Pop 197 | Sparks Of Ideas With Sparkspace Founder Mark Henson

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[0:08] The practice of the presence podcast with joe sanok talking thousand pigeons session number one ninety-seven.

[0:14] Music.

[0:24] The practice of the practice podcast we’re here with alison pidgeon co hosting this series as well welcome alison hey joe.
Nice to hear your voice again you have a good day yeah it’s sunny here so that’s nice it’s sunny never seems to be sunny in northern michigan from line.

[0:43] December two ma yeah i need the owner’s son lamps i do,
i really should i have one for a bit and then it died and or buy another one,
well today we’re talking with the folks from spark space and sorting all about in the sparks of innovation environments and else and i know use,
and sometime at the beach like that’s your happy place can you what is your share little bit about your favorite beach.

[1:12] Yeah so my family and i make the effort to go to ocean city new jersey everyday at least once a summer.
And i don’t know if it’s just like being by the ocean or what it is but we seem to have,
good idea parents elisa please transfer like take stock of like my life in the business and what’s working what’s not working and can’t make some goals for when i move forward.
Yeah yeah i remember this time in college and.
I would do these crazy extreme things in cali is often times and i had to decide whether i was thinking a do this one can of path or weather’s gonna go into counseling.
So i decided to go to my favorite place cut for camping that’s close to traverse city ca fan lakes quiet area and there’s this like lake there the it’s only twenty feet deep in the middle of the hazard are clay a c and the bottom.
And so i decided that’s gonna take a box of ritz crackers and a two liter of water.
What can a tarp like not even like take a sleeping bag as him to go out there like some like better when monk and like just be out there until i decide if i like it was,
when did you last i.
Well let’s see i think i think i spent the night out there and then i think it took me till like lunch the next day don’t really care to decide for sure what i wanted to do.
But it was set up like one of those like i’m going in the wilderness until i hear a voice from the heavens tell do and i didn’t hear a voice but.
Actually i heard this non who talked about monastery life where she talked about how you can have.

[2:50] Thoughts in your head be one voice and then what you speak to that thought with your other voice so you have a conversation with yourself,
search up which didn’t really help it just feels super weird walking to the stocking myself and have a conversation but i feel like there’s these,
times and places and spaces that but in all over world weather its like local or around the world or the keys were optical thin spots where you can connect with your spirit you can connect with,
well there’s a higher being or energy force are just ideas weather’s not up to you or ocean city or sell it quiet area.
Space environment oftentimes your hopes have these awesome ideas yeah definitely so let’s dive into this interview spa.

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[3:42] The practice is the of mark ranson he is the chief imagination officer of spark space company this parts new thinking with its unique conference space,
inspirational programs for teens elsa teens and individuals are yes help teens as well have seventeen years ago marked as i do lunch spark spaces a full-time facility,
dedicated to helping teams have more meaningful conversations about overcoming challenges,
building relationships and creating better futures in march of two thousand seventeen he’s releasing his first book ordinary super powers mark welcome to the practice of practice podcast.
Thanks to i am i am excited to be here been listening to your podcast and in preparation for this and have been a learning so much from you and we’re totally different industries with and i think that’s the.
The beauty of sharing this kind of stuff but you can learn from anybody anywhere,
and be surprise sometimes it how much you can learn from somebody that’s not even in your same kind of line of work i know if it were cut from the same cloth in so many ways and i’m sure we’ll discover more of those during the interview to,
yeah we’re totally different industries but we’re doing such somewhere where it’s really cold to find somebody in a different field doing that.

[4:51] Well i will start with you got a cabin about a year and a half ago and this is kind of part of our whole slowdown series spark innovation and where on the step of spark so,
totally applicable spark space you’ll be on the program,
but i want to hear a little bit about the reason behind buying this cabin and what you do to personally slow down the spark innovation.

