[WHITNEY OWENS]: The Faith in Practice podcast is part of the Practice of the Practice podcast network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you start, grow, and scale your practice. To hear other episodes like the Imperfect Thriving podcast, Bomb Mom podcast, Beta Male Revolution, or Empowered and Unapologetic, go to practiceofthepractice.com\network.
Welcome to the Faith in Practice podcast. My name is Whitney Owens and I’m recording live from Savannah, Georgia. I’m a licensed professional counselor, group practice owner, and private practice consultant. Each week, either through a personal story or an amazing interview, I will help you learn how to start, grow and scale your private practice from a faith-based perspective. I’m going to show you how to have an awesome faith-based practice that’s not cheesier in your face and you too and have a successful practice, make a lot of money and be your true, authentic self.
In today’s episode, I’m going to be interviewing Perry Rosenbloom, who is the owner and founder of Brighter Vision. For those of you that don’t know Brighter Vision is a company that helps therapists build websites. What I love about, well, I love lots of things about Brighter Vision, but a few of the things I really love about it is Perry is passionate about what he does. He gives out lots of great information and he does it all because he just loves what he’s doing. And he also gives us a good deal as therapists on our websites. So, I love the deal that you can get concerning making your website.
I mean, you’re getting so much return on investment for what you’re putting into it, and that’s your time and your energy and your money, and you get such a good product. I mean, it really only takes one or two sessions to pay for the website itself. And so, it’s a great company to work for. And they specifically focus on therapists. There’s a lot of companies out there that make websites for lots of different kinds of businesses, but Brighter Vision is specifically for therapists. So, I think this episode is really packed with lots of great information, glad that you’re joining us, and we’ll just go ahead and get started on the episode.
Today on the Faith in Practice podcast, I’m interviewing Perry Rosenbloom. Perry has always had a connection to the field therapy and therapists and having a family, those working in the field and benefiting from it. He founded Brighter Vision in March, 2014 with a passion. He used business savvy and web development know how to help therapists both fully realize their career ambitions and help most people do the impossible. Since then, Brighter vision has grown to be the world’s best therapist website design company, as well as one of the most trusted names in our industry, helping thousands of therapists throughout the world. Glad to have you here today, Perry.
[PERRY ROSENBLO…: I am so excited to be here, Whitney. Thank you for having me.
[WHITNEY]: Yes. So, can you share a little bit of your background and how you started Brighter Vision?
[PERRY]: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I was just talking about that with my wife yesterday because we got a Facebook notification that it had officially been six years since I made the transition from my SEO company to Brighter Vision, which was just really cool to see. But yeah, you know, my background is in search engine optimization and website design, and I had a website design company for a while doing, you know, the typical model of website design, and I found the system to be incredibly broken because every time I needed to start a new project, I’d have to learn all about that industry. So, let’s say I was building a website for an accountant. I had to spend hours learning about the aesthetics of an accounting website, learning about the needs of an accounting website, learning about the various wireframes and how a website for an accountant should be set up.
And that was all time that needed to be billed to my client. And so, that’s why you see most website design companies that are servicing small businesses are charging between two and $5,000 for their services, which is a reasonable fee, but I felt like it was broken because I always had to relearn the industry. And so, I had this idea percolating in my head and I built a website for my mother-in-law, who has a private practice in Jacksonville, Florida. And she, you know, it’s the largest private practice in Jacksonville, Florida. They have about 20 clinicians working for them, huge practice, doing really great things. And I was like, “Cindy, this is your website. This is your brand. Like how on earth are you building this thriving private practice and this is how you’re presenting yourself in the world? Come on, we got to fix this.”
And so, as I was doing the standard research that goes into understanding a new industry, I started looking up various private practice websites and therapists’ websites and I was like, “And Cindy, you’re not alone here. Therapists really do not know how to brand themselves.” And I noticed that there was a really strong need for therapists to get that help. And I had that idea percolating of, you know, if I focused on one industry, I’d be able to bring down the cost of production for a website dramatically and be able to reinvent how website design is handled and noticed that therapists really had a strong need for help in the branding space and the website design space. And I thought, “Hey, let’s try this out.”
