• Visit DonaldThompson.com and connect with him on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Books mentioned in this episode:

Donald Thompson – Underestimated: A CEO’s Unlikely Path to Success

Joe Sanok 00:00:00  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. Com forward slash Joe. Again that session sites.com/joe get the website of your dreams today. Session sites. Com forward slash Joe. This is the practice of the practice podcast with Joe Santos. Session number 163. I'm Joe Stanek, your host, and welcome to the practice of the Practice Podcast, where we help you build a thriving private practice that you absolutely love. We love doing this show because it's what I wish I had had when I had my private practice.

Joe Sanok 00:01:21  You know, when I first got started, I tried so many different things. And right now we're kicking off marketing month this month. Have a lot of people coming in that we're going to be talking with about different ways to think about marketing. But when I first started my practice, I sent a text to my friend Monica, who she had left the group practice we were at. She had moved to a different state, and she had started her own website and posted that on Facebook, and I was like, oh my gosh, I didn't even know. I thought that was super hard to do. And she helped me out with this office 360, which was this free platform that I could make a website on. And, I started it and I did all these keywords, in white in the background, and then had a white background and tried to keywords stuff, this whole thing. I had no idea what I was doing. I thought that was going to be what digital marketing was like, kind of gaming the system, figuring out ways to to fool Google into making me rank, tried all these stupid things.

Joe Sanok 00:02:19  I had no idea what I was doing, but that's how a lot of us enter into this field as therapists. You know, we're good at therapy. We're good at working with trauma and couples and, you know, angry teenagers and behavioral issues and all those different things. But when it comes to marketing, that's one of our biggest struggles. And actually, when we did the 2024 State of Private Practice survey, we talked to hundreds of therapists to to look at the state of private practice. there were some things that were really interesting in that, you know, one of them was that I think it was something like 70 to 80% of people were the same or optimistic about the year ahead, which is great, that people are feeling optimistic about their businesses and, financially around the same numbers. We're feeling that they were happy with, their level of income, where it was at. But when we dig dug into what are the number one things, that people are worrying about or don't they feel like they're barriers to their success? one of them was work life balance.

Joe Sanok 00:03:20  The other was financing or access to money. And the number one thing was knowledge about marketing. And so that's why we're dedicating this whole month to talk about marketing, to talk about these things so that we don't do the slimy kind of things where we're keyword stuffing, but we actually talked to experts that are way smarter than myself to figure out, you know, what is it that we can be doing as therapists to attract our ideal client, to fill up the caseloads and then to do the good work that we want to do? Which is why I'm so excited to have Donald Thompson with me, who is the EY entrepreneur of the year in 2023? So award winner founded the diversity movement to fundamentally transform the modern workplace through diversity led culture change. Thompson has deep experience as a multi-asset CEO and board member across diverse sectors including technology, manufacturing, healthcare, marketing, and professional services. Recognized by Inc., Fast Company, Forbes, and others. Thompson is author of the award winning leadership memoir underestimated a CEO's Unlikely Path to Success, and hosts the podcast High Octane Leadership in an Empathetic World, and has published widely on leadership and the executive mindset.

Joe Sanok 00:04:33  Donald, welcome to the practice of the Practice Podcast.

Donald Thompson 00:04:37  Joe, thanks for having me and excited to be with you today.

Joe Sanok 00:04:40  Yeah, well, I'm sure your entrepreneur journey goes back a bit, but we're talking mostly digital marketing and marketing today. When you say some of your first experiences with marketing, what were some of your first experiences in the marketing world?

Donald Thompson 00:04:56  So I'll tell you a little story and I'll start really way back in terms of my childhood, right? Is I always had enough. I was very fortunate and blessed in that in that regard, but didn't have a lot of extra. So I had to earn through a newspaper different things if I wanted the latest shoes or different things of that nature. So fifth, sixth grade, I started a candy business in elementary school, and I was selling Jolly Ranchers, and not just 2 or 3 at a time. I had Jolly Ranchers at different lockers throughout the building, had 1 or 2 people on my team, and I was pulling in maybe $150 a week.