[5:13] Yeah i would love to talk about my canon all day long that’s think it was lilly when i’m gonna sell them like yet you out here hustling just sit down and get a cup of coffee.
That’s right it’s you know it’s my favorite is my everything is my happy place really,
you know a couple of years ago i launched into it searching for a cabin full-time it just like every spare minute i could i could spare,
i would be out there searching all over ohio for a cabin that was close enough to get you on a frequent basis which is key by the way that was kind of the.

[5:46] The thing that really made it work for us was that we could actually get there and back in a very short amount of time so we can feel like we are,
far away but we really went that far away we can always pop back we need to link us have a cabin is four and a half hours away and it’s likely go there are twenty c here in it so yeah i would love to go more often was just so far away.
Yeah with we look at places but we were thinking about like a pizza place i can help had which is twelve hours from here and that be awesome but.
It’s too far we don’t get there few times here and we have to read it out everybody else and.
I don’t know they just didn’t seem worth it is we wanted a place where we can get to an escape to as frequently as we want it back i often go during the week,
i will clear my in my calendar if i need to do some writing i just wanted just,
yeah take a break get out there and do some hiking or jumping the lake or whatever i can i can do that during the week.
And get down there and i don’t have to spend the night and go down for the day and come back which is awesome that’s awesome so what’s the cabin like.

[6:48] It’s it’s a nineteen fifty five a frame,
and it’s in this community called hideaway hills in ohio which was built in the in the fifties and sixties as a weekend getaway resort,
not that you have to prepare floats in the air quotes around the word resort because i call it hillbilly hills because it’s.
It is this interesting mix of people that have we can cabins of people that live there full-time,
and everybody super nice and friendly there six hundred cabs in this area lol at,
yeah there’s a golf course there’s a will there’s to five lakes there’s atv course there’s hiking trails and minutes it’s really dislike this best kept secret.
Why and not anymore as the year this was something i was checking off my bucket list for one thing my wife and i got out of debts,
many years ago now and for sitting there going what are we so what we doing it for out of that we should be putting our money somewhere else,
and so that was part of it too is like this is a long-term investment for us that we get to play with in the meantime and side,
yes so we can check that off but really came up with this call to nature if you want to call it that i’ve been feeling over the last.
Several years i grew up out in the country we lived on ten acres surrounded by,
every other plot we had around us with ten acres of the very few houses and it was go build forts in the woods and go you know run through the hay-field i mean i have that sort of weird little country life and it was awesome.

[8:18] And i think ever since then i’ve been trying to get back to that more natural kind of life and connect with the outdoors a lot more.
You know it’s easy to say i can get out do that anytime i want what you can you don’t even in here in columbus ohio we’ve got these amazing metropark beautiful hiking trails and i tried to frequent those as much as possible.
But it’s a little different when you have a place to go to you know and you know that it’s yours and you know that it’s sort of your can a safe happy place.
And still we have closed down there like i don’t we don’t pack anything we just have the cargo is awesome that ass and you have teens how to the handle that time of slowing down.
The head be absolutely hate it in fact we have discussed never taking them again and.
It’s suppose sounds funny because like i mean they’re just teenagers like we joke that we bought it we bought the cabin ten years too late.
Four is to create those sort of happy family memories for the kids love going and everything we got these typical teenagers that they just mope around and,
the funny thing is the longer they’re there the more they like me and,
so we have to remind ourselves that all the time but like they always say they don’t wanna go they give us a hard time we get down there and maybe if we’re down there for two days,
maybe the first date is kind of wasted on them and by the second day though they warm up a lot they come out the play games they’ll do puzzles with the still.

