Podcast 69: Last Consultant Roundtable | Miranda Palmer, Julie de Azevedo Hanks, Kelly Higdon and Joe Sanok

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Practice Nation, Meet the Consultants

julie hanks

 Julie de Azevedo Hanks, MSW, LCSW

is a self-care evangelist, author, relationship expert, media contributor, blogger, speaker, songwriter, and licensed therapist with 20 year experience counseling women, couples and families. In addition to owning Wasatch Family Therapy, LLC and serving as executive director, Hanks is an emotional health and relationship expert on TV and radio. She is a regular contributor on KSL TV’s Studio 5, a celebrity commentator on Reelz Channel’s new show Celebrity Legaciesand has appeared nationally on TLC, Discovery Health, FOX News Channel.  Her down-to-earth advice has also been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Cosmopolitan, CNN, Women’s Day, Women’s Health, Real Simple, Parenting, and others. Hanks writes for Answers, Sharecare, DailyStrength, and PsychCentral websites.

After speaking to large women’s groups on preventing emotional burnout for a decade and working with hundreds of women in her clinical practice who were overwhelmed and felt “never good enough”, and were neglecting their own emotional needs, Hanks felt compelled to write her first book The Burnout Cure: An Emotional Survival Guide for Overwhelmed Women.

Amazing interview with the gals from ZynnyMe, most downloads in one week ever!

ZynnyMe

was born out of two therapists coming together through a series of fortunate and unfortunate events and deciding to make something beautiful. Our hope is that this site and what we’ve created truly transforms your life, your clinical practice, and your business.

We get questions about our business name and domain all the time. ZynnyMe… how do you say it? What is it?

Miranda’s story:

It comes from zynny, an old email address of Miranda’s from almost  2 decades ago. Miranda (I) had worked my tush off through grad school, finished in 2 years while working full time in a local non-profit. I got through the first licensing exam with no problems, and then the second exam- I failed… by 1 point.

And of course, as fates would have it- I took the test before a family reunion.. where everyone knew I was taking the exam. Ouch! I felt completely on my own. Nobody I knew from grad school was taking exams yet, the people I asked for direction reported feeling shell-shocked and had no advice to give. So, I started a free online study group. I found people from all over California who were all feeling just like I was feeling. In fact, I found several other people who had all failed right around the same time by 1 or 2 points.

Four months later I found out there was a problem with the exam, received a letter from the board that I had actually passed and became licensed. By this time it had become clear to me how powerful it was to connect with other people. As the group grew, and I was continuing to spend 10+ hours each week- I realized I needed to make some changes for my family. While, I continue to spread the word and manage the study group to this day (thousands of therapists from across the US have participated)- I moved into more of a coaching role.

And, as I started my own cash-pay private practice in one of the top 5 worst cities to live in the United States… during the recession… people started to ask for business coaching… that is how I met Kelly.

Kelly’s Story:

When we were looking at names for our business, we looked a TON of options and talked to a lot of people who knew us. One suggestion we received several times was to integrate the zynny that had been part of Miranda’s email handle and that many people had grown to love. While Zynny was taken, we decided it would be fun to claim ZynnyMe as our online home.

Our vision from the beginning was that people would be transformed by having contact with us. That their mindset would be shifted, that they would be more empowered, leave more confident- that they would be changed.

We are both in gratitude for the amount of lives we have been able to change over the past few years. We adore taking therapists from lost and unsure to focused and confident.

What you’ll discover in this podcast

  • 2:38 what Patty Behrens from Counseling Fresno‘s biggest hurdles.
  • 5:52 Miranda’s thoughts about our fears about tools and resources.
  • 13:55 Julie’s secret to staying focused.
  • 18:44 Kelly’s secret hack to keeping social media going, when you’re not online.
  • 26:21 What face-to-face does for relationships.
  • 32:10 A SHOUT OUT TO MICHAEL!
  •  The Most Awesome Conference, a few secrets about it.

Where the conference is taking place!

Screen Shot 2015-02-06 at 4.44.18 PM

REGISTER TODAY!

