remember it. But if they’re going to remember it, they still have to know why they remember it and why it’s not any different than it was. It just might be a little shorter.

Peachtree City Obstetrics and Gynecology is a mouthful. We did a video a while back where we all had to say it because we were doing something and we laughed at ourselves about how much it was a mouthful. We knew that that was a lot to say, so when we got to doing this podcast, PTCOBGYN was shorter, but it was still a mouthful. It’s a lot to say. For our patients, sometimes it’s a lot to remember. It’s a lot to remember for them, it’s a lot to remember what Peachtree it is because we live in Georgia and Peachtree is very common.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

A lot of Peachtrees.

Dr. Karen Greene:

There’s a lot of Peachtrees. There’s peach trees, there’s Peachtree Cities, there’s Peachtree Streets, there’s Peachtree Corners. So again, back to the electronic media, if you’re trying to Google Peachtree City Obstetrics and Gynecology, you might get Peachtree Corners, you might get Peachtree Street, you might get the Peachtree Drop, you might get anything. So changing with the times is always something that I think we have strived to do.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

It also… Quickly go back to Peachtree, we were kind of locked into location too, and we have gone beyond. Even when we were still Peachtree City OGBYN, we have been downtown, we have been-

Dr. Mironda Williams:

For the folks who aren’t local, explain downtown.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

Oh, sorry. Downtown Atlanta. Because we are on the south side of Atlanta, we’re about 25 miles south of the city of Atlanta.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

And we’re OTP.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

OTP, outside the perimeter. That’s a very important phrase for a lot of people. So location wise, even having this name, Peachtree City OBGYN, we have always gone beyond the borders of Peachtree City. Sometimes that was also, I wouldn’t say limiting, but it was like you said, the length of the name could be confusing. People didn’t know we have an office here or there.

Dr. Karen Greene:

Looking just at all those different factors, it’s like okay, we’ve evaluated the reasons, we’ve evaluated the problems that we have with the name sometimes, and maybe now is the time. Maybe now is the time. Maybe it’s time for us to get over into something that’s going to be very relatable to what we are already doing, but easier to say, easier to Google, but still representative of who we are in terms of women taking care of women. There’s pluses and minuses, and what would you say those are that [inaudible 00:10:34]?

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

In looking at this topic of rebranding, there could be several reasons to do it, but you want to make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons. One key point they said is either you’re doing it proactively, which I hope that’s what we’re doing, or you can do it reactively.

Things can happen, companies that can sometimes get into trouble, or if they have certain social events or social things that happen where now this name or this company or this purpose that this company had has to change, and so there’s a need for rebranding.

Rebranding has been a lot in the news lately. There’s been Twitter, that’s a big rebranding. Facebook did it a few years ago, and you have to ask yourself with companies that have been so successful, why? Why would you change? You’re like I know this name. I don’t want to have to learn another name.

One of the reasons why they say rebranding is a good idea is that you want to reconnect or connect to your base, whether it’s patients or customers or whatever, on a more significant level that whatever you’re doing, whatever your mission is for your company, you want to connect more to that.

When you do rebrand, it’s not an easy decision. It’s a decision that you do have to take with measure, and you need to do research. This is not a just find a good name and let’s just do this. You do have to do the research. When I was reading on rebranding, they gave an example of, and I didn’t even realize this, I kind of remember this, but they talked about the Gap. The Gap wanted to rebrand-

Dr. Mironda Williams:

Gap, the company Gap.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

Gap, the company. They wanted to rebrand or update, because rebranding can be updating your name, just changing your name, but really not changing anything internally, just like a physical… Changing your website or something like that.

Gap, they said, did this and their normal big blue block thing, they made it smaller and they did something else, and they did it without letting people know. It said that they didn’t do the research of doing that. They said that lasted six days.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

Wow. Didn’t make a week.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

Everybody was like wait, what? No, we can’t do this. They were just talking about the importance of research and looking into that. Pros of rebranding, you want to attract new patients. You have your loyal base, you have the people who know you, love you, won’t change, are going to come to you, but you want to attract new people.

Again, depending on the day and time that you’re in, you want to update and do that. You don’t want to be stagnant. It also lets people see a newer side of you. You want to achieve new goals. Dr. Williams, she has a, I’m going to call her… What’s a villain? Who’s a good villain? She wants Dr. Williams wants world domination.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

In a good way.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

In a good way, in a good way.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

We want everyone happy and healthy, but everyone will know our name. That part.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

When you’re looking to achieve new goals, again, increasing engagement with your patients. Things like you said, can get stagnant. Is it the same PTCOBGYN? You want to streamline messaging, so depending on the type of business or service that you provide, if things are getting diluted, you want to bring focus back to what you want to do.

You want to expand into different demographics. Again, as we mentioned before, our name put us only in one area that somebody who may be looking for a good GYN or somebody to see them, we’d only see Peachtree City and go no, I’m not going to go there, but not knowing that we have-

Dr. Karen Greene:

[inaudible 00:14:25] OTP.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

Exactly. Like I said, it doesn’t necessarily have to be an overhaul. Like I said, it could just be an update. Also when you want to change your internal perspective, so again, not only is it looking for new goals, but when you’re doing something the same thing for the last 20 years, you want a fresh take on it for yourself, not just for your patients. You want to come up with a new way to love what you do. So this is… Like I said, Dr. Williams has brought me kicking and screaming into podcasting.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

Here we are.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

We’re here. Again, just internal perspectives and you want to stay current and you want to shape new ideas. Now, I said, everything has pros and cons again. With cons for rebranding is that it can create confusion. Like I mentioned, the Gap before where it did it without releasing, without good research, everything like that.