[9:48] No we watch movies together in and then by the time we go back home everything’s everything’s pretty good to get.
I feel that so much matches what i think we all go through when we intentionally decide to slow down.
When we’ve just been going full tilt and we talked in previous episodes of others is purging phase of like an anxious you checking your phone your.
Remember all that you list stuff from back home and then you can against the practices of you guys that might be puzzles and watching movies are going on the lake,
and then you finally into that stage of presents where sleep oh this is what i wanted and then usually it’s time to go home.
Yeah exactly is that you know that has a vacation to ray where you spend three forty vacations are on winding before you actually relax and hopefully by getting away more frequently we’re getting there faster now.
You know it well it might take us and especially not having to un pack and do all that stuff or are sort of.
You know we have to wind back up because we usually have to clean up the cabin before we leave cuz we loan it out to friends and family a lot we never know who’s gonna be there next week,
visit to leave it in the library and all that yeah yeah so like we you know we have this whole wide process that sort of stresses out again before we leave of that’s okay it’s only worth it,
yeah yeah so before you had the cabin and you had a successful business you guys are doing really amazing things spark space what did you do to kinda slow down before you bought a cabin.

[11:13] Well what is a good question i didn’t slow down a heck of a lot you know i we took vacations like everybody else does and.

[11:23] One of the things that changed in the way that i took vacation overtime was,
i used to be the kind of person when it came to vacation i would wanna go and go exploring i would wanna go all the time yeah,
justin and i are both like that it’s usually just you know we go to mexico or something of that will you buy with money to see all the stuff in yeah.
And ask how it was but my wife is like i wanna park my rear end on the beach and i wanted to sit there for a week.
And it took me a long time to realize that’s really what i needed sometimes like i still love to explore that’s just in my nature but i’ve learned to just.

[11:59] Park my butt on the beach and just kinda hangout and do that decompression and kinda get that time away and let go it took me.
Oh probably ten years in my business is now seventeen years old to take me about ten years before i stopped taking my laptop on vacation while.

[12:17] So everything i check my email every morning and now the smart phones it’s kinda hard to stay away from it completely but you know i will check my email i would spend using when we went on vacation i would spend and hour or more working every day.

[12:31] Will be in beautiful locations around the globe and i would be no point on my laptop trying to squeeze in work before everybody else woke up and making a thing that i just realized overtime like what was the point of that like that was kind of ridiculous.
And i wasn’t letting go with letting my team do what they should do like i just i should of been able to walk away a long time ago and let them handle it for a week.
I was such it was so controlling about it all and i wanted you know i wanted to make sure that their problems that i was there to take some form and you now i just gone like a in and less someone dies or the place burns down.

[13:06] Don’t don’t call me and i can check and everything’s gonna be fine i remember when my wife and kids and i went out to seattle to.
I was help with this got and conference and it was like a year ago but a year and a half ago.
And it was the first time that i taken two weeks off so we can go to the conference and then we can go hang out with my brother lives in oregon.
And i just hired this assistant maybe like four months earlier but i never been totally gone and i told her like i don’t want to hear from you unless it’s like a major emergency with one of my clients are like something totally falling apart.
In that two weeks was our highest grossing two weeks of the previous like five years and i’m like what i need more money why was like sitting on the beaches in oregon,
then i did when i was like busting tail here and so it was in our class and for me to step back and let your team do a when you set up the correct kind of,
infrastructure us human you have assistance of people who can handle those things,
often times you removing yourself can actually make you know the company be a company rather than can be your own just venture.
Well and most of us and i assume a lot of your listeners are the same way in the rain maker for my company like i’m the one who you really drives everything for i got a great team that supports that.
But when i leave it it’s sort of a lot of time status quote like it just it will maintain extremely well in fact i would say it runs better when i’m not there then when i am there.

[14:36] Because they don’t rely on me and make good decisions in a learning a.
The adapter when i’m there that i tend to be my as my wife calls on the walking talking spark space encyclopaedia.
They ask me all the questions because they think i have all the answers so then i try to pretend to have all the answers and make up stuff sometimes and sometimes i have the answer sometimes i have to sort of figured out with them.
But they don’t have to do on their own when i’m not there and that’s a good day yeah.
You know i i the last four years i belong to program called strategic coach and if you’re familiar with interview ever talked about on your show.
And if it’s a program for entrepreneurs and small business owners.