Music from the Podcast

Silence is Sexy

HighMas

PracticeofthePractice.com-session69

 

PRIVATE PRACTICE CONSULTANT

Joseph R. Sanok, MA, LLP, LPC, NCC

Joe Sanok is an ambitious results expert. He is a private practice business consultant and counselor that helps small businesses and counselors in private practice to increase revenue and have more fun! He helps owners with website design, vision, growth, and using their time to create income through being a private practice consultant.

Joe was frustrated with his lack of business and marketing skills when he left graduate school. He loved helping people through counseling, but felt that often people couldn’t find him. Over the past few years he has grown his skills, income, and ability to lead others, while still maintaining an active private practice in Traverse City, MI.

To link to Joe’s Google+ .

Photo by Tax Credits

Here is the Transcription of This Podcast

Last Consultant roundtable: Miranda Palmer, Julie De Azevedo Hanks, Kelly Higdon And Joe Sanok

This is the Practice of the Practice Podcast with Joe Sanok, Session 69. Well, hello everybody. Welcome to the Practice of the Practice Podcast. I’m so glad you’re here, and I am not alone. Well, I’m alone sitting in my office, but I am virtually not alone, because I have my three friends, Julie Hanks, Kelly Higdon and Miranda Palmer, all hanging out with me, virtually. Hello, ladies.

MP: Hi.

JH: Hello.

Joe Sanok: Well, for the last two weeks, we’ve been roundtabling some private practice owners that called in with questions for us, and it has just been a really fun way of doing the podcast. If you didn’t check that out, you should definitely go back. Some huge value from the two previous callers, and today we’re going to be listening to Patty Behrens. She has a question for us. So why don’t we get to that question, then we’re going to roundtable just a bunch of ideas to help her grow her practice.

What Patty Behrens from Counseling Fresno‘s biggest hurdles

PB: Hi, and be here to answer a question. One of my biggest hurdles for success in my therapy business and one that there’s three that stand out to me. One is promoting myself. I know I’m a great therapist and have some cutting edge techniques I use, and people achieve some real changes and success yet putting myself out there is difficult for me to do — promoting myself.

And with that, second of all is marketing. I get too boggled by all the social media, staying on top of it, the knows-hows of how to do it and then I run and get hurdles with it as well. I’m not all that tech savvy. I do have a basic knowledge but when I run into hurdles, I try to keep going and keep going and then after while it’s like, “Ah this is taking too much time” which leads me to my third one — time — time management, organizing my time so that I have time to promote myself to market and run my private practice along with life in general.

So, those are my three biggest hurdles to achieving growth and success.

Joe Sanok: All right so Patty had three big things that she summarized for us: promoting herself, marketing kind of feeling like sometimes her mind is boggled, and then also time management.

Why don’t I have Julie, Julie why don’t you bring up counselingfresno.org. That’s her website.

JH: Okay.

Joe Sanok: And then let’s jump right in here. I hear some deep breathing on somebody over there. Is there a microphone that’s… Welcome to the Practice of the Practice Podcast where deep breathing is a sign that we’re relaxed. All right.

So, let’s bring up her website and why don’t we start…

JH: Give me the domain again, Joe. Sorry.

Joe Sanok: Sure. I’m sorry. It was counselingfresno.org.

JH: “Dot org” okay. And I have some comments about her questions.

Joe Sanok: Yeah, yeah. Jump on them.

JH: And they’re very common questions that I work with in my consulting and I want to reframe a couple of words that she used, “promoting myself”. I don’t think of it that way when I do it or when I teach people to do it. It’s being yourself and building relationships like you do in therapy, but it’s just in a different venue.

It’s not about promoting yourself. It’s about promoting your message and serving your community. And so that reframe has helped my clients go, “Oh, well, yeah. I can do that because it’s not about you. You have to be willing to be out there, but the message isn’t about you. It’s about what your work can do to change their lives.

Joe Sanok: Yeah. Okay. Cool. I like that.

JH: And same with marketing. I don’t ever use the word marketing because that’s — I don’t think of it that way. It’s building relationships, it’s networking, it’s attracting and I think for therapists some of those reframes are really helpful to get past the barriers of you know, if this can’t be about me or I don’t want to promote self-promotion, it’s selfish, all that kind of stuff.