What’s key in rebranding is clear communication. As you’re going through this process, there needs to be a timeline, there needs to be everything in order, you want to get all your ducks in a row before you click that switch to make things change. You want to bring your old base with you, whether that’s patients or customers or whatever, you want to bring them with you. You don’t want to just say I’m just going to the new, leaving everybody behind.

Otherwise, like I said, they feel left out. They feel not cared for and they may not come with you. One of the risks also of rebranding is that you may lose patients or customers or whatever but if done correctly, like I said, you may lose a few, but those people may even come back even if they do step away because they’re not sure of the direction that you’re going. Again, if you trust the process, like I said, [inaudible 00:16:17] will be back.

There is a cost to rebranding. New logo, new website, new materials, new stationery, new everything, new swag, new everything. Again, you want to make sure that you’re in the position to do all those things.

Like I said, the research before, we have a wonderful, wonderful marketing company that’s working with us that if we were trying to do this on our own, no, not to this extent, not with everything that we’re doing now, but they have been wonderful through this whole process. But those are the pros and cons.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

I appreciate both of your comments because that really does, I think in a great summary, Dr. Guthrie lets everyone know and reminds us of what we’ve done to get to this point. Names are important, understanding your history is important, but also knowing when it’s time to open yourself up to new opportunities is also important.

As we really started to realistically and seriously think about a rebranding of the practice, to Dr. Guthrie’s Point, it really did cause us to… Let’s look internally first. Why do we even want to do this? What’s important for us to retain? And what may be a reason to change and evolve? I went back, I reached out to Dr. Schultz, who started the practice, because it was very emotional even thinking about a name change.

It’s like that teddy bear, that blanket, that source of comfort and security. We will soon celebrate 40 years as a business and so Peachtree City OBGYN has been a part of that identity for four decades. In speaking with Dr. Schultz, as she always does, I’m just going on and on about my angst and my struggle, and we love you, and so much of what you did is rewarding into this and blah, blah, blah.

She just very sweetly said, she says, “Mironda, I only named it Peachtree City OBGYN because that’s where I live. It didn’t need to necessarily stay that way. You and your partners do what you feel is the best thing for you to do now, and whatever you all do, I support it wholeheartedly.” That gave us, I think, the relief and the freedom to really start to explore what do we need to do now?

One of the things, the reasons we started this podcast is because we wanted to find another way to connect with current patients, our loyal patient base who’ve been with us, some of us two, three decades, as well as be able to attract new patients because the one thing we want to make sure we clearly communicate with this process is that we are not going anywhere, the practice is not going anywhere, we haven’t sold ourselves, we’re not breaking up, we’re not breaking up the band. The band is going to stay together.

But we did feel that with the digital transition that every industry is undergoing, that we needed to position ourselves as a business. As a successful business now, again, we’re not doing it because we need to be successful. We are successful, but we want to stay successful and we want to be in a position to grow into the future.

As Dr. Guthrie mentioned, we’ve never just served Peachtree City. Our demographic catchment area spans five counties going in the ITP, inside the perimeter. The perimeter, for those who are not familiar, is a monstrosity of a highway that in some places, has 10 lanes. It circles what we call the metropolitan Atlanta area.

Because of those of you who have either heard or live here, know about the traffic and the congestion, we’re always referring to things is it ITP or OTP because then that may determine how long it’s going to take you to get… Or around the perimeter, the top side of perimeter, because that may determine how long it takes you to get somewhere. We’ve always served outside of the local parameters of this city.

When we were doing obstetrics, in order to provide the high level tertiary nursery care that we needed at the time that was not available in the county that our office is located in, we had to travel to other counties. We’re doing this, we think, because it will fully represent who we are now as a practice and allow us to continue to grow and develop as we move forward.

To Dr. Guthrie’s point, internally, our mission and vision is the same. We’re women who take care of women. Our vision is that anyone who encounters our medical practice as a patient or provider, as a staff manager or owner is enriched by the experience. That’s our vision. Our mission serves to facilitate that, so we do what we have to do to make sure that the vision continues, that the light we carry goes on.

We, as Dr. Guthrie mentioned, enlisted the aid of a marketing firm that’s local here, and they only work with medically oriented practices or businesses, to help us on this journey of rebranding and to consider what kinds of things we needed to do in that rebrand because it wasn’t so much an internal rebranding, how we function, why we function the way that we function, but more so who are we now and is our name fully representative of that?

Also, is it easily searchable? Because let’s face it, people, everybody googles everything. I don’t know what that is, but I like it. And if everyone is googling, we want to make sure that we can be easily recognized and found in the digital world that we’re all moving into. As we conclude this episode of Take Good Care podcast, we’re going to leave you on the cliffhanger because we’re not going to tell you the name. You’ll have to tune into the next episode.

We wanted to lay the foundation for our current patient base and then also have something that new patients can refer to when we announce what our new name is and decide that we’re going to make the news public, that there will be a source, a reference that would explain some of the why, some of the why now, some of the pros and the cons that we have wrestled with that, that we have taken a lot of time to deliberate.

We’ve engaged a wonderful professional partner that has helped in the research and the background to make sure that we’re doing what is necessary to propel us into the future and to remain a viable source of information and healthcare for women.

Again, I’m Dr. Miranda Williams.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

I’m Dr. Deanna Guthrie.

Dr. Karen Greene:

And I’m Dr. Karen Green.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

We are the ladies of Peachtree City OBGYN. But with the next episode, we’ll tell you who we now are.

Dr. Karen Greene:

But take good care.