[15:17] And there’s a lot of people in private practice kind of situation there like financial planners insurance agents counselors those kinds of people and.
Will one of the main things that they teach you right of the bat is you have to take more free time for yourself.
As a business owner and entrepreneur practitioner if you don’t spend boat loads of time re charging yourself.
You’re gonna burn out and i can be as affective you’re not gonna make as much money you watch when the more time you take off the more money you make me this way to make you that promise.
And you don’t believe at first and then as you learn to do that and you learn to trust your team to learn to trust the universe and everything else it’s like it does start to happen because.
You you every time you take that time away you re charge your batteries you come back even stronger and for the longest time i didn’t understand that i just got.
I have to work all the time right now like i take so much free time it’s kinda ridiculous,
will like with spark space so the whole thing is that you have this amazing environment where teams can come together and commit of can work out some other ideas,
maybe talk a little about the space of people can a visualize and then what kind of spark do you see from teams they go through can.

[16:35] Group exercise their whatever their team plan so how does all that work.

[16:40] Church well the space itself that’s the easy part to describe it is a loft style meeting space so imagine like a really cool new york loft apartment.
And we have five of those in one place where people can come in as a team rent the room for the day and come hang out and are very cool inspiring loft space so wood floors brick walls that just.
Typical sort of really cool office space that you see on tv if you if you don’t live in those kind of situations and in columbus that’s in columbus at unique thing cuz we don’t have a ton of that kind of architecture here,
as opposed to a lot of places on the east coast that have a lot of older buildings and making a thing so it’s very unique here and it’s a very,
find story disconnecting environment for people when they get offer elevator like they’re just sort of out like they just didn’t expect it.

[17:30] And is designed intentionally wanted it to be this place for people here that.
When they left their officer they left their home and they came to our space they really felt like they were someplace different,
it was someplace nicer than what they work and live in every day and it’s a very casual very fun very inspiring environment we have inspiring artwork on the walls not like that like success reuse poster,
we have to find interesting art work on the walls are use of color is kind of interesting we have this very like fun but very sophisticated color palette throughout.
All they could the furniture is movable and can’t figure bill so you can can figure things on the fly like you wanna change the room around like as your meeting you can totally do that.
All the furniture is incredibly comfortable so that’s not one of those hundreds is there obstacles throughout your meeting so we just trying to make this the most warm comfortable welcoming environment.
So that,
people can be more themselves that they relax into the meeting are there discussions very quickly then they can let their hair down they can collaborate more effectively they open up and communicate more effectively,
hopefully the more creative and an environment like that.
I have always worked and creative environment i was in radio for a long time and i was i was at work for a design firm for about seven years or we had these awesome studio spaces and just really saw the impact of.
I’m enviroment on the way the people worked and how creative they could be and how effective they could be.

[19:02] And working with other people and so that’s what i tried to recreate this or that sort of really awesome studio environment for anyone to come to plug into and use.
Well i think it’s so interesting is how when you whether you disconnect and go to cabin or whether you are in cubicle world and you end up as spark space that that difference in location can can the shift your brain.
Honestly prime the pump before you ever start brainstorming and thinking about the business side of things absolutely and when people get off our elevator and they come into the room that are gonna be hanging out in for the day they.
What are the common themes that i’ve heard throughout the years what is this sort of feeling like while.
Today’s gonna be different like.
And and that’s awesome that’s that was the exactly the feeling i was going for so when we hear them like yeah today is gonna be different for you it’s gonna be awesome you know.
So we still excited about something that i that’s to me the biggest compliment for what we do is when people have that feeling when they arrive.

[20:05] If they still have that feeling when they left when they leave at the end of the day when they may come out there like man that was.
Like what happened here today that was amazing like that those kinds of days are.
You know the best just after the best of what we do yet so when you hear stories of can the sparks that people have after having a day and spark space.
What kinds of examples you have that you hear people of innovated and i can always talk about your clients come through but any stories you can tell about sparks are ideas of people having been spark space.