Joe Sanok: Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you. Yeah. I think that’s great. So, going off of that idea that it’s not so much just promoting yourself, but really just being who you are and letting people know more about you. Kelly, why don’t we start with you? Kelly, what would you say in regards to Patty? She frames it as promoting herself, getting her name out there. How would you start working with her?

Kelly’s thoughts about our fears about tools and resources

KH: I totally agree in what Julie is saying and I think what stuck with me what Patty said, “I have cutting edge techniques I’m using” and by looking at her website, one of those is — and I think she’s probably referring to is the brainspotting that she uses with trauma, and sometimes I think that fear of talking about what we — our are tools and what makes us unique as therapists in our practice, whatever we’re doing. Sometimes I have found people won’t talk about it because they’re afraid that it’s putting down other people and their techniques. But really, instead, stepping into a place of owning really the work you’ve put into training on your brainspotting and your expertise in trauma and knowing that there are lots of ways that people help feel trauma, this is your way, this is the way that you do it best that you know helps and by not sharing that, that person is missing out on opportunity of working with you.

So really getting comfortable in that space of what is unique and what do you really that’s of value and special to your practice and talking about it more, I think is the first good step.

Joe Sanok: Awesome. And Julie, do you feel like her website is really kind of spotlighting that cutting edge feeling that she talks about?

JH: I don’t. It’s very nice, it’s very — now, it’s like I’ve lost it. Hello. Where did you go? It’s very nice and soothing, I would say, but cutting edge does not come to mind when I look at it. I am missing — I want to see a picture. I want to see a picture of her right off the bat and you’ll hear me harp on that forever. I want a person. Who is this? Who is Patty? I want to see her picture.

Joe Sanok: Yeah and even on like on about me, there’s a video that I think it’s her. It looks like it’s her, but you’re right. I mean, having a professional picture, I mean, brainspotting you know, if that’s kind of a cutting edge thing she’s talking about, I agree. It looks like it’s a powerful focus treating method that works and she goes into, but I’m not getting that either that is this cutting edge technology or way of helping people.

JH: Yeah. So I think and maybe that’s not going to be her message.

Joe Sanok: Sure.

JH: But yeah. I think it’s a nice clean site but there’s nothing that’s really going to draw me in. So, a nice a photo would be great and then maybe an invitation on that front page. Learn about you know, a cutting edge neuro-psychological you know, whatever describe it and click here to learn more about it because the general public is not going to know what brainspotting is but they’ll know that they have trauma and they want help and this could help them.

So, I think making that really clear and inviting them to learn more right from the top.

Joe Sanok: And I think the theme, the theme that even in other times like last week when we were talking of simplifying like what you want the person that’s on your website to do, there’s a lot to click on. I mean, like she has verify my license, like you can click to see the status of her license, like under services, like a lot of these things could be consolidated so there’s just less to click on.

Miranda, what do you think?

MP: Well, I think one of the places that she’s struggling is really focusing her niche. I know it’s really hard because she’s there in Fresno, California which isn’t like a really big space and there are a lot of therapists there, so it can be really scary to think about getting really specific. But there are 390 people who searched for anxiety, specifically in Fresno, every single month.

So this is like a really big issue. There are 90 people searching for anxiety symptoms. There are 170 people searching for anxiety attacks. To be able to really tap into what your particular community is struggling with and then speak to that issue. This front page I feel like should be a place if you’re going to have you know anxiety, grief, trauma, lots of different things, it should be a place where you make a connection, and empathize and then point people to more information about that issue, as opposed to trying to kind of ride all those different horses.

Definitely empathize but then point them in the right direction and then have that page be all about that. Have that page be all about — if you’re dealing with anxiety I can really help. We can do traditional talk therapy. I can also introduce you to brainspotting. What that is, is blank. This is what the research says about this and how much more quickly it works. I was consulting with a therapist the other day and we were looking at the statistics, an analysis about how well hypnosis works versus psycho analysis and the stat was something like only 30% of people felt they had recovered after 600 sessions of psycho analysis versus over 90% of people after 6 sessions felt like they had recovered after hypnosis.

Joe Sanok: Six-hundred? Which insurance are they on that they’ll pay for that many? Holy cow!