Donald Thompson 00:05:32  And this is many, many years ago. And so I always loved the ability to sell and market and see the smile that people got when whatever I was providing right gave them joy, in this case, kids and candy later in my career in the technology space and then becoming board chair, which I am still a block West, which is a boutique digital marketing firm. And so throughout my career, whether it's been in technology, whether it's been an organizational change in the Dei space. One of the things that I realized early on, if people aren't aware of who you are, what you do, and how you can help them, then you can't grow and scale your business.

Joe Sanok 00:06:15  say that last part again. If they don't know who you are, say, say that part again.

Donald Thompson 00:06:20  Who you are, how you can help them. Those are the critical elements of how people can understand how you can scale your business, because most people have a great business. In this case, we're talking to therapists and we're talking to folks who have their own private practices.

Donald Thompson 00:06:36  So you've been educated. You have successful clients that you've worked with. You have a passion and a compassion for what you do. But how do people know that when they're searching for a professional provider? How do people understand how to compare you and your skills to their needs and their pain? And then how do you then monetize those capabilities so that you that you can develop a fair compensation for the value that you deliver. And so when we think about marketing, a lot of times we think about the digital, we think about SEO. We think about website and all the different things. I try to really help folks that are solo entrepreneurs, professional services. Think about it like this. How can I make more authentic connections that are memorable? Because that's the heartstring when people are looking for a provider, do I connect with someone? Right? Are they measurable? Right. Is my marketing working right? And am I gaining more clients right that have the profile that aligns with what I do? That's the monetization.

Joe Sanok 00:07:39  So when you think about opportunities in digital marketing. So that's an area that you help a ton of companies. And is one of your specialty areas among many. what are maybe just some mindsets that therapists need to have going into any sort of digital marketing campaign.

Donald Thompson 00:07:55  Make sure that if you're going to do it yourself, find a handful of folks online, folks like myself, that can help you build out your strategy. You may not have hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest in marketing or tens of thousands of dollars, but most professionals that are running and growing a business have 500 to $1000 to get a consultation with somebody. They can help build a specific self-service marketing plan for their practice, their goals and their budget. So I do believe that expert advice, at least in shaping your marketing journey, is super important because there are a lot of yourself tools out there. The second thing that I recommend is let's keep things really, really simple. Most of the time in professional services, people do business with people they trust and that are competent.

Donald Thompson 00:08:46  So how can you convey that trust that you're going to treat people with care, compassion, confidentiality, all those kinds of things, and then also your competence. And so a lot of times technologists, Therapist positions a pretty humble bunch, so they don't want to brag on themselves. Right. And so what I try to tell people that don't want to brag is you're not doing that. You're sharing ways that you can be helpful. So the mental model and the mental mindset towards marketing is about sharing those things about you that can help people that need pain in order to go through their progress, need help with their progress. Excuse me in spite of their pain, and allow us to connect with one another because people do their research like never before. If people are making a big decision about a purchase, about a professional services provider, a therapist, people are going to look at online reviews, online ratings, and most importantly, what content have you put about your perspective on how you help and serve others? And you want that to be in your own voice versus what others have to say about you.

Joe Sanok 00:09:58  Now when we're talking strategy. where should, private practices start when they are thinking about strategy. And I get definitely working with professionals. You know, that's definitely the smartest thing. But if people were, you know, for whatever reason, chose not to work with a professional, what are some elements of the strategy that they should be thinking through?

Donald Thompson 00:10:17  Yeah, no, thanks for that question. And and here's how I would, would answer it from a entrepreneurial marketing perspective, what kind of client do you want to attract? So knowing your audience is super important, right? Second thing that is really important is how do you want to educate someone before they would make a decision to use you or not? So before we start talking about how you would how and where you deliver that information, it is important for people to write out the things that they believe make them special and unique, the things that they do to provide high level of value in terms of the skills that we develop and then deliver to our clients and members that we work with.

