Joe Sanok 00:00:00 What are you doing? October 1st through third. I want to hang out with you just south of Nashville, Tennessee. Down in Franklin. I’m going to be key noting the Mental Health Marketing Conference, and I would love for you to be there. We are also sponsoring the clinical track, where there are going to be tons of amazing trainings, all for you in private practice. This is the national gathering for marketers and clinicians in mental and behavioral health. You’re not going to want to miss this awesome conference. It’s the one conference I’m keynote ING this year. And you can read more over at MH marketing. Org. Also, Steve over at Mental Health Marketing has given 25% off to any practice of the practice. Listeners that want to come to this, whether you’re coming in person or online, you’re going to want to use promo Code Joe at checkout to get 25% off. I would love for you to come in person for my closing keynote on Thursday, October 3rd at the Mental Health Marketing Conference. But if you can come online, that works as well. Joe Sanok 00:00:56 Can’t wait to hang out with you in Tennessee. Again, that’s MH marketing. Org and use promo code Joe at checkout to hang out with me October 1st through third, 2024. Speaker UU 00:01:16 This is the. Joe Sanok 00:01:17 Practice of the Practice podcast with Joe Sarna. Session number 1031. Welcome welcome, welcome. I’m so excited you are here hanging out with us today. we are here. We’re also streaming on Facebook. So if you’re on Facebook watching this, welcome. Glad you’re here. And then also over here I have my phone going. We’re streaming live on Instagram. So coming at you from all the angles. So three times the time with, Steve and Joe. So we’re going to be talking marketing today and, I’m so excited to be hanging out with my friend Steve. So let me tell you a little bit about myself, because maybe you don’t know who I am and you just registered because you saw an ad or something. We ran a bunch of ads, for this level up week. So I’m Joe Sarno, and I’m the founder of practice of the practice. Joe Sanok 00:02:11 I started practice of the practice, back in 2012. really? Because I was learning stuff about marketing and didn’t know where to put it. It didn’t seem appropriate to put it on mental wellness counseling, which was my counseling practice. Didn’t seem like it should be, somewhere else. So started practicing the practice and then really just started, interviewing people for the podcast. And it was all from that kind of user standpoint of like, I don’t know how to do SEO. I should talk to people that know how to do SEO and just documented that process. And over time, you know, a lot of you, you know, see me now as someone who knows a few things. So, do one on one consulting. We have a team of, I think five consultants now. and then. We have a team of about ten in South Africa that helps support therapists with everything from websites, social media marketing, video editing, podcasting, podcast management, even my neighbor, just in between these things, texted me and said, hey, we’re thinking about starting a podcast, can we get lunch? And so I think they’re going to do podcast launch school and audience building academy. Joe Sanok 00:03:13 So, it’s really cool to just see the development and growth over time. I’m also a single dad with a full physical custody of my kids. so we have a lot of fun. They just wrapped up a snowboarding lessons yesterday, so they both are identifying as snowboarders, which is awesome. I snowboarded until I was 20 and had a really bad fall and had to have back surgery, so I took about 20 years off of, anything on the slopes and then just started skiing again a couple of years ago. But no, I’m not going to, I, I was so tempted, Steve, the other day to, hit the there’s like the half pipe and all the rails and stuff. They do that in my skis and I’m just like, don’t do it, don’t do it. You are not a 19 year old anymore. Even when I was 19, I screwed up my back. So. So that’s me. I have a book coming out through Harvard Business Review in May. it’s going to be wherever you can get. Joe Sanok 00:04:03 It’s on work life balance. they’ve taken, I have one chapter in that. so you can get that in airports. it’s one of those books that they sell in the airport and all over the place. So that’s coming out with, Harvard Business Review in May. And I also wrote a book called Thursday’s The New Friday. So I help people build thriving practices they absolutely love. Let me tell you a little bit about Steve, and I’m going to let Steve fill in a little bit more. Steve Tierney, I am just so glad that I met Steve. Like, I don’t know how we did not overlap before, like a year ago. because as we talk, the way we view life, the way we view business, like we are cut from the same cloth. Steve owns and runs the Mental Health Marketing Conference, a three day experience for behavioral health marketers, executives and clinicians. that feeds the mind, fills the heart, and fuels creativity. he’s invited me to be one of the keynote speakers in October, so I’m going to be hanging out down there. Joe Sanok 00:04:55 So I’m really excited to hopefully meet a bunch of you in person when you come to Steve’s conference. a lot of my, kind of marketing friends go to this conference, but then a lot of the clinical friends, I’m like, how have I not gone to this conference before now? So the eighth annual mental Health Marketing conference is October 1st through third and Franklin, Tennessee, 20 minutes south of Nashville. Steve, I’m going to let you fill in the gaps, but probably the best hot dog and weirdest hot dog I ever had was actually in Nashville. It was like down this one really unique alley. And, it like, I’m going to turn off the slides right now. It was down this like, alley in like the kind of hipster cool part of town, and East Nashville. Steve Turney 00:05:36 Maybe, or. Joe Sanok 00:05:36 Yes. And it had sriracha and cream cheese on it. And I was just like, this is insane. so, Steve, what did I miss? in your bio, tell me a little bit of just, like, fun stuff about you, too. Steve Turney 00:05:48 Yeah. Nashville is where we have our business. and the food scene in Nashville the last 10 or 15 years has just elevated. you know, my story is. Yeah. Thank you. You covered. We covered a lot of it. You know, the big inflection point for me on my own kind of hero’s journey, I, turned 40 and I had been working for, healthcare marketing firms and software companies and, went to a monastery, on a silent retreat, came away with this idea or message of help people in need. that pretty quickly walked me into an LPC, to get some guidance. I thought I was under the guise of career guidance, but we ended up doing the hard yards that