So I called a few therapists, about a hundred, 150 or so, and managed to convince a few of them to sign up with me, even though I had an absolutely no product to deliver to them, and you know, we built some websites for them, hired our first employee and we got a few more therapists to join our platform. And here we are now about five years later from when we officially started helping therapists as Brighter Vision, about five years later. And we build about 300 or 400 websites in the health and wellness space every single month.
[WHITNEY]: Wow. That was my question. I was going to ask you how many websites you built and then when you started saying 300 to 400, I was thinking, “Oh, he’s probably going to say a year.”
[PERRY]: Oh, no —
[WHITNEY]: So, you are super, super busy. Wow, that is amazing. And for any of you who don’t know about Brighter Vision, definitely check them out. I’ve seen tons of their websites and you all do a great job. And what I really love about Brighter Vision is what you’re saying about that cost part, that you can bring that cost down to help therapists out because that’s a big part of starting, right? It is the website.
[PERRY]: Sure. And so, that’s a huge part of starting. And then, you know, our platform is able to grow with people as their needs change and we provide the unlimited support for our clients. And we also have a suite of marketing automation tools that enables our clients to market themselves better. As we’ve really evolved from more than just websites to really a full marketing automation platform for the health and wellness clients.
[WHITNEY]: That’s great. So, people who are just starting out in private practice, they’re thinking, “What do I actually have to have to start a private practice?” So, what would you say to them about websites? Is that something that they should think about at the very beginning, should they think about after they’ve kind of gotten a few clients under their belt? What do you say to that?
[PERRY]: You know, 10 years ago, you could have gotten started and probably gotten a few clients under your belt with a website, without a website, I mean. Today, you probably still can as well, but it’s going to be exponentially harder because the market has changed. The way people research has changed. And so, in my opinion, and we’ve seen this with the thousands of therapists that we work with, you need two pieces of marketing to get started in a private practice. And that is A website and that website should speak to the types of clients that you want to work with. It needs to resonate with them. It needs to empathize with them. So, the types of clients you do your best work with. And then B, the second thing you need really, it’s a Psychology Today profile. A website and a Psych Today profile are kind of table stakes in this day and age to get started for your business.
And the great thing is with Brighter Vision, coupled with Psych Today, you know, you’re talking about getting started for essentially like, you know, 70 bucks a month, and that’s all you need for your marketing. $70 a month. And that’s going to help you build that brand that’s going to resonate with clients you want to work with, and it’s going to make it that much easier when people, you know, if you’re doing word mouth, if you’re doing referral marketing or going out and meeting potential referral sources, the first thing they’re going to do is they’re going to go to your website. And if you don’t have a website that looks professional, that feels professional, and that really resonates with them, they’re going to toss your business card aside and go on to the next one. Because there’s there, the fact of matter is there’s a lot of competition out there that you need a website to stand out from.
[WHITNEY]: That’s so true. And even when I’m looking for, I don’t know, like a doctor for my child, or maybe a specialist for something going on in the family, if I get a name, that’s exactly what I do. I Google that person, I look at their website and if they have a bad website, it just makes their practice look bad. Like they don’t have good business sense.
[PERRY]: That’s exactly right. And it’s like, “Oh, if you’re not having a professional website, you don’t really care about your business. How do I know you’re going to care about me? How do I know that you’re going to care and that you’re even going to be here in six months, if you’re not investing in your business? And so, why should I start working with you when Sally down the street has a website that really resonates with me, their copy really resonates with me? Sally down the street gets me.”
[WHITNEY]: Yeah, copyright is so important. And so, let’s say we’ve got therapists. hopefully if you’re listening, you do have a website, if you don’t, you better get Brighter Vision and get that figured out. But if they do already have their website and they’re thinking I’d like some tips on improving that, do you have maybe three to five tips you can give us on improving our current website?
[PERRY]: Oh, absolutely. And I mean, I live for this stuff right now. So, let’s start off and think about how the, you know, take it from the very top of your website. And let’s think about how the human eye reads a screen. The human eye will read a screen in Z format. So, they’re going to start at the top left quadrant of your website then the eye is going to go all the way over to the top right quadrant. And it’s going to stop there. And that right there in that top right quadrant is your first opportunity to connect with them and get them to connect with you, but let’s keep going down. So, it goes over to that top right quadrant, then it goes diagonally down to the left and reads everything that’s in the middle of your page and stops at the bottom left, and then it goes all the way back over to the bottom, right? So, the reason I said the Z format.
