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Joe Sanok 00:00:00  Are you a mental health practice owner juggling the complexities of running your practice? Meet at mirror, a CRM and operation software solution designed to simplify your day to day workflows and streamline your operations. It makes managing your practice easier by simplifying referral management, client onboarding and communication, and other essential tasks with customizable workflows, email templates, and automation tools. It mirror helps you run your group practice more efficiently. Plus, it integrates seamlessly with your email platform, website, and EHR system, bringing everything together in one place to save you time and reduce errors. Ready to transform the way you work? Visit admin to learn more. That's ad irr. To learn more, you can sign up for a free 30 day trial or schedule your free demo today. Ameera. This is the practice of the Practice podcast with Joe Santos, session number 1199. I'm Joe, your host, and welcome to the practice of the Practice podcast. Well, even if you're not coming to the group practice Boss conference, I want you to listen to this episode because we are going to be having videos and potentially streaming all sorts of things going on for this conference, and all those details will be over at practice of the practice.

Joe Sanok 00:01:36  Com forward slash conference. At the time of this recording, we are working to get all the streaming set up and we for sure are going to have professional video recordings that you're going to be able to get access to. So all of those details of getting access to those videos, getting access to streaming, or if we still have tickets left at the time of this recording, it's happening next week. you can still, grab a last minute ticket if those are available over at practice of the practice conference. Well, those of you that got your tickets for the group practice boss conference, let me just say, Holy cow, we are, like, a week away. We cannot wait. Claire and Jen and Sam and our team have been working so hard. we're having a number of our staff fly into northern Michigan to come hang out with you at the group practice boss conference, and this podcast is specifically for you, the attendee. And also for those of you that are, thinking about coming to a future one for all future conferences.

Joe Sanok 00:02:34  Practice of the practice conference is where you're going to see, excuse me, our next conferences that are coming up. Got a little tickle in my throat. I had Covid back in November, and, you know, this cough just comes in and out. I'm not sure if many of you have had that. but it is frustrating because as someone who gets paid to talk in a podcast, it's not what I always want to be coughing all the. All the time. Well, let's just start with a little bit of the origin of the group practice boss conference. You know, we heard from a number of our folks that had gone to other conferences that were either focused on group practice or were kind of just larger kind of mental health things that they didn't feel like what they got out of the conference was what they wanted, and I agree. I get to go to the conferences and do keynotes and, you know, sometimes you go to these breakout sessions and you're like, well, I would rather have just had a cup of coffee with someone that I met here than to, you know, be stuck in this 90 minute session.

Joe Sanok 00:03:32  So I really started with, like, what do I want out of a conference? To me, I loved Ted. The times that I got to speak there, the times that I went to that, the shorter form to me was really engaging. so we're working with all of our speakers to, to have Ted talk styles, to have 20 minute sessions. What's something big that you can just drill into? You. we looked at that and then also that cup of coffee I mentioned, you know, getting to know people. to me, when I think about killing at camp, when I think about slow down school. It's never. Oh, wow. I had this great session that I got to teach everybody on fill in the blank. No, it was sitting around the campfire this one year at at Slow Down School, we did gourmet, s'mores and, LaToya, who for years was one of our consultants, that she was there as a participant before she joined our team and she had never had a s'more.

Joe Sanok 00:04:25  and we had we had peanut butter, we had fancy dark chocolate, we had caramel. We had all sorts of just fancy things. And it was around that campfire that we just had a great time getting to know each other. We had a great time learning about each other's practices. That's where the magic happens. You know, I remember at the very first clinic camp, you know, we had an open bar one night and, people just hung out and they were all staying right there, so we didn't have to worry about anyone driving and just sat around and talked and, you know, hundreds of people breaking up into different versions of small groups of conversations and, you know, having some, some music. It was just that amazing connection with other people. And so for me, the group practice boss conference is a place where you feel like you're in the right place. in this episode, I'm going to break down how you can best prepare to get the most out of your experience and why it's just not another conference.