talk therapy can provide and coaching and really benefited me. It was like, kind of I was able to see things that I was blind to before. And then having coffee with a friend of mine, Austin, and, he had started and founded this conference, a number of years back. And, I got involved booking speakers and sponsors. Steve Turney 00:06:53 And now in our eighth year coming up in October, we’re just, framed up for our, our best conference, which is, you know, the, the result of continuing continuing to invest in the community and give and make mistakes and learn from those mistakes and continue forward with grit and a lot of support from other people. So, yeah, I’m stoked to be here. Jo. It’s great to to see you on camera and, and all these people signed up to. It’s exciting. Joe Sanok 00:07:23 Yeah, I think we had 143 people sign up, so we already have 43 people hanging out with this live, and that doesn’t count. We’re also streaming to Facebook and, streaming to the Instagram. so I got a bunch of cameras going. So if you want to see the back of my head and this, go check out the Instagram Live going on as well. If you’ve been to the Mental Health Marketing Conference, I would love for you to put that in the chat. Like what was your experience? What were speakers that you liked? because, you know, I know a bunch of you have and, you know, shout out like what you do, like, are you a marketing professional or are you a person that was there clinically? I know that that’s what I think is so cool about the conference is that it’s not just therapists. Joe Sanok 00:08:02 It’s also like, you know, a lot of our sponsors go to it or things like that that support therapists. So it’s a really cool kind of thing. Well, let’s let’s jump in right in. The way this is going to go is I’m going to just interview Steve, ask him questions for probably ten minutes or so. Then I’m going to open it up to you to ask your specific questions around marketing. If you have something that is just like a quick question, just drop that in the chat. if you want to do a little bit of back and forth and we have a larger group, just do just virtually raise your hand. so there’s a little button that you can raise your hand. that lets us know that you’re going to come on camera, you’re going to unmute yourself, and you’re going to just ask Steve a question about marketing. We’ll pull you in, with a spotlight. So, if you have a question, again, just put that in the chat. If you think you want a little bit of back and forth, some laser coaching, or how do you think through this, Steve, where you might have a follow up question or two? just virtually raise your hand as well. Joe Sanok 00:08:54 So we always run out of time because people are slow at the beginning. So get those questions in early. If you if you have a question and want to want to pick Steve’s brain. So Steve, when it comes to marketing, especially because you’re running this conference and doing all these things, you definitely have the pulse of how things have changed now post-pandemic. how would you say the last, you know, four years have shifted in regards because you this was going on before the pandemic. You guys weathered that storm and now you’re rocking it out again. marketing for private practice owners. Like what’s shifted? What should they change? How should they think differently than maybe they used to? Steve Turney 00:09:32 Yeah, that’s a great question and a big question. So I’ll tackle it. I think that, you know, we’re always trying to track these tidal waves of change. And I think one thing that’s happening, is that we’re starting to see, referrals, that were, like, extremely busy and extremely high, maybe start to curtail a little bit. Steve Turney 00:09:55 maybe it’s just at the margin. Be really curious what people are saying because there are still access challenges, as we know. There’s a there is sort of a population bottleneck, bottleneck between 35 and 55, which is the perfect age for a clinician, a doctor, a talk therapist. And that group has been carrying a heavy load for a very aware Gen Z and beyond population that are hungry for mental health. So, there is some there is a bright spot in terms of how the macro demographics are waving through, as you know, as, sort of the baby boomers sunset. And then we get a new wave of, of, clinicians in the door, which is going to be great. But also we’re seeing quite a wave of new and different ways to think about talk therapy and care, outside the 60 minute, you know, 50 minute sessions. So the talk therapist is is been historically the the one hour session once a week. And I think like a lot of things that’s getting really fractured, that’s getting broken up. Steve Turney 00:11:04 And to be thinking about it in different ways, partly for the access challenges that we’re, we’re, we’re struggling through, you know, we see tech companies, we see franchise models, we see apps, we see lots of different things coming in to try to solve for care. And so I think, you know, I’m not a clinician, so I love to talk with clinicians. I love to talk with executive directors of group practices. So I’d be I’d be open and curious to what you’re all perspectives is. But that’s some of what we’re seeing at the macro level. So to answer the question now, you know, what we’re seeing is that there is more hunger for marketing than ever. you know, you see these big waves coming. You can’t do anything except try to ride them. So positioning your brand and your practice in an ever competitive marketplace where there are, organizations at scale trying to eat your lunch. And there are, you know, there’s a bunch of competition, basically. And it’s not always the traditional competition. Steve Turney 00:12:10 You can see in addition to, you know, we’re kind of getting through, you know, with Mental Health Awareness Month, you know, just a few weeks away. It’s like we we’re kind of beyond mental health awareness, like people people are talking about it on all the universities, in schools everywhere. So we’re kind of we’ve kind of unearthed that demand. And now it’s about how do you capture it based on what your business model is. Joe Sanok 00:12:35 Now we have people that are just starting a counseling practice all the way up through mega group practice owners. It sounds like we also have some marketing professionals that are here. What are some of just the things that are kind of the basics, the bedrocks of good marketing in a therapy practice. Yeah. Steve Turney 00:12:53 So there are there the tools and the tactics. I’d say there’s, there’s an abundance of opportunity right now if you’re just starting your practice or if you’re trying to reinvent your practice or your business model, there’s so much opportunity. And