MP: But you know, it was one of those things where finding a way to really you know, like verbalize about the way that she’s doing work, right? Because psycho analysis isn’t about recovery. Psycho analysis is about exploration and sometimes you do feel worse when you explore. It’s a whole different model and so to be able to describe the benefits of your particular model to share how this works, what kind of people are drawn to it, I think is really important and to make sure that you’re integrating in those words that people are searching into Google that people are googling. It is a window into our ideal client when we go and look at those keyword tools. That’s one of the best tools that we have. Yeah.

Joe Sanok: And that in that Miranda, I love that point that you keep bringing us back to well, this is how many people are searching for this because you know, I’ve heard from some of my consulting clients: well only 25 people searched that. I’m like, “But if 25 people get an exact match and you’ve written the article that helps them, that’s 25 new clients.” Like, people would kill for 25 new clients. Well, maybe, not kill. But they would be very excited about 25 brand-new clients and so I think that understanding what it is that — that this is your niche and then writing to those specific keywords and providing useful tools, useful content is such a phenomenal strategy. They just increase the amount of people that you can see.

So, she had a few other things in regards to like social media kind of boggling her mind. We’ve all probably worked with people that weren’t raised on social media. They maybe were late adopters. What advice do you — maybe Julie, why don’t you comment on what about late adopters to Facebook or Twitter? Where do they get started?

Julie’s secret to staying focused

JH: Well, I actually have a blog post where I break it down. Unlike if you’re starting from scratch, here you know, it’s 10 steps and you start with one and you don’t think about the next steps until you’ve done one, which is create a website.

Number 2 and so you go through and break it down and you cannot move on until you’ve done the previous assignment or you know, set up a Facebook professional page so then you master that. I think breaking it down and not feeling like, “Oh, my gosh. I need to get on every platform and I need to figure out you know, how to build my own site, and I need to be on Pinterest, on Instagram. No, you need to just start, start small and build from there.

And social media is always evolving. You can never know everything about it which is why it’s so fun and so overwhelming. So, I would just break down and we can maybe put a link to that blog post that I’m referencing. That’s just —

Joe Sanok: Yeah, I’ll put that on the show notes.

JH: — like 10 steps to building your online presence starting from scratch.

Joe Sanok: Yeah, and that’ll be practiceofthepractice.com/session69 and I’ll have a link to that article. So, if you are just send that to me Julie that’d be great. So, someone they jump in, they follow some of these steps. What are some just kind of basic, basic things that people should know about social media and specifically, she kind of said like I don’t how much time to spend on it. Is it like even worth my time to spend on there? And why don’t — maybe Kelly, you’re pretty darn good with the social media, with the Facebook.

KH: The Facebook?

Joe Sanok: The Facebook? I know that oftentimes I’ll put something in here like the first person to like it. So, I’m not saying you have no life. I’m just saying it happens to be on social media. Now, I’m just kidding. On Facebook, for example, where should people start if they want to start from a business point of view on Facebook?

KH: On Facebook? Okay.

Joe Sanok: Yeah.

KH: Yeah. I want to kind of clarify, too like not every platform is right for your audience. You know, it’s interesting the average user of Facebook, you know, is in their 40’s to 50’s. They’re really more there because they have grand kids, they’re like following up on their grandchildren things like that. It’s also picking platforms that are best for goal strategy and where you’re going to find those clients.

With Facebook, if you determine like Facebook is right for you, I think just simply getting a page set up for your business is the start. You know, you can use something like Canva to design the header very easily in your Facebook business page, and just start connecting with other businesses in the area and reaching out, letting people know that you’re there and then after that you can start curating some content.

Over time, as you dig in like what Julie is saying is you’ve got to take time with the platform, understand how it works and how my Facebook page works is probably different than yours, Julie, or Joe’s because we have a little different audience and so you’ve learned, based on feedback and responsive to things you post, that then kind of determines, you know, what you want to focus on and using some tools to simplify. You’ll be amazed Miranda and I really talk about no more than 15 minutes a day on social media. That feels scary for some people that are like, “What?” but really if you start automating some things, we don’t want you spinning your life away on it, at all.