Joe Sanok 00:05:18  To me, this is about designing intentionally deep connections for you to make, to have faster implementation. For us to be able to have people talking about the things that matter. So things like AI buying and selling practices, implementing the best operations, how to hire better, how to balance it all, and then helping you scale in a way that's even smarter. So let's dive into just some of the key logistics. So in this episode I'm going to talk about key logistics. We're going to talk about setting yourself up for success. And just a couple insider tips to maximize your networking, learning, and some Traverse City secrets. So if you're coming to Traverse City, if you can stay an extra day, it's a beautiful area. So if you haven't got your plane tickets next week, you might want to get it. but, you know, Tuesday and Wednesday, May 6th and seventh, is when the group practice boss conference is happening. I'd highly recommend that you stick around an extra day to see the area.

Joe Sanok 00:06:16  We have the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes National Lakeshore. we have opportunities to go sailing. there's a million wineries around here. just some really fun things to do. So let's talk logistics and pre-conference prep. So first let's talk travel and lodging. So Traverse City is a small airport. We have officially five, five net terminals, five gates. but really there's only two that are used. It's mostly, you know, American on one side of the aisle and then Delta on the other. most people are going to be flying in from from Detroit via Chicago via Minneapolis, New York. usually you're coming in through one of those, so it's a small airport. I would highly recommend that you, let Cambria Suites where most people are staying, know that you're coming in ahead of time because they are going to be offering free transportation to the hotel. free transportation downtown when you want to go out to eat all sorts of ways that, you can kind of get around town. the thing is about Traverse City is we do have Ubers, we do have lifts, but also they're not as prominent as in larger cities.

Joe Sanok 00:07:22  So, if you think you're going to be wanting to drive around more than the average bear, you might want to rent a car, while you're in town. Also, a few things around, just packing. you know, bring your essential kind of business casual attire. We're going to be, you know, sitting and standing and learning. wear whatever you're comfortable in. but also recognize you might be taking selfies with people, and those selfies might end up online. you know, we're going to have a lot of opportunities and places that you can take pictures and, you know, do videos and, those are things that you want to look professional. You don't have to look, you know, super, you know, kind of tied up, but you also don't want to maybe, you know, be in sweatshirt and, and sweatpants. You know, I didn't mute my phone before I started this, and I'm just going to leave this in and go grab it and then mute it because I just heard a ding ding.

Joe Sanok 00:08:13  This reminds me of the days when I would be in my office, downtown, and I often would have my coffee. And one of the early jokes was, I would always forget my coffee across the room and go and grab it. so we want to make sure, you know, if you, you know, want to take notes. we have some practice on the practice notebooks that will be providing. But you, if you have your own notebook, bring that. if you have business cards or tech gear or things like that. I and we're also going to be, providing you with some refillable water bottles to save on plastic and things like that. But you may want to bring an extra charger with you. You might want to bring a refillable water bottle. next, make sure that you're, just on LinkedIn and that you're around other people and that you know how that you want to connect with other folks. there's all sorts of different apps you can use to connect with people to share information. So make sure that you're ready to share your information in a way that that works for you.

Joe Sanok 00:09:11  You may even want to set up a QR code that directly goes to, different things. One kind of hack that I have is, I think when I'm going to a conference, like, what are some different things that I want to connect with people on. So when I was at the Mental Health Marketing conference, which I'm going to be keynote this fall, actually Steve is going to be at the group practice boss conference to, doing a talk about marketing, which I'm so excited to hang out with him again. is I kind of thought about who are the types of people that I would run into at this conference. And so for me, you know, there's people that may want to do consulting with me. So I had a QR code for that and I just took a screenshot. You can use, just like Canva, and say, you know, consulting and then just like screenshot and drop a QR code that goes to our forward slash reply page. I knew that we would have potential podcast sponsors.

Joe Sanok 00:10:03  So I had a QR code for for podcast sponsors to look at our, our podcast sponsor PDF, the group practice boss conference. I knew those sponsors may want to sponsor that. I knew that I might meet people that I want to have on the podcast. So I had my Calendly link, had a QR code for that. So literally I could just pull out my phone and have someone pull up theirs, scan the QR code, and instead of having to type in URLs or anything like that, I could just have them go and set that right up. And I got so many people that took action from that, and I didn't have to keep track of them business cards from people. So I would highly recommend doing something like that. it's super easy to set those QR codes up for free. and then to take a screenshot, and then you could even literally not even use Canva, just, you know, use on your phone the ability to to put text over top of it just to remind yourself which QR code that is.