I would say there are more than one way, there’s so many more, so many ways up the mountain is the way to say that, I guess. Steve Turney 00:13:18 so there’s not like there’s no one silver bullet where I can say, well, should I have my Psychology Today profile or not? And that apply to everybody? Certainly we can ask and answer those questions as we go along. But when it comes to the bedrock of marketing, the biggest, the biggest thing to know is that marketing is not promotion. So promotion is one of the four PS of marketing, right? So you have and but but when we say marketing we think advertising and PR and those like social media. What should I do? TikTok. Well okay that’s important but marketing is is your price. You know. And there’s been fascinating studies on on pricing psychology, where you do it, you know, your place. you know, the products that you’re offering. What what are the disciplines and modalities? what is your expertise? What do you do best for other people? And then promotion. So those are the four P’s. So I’d encourage us as marketers to, take a step back from promotion and think about strategy. Steve Turney 00:14:27 So it all flows from your business strategy. So what’s a strategy? It’s a it’s a path that you are on to a position of advantage or victory. You know, it’s how can we get you up this mountain to win. That’s what you want to do. And winning is anything you want it to be. It could be running a sustainably, basically pro bono business that’s supported by side hustles. That could be your win or you could be interested in freedom. So we really have to kind of like go upstream and and be thinking about what’s your business strategy, how can it flow into your marketing strategy. And then then we can get into like branding. And you know why it’s important to have a strong, trusted brand, which is, you know, we can ask the question, what’s a brand? You know, a brand is this promise that you’re making out there to people who have interacted with you but maybe aren’t your customers, or maybe they are your clients or patients? and the brand, every time they see the brand, they think, that is that is what that therapist has promised that I’ll experience when I go there. Steve Turney 00:15:37 And those things could be a high quality, safe space, you know, you know, affordable rates or whatever it is that you, differentiate yourself on. And then we can get into marketing. But there are also some, some real pillars around, regardless of the channel. There are some things that you can do. And I told Joe ahead of time, I’ve been studying this book by Robert, Doctor Robert Cialdini called influence, and I would say marketing. I’m trying to I’m trying to refine this definition, but marketing is basically this polite battle for awareness and influence, right? I mean, that’s unfortunately, unfortunately, what we’re doing in marketing is we are sending out our messages into a crowded marketplace, and we’re hoping to influence people who are out there to choose our service or become aware of us. And Doctor Cialdini has, six basically pillars, of how to drive, you know, influential engagements. And he studies the Milgram experiment and all sorts of things from, it’s fascinating. but the the first thing he talks a lot about is reciprocity. Steve Turney 00:16:53 So, this is why in my marketing and in marketing that I see done well at practices is that you’re giving generously and you are giving something of value. It could be entertaining, it could be educational. it has to have value, and it has to be something that you can give away before you expect something to return to you. And when you give and you give first, or you know, if you study Gary Vaynerchuk, you know his his jab, jab, jab. You know, it’s like give, give, give. we’re we’re naturally hardwired to reciprocate. so, you know, we see this in any number of ways. We see this in the, the donations that, you know, we receive these things in the mail and, and Cialdini did this, study or read this study of how when that piece of mail that’s asking for your money also includes some free self-addressed stamps for your envelope, that donations went up something wild, like 60%. So there’s lots of ways to do this ethically, but it’s just important to know that this is how we’re wired. Steve Turney 00:18:07 And he’s got these other great pillars in there. So again, when you’re thinking about marketing, yes, we can get myopic about channels and tactics. And there’s also this layer that I think is important to talk about here today. First, because that can set the tone for almost anything you do down downstream. Joe Sanok 00:18:27 So awesome. We’re going to bring Alexis up Alexis raised their hand, and, let me just add you to the spotlight. Hey, Alexis. Welcome. what’s your question for Steve? Speaker 3 00:18:41 So I had a question. I’m a psychologist in New York and a group practice owner. I’ve been in practice for about 12, 13 years. and been a group practice owner for a good portion of that, like a lot of us. And like you alluded to earlier on, we’ve definitely seen a slowdown in our referrals recently. I’m curious if you have an opinion. We are a very niche practice. We’re eating disorder specialist. That’s kind of what all the therapists at our practice do. Our website is very centered around that. Speaker 3 00:19:10 All of our marketing is centered around that. And I was actually wondering if that is becoming a disadvantage in a way, in terms of, you know, should we be expanding more because sometimes we see a referral, we also do more general work, and sometimes I see a referral come in. but then I think that when people look at our website, if they’re not struggling with an eating disorder, they’re like, well, this isn’t what this you know, that this isn’t the right practice for me. so I was wondering what your opinion is in 2024. You know, when I first started my practice, it was all about, you know, niche down, niche down, niche down. how that’s holding kind of the test of time in 2024. And if there’s a benefit in trying to, you know, kind of expand a little bit more. Steve Turney 00:19:56 Yeah, I mean, I, I feel that, thank you for the question. It’s a great question. And I don’t I can’t say I have all the answers for you, but I would say, I still believe in the tenet of picking which get rich regardless of, environment and the genius of the and comes in and says, yes. Steve Turney 00:20:18 And, you know, if we’re talking about marketing from your product mix and you feel like you’ve identified need out there in the marketplace, and you can say, I can fill that need with with excellent clinical care. you know, there’s nothing there’s nothing wrong with exploring that. but I would say if I were in your shoes