Joe Sanok: So, if you were to break down that 15 minutes that seems like hardly anything, but how do you do 15 minutes on Facebook in a way that will help your business move forward?

KH: Well, one of the ways I do it is I do spend an hour a month pre-writing a lot of the content and so I kind of set aside an hour where I’ve kind of have a schedule. I load it up into a buffer app. That’s what I use, and I know that there’s a schedule there. I’m getting posts anywhere from one to two times a day.

Kelly’s secret hack to keeping social media going, when you’re not online

So, that way, while that’s rolling, what I’m spending my time doing is getting on, setting a goal to connect with two to three people each day reaching out, posting on their wall and re-sharing some content that’s relevant to the people I’m serving on my page and that’s it. That’s just the start. There’s not a whole lot. Otherwise, you’re going to sit and what’s really happening is you’re probably getting drowned in the newsfeed. So, I blocked the newsfeed so I don’t get distracted and just kind of wander off into everyone’s vibes and what they’re doing.

Joe Sanok: Well, I think that’s a really good point in regards to time management, too, is knowing what’s going to distract you. So, Miranda, how do you stay focused on kind of using your time on the things that are going to actually help your business grow rather than just the things that maybe you’re interested in right in that moment.

MP: Yeah. So, one of the things that I do is I really watch statistics. I look at the numbers. We have different ways that we get reports so I get an email report. It’s a visual Google analytics report every single week that lets me know what’s happening with our SEO, how much traffic we’re getting from social, lots of things like that and so it will give me almost like either a pat on the back or a kick in the tush at the end of each of week to go like, “Oh, what you’re doing is really working” or like, “Oh, something didn’t work last week.”

And so when I see everything growing, then I just kind of stay on the same you know, same trajectory and keep doing what I’m doing. If I see things start to dip, except like Christmas week, of course everything dipped, but that was normal.

Then I will then kind of go back and go, “I wonder what’s happening here?” Same thing with Pinterest. I didn’t just go on to Pinterest and start spending a lot of time. I spent a little time on Pinterest then looked at the statistics and went, “Oh, that’s really worthy of my time” and then set some things up so I could even expand that even more without spending a lot of time there. I always go back to the numbers and having a way to track is this worth my time?

Like I spend some time on Reddit and I don’t know that much about Reddit. My husband is a huge fan of Reddit. I don’t really get it, but I spend you know 15 minutes a day for a week, and then all of a sudden we had like 10% of traffic coming from Reddit that week and I was like, “Oh, well, it’s like really cool” and at the same time to be completely honest, I still don’t go on Reddit because I just don’t like it.

I realize that it could a powerful option. It did bring us in traffic. It could have been converting had I you know, stoked that a little bit more, but at the end of the day even though it did that, I don’t like Reddit. So, I’m not going to hang out there.

Joe Sanok: Yeah, yeah. Well and I haven’t been on Reddit much at all, but my brother-in-law just loves it and I said, “Well, can I just have you do a tutorial that I can do for a podcast like a video podcast” and so probably at some point in the future, I’ll have a video podcast about Reddit, even though I probably don’t want to go on it, either.

Maybe for the last couple of minutes of the podcast, in the previous podcast, we haven’t talked a lot about what the three of you do. We’ve kind of jumped right in. So, why don’t I give each of you a chance to just talk about kind of who you are, how people can get in touch with you and then we can talk briefly about this conference we’re putting on and then we’re going to end with what is one thing that Patty can do to just spruce up her private practice even more?

So, why don’t we start with Kelly. Who are you? What do you do? How can people get in touch with you if they want to hear more about what you do in life?

KH: I’m still figuring out who I am, right? I started ZynnyMe with Miranda. I’m really a coach that is focused on helping people in private practice create a private practice that creates a happy life that helps their clients but really gives them the freedom and happiness that they’re seeking in being a business owner. And I’ve really loved doing that. I love inspiring and not just giving ideas but even just showing people, “Look, this is how you do it. Let me just break it down into steps” and show even the most technophobic, you know, people that you know you can learn. The stuff is doable, and that really makes me happy. One of the ways that you can find us, we have a ton of free trainings and stuff which I’m sure Miranda might share about, too, is that our website zynnyme.com and I know you’ll put that in the notes as well.