Joe Sanok 00:11:02  I'm so excited to introduce you to the best website designers out there. We have a brand new partnership with session sites. It is where good therapy meets brilliant design, and they get your website switched over or built in less than two weeks. They fine tune your messaging, use science backed user experience methodology, and work exclusively with mental health professionals. In fact, new clients right now are going to get three free therapy marketing strategy calls with their creative director of session sites. If you book today, you're not going to want to miss this. Head on over to session sites again that session sites. Com forward slash get the website of your dreams today session sites. So a couple things to kind of set up some goals for yourself for the conference. there's kind of three core questions that I would love for you to challenge yourself to ask yourself. Like, number one, what's what's the number one challenge that you want to solve as a result of the group practice boss conference? So what are some things that you want to solve? what what's keeping you up at night and that you want to meet people you want to learn? you want to take action next? Who do you want to connect with? Are there mentors, peers? People that are speaking that to you? You're like, hey, I really want to connect with that person.

Joe Sanok 00:12:30  You know, it could be a member of my team. It could be me. It could be other folks. make sure you take the time to to get to know people. You know, this is a intentionally smaller environment. You know, it, maxes out at 120 people. We want you to get to know other folks here. In fact, we, even with our sponsors, aren't giving them tables which some of them are not used to. We want them embedded in the conference. We want them connecting with people. We want them having conversations and learning side by side so that we can say, hey, here's here's our eye, people, here's our electronic health records people, here's our folks that are helping in these different areas. Next, we want to think about what action steps are you going to commit to after the event. So are you going to try to email everyone or are you going to text everyone you talk to? I always want to get a business card right away. Write something on it from the conversation.

Joe Sanok 00:13:15  So this person has a dog named boss and you know their kids are into Frisbee golf. what was that conversation about? I remember I met a couple, at the mental health marketing conference, and, they had combined their families, and he had been a single dad. And then, his new wife, she, you know, came in. And so that's a situation where Claire is coming into my family as I'm a single dad, and so we connected on that emotional level, and I wrote that on their business card to just remind myself of who kind of went with which stories, then build a game plan for yourself. So review the schedule in advance. You know, look at kind of the sessions. We're only having one track. We're not having multiple tracks, so you don't have to pick whether or not you're in. You may meet someone, though, that you want to keep having a conversation and not come to the next session. And that's okay. and then look at those attendees and speakers as to who you might want to connect with next.

Joe Sanok 00:14:12  Plan for some implementation, not just inspiration. We want you to be inspired. We want you to get information, but we more than anything want you to implement. So I would highly recommend that you take some time after the conference that you block out so that you can say, okay, what are my next steps here? All right. Let's talk networking and making connections. So you know the group practice boss conference is designed for relationships not just content consumption. So that's very different from a lot of different conferences that you may have gone to. And so realize that that is part of what we're doing here. next, some conversation starters, even if you're an introvert, just asking, what's been your biggest win this year? What's your biggest challenge? You know, tell me about your practice. What's it like? you know, are you private pay? Are you insurance? What are you struggling with? what's one thing you're hoping to take away from group practice? Boss conference. We also want you to leverage some peer accountability.

Joe Sanok 00:15:09  So find somebody that maybe after the event, you can check in a week later, you can say, hey, did you take action on things after this? follow up. within our membership community with people. create those connections. Post those pictures in there. make people jealous in the membership community that you got to hang out in person. There's something about hanging out in person that is just amazing. It's one of those things that you're just like, okay. Like, how is this my life? I get to meet these awesome people, get to travel to cool places, and get to develop a business that makes an impact in the world. It's what we all really dream about, and that's the biggest thing that we're trying to do here in the group practice boss conference. Next, we want to think about during the event, take action in real time. Don't just take notes. You know, if you think of something, you know, text your assistant, you know, keep track of things in Trello.