before I did that, I would, I would look at my marketing and let’s use this as an exercise here, since this is a marketing sort of conversation. you know, the four P’s are important. The product mix. Let’s let’s leave that for a minute. But your marketing, you know, I would say is tell me a little bit more, actually. Let’s have a discussion. Tell me a little bit more about your marketing. You mentioned the website, but sort of where are you getting traction from your marketing and what are you trying or what are you committed to when it comes to the the channels or your messaging or your advertising? Just generally. Speaker 3 00:21:18 Yeah. So I mean, we have a website, we do Google ads. Speaker 3 00:21:22 I have an Instagram account with, with a pretty large following that doesn’t seem to translate at all to people wanting to pay me for services in any way. and we have a Psychology Today profiles for several of the therapists, which also has been very quiet, and we haven’t gotten much traction through them either recently. Speaker 4 00:21:44 Okay. Speaker 3 00:21:44 And then of course like and then the community you know our local word of mouth kind of referrals. Steve Turney 00:21:50 Yeah. Local word of mouth which is always going to be powerful. so I think there’s some opportunities here with your marketing. Yeah Instagram is a it’s an interesting place. It’s a funny place. And most social media drives awareness to a high degree without necessarily providing like a through path down your funnel. Let’s call it down to engagement and conversion. You know, people buying things. So I look to I look at that as plumbing and see if there are opportunities for, being very specific about a call to action. and that could be a call to action from Instagram to your email list, for example. Steve Turney 00:22:37 And we all saw just last week such a great reminder that we are all on leased land when it comes to Instagram and other social media channels. They can change the rules, they can go down and and what are we left with? So I think I would look at, what are those? Real specific, CTAs, those calls to action, whether it’s in your paid ads or, from your social media content to maybe it’s 20% at a time. It’s a very specific, reiterated request to join our list or something. That’s that just that next level of engagement toward you owning the audience. and that can be something that’s extremely consistent. And actually consistency and repetition, is the preferred method there. So you don’t always have to go out and think, I need to create some new campaign. It just needs to be, maybe this is a little bit of a fresh way to say something that I’ve said last week in a slightly new way. but we benefit from, you know, sort of that mirror exposure effect of these are the things we’ve seen over and over and over again. Steve Turney 00:23:50 And that’s what our brains take in order to kind of develop that trust. the next thing I would do is I would I would look at your website, sort of the front door and see if, see if your visitors can see and identify themselves as the hero in this journey. Or if your company is kind of coming off as the hero. and I think it’s definitely the former would be preferred. So when these folks hit your website and they hit your marketing, can they can they see themselves and they can say, yes, I am on that journey and this, this eating disorder business or, counselor or therapist is the Yoda that I need to move forward. Right? So sometimes we have a and I can’t say this is your website or not, but I’m saying generally this is a problem, consistently in marketing that we see is that we build these websites and we are focused on authority and we’re focused on, telling what we do, and we don’t look at it from another person’s shoes. And so that’s an exercise that maybe you’ve excelled at. Steve Turney 00:25:03 Maybe you’ve done that already. And then the other thing I didn’t hear was Facebook, which is personally. Personally, as an aside, I don’t love the Facebook experience myself. it’s like a lot of conversations with robots, but there’s also these really powerful groups, and that’s sort of the thing I would maybe look at because, versus Instagram, you know, Facebook has 3 billion followers. I think, you know, Instagram is part of Facebook. So it certainly could benefit from that two way street. but Facebook is still like that first mover. And, it is an opportunity to have conversations and you can have sort of semi-closed door or walled garden conversations where that’s a little bit harder to do in Instagram is build community. And I think community and conversation is is something that you could potentially drive for if you if you’re not already and maybe you are. I’m kind of making some guesses at this point. Speaker 3 00:26:05 No, I’m not really. Joe Sanok 00:26:07 You know, some things that brought up for me is just, you know, even just the idea of on your website. Joe Sanok 00:26:11 So if you’re primarily eating disorders, like what goes along with that naturally, you know, I think lots of phase of life transitions, anxiety, depression, personality disorders, there’s all sorts of things that could be ancillary. when we first did our tagline for mental wellness counseling, it was we help angry kids, frustrated parents, and distant couples dot dot dot in just about everyone else. So we’ve put a spotlight on who you’re helping. and then I think in group practice, you know, that idea of am I going to niche as a practice or am I going to have individuals that have their superpowers? And it may be if you’re seeing that you want referrals or you see potential, you have someone that you kind of spotlight, as, you know, the person that’s an expert in anxiety plus eating disorders. And so you’re not diminishing what you’re doing, but you’re adding on and saying, yeah, if you’re dealing with this from an anxious point of view, or if you’re dealing with from a depressed point of view or from a phase of life, you’re getting divorced right now. Joe Sanok 00:27:03 Like we’ve got the therapist that does eating disorders plus life transitions. Yeah. Steve, I love that you pointed to like what’s coming up over and over and not having to like create new content I think with email lists or creating content that’s sometimes such a just big question. And in the previous one, actually, there was a person who had a couples therapy practice, and we just went on Google and put like, why does my husband and then look at like what came up and it was like, why does my husband yell at me? Why does my husband not listen to me? Why does my husband fart? Why does my husband like all these ideas that now that person had all these ideas of content they could create and, you know, it’s stuff that