Donald Thompson 00:11:04  And when you have those things outlined, then you can talk about where to put that content or those points of thought right on a website. Starting a blog. Having a LinkedIn profile. Right. Many of those things can also be done right after hours, nights, weekends, because we all know that the prime time is actually working with clients and different things. And then here's I would say a secret sauce. I don't try to do anything new without looking online and finding someone that's doing something similar and creating a model that I can emulate. I don't think we have to try to do most things from scratch. And so find 2 or 3 models of a digital presence that you like, and then it's easier to emulate than thinking you have to create something from scratch.

Joe Sanok 00:11:57  Are there ways you're using AI to do that to emulate models or evaluate big picture data.

Donald Thompson 00:12:04  AI is an amazing tool. It's both exciting and scary. And the short answer is absolutely. But the short answer is absolutely yes, because you can go into I ChatGPT I'll use for an example, and I highly recommend folks get the paid version.

Donald Thompson 00:12:18  I'm not a paid spokesperson, I've just used it and a big fan, for $20 a month. And it can take your ideas and take on the persona of a marketing consultant. And you can basically ask it, upload your resume, upload your working website, upload your LinkedIn profile, any data that you have about you and say, build out a marketing plan for X budget targeting this type of audience and the types of customers that you want to attract. And an AI, and in particular ChatGPT will build you the framework right of a marketing plan that can help you get get started. if you're a true do it yourself, or it can help you walk throughout the process.

Joe Sanok 00:13:00  Yeah. I think that some of those just initial bringing data together has been so helpful to use AI for, but you know we could become overreliant on it as well, especially when we're looking at keeping our voice, you know, whether it's in blogs or podcasts or, or social media. so when people have a general direction of, you were saying, kind of helping the clients, like, what do they need to know before therapy or what do they need to be educated on? What would be some examples of maybe questions people could ask themselves to start to think through? just the overall pain or the way that their clients are thinking before they even sign up for services?

Donald Thompson 00:13:36  Yeah, there's a couple of things that I recommend.

Donald Thompson 00:13:38  This is especially if you've already been a clinician for for a number of years, ask your clients, right. Not just how they found out about you, but how they made the decision to come to you. And that's going to be a very, very powerful source of insight. The second thing is ask those same questions in ChatGPT. What is the process that a male who is looking for. Let's just use marriage counseling, for example, right? Of 35 to 45 is looking for and seeking marriage counseling. What are some of the hot buttons? What are some of the fears? What are some of the motivations? And if you ask that to ChatGPT, it will give you some feedback and prompts of how to think through the clients. The target offerings that you have, and then how to message information right in a way that is meaningful, in a way that is impactful, in a way that both grows your business, but also connects you with clients that are right for you.

Joe Sanok 00:14:46  Something always comes up when you're running a private practice.

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Donald Thompson 00:16:03  Let's talk about it from the data side and then talk about it from, kind of the client impact side.

Donald Thompson 00:16:09  One of the things as a business owner, independent of what your business is, is you want to be able to make it a math problem in terms of how you make money. So how many people need to come to your website before they fill out a contact form? It's a very simple way to think about the data analytics for business, right? And then if you understand then and I'll just use some round numbers. Right. If 50 people come to my website then ten people will fill out a contact form. By knowing that information then you have to figure out, now how do I want to get more people to the website? Because I understand for every 50 people, ten want more information. And then of the people that want more information, I want to have a, a free intro call or read read more in terms of documentation that's sent to them. Three of those turn into clients. Once you understand your numbers from marketing, even at a small level, then you can understand how to invest smartly because you're starting to look at the data of what's working versus just the look and feel.

Donald Thompson 00:17:18  Oh, I have a pretty website. Oh, I have a great blog. Oh, my podcast is interesting and dynamic and I have fun doing it. So the data will drive you from the actions that you're taking on a marketing. from a marketing standpoint to the results that they're delivering. And then it'll start to give you a perspective of how to order your steps going forward. So that's the data side. But at a very granular, foundational level, the content side of what we're doing. I think it's really, really important that we talk to our clients, that especially those that have been with us for a little bit because they have friends, they have relatives that are in different demographics, and you can really use them thoughtfully, of course. Right. but ask them 1 or 2 questions about how people that they know their situation, their circumstance in terms of making a decision to trust somebody with some of the most precious information that an individual has, which is how to have a better marriage, which is if you're overcoming, depression, which is if you are, in physical therapy and you've had an industry and you're an injury and you're working your way back to to full health, it's vulnerable to allow yourself to be completely open in a physical or mental sense with another human.