So, let’s talk about that top right quadrant. So, the top right corner, essentially your top right section of your website, which is really going to be the first place that somebody’s eye stops. The number one thing that you can do to improve your conversion rate or improve the number of people who arrive on your website, actually contacting you through your website is by making that top right section an area where they can easily contact you. So, what you can do is you can put a, you know, depending on your platform, a Brighter Vision offers this. We offer a little bar at the very top that has your email address and phone number on every page and then the other thing that you really want to do is you want to make a contact link or really a contact button as the last item on your menu.
So, it’s going to be all the way over in the top right on your website. And it’s going to be just kind of like a ghost button, essentially, which means it’s just a button, it’s just the word contact with an outline around it. And that right there is going to increase the number of people contacting you dramatically. So, put that contact button in the top right. Put some contact information at the top right section of your website. That is the number one thing you can do that, you know, it might take you a few hours if you’re not too tech savvy or depending on what platform you’re on, but you’re going to see such a huge return on your investment for however long that ends up taking you. You know, hire a freelancer, if you want to spend like that a hundred bucks to have them make a little tweak to your website and get a contact button in the top right of your website, because that’s going to drive in more business for you.
[WHITNEY]: It sounds so simple.
[PERRY]: It is, you know, I mean, there’s a lot of things when it comes to website design and conversion rate, conversion rate optimization. That is simple, but the problem is most people don’t do it.
[WHITNEY]: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, Brighter Vision can do that?
[PERRY]: Oh yeah. Well, all of our website frameworks utilize a contact button or at least a contact link in the top right section, depending on what a client wants. It is just far and away. It’s where you need to be to have your website performing well.
[WHITNEY]: That’s great. I love what you just said about the Z pattern. Now I’m thinking about all the websites I go to and I’m like, how do I do that? I did do a Z. Yes, I do a Z. And now I’m going to be thinking about the Z every time I look at a website.
[PERRY]: It’s totally true. I mean, that’s how it rolls. You know, your eye goes in that Z pattern and you know, you have a really great opportunity there as a business owner to take advantage of how the human eye and the human brain digest a website.
[WHITNEY]: Yeah, that’s great. What other tips do you have for us?
[PERRY]: All right. So, let’s talk about when you’re going diagonally left from that top right section. That’s another huge opportunity right there. The eyes are going to scroll down from the top right and go through the middle of the screen. And that is where you need a hero image. And there’s lots of ways to approach a hero image. You can have a really nice stock photo, we generally recommend utilizing something like Unsplash to find more of like this Instagrammy kind of aesthetic that is going to, you know, resonate. You want to pick a photo that A, matches the color scheme of your website and your brand, and B matches the overall, that would resonate with whomever your ideal client is.
So, if you’re focusing, if your focus is on women who may be struggling with postpartum depression, you want an image there that someone’s going to see, that’s going to not depress them, but instead make them see how they want to be feeling. So, you know perhaps a family smiling, or a woman throwing her child up in the air, smiling with some sunlight coming through, and that right there would really, really help resonate with that ideal client. Another option for your hero image is to have a headshot. And, this is generally if you’re a solo practice, the better way to go to have a really well done, hire a photographer, spend a few hundred bucks, get a photographer and tell them, “Hey, I want a headshot that’s going to allow me to put myself on one side of the photo and text on the other side.”
And that’s your opportunity right there to introduce yourself to your client. So, a headshot is professionally taken with some text next to it. That’s going to be like, “Hey, I’m Perry Rosenbloom. Thank you so much for being here. I am here to help you.” I mean, don’t use that language. That was awful, off the cuff language, but you know, what you could do is say, “Welcome. As a counselor and founder of Perry’s counseling group, my specialty and passion is therapy for couple’s intimacy and relationship concerns. I utilize evidence-based tools and have a goal of helping you better understand yourself, feel happier and more fulfilled as a person, partner, professional.” Something like that would be a little more effective.