you could just riff on pretty easily as a clinician. Alexis, thanks for that question. That’s awesome. Really appreciate you being the first spotlight that we brought up here. Whatever stage your practice is at, we know using great resources with patients is crucial to helping them get better faster. Joe Sanok 00:28:08 As a practice owner, I never compromised on this, but finding the right materials was a constant challenge. It’s so time consuming, especially with everything else to juggle. That’s why I recommend Psychology Tools, an online library of over 500 evidence based resources for whatever problems your clients are facing. Choose practical exercises, handouts and worksheets, audio therapy, treatment manuals, and loads more. They’re even available in multiple languages and formats developed by highly qualified psychologists. Resources can be downloaded with therapist guidance to enhance skills or client guidance, helping patients make the most of each tool. It’s a game changer for saving time when delivering more effective therapy, as well as a great resource. Library Psychology Tools is also a smart business tool, boosting productivity and efficiency. Focus on growing your practice while your team feels better prepared for every session. It’s a win win for you and for me and for the client. Visit Psychology tools.com/joe to find out more. Use code Joe 24 for 20% off new subscriptions. Again that psychology tools. Com slash Joe to find out more. Joe Sanok 00:29:28 I’m going to jump into the chat to just see if we have some questions. just yeah, some people ask about the four P’s, and then they were supporting by putting it in there. there is a question, here from Bernie and Bernie. I did send through, a resource for our IT team. but I opened my own practice in August and realized that my website isn’t working for me directly. Directories have worked well, but my website isn’t driving sales. Do you have any tips that might help my website? Thinking about uploading videos, but I’m not video confident. Such a great and vulnerable like to say like I’m not video confident. Like to say that publicly. Like hopefully we can help shift that a little bit. And Bernie, if you do want to come on camera, go ahead and raise your hand and we’re happy to dig in a little bit more. If you have more. To that question about your website, I’m sure that Steve could dig in a little bit more, but if you aren’t in a place that you can come on camera, that’s fine too. Joe Sanok 00:30:20 Steve, what comes to mind for you, in regards to Bernie’s website? Steve Turney 00:30:25 Yeah. So, the website is the front door of your practice nowadays. and it’s important to get right. there’s certainly some things that you could argue about with a search engine optimist specialist. Such as, they might prefer your website is built on WordPress, although that can be a little bit more complicated to use for somebody like me. Or perhaps you, versus, like Squarespace, which does a good job of, SEO and a great job of making it easy to design beautiful things. but, you know, a door that nobody can find is pretty worthless. So I think, when I’m looking at a website, I look at, Aristotle’s, sort of model of persuasion, and there’s three, three arms to this triangle. I’ve talked about this before, but it’s important because there’s, there’s logos, you know, it’s like your, your logic, you know, the, the quantifiable outcomes or the things that you can point to, the research that you’ve done, you can point to, ethos or ethos, which is, sort of your credibility, those letters after your name, those kinds of things, therapists and practices do those things really well, you know. Steve Turney 00:31:49 but then we’re trained to stay out of the room, and I’m not in that statement, but therapists are trained to stay out of the room, and, and and pathos is where I would say the emotion and the humanity really need to come through. So we partnered with a company, Beacon Media and Marketing, on a state of mental health marketing 2024. We they interviewed more than 170 clinicians and and practice owners, and more than 60% were exploring video this year. and to say you’re not video confident like admitting it is the first step. Good for you. It’s not easy. You know, I started a podcast last year. I was so nervous to get on camera and, and at the same time that we are in this river that is rushing toward video as a more efficient way to communicate, like if you had tried to read this transcript right now, you would put it down a long time ago because it would take you so much longer to process my body language. my tone and the words along with the dialogue. Steve Turney 00:32:59 And who’s saying what. So video is sort of an inevitability. And, you know, if you’re like me, if you’re sort of an introvert, you know, that’s that’s uncomfortable. We don’t love our voices. We don’t love maybe how we look on camera. All those things are about us. Right? So the best thing I would say is, there are coaches and experts out there that you can work with, and that’s probably money well spent. And then also remember that most people are not thinking about you. Most people are thinking about themselves and you as the subject that they’re interacting with. So the same way that I’m thinking about myself right now, Joe is probably thinking about himself and what needs to be said to put on a show that’s as valuable as this one. you’re thinking about yourself, Bernie, and so don’t don’t put too much pressure on yourself because there’s a great book. it’s called, it’s called human to human, I think. Or. No, it’s called there is no B2B or B2C. Steve Turney 00:34:00 It’s h to H, which is human to human, and it’s by Brian Cramer. I’d recommend it. And he says great brands are three things. They are simple. they are empathetic, and they are imperfect. And so your imperfection is your gift because it taps into. And this is why I talked about this, to bring it full circle. This is why you on video on your website, is that pathos that is missing from a clinically rigorous letters after the name approach? then I would get into distribution. So just because you designed a website, you need to make sure people can find it. And that means being proactive with, you know, if you need some quick hit results. Yeah, sure. Maybe some some paid some social media, some paid search engine marketing results. Google ads spend those kinds of things and then to play the long game, you know, some maybe some content, long form content of value, some lead magnets that are out there in the world that you’re offering from a search engine optimization standpoint. Steve Turney 00:35:11 so those are some things to do to help that, you know, that door to your practice be found in