Joe Sanok 00:16:03  Share insights on social media. We're actually going to be doing a competition within our membership. It's not even a competition of we're going to, you know, give free tickets to the 2026 conference away for some of the best photos from the conference. So make sure you post in the group Practice Boss community. Make sure you post in the group practice launch community things that to you are just like awesome photos and things going on. After the event. We're going to implement 1 to 2 things immediately. So right away like what are the big takeaways? Schedule a debrief with your team. You're going to want to meet with them and say, here, let me just do a brain dump and keep the momentum going. you know, with AI tools, you can just, you know, kind of verbally just puke it all up and then, have it organize it for you. So all sorts of ways for ongoing support. a few other things to kind of wrap this up. And then I want to just talk a little bit about the schedule.

Joe Sanok 00:16:59  so we're going to recap a little here. So be intentional about the sessions and networking, set some clear goals and follow through and engage with the community after you know, if you haven't signed up yet, grab your spot over at practice of the practice conference. If you are attending. DM me on Instagram. Let me know what you're excited about. I'm so excited about this game changing experience, but let me just talk with you a little bit about a little more of just what we're talking about at the conference. So what what is the schedule we're looking at? I'm going to have to, go back from where I was and pull up this schedule. So, give me just a second here. doing this in real time, you know, thinking about. Oh, yeah, we should talk about the schedule. so I can jump into asana here, and we're going to look at that conference itinerary. So, on day one, kind of how we're looking at things. So most people are going to fly in on Monday.

Joe Sanok 00:17:59  that would be May 5th. and then, you know, kind of get dinner downtown Traverse City, you know, that sort of thing. 8 to 9 a.m. on the sixth is when we're going to have some coffee, some pastries, check in 9:00. We kick things off with a welcome for you to connect with other people, introducing some of the hosts and talking about, our ask give wall things like that. Then we're going to be talking about using AI for note taking without breaking HIPAA. so doing just amazing demonstration there. then we're going to be talking about developing a training clinic within your group practice. So Rebecca Babcock is going to be talking about that. We're gonna have a break from 1015 to 1030. Then we're going to have Andrew from our team talking about demystifying W-2s. Melissa Schneider, who has a seven figure practice. I think she has 60 clinicians now. She's going to be talking about taking insurance and a seven figure practice. And then after that, we're going to have some breakout sessions for you to go have some conversations.

Joe Sanok 00:19:00  So it may be that you go into nature, this is the place we're doing. It's right on a beautiful river. we have a staircase area, a lobby, and then breaking up into early group practice, larger group and seven figure practices, conversations during that time. so that's going to go all the way to lunch. So until noon, we're going to have a catered lunch and encourage you to, go to some of our birds of a feather tables. So, we're going to have different tables like, people that just want to share tips. like I'm hiring, I need some tips we're going to talk about, you know, at one table is going to be talking about psychedelic assisted therapy. Some are going to be talking about handling burnout and marketing. We're going to have an introvert table where you're just you're quiet. You're allowed to just sit there and be an introvert. We're going to take some time there. That's an hour and a half lunch. Daniel Arteaga is going to be talking about balancing the many hats of being a business owner starting at one 3155, we're going to have John David Gardner, who is an attorney in town, talking about mitigating risk and employment law.

Joe Sanok 00:19:58  And then Nicole Ball, one of our consultants, is talking about balancing personal life with boss life. And then we're going to be talking about the operations of your practice. we've got the EHR that's going to be helping with that. And then we have our closing session. and then we're going to have a quick break and then Full Tilt Improv. we're going to have the improv group that I'm in. I'm not going to be doing the improv. I've got my teammates coming. and they're going to be doing an improv set for us. So the next day on the, let's see, let me just go back and we're going to look at day two. Let me just go back to that, to just talk through day two. So day two we're going to same schedule 8 to 9 registration coffee meet people. welcome from me. 930 Wendy McFerrin is going to be talking about from chaos to clarity how to streamline administrative workflows through transformed. transformed. What transformed her practice? Jamie Mills is talking about dynamic marketing to ensure referrals never slow down.