Joe Sanok: I sure will. And Julie, tell us a little bit about you.

JH: That’s a complicated question.

Joe Sanok: I know. I love throwing out these questions that it’s like well, how do I answer that?

JH: No, I know. This is my elevator speech and I’m failing right here in front of everybody. I’m really a therapist who happened to stumble on social media and media and I’m very intuitive about it and I love sharing the things that I’ve learned, just by trial and error with other therapists, because I think everybody can create the life that they want and the business that they want and you know, if I can be a resource, I’m here.

I do consulting, I also you know, do a lot of media work as we’ve already mentioned. I have many passions, but yeah, I love doing the consulting.

Joe Sanok: Awesome. Thanks, Julie. And Miranda, what about you?

MP: I am a marriage and family therapist. We’re in business consultant, kind of stumbled into it after failing a licensing exam. So, I run a free blog for pre-license therapists over at MFTguide.com and then I do zynnyme.com with Kelly and we created the business called Bootcamp for Therapists, which it’s been really amazing. I love doing individual coaching and consulting. It’s fantastic but to see how taking the same things we were teaching people individually and pairing them with a really awesome community and pairing them relationships has really changed the outcome of the teaching. It’s so great to see people consistently taking the message and really implementing it, not just coming back to the coaching session a couple of weeks later and going like, “Well, I got kind of distracted. I haven’t done it, but I meant to and I will next week.” It’s almost like being around their peers gives them a whole another level of motivation and permission and accountability so it’s been really, really amazing and inspiring to do the bootcamp.

Joe Sanok: Awesome. Well, I know I’m looking forward to this conference we’re putting on in May, The Most Awesome Conference for Therapists and it’s been so cool to see how we’ve really, all four of us, will have an idea and then just make it happen and so like even the idea of leading up to this conference. Let’s have a Q & A call in for all the participants to just kind of have some coaching with us even before we all meet.

For me, that’s something I’m really excited about coming up. What are some of the other things? I know in the last session, we talked about things we’re excited about with the conference. What else are you guys excited about and what don’t I have each of you say what you’re excited about with the conference and then a piece of advice for Patty and then we’ll wrap up?

Let’s go back to Miranda. Miranda, what are you excited about with the conference and then what’s a piece of advice for Patty?

What face-to-face does for relationships

MP: I am so excited to have people right there face-to-face where I get to you know, physically get on their computer or point out exactly what I want them to do, to be sitting there really working face-to-face alongside these small groups of therapists. I am so incredibly soaked, it makes me like the first time. I’m so excited about that and I already feel like with the group of people who are already there we’d have the most you know, oh my gosh.

Joe Sanok: Yeah.

MP: We’re about full. It’s so great to already be getting to know about their practice and about their goals and that just — even the act of signing up for the conference they’re feeling more inspired, more focused and they’re getting stuff done and taking action even before they get there. I love to see that development over time in the therapists and then for Ms. Patty I would really focus a little bit on getting people directed from that home page. I think that she’s on an older version of Squarespace and simply transferring her site to the newer version of Squarespace is going to give her a really clean modern look. So, switch off that home page a little bit and start directing people where you want them to go and then also start working on that keyword of anxiety. It seems like a good place to start.

Joe Sanok: Super. And Kelly, what about you?

KH: Well, I’m excited beyond just the coaching like some of the extras that we’re going to have. I’m excited about just even this flag.

Joe Sanok: I know, Specifically Pacific. I’m so excited they just jumped on board.

KH: I know. Some of the goodies that we’ve gotten for people attending the conference, I’m excited to share that. I’m excited for Ernesto from FYLMIT to be there doing promos so I’m really looking forward to this being a special time of people feeling taken care of and valued and yeah, just having equality experience. That really is exciting to me.

Joe Sanok: Yeah. Awesome.

KH: And then for Patty, my recommendation is to just get down to pick one platform that you’re going to use, and you’re going to just integrate it into routine whether begin in the morning, middle of the day, or the afternoon that you’re just going to turn on the timer, sit down and really try to connect with people through that platform. You know, reach out to two to three people a day via the platform. That’s it. And when the timer’s off, you know, get off of Facebook or Twitter, whatever it is and go about your day, and just know that you did something toward your social media.