this wild online world that I would explore. Joe Sanok 00:35:19 Such a great answer. Oh my gosh. we’re going to go through, just some quick hit questions here. and then in a second we’re going to go to Brandon, who raised his hand. so besides Psychology Today, are there other directories that you think are worth the money? Steve Turney 00:35:37 So I know there are. Yeah, there’s, like, I was just looking at, like, a top five list, the other day. And, certainly Psychology Today is, is number one. I was looking at their site traffic, and it’s healthy. And I like the way they rotate your profile through. I think I think about 2 or 3% of the time your profile comes up in the top. so it’s it’s really good defense. What I would do is, this is one of those there’s no there’s no single answer. But this is what I would do is I would make sure you know the lifetime value of your customer. Steve Turney 00:36:13 So let’s say that’s, you know, let’s say on average, you know, somebody who comes to see you spends $2,000 over the lifetime of their engagement with you, and then it becomes, okay, maybe my marketing budget is, let’s call it 8 to 12% of my revenue. what is the what is how good of a guess is it to test out another, you know, directory and what’s the potential benefit and then how this is the most important part for these experiments because this is all an experiment, right? I mean there’s no there’s so many ways towards success and marketing success that what you need to do is be rigorous about the experiments you try. So, you know, that could be in your intake form or an early conversation. you could say, did you learn about me or did you check out my profile on Psychology Today or X, y, z others, you know, and, and then watch the data that comes in over a significant period of time, you know, with a statistically relevant number of people to say, yeah, I’ve probably I’ve probably either landed or influenced X number of deals based on that, referral stream or that directory. Steve Turney 00:37:29 And so then you can make the, the tough opportunity, you know, cost analysis to say, should I continue this experiment or should I try something else. So I can’t tell you based on your market, you know, if other directories are worth the time or your dollar. But that’s how you can, in sort of a scientific way, I think, get to the bottom of that answer for very low skin in the game. Joe Sanok 00:37:57 Yeah, I love that. I do love having those analytics. Like we’ve been testing CTV ads through like Hulu and a lot of things like that. And, working with Tele Wellness Hub to help us with some of those things. And it’s just it’s great because you can target the exact, you know, income, the exact like lifestyle choices. And, you know, then that commercial is played for it could be as little as 50 people a month, you know. And but just to be able to say, okay, I have this budget, I’m going to run some TV commercials that play on Amazon Prime or Hulu or even now Netflix has a commercial based, you know, one. Joe Sanok 00:38:29 So what marketing companies can you recommend are the ones that you refer to, or are there ones that are connected with the conference that you know, like I repeat, customers or they like, who do you like? Steve Turney 00:38:40 Yeah. Oh man. That’s a that’s a great question. And it’s a little bit loaded because, they play favorites. Yeah. Play favorites. so yeah, I’ll answer that. I will answer that question. first I would say that, in my own personal life, I’ve benefited so much from talk therapy and the expertise that comes along with that. And part of the reason I run this mental health conference is that, that clinicians need to get better about their marketing, the same way that marketers need to get better about the nuances of the language of mental health and, and, and helping companies compete. So I would say as soon as you can, it’s worthwhile to find expertise and, expertise in the marketing and the marketing realm are oftentimes agencies or freelancers that can do it at the right price. Steve Turney 00:39:35 It doesn’t have to be some huge retainer. It could just be five hours a week for social media support. You know, at the right dollar per hour work could be the thing that relieves you to do more of your best and highest work. So I can say that, in no particular order. you know, I think companies that are doing an excellent job with, with marketing for behavioral health companies, which I would from anything from talk therapy to sud addiction treatment, everything in between, would be Beacon Media and marketing. I mentioned they’ve been great partners of the the conference, but regardless, they’ve had some of those premier mental health clients that you would know by name. you know, Design Room in Ohio does an amazing job with branding and helping you stand out from the crowd. I think Berge and co marketing, came to my conference and met a client there. That is just a match made in heaven. It’s just a just an absolute happy marriage and they do a great job. I think. Steve Turney 00:40:42 Cardinal Digital marketing, on the digital marketing side of things and HIPPA compliance, you know, which is becoming more and more relevant all the time. And you should not overlook it, especially as you get large enough for the government to be interested in what you do. you know, Dreamscape marketing does an excellent job. They’ve been purchased by a company called Unlock Health, which is doing a really exciting, martech or marketing technology, and managed care roll up of companies. let’s see, I’m, Antic edge is out of Chicago, a consultancy that, has some behavioral health experience and some experience outside behavioral health, which I think is really important. So, yeah, if you want to come to the conference and meet some of those agencies, they’re their long time supporters. And, and we’re grateful to have them. And that’s how I know, you know, the work they do is because they come back, they win new clients, and the clients come back and they’re happy. So that’s how I can tell. Steve Turney 00:41:44 Yeah. Joe Sanok 00:41:45 Brandon, let’s bring you on to camera. thanks for raising your hand and being patient. let’s add your spotlight. There you are. Speaker 4 00:41:54 Welcome. yeah. Thanks. Thanks for putting this together, guys. so nice to finally meet you, Steve. Obviously, when you work for a while. I see. Steve Turney 00:42:03 You on LinkedIn a thousand times, and now here in person. That’s awesome. Speaker 4 00:42:07 I always liking your posts. So, my question is, you know, when it comes to mental health using testimonials and case studies are kind of like a they’re I would say they’re kind of a gray zone. You know, obviously in marketing they’re very important, super