Joe Sanok 00:21:00  then Dan King, I'm so excited about Dan. he's going to be talking about how to position your practice to sell. it's just going to be an awesome conversation. He and I have been talking. And then from 1050 until lunch at noon. we're going to have all sorts, sorts of different, conversation groups. we're going to have ones on AI selling your practice, some of those different areas that are kind of follow up from their talks. Again, we'll have lunch from 12 to 130. Having those birds of a feather tables with different kinds of things people might want to talk about. Ellen, one of our awesome consulting clients, Gagliardi, is going to be talking about looking ahead, positioning yourself for retirement. Jill Williams, then, is talking about building a thriving practice in a saturated market. Elizabeth Carr, who has a seven figure practice the blueprint for a lifestyle focused practice. and then we're going to be doing some kind of final connection activities, experiential things, and then doing some breakout sessions.

Joe Sanok 00:21:56  Lisa from our improv group is going to be is going to be talking about using improv in your practice. we're going to be doing the ask give wall. we're going to have a number of other things. And we're also most likely we have to still absolutely confirm it's Steve Turney from the Mental Health Marketing Conference, is probably going to be doing one of those closing sessions to then a ton of people are going to be sticking around Thursday. I know our whole practice, the practice team is going to be hanging out and going and doing some fun things on Thursday together. we would love for you to be doing things in town too. the go to place, when you aren't sure where to go. Little fleet is a place with food trucks and with a lot of space for beverages. We're going to hang out there. That's going to be our main hub for hanging out after hours. So if you are one of the speakers or one of the sponsors Tuesday night, I'm going to be hosting that VIP session that we're going to be doing our VIP dinner to just get to know each other a little bit more.

Joe Sanok 00:22:50  So, so many things that are going to be going on during the group practice boss conference. Just smacked the metal straw in my metal glass. If you heard that little ding a ling in the background. so, you know, putting this together has been amazing. This year we're doing it at The Alluvium, which is a new venue here in Traverse City. that a lot of jazz performers, our improv group, play at, that next year. Our dream is that, we have enough people to fill up over at the college. There's an auditorium there that seats, I think, 350 people. And then you can also rent out the art gallery. and so to me, having it in an art gallery and having it where Ted is actually filmed and done to me, that's our next step. So, if you aren't coming this year, that's that's fine. but next year is going to be even bigger. you want to grab your ticket over at practice of the practice for slash conference or get on that waitlist? depending on when we've launched our tickets.

Joe Sanok 00:23:44  So, this is, you know, going to be an amazing conference. Those of you that are listening and ready to come. Can't wait for you to just, come in person next week. And, those of you that are going to just be watching the videos or live streaming. if we got all that set up in time. so excited to have you there as well. You know, we are co-hosting this, with a number of great sponsors, and I just want to, just note, some of those sponsors because, describe, has been an amazing eye sponsor. they're one of our major sponsors. the other Jane is helping out, as one of our co-hosts as well and then practice the practice. But other sponsors that we have so describe I and all of these. You can see the links over at practice of the practice conference. And you can check out all of their their different things. We have practice solutions. They help with billing with training your billers. we have added mirror and mirror.

Joe Sanok 00:24:43  Is this really awesome? Just platform that helps you stay organized within your practice. It kind of brings together your EHR and everything into a dashboard in a way that it's just really, I haven't seen before. we've got just some great people that have helped out with this, and we would love for you to attend or, for you to watch the videos afterwards or come in 2026. So, thanks so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Have an amazing day and I will talk to you soon. We could not do the show without our partners and sessions. Seitz is our newest partner. They help you optimize your website. They help make your website designed for engagement. And even better, your site is going to be live in three weeks. So whether you haven't touched it in years or you're starting from scratch, they have an awesome deal going on. Just head on over to session sites again, that session sites. To get that website that you absolutely deserve. Thank you so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain.

Joe Sanok 00:25:54  Have a great day. I'll talk to you soon. Special thanks to the band. Silence is sexy for that intro music, and this podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the producers, the publishers or guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.