Donald Thompson 00:18:37  And so what are the things we want to have in our marketing that lets people know we're competent, we're credible, all those things, but we're also going to provide a human centric touch to the services that we provide.

Joe Sanok 00:18:49  Now, I know sometimes therapists just get in the weeds and they start doing pay per click advertising, or they boost a post here and there or they're like you know, see something has a little traction. So they write four blog posts about that. what do you think about that? And what should they do differently?

Donald Thompson 00:19:04  Yeah, I have a strong opinion here. The pay per click advertising is great. Phenomenal. But what are people seeing when they come to your site? What are people seeing when they come to your podcast? And at that point, the thing that we want to remember is something very simple that we've heard before is people do business with people they like and trust. And so how does your website, how does your content, how does the information about you, how does the person on the phone in your office answer the phone that is welcoming, that puts people at ease and lets people know that we're here to help.

Donald Thompson 00:19:35  And certainly we have a business to run. We are running a for profit enterprise, right? But the reality is that in order for us to monetize the things that we do in a in a clinical standpoint, right, people have to trust, and understand that you're there for them and that needs to come across in your marketing. So yes, pay per click is fine, but what are we going to show people and share with people. All right. And I say show. That's your website. Share. That's when they click on something for additional information that they're going to share with their spouse or their family or whoever else helps them make a decision. What are we going to show and share when they get to our site?

Joe Sanok 00:20:12  yeah. I think that, that idea of what's that user experience actually like when they get to the website, is an area that in consulting, I just see so many people haven't thought through, even just the number of clicks, you know, to have on your home page a call to action that says schedule an intake session instead of contact us or get in touch.

Joe Sanok 00:20:32  It's like, no, you want to schedule your first session and then the amount of back and forth and, you know, email us so that we can, you know, find out when we can do a pre counseling call that then takes two weeks and then it takes them a month to even get in there. It's like, no wonder you your conversion rate is like 18%.

Donald Thompson 00:20:49  You're here's what I will echo on what you described in terms of that user experience. Because a lot of our audience, they from a digital standpoint might not fully understand that, but we all have been to restaurants, and we understand that if we go to a nice restaurant, even independent of price point, that host welcomes us, that person that tells us about the specials, that person that acts as if we have any allergies. These are things that let people know that, wait a minute, we care that you're going to have a great experience in a restaurant. What many clinicians, when we think about the services that that we provide on this, this perspective or coaches, the user experience starts at the first touch point where someone interacts with you.

Donald Thompson 00:21:35  And a lot of times that is your your website. That may be a referral from a trusted client or a friend or partner, but let's just use the website as an example. And so you want as much information as possible on the website, so that when people do their research, you're taking away the mystery of your process. That's good for the client. Also it is good for you is more informed. People are calling you. So that means you have less time that you're doing the dance or visits the right fit. Is this the right price point? Is this the right exercise? You can kind of get to the action step, which is an intake intake form, which is an intake visit all the things that move that relationship further. And at the end of the day, you're in business. You happen to be in the business of helping people, but you're in business. So that time from first touchpoint to a value contribution as a client is really important. And that was a great point that you made, Joe.

Joe Sanok 00:22:34  Yeah. How important is it for you know, I know in the counseling world there's quite a few people don't tend to have a ton of offerings. It's pretty much counseling, but but as practices grow, there's multiple therapists. Sometimes there's groups, sometimes there's individual, and most clients are probably going to call knowing what they want. but how important is it to say, offer all of that at the risk of overwhelm of the clients versus kind of saying counseling is our core product, let's just focus on that as as the core product on the website.

Donald Thompson 00:23:09  I think about the website in today's digital space is the information portal. So I do think that more information is better, but I don't think that more information thrown at people is better. So the design of that website is really, really important. And so that means that I've seen really well done websites that have a mini search bar built in. How can we help today? And then the person will just type in the type of counseling, the type of services that they're looking for.