helpful for getting people, comfortable booking a service with you no matter what service you offer. but of course, with mental health, there’s privacy, HIPAA and ethical concerns. So what are some ideas for how we could still get the benefit, or any like ethical workarounds for using testimonials and case studies, that any therapist can use? Steve Turney 00:42:45 Yeah, man, that’s a great question. Steve Turney 00:42:47 And, in terms of, you know, social proof, you know, in, Robert Cialdini book influence, he talks a lot about social proof, and that’s the one that I’d be very careful of. So in any, in any relationship, in any engagement on my email marketing list. the thing I default to first and foremost is an opt in, a clear and sometimes the double opt in or permission to say only you are in control of your story. Is that a short story that you want to share, without coercion? And, and then I would probably include some checks down the road to make sure that that person is still comfortable sharing that story and, give them clear communication back to you regardless of the time frame, that this is a story they want to have polled and that it can be pulled. So, you know, once something’s online, it’s online. So that’s something that I would I would say there’s probably and maybe this is something we can crowdsource because, I would I want to be careful about giving advice beyond that. Steve Turney 00:44:00 But I do believe there are probably some really creative ways to tell a a hero story. I don’t know if anybody follows Donald Miller Story Brand here, but it’s basically, you know, a character with a problem meets a guru or a Yoda or a guide, and the guide gives them the plan to, their future state of either, success, you know, or tragedy, you know, and in that case, it’s sort of maybe not tragedy, but consequence. You know, if you don’t do this, then what? Rather than if you do follow this plan and you work the plan, I told you, I give you during this work together with me, then you can accomplish success. So I think there’s ways to do that anonymously that tell that story. But I’d be really that’s something I was actually wrestling with and wanted to talk about. Joe Sanok 00:44:52 You know, one way we did it at Mental Wellness Counseling is we do our annual survey where we ask lots of questions so we would get data. And to me, the most important question was, would you recommend a friend or family member to work with your therapist? And, you know, for years, you know, until I sold the practice, we had 100% of our clients said I would refer a friend or family member to work with my therapist so that just that data to me was sort of like a testimonial. Joe Sanok 00:45:18 but then we also had a section for are there any comments that you would like to share that don’t reveal anything about you? and, you know, to the therapist or to the owner. And then we had a final question was, are you okay with us anonymously using parts of your comments in in advertising now, you always want to talk to your own attorney, look at your own code of ethics, your own states, to just make sure that every single line item is followed. But that was one way that we got some a handful of clients stuff where they’d say, Steve was an amazing therapist. He changed our family. You can absolutely put that on the website or something like that, where it wasn’t us kind of pushing into it, but we’d love to see in the chat. Also, if there’s other people that have ideas. Brandon, that’s such a great question. Really appreciate that. We got a bunch more questions to care through. Steve, I’m not sure if we’re gonna be able to get through all of them. Joe Sanok 00:46:03 but let’s, you know, maybe take 3 to 5 sentences to do your best to dig into. And if we, I’ll just read them and then you you just go wild. Yeah. first one is, I’d really like to have blogs, worksheets, short content on socials and video all be linked by one click on one medium and speak to our ideal clients in a seamless way to create a brand integrity. Is there any merit to think of marketing in this way? Steve Turney 00:46:29 Say that again. Read that again. Joe Sanok 00:46:31 So a bunch of content all linked in one way, to create brand integrity. Like, I think what I’m hearing is how much does this need to all point to 1.1 place? Steve Turney 00:46:44 Okay. I need to know more about that. But what I can tell you about that question is, I would say it’d be important to go through a brand standards exercise where everything is, sort of unified under a single look and a voice in terms of where it lives. That’d be easy, probably to solve on your website and have a have a catchall where it’s like our content, all of our learning hub, our university, whatever you want to call it, a way to flow back as long as there’s a call to action from there into what’s next, which is always the point is this thing gets you to the next thing. Steve Turney 00:47:24 So brand integrity. I think you’re asking about, making sure your brand is consistent. And that’s where a good marketing strategist followed by a graphic designer can really help out. Joe Sanok 00:47:38 The only thing I’d add to that is just the idea that there are different types of ideal clients you have, and so unless you only have one, there may be times that you want to send them to not just that one place to like a landing page or specific resource. Yeah. Next question. As a young practice, it’s overwhelming to identify a budget for marketing and knowing a big chunk of it will fail. How do you determine a minimum budget towards, say, a three person practice? And what percentage of ROI should I realistically expect? Also, if I must allocate it to one marketing channel, what is the best your recommendation with your experience? Steve Turney 00:48:15 yeah. Like I said 8 to 12%. It can be as wide as 7 to 15% of your marketing should be allocated. you need to 99 times out of 100, you know, carve profitability into what you’re doing. Steve Turney 00:48:29 So take a look at your revenue minus profitability. Those are your expenses. Most people do. you know, revenue minus expenses is what’s left over as your profit. So, just think about your business as sustainable. Meaning we want you to do it next year in a way that, you know, feeds your family and everything you’re doing. the single best channel is the one that works for you. There is no single best channel. I think there are some top contenders. You know, I think you could say, Oh, it’s just I’m not even going to answer that question, really, because it’s impossible to say. but that takes, you only. Yeah. You only. I do like your thought. There is you only need a couple traction points. You know, you don’t need to have ten channels, social