Joe Sanok: Awesome. All right, Julie, what about you?

JH: I am really excited to help the therapists there develop confidence and interacting with the media and pitching, being on camera and being bold with their message because it’s a way that therapists can demonstrate their value and makes it more likely that people will value them enough to pay their full fee. So, I love that aspect of sharing, using the media to share your message and build your practice. I’m really excited about that.

And let’s see. For Patty, it’s probably less of an action. I know you want an action, but I’m going to do some reframing still. I would just really keep in mind that social media and blogging, every kind of social media is about relationships, it’s about having conversations with people. And it’s not this foreign thing, I mean, although it feels like it, it’s just using what you already do and what you already know in a different forum, and it’s just building relationships and talking to people about what matters to you.

I think that just takes some of the scary, you know, “I don’t know what I’m doing” out of it. It’s like you do. You know what you’re doing. Now, you just have to figure out how to best use a platform to build relationships and have meaningful conversations.

Joe Sanok: Well, the three of you are so amazing and I have other things that I could say, too, but we have spent a ton of time together already. I’m so excited about The Most Awesome Conference. So, if you are interested and there’s tickets still left, which I cannot guarantee at this point if there are. But if there are, go to mostawesomeconference.com/about and you could see all about what’s going on there. Some of our great sponsors and we’re just really looking forward to getting to know all of you guys.

So, thank you so much ladies. Thanks for letting us into your ears and into your brain and have an awesome, awesome week.

Well, I just wanted to give a shoutout to the 2015 Practice of the Practice awards winners. The Private Practice of the Year was the Parenting Skill in Los Angeles, California and ZynnyMe actually won the other two categories. They won Private Practice Consultants of the Year and also the Private Practice Tool or Resource of the year. So, congratulations to all of them. I know you guys all worked really hard. Actually, all of the candidates worked so hard and we had almost a thousand votes cast just crazy for our first year, just really just super momentum that we’re gaining as the four of us all worked together.

A SHOUT OUT TO MICHAEL!

So I wanted to just give a shoutout to all of those folks and then again, you’ve got to be a part of this conference. I was just talking to this guy, Michael, who was telling me, we were chatting before he signed up. He’d decided to sign up and I got his permission to say his name. We were talking about like what kind of conference this is going to be and this is not going to be the kind of conference where every single session is already pre-planned and you show up and realize nothing is for you. This is the kind of conference where, like Michael, he asked, “You know what? I really want to build my niche. I really want to build that and I want to be able to articulate it.”

The Most Awesome Conference, a few secrets about it

If you come to me or to Julie or to Miranda or to Kelly and say, “Listen, like here’s what I need out of this conference like can we make it happen?” I can go pool side with you and just ask everybody and say, “Hey, if anyone else wants to go talk about niche development, we’re going to be doing a poolside chat for the next like you know, 45 minutes and I’m going to take you through a process of building that. And if you have a session and you say you don’t — “I want to go next level with this. Is there a way”? If we get a handful of people that want to do that next level, right away, we can go next level with it. This is not where people submitted their breakout sessions six months ago or a year ago and that’s what we have to do.

We really wanted a conference that could be agile, that could be kind of a dynamic process that helps you get the very best out of your outcomes that you need, and so if you just go to mostawesomeconference.com/about even if you don’t think it’s for you, we have at the time of this recording, about 10 tickets left in the cheapest category and then after that the price goes up by $250 and after that all the tickets are gone. This is not going to be one of those things where we then say, “Oh, look. We found 50 more tickets.” It’s going to be that it is cut off and so you do not miss out on this. This is really an amazing thing that we’re bringing together and all four of us have never done anything like this before, and we really hope that it really pushes the model of what is expected from private practice consultants.

So, again, that’s mostawesomeconference.com/about and we would love to have you be a part of this conference in San Diego, in late May.

Thank you so much for letting us into your ears and into your brain. Have a fabulous week.

Special thanks to the bands Silence is Sexy and Summer Waves. We really like your 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 guests nor the publisher is rendering legal, accounting, clinical or other professional information. If you need a professional, you should find one. See you.