You know, making sure that you have a really professional headshot with some great language right next to it, that’s going to be the most effective way to take advantage of that hero image spot, if you’re a solo clinician. Now, if you’re a group practice, don’t do the headshot there. Save that for your staff page and instead put a really nice stock photo with some words over laid on top, about how someone might be feeling and how you can help them feel better as well as a contact button. So, that hero image is going to be that next opportunity to take advantage of that Z location, that Z eye movement.
[WHITNEY]: Yes. So, I had never thought about this idea of putting your own image, I guess, pretty large on your homepage and a solo practitioner. You know, us counselors, we tend to kind of be in the shadows sometimes. So, I think this will like pull people out. I’m going to guess, and you’re going to hopefully correct me if I’m wrong, but when you are a solo practitioner, having your own image, do you think that actually is better than the hero picture?
[PERRY]: I do. And the thing is people are coming to you because they want you to help them feel better. And they’re only going to work with you if they know, like, and trust you. And your website is your first opportunity to get them to know, like, and trust you so that they’re going to contact you and know they can trust you so that they know that, “Hey, Whitney is going to help me feel better. Whitney is uniquely equipped and she understands who I am and what I’m going through and can help me feel better.” And as a solo practitioner, that’s your opportunity to communicate with your potential client, to look them in the eye and to speak to them.
And so, you know, whether you’re putting yourself as a hero image there, or a little bit below, that’s certainly your call, but you definitely want to make sure that you have a professional headshot on your website and, or a professionally done video, introducing yourself to your potential client, because you know that’s going to help them understand that you are uniquely positioned to help them feel better because you understand what they’re going through. And a well-done headshot and a well-done copy is very effective at that.
[WHITNEY]: That’s great. Do you have any tips on when you’re getting this picture taken, how can you show people that you’re trustworthy?
[WHITNEY]: You know, a professional photographer is going to be able to help you with that. You’re going to want to look directly at the camera and just be yourself. I don’t really have too much advice on that. That’s not really my specialty, but a professional photographer can really, really help you with that. I remember back before I started Brighter Vision when we were more just an SEO web design company, I was having a real difficult time trying to sell my product because my products were, you know, five to $10,000 at the time. And I felt a part of it was because I had such a baby face. And I ended up hiring a professional photographer.
[PERRY]: I’m like, “Hey, my goal with this photo shoot, I need you to make me look older. I can’t be looking like I’m 18 years old when I’m trying to present and sell people on my products and services.” And so, you know, she did a really great job. I still looked pretty young because there’s only so much you can do. If she would’ve taken my photo now, after having two kids, one of whom was an awful sleeper, she’d have no difficulty at all, making me look older, but you know, a professional photographer can really help you with that. They’ll get the lighting right, they’ll get the setting right because the setting is so critical as well. You know, put some flowers in there, get the lighting right, get some green colors in there, make sure that your outfit helps you pop off the photo.
You know, if you’re using a light background, you need to be wearing a dark colored shirt and depending on your skin tone and ethnicity, different outfits will work better to help you present yourself the way you want to present yourself. And a photographer, just like a website designer is uniquely positioned to build a digital brand that’s going to resonate with your ideal client. A photographer is uniquely positioned to help you craft the image that’s going to resonate with your ideal client as well.
[WHITNEY]: That’s such a good point about when you’re working with someone, letting them know what your needs are because too often we start working with someone we don’t really know. And I’m remembering when we were coming up with the logo for the podcast, I was pulling up some old images on myself that a professional had taken of me and they were great images, but it just like totally wasn’t doing it right for a logo. And Sam created some for me and I was like, “Eh, these aren’t really what I’m feeling.” And then I contacted the same photographer and said, “Hey, you did a great job before, but can we do this for a podcast logo?” And then she like pulled out all these great images, went on Pinterest, of course, and she was prepped and she had all these cool positions for me to do. And then this amazing image, like same photographer, different purpose.
[PERRY]: That’s so true. That’s kind of, you know, how you approach it.
[WHITNEY]: Yeah. So, you’re giving some great tips. Do you have any other tips that you want to include?