Donald Thompson 00:23:40  And then that navigation will take them there. And so I do think, number one, that simplicity is important. And focus on the core things that you do on your front page. And then in your drop down menus, you can get more granular and have a much more stronger variety. Because if in fact Act. A client is in that research mode, and they're going to spend 4 or 5 minutes on your site. You want to have both simplicity and variety, but you want that simplicity to jump out and say, we're here to help. Do the 3 or 4 things that are the primary focuses of your practice, and then let your drop down menus and the other categories drive the broad spectrum of all the different things that you can do.

Joe Sanok 00:24:25  Yeah.

Joe Sanok 00:24:26  Now when it comes to digital marketing what would you say people get wrong that we haven't covered.

Donald Thompson 00:24:33  they spend a lot of money doing something without testing it. and so that goes to pay per click, that goes to their website, build out where they build one frame, one messaging.

Donald Thompson 00:24:43  They don't ab test it. And when I say AB test it, it just means like this. If you go try on jeans in a department store, you're not going to try on just one pair of jeans one color. You're going to try on a couple of different pair of jeans, a couple of different brands. That's the same thing when we talk technology about a B testing. So you can build or have built for you either way. And there's a lot of free sites to help you build websites or you can invest in it, but you can have different site formats that you then can test in the real world, so that the data tells you which user interface, which user experience works the best. The second thing that I say that people make the biggest mistake, even for those of us that like to do things ourselves or budget is tight. It is actually money well spent or barter if you don't have it like, but find someone that has been there, done that that can help accelerate your time to value because they've already built out content for sites before you may write the content.

Donald Thompson 00:25:46  You may know clinically what it's supposed to look and sound like, but you may work with somebody that can help you get there faster because of the way you help. They help you structure the information on the page so that more people stay longer on your site, which equals more conversions.

Joe Sanok 00:26:01  Yeah.

Joe Sanok 00:26:02  Now the last question I always ask is if every private practice in the world we're listening right now, actually after 1100 episodes, I just screwed that up. If every private practitioner in the world were listening right now. what would you want them to know?

Donald Thompson 00:26:16  Building your personal brand that talks about you as an individual, as a human, you as a clinician and a practitioner, and how you help and serve your fellow man. Building that personal brand profile is going to win you more business than just the facts of what you do. People want to do business with people that they trust and that they like. So present those favorable things about how you are trustworthy, how you have been helpful to people, how you have, given back to your community and link that with your degrees, with your clinical skills.

Donald Thompson 00:26:51  And that personal brand is going to help you drive growth because people want to trust you. So give them the reasons to in your digital presence.

Joe Sanok 00:26:59  So awesome. Donald, if people want to get your books, if they want to follow your work, where should we send them?

Donald Thompson 00:27:04  Oh, thank you for asking. Donald Thompson is the window to all things TT, and that'd be the great way for us to stay connected.

Joe Sanok 00:27:14  Thank you so much for being on the practice of the Practice podcast.

Donald Thompson 00:27:17  Thanks for having me, Joe. A lot of fun.

Joe Sanok 00:27:27  You know, when it comes to digital marketing, it's just one of those things that can get so overwhelming. And so, you know, it can be helpful to really dig into these sorts of things and to, to learn from, from people that we trust to, to go through this marketing month to be able to really help you get to that next level. And, we want to do that. We have lots of memberships that can help you, get to that next level over at practice of the practice for slash membership.

Joe Sanok 00:27:55  that's where we have all of our membership information about, your phase of practice and kind of what's going to be that next step. We have small groups. We have live trainings every single week, that are all part of those memberships. So head on over there and see when the membership that you want to join opens up next. And we couldn't do this without our amazing sponsors. gusto is the best payroll and HR solution that's out there. We use them here at practice the practice, and you can head on over to Gusto slash Joe again. That's Gusto Joe and get all your payroll solutions in one spot. Thank you for letting me enter your ears and into your brain. 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.

Joe Sanok 00:28:53  If you want a professional, you should find one.