media channels and all sorts of strategies. Reduction is typically healthy and almost all things like pruning drives growth. You know, more than anything. And having a system to it, you know, having more of an orchard than a forest is usually beneficial. Steve Turney 00:49:36 So being rigorous about what you’re saying no to is probably more important. I would say, what can I say no to? And still, you know, drive results and start to prune. You know, strength is strength is often a byproduct of what you eat. you know, so what are you consuming and what are you staying away from? It’s the same in marketing. What would you add, Joe? That’s. Joe Sanok 00:50:01 Yeah. I think it’s so dependent on who your target market is. I do think that, like, we’re putting a lot into learning about TikTok because I just read recently that it’s used, it outranks Google as a search engine now. and to see over the last couple of years how it’s gone from just like, you know, college students dancing to like, you know, CNN is on there and it’s like legitimate micro content. So we are exploring that. I do think that, any experiments, you know, to do a, B testing where you’re putting, you know, equal amount of time and money into two different things, really making sure you’re tracking outcomes. Joe Sanok 00:50:37 And then whichever one wins, just do that again with the next one and just keep running, you know, experiment after experiment to figure out what works best for your audience. And that’s where just a lot of people tend not to have good systems to even know where people come. You know, they they run a Google ad and they send them right to their regular contact us page, rather than just duplicating that page, you know, and making sure that it comes in on the form as like Google ad referral, like your assistant can see that no one else needs to see it. And so I think that just those little things of like, how are you tracking what’s working? I mean, so many people just aren’t doing any of that. We have time for one more question. there’s plenty of visibility out there for large online therapy companies like BetterHelp, Talkspace, etc. most therapists gripe about how these companies have flooded the industry and exploited mental health labor. Are there ways for private practitioners or group practices to position themselves in the marketplace, to take advantage of the visibility of these companies, bring to the field and speak to the deficits of these digital models? Steve Turney 00:51:38 That’s a loaded question. Steve Turney 00:51:39 And it’s a really it’s a really good question. I would say, the best thing you can do there is, not focus on them, but focus on the long game of running your business ethically, the way it should be run. And you can definitely, and you should promote that. We take great care of people. I’ve been doing this 20 years. you know, my average client engagement is four times longer than the industry average. There’s lots of ways you can quantify it. but I would not focus on, companies that are doing it some way that may seem not, up to par or is shady, you know, focus on what you do best and, and that tends to come out in the wash. I know what you’re saying. And there are problems that we need to solve. And, and I do want to see therapists and clinicians be cared for as we solve for scale, because unlike social media, you can’t move fast and break things. In that case, you’re moving fast and breaking people, and we can’t do that. Steve Turney 00:52:52 That’s the difference between us and Silicon Valley tech startups, right? So, with that being said, don’t get distracted by the others, you know, build your core and build out from the margin. rather than rather than kind of that approach. Joe Sanok 00:53:09 So good. Steve, I’m going to give you the last word in a sentence or two. What should mental health clinicians focus on? Think about when it comes to marketing. Like what’s the the big here should be your mantra. Steve Turney 00:53:23 Yeah. You should know yourself as as deeply as you can about the deep desires that you have and you want. And that includes your bright side and your dark side, and as far out as you can think, like, think 90 year old you. This is what I want. And so build back from there where you are planting the acorns. Now that will give you the oak trees later, so to speak. And if you don’t want oak trees, you want a yacht, then great, I do that. but the farther out that you can defer your, yourself and your wants and, invest in yourself. Steve Turney 00:54:03 the best thing you can do is, is time in the game, doing the things you love. And, and that’s what I would suggest for everybody to think about. Joe Sanok 00:54:12 So awesome. It’s always a pleasure to have you a part of Level Up Week on the podcast. I can’t wait to finally hang out with you in person in October. if people want to register for the Mental Health Marketing conference in October when we’re hanging out, what’s the best way for them to get on your email list or to just make sure they’re up to date on that? Steve Turney 00:54:31 Yeah. Thank you. So we have a website. It’s M as in mental H as in health marketing.org. Org so MH marketing org. We’re about to launch a new website, but the one we have right now is great. And you can get tickets. our speaker form closes March 31st, so you have 20 more days to fill out something if you want to be considered as a speaker. our sponsors information is there as well. And then we have our, email, which goes out every other week. Steve Turney 00:55:00 We feel like it’s a good cadence for us. It’s a ton of value. It’s called the hype. So you can sign up for our email there and then follow us on LinkedIn. You can just search Mental Health Marketing Conference and you can follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram. Joe Sanok 00:55:15 Awesome. We could not do this show without our sponsors. And today’s sponsor is Psychology Tools. It is what I wish I had when I was in practice. There were times when I just wanted to have resources, checklists, things that could be helpful for my clients to do between sessions. And I would look around the internet and just find different things. But Psychology Tools has a resource library that’s going to help you with whatever problems your clients are facing. Highly qualified psychologists put together these resources just for you to enhance skills and guide your clients better. Visit psychology tools. Com forward slash job. To find out more, use code Joe 24 for 20% off new subscriptions again that psychology tools. Com slash Joe to find out more. Joe Sanok 00:56:11 Thank you for letting us into your ears and into your brain today. Have a great day. 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.