[PERRY]: Yeah, you know, I’ll include one more here. Your specialty pages. You want to write unique content that is going to resonate with your ideal client. And that’s the best way to rank on Google. You know, Google wants to show content that is relevant and that is targeted. So, if I’m a therapist who specializes in intimacy issues, I want to write a specialty page on that. A page specifically about how I can uniquely help you with that. And that way, when someone’s searching for something related that’s going to enable your post to rank. So, if you work with people who might be struggling with anger management and stress and/or depression, you know, write unique pages about those topics, about how you approach, how someone might be feeling, how you approach that issue to help them feel better. And that’s going to enable you to rank well on Google.
[WHITNEY]: Do you think somebody can have too many service pages?
[PERRY]: Absolutely not.
[WHITNEY]: Yeah. I mean people all the time will say to me when I’m doing the consulting and I’m like, “Okay, your website, and I’m no website guru, but like, I think you need some more service pages to help.” And they’re like, “What? I can’t put more service pages.” I’m like, “You can always put more service pages.”
[PERRY]: Absolutely. There’s no such thing as too many service pages. Have those specialty pages and make sure they’re relevant. You know, don’t just be writing stuff and create specialty pages that aren’t unique to you. But if you have specialties by all means, write about them. That’s how you’re going to rank well on Google.
[WHITNEY]: That’s right. That’s right. Well, great. Well, Perry, can you talk more about what Brighter Vision does as far as when they create a website, if somebody wanted to work with you, what they need to know?
[PERRY]: Absolutely. Well, first off, if you’re listening to this podcast, let us know. You’ll get one month free with us to help you get started here. We’d love to give back to the community. When you sign up at Brighter Vision, you get assigned to a team of designers. You’re going to spend about 15 minutes filling out an online design consultation form, giving us insight into who you are, what types of clients you love working with, and from there, you know, our team’s going to take that information, design you a first draft, hopefully you love that first draft and we revise it based off of your feedback on the phone or through emails, or you can leave sticky notes on your website for our team. And from there you get unlimited tech support with our team. We do free search engine optimization so that you rank high on Google. We do all that for just $59 a month. There’s no other costs, no other expenses with Brighter Vision.
[WHITNEY]: It’s incredible. Like the cost is incredible. You know, I’m always thinking about return on investment. So, if the money that I’m putting into this, how hard would it be for me to get this back with clients? I mean, that’s one session.
[PERRY]: You need one client. Exactly. You can get one client out of it. And that more than pays for all of your website needs for an entire year, because they’re going to be seeing you for more than one session. You know, ideally they’re seeing you, you know, you should hopefully have an idea of how many times an average client’s going to see you, and you know, you’ll be able to easily reap the rewards of having a great brand and a great website.
[WHITNEY]: Well, Perry, I love that. You’re thinking about therapists. Like you created a business to help meet a need and making life easier for us. So, thank you for doing that. And thanks again for that month free. That’ll be really helpful and we’ll get that in the show notes.
[PERRY]: Absolutely. My pleasure, and, you know, we love doing what we do. We love helping therapists help more people.
[WHITNEY]: So, I ask every person at the end of the show, what would you say is some information or something that every Christian counselor needs to better understand?
[PERRY]: You know, I feel like if you follow your faith, if you be yourself and who you are, the clients will come. You put yourself out there, be candid and be honest about who you are as an individual, and you’ll get the types of clients you want to be working with.
[WHITNEY]: Oh, that’s so great. Yeah, and that really, it starts with our website, right? That is the first contact that somebody has with you as a therapist in most situations. So, letting your website really show your vision and your values to your clients.
[PERRY]: Absolutely.
[WHITNEY]: Well, Perry, thank you so much for your time today. And you gave me some great. I was sitting here writing, thinking about my website and some changes I might want to make.;
[PERRY]: Awesome. Please implement them and I hope it works for you. Thank you so much for having me on the show today. I really appreciate it.
[WHITNEY]: Great to be with you.
Thank you for listening to the Faith in Practice podcast. If you love this podcast, please rate and review on iTunes or your favorite podcast player. If you liked this episode and want to know more, check out the Practice of the Practice website. Also, there you can learn more about me, options for working together, such as individual and group consulting, or just shoot me an email, [email protected]. Would love to hear from you.
This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. This is given with the understanding that neither the host, Practice of the Practice, or the guests are providing legal, mental health, or other professional information. If you need a professional, you should find one.