[20:37] There are lots of ideas and it happens there so we have you know everything from.

[20:44] Organizational development type things that happen where people are learning how to be more effective in their roles at work or can be even be more effective human being sometimes.
I love you lots of brainstorming sessions around new products and services where do you know people like,
like for the instance this week victoria secret headquarters is here in columbus and we have,
there there’s their new ceo and her direct reports are in talking about like strategic direction of victoria’s secret this week,
well we and we don’t we don’t know what all happens in those meetings don’t we don’t use drop hurt you know or would be microphones in the room or anything like that.
We have a general idea of what happens in the rooms at one were facilitating were helping people that’s a little that’s different story that were fully immersed in fl ia involved.
When next years and where is mind-blowing your car flat in,
does the bitch know clients like that will bring in to giant posters of things that we get a little more of an idea of what’s happening but yeah we seen people you know come up with their next big thing,
at it at spark space and that’s so exciting we’ve seen people you know change the entire direction of their company in a single meeting before.
And no sadly there been times in the past like they got this isn’t happening now but with their been times where people have to like figure out who.
How we’re gonna downsize yeah we’re gonna operate more you know lean and mean as a company in back during the recession week we kept our doors open somehow and a lot of those meetings were people coming in just feeling beat up.

[22:23] I’m feeling you know just worn out depressed you know they had really tough decisions to make and even during that time i felt fl and we are providing this amazing service for them because we are at least giving them an environment.
Where they felts you know this a little sense of hope and a little sense of you know creativity and certainly comfort.
I have,
and even though i hated that can i use i was kind of glad that we are able to provide that to them at that time because that’s exactly what they need well i imagine if they were talking about,
you know people’s lives and people like losing their job or getting worse health insurance and however they are gonna down size in just a stark white board meeting room.
It’s like this the options on the table while we can fire him or we can keep um were as if there’s sparks space i would imagine they might start to think a little more creatively and see what else is out there be another way that we can.
We can figure this or make this work so it’s not as much of an impact as many people that you know i really hope that’s what happens yeah.
What so you guys went through the story branding process and i love donald miller’s story brand podcast i just absolutely love it,
i’d love to hear about what you guys were like before story brand and what changes you were able to make the company and what kind of sparks you’ve had as a result of going through that process.
Yes so store brand is donald miller’s company where he helps company helps other companies and brands tell their story better.

[23:56] And actually do their marketing in the form of the story.
So how he goes about that is he uses these age-old story telling techniques that you seen and heard a million times and every,
really good but every really good movie and tv show they’ve ever seen and it’s a variation of the hero’s journey where,
not you have somebody who has a problem and then you become the guide to help them solve that problem and you guide them through the process of,
here’s what you need to do to solve that problem here’s what happens if you do and here’s what happens if you doubt and that’s kind of the basic format of how to tell your story is brand.

[24:35] So how that changed how we approach the market was we made the classic mistake that don talked about during story brand and that we have placed ourselves as the hero of the story.
So spark space even just leaving a website as an example.
When you came to our website before it was look how cool our space is where the greatest space in the world with you know more if that any other space ever invented and.
That’s the typical way that people go about it maybe not quite that loud and you know kinda silly but it’s always about like look how great i am.
Look how great i am as a counselor i can help you know anybody trying to harvest i have the specialty ii yeah look at all them all the time look at all these letters after my name like i’m pretty special right.
So in and i look at websites,
every day now with this sort of filter on ss looking at them are they presenting themselves as the hero of the story or as the guide of the story,
and so that’s how we shifted we really took a look at that while at all we do is brag about herself so we really don’t talk about our customers much we really don’t talk about the.
What makes it different to work with us or come to spark space.
And so we started shifting everything we started re telling that story and saying hey you know we know that here’s what you do with when you’re trying to book a meeting planner meeting and execute a meeting.
And we can help with that we can we can make that process a lot easier for you so rather than saying you know we’ve invented a better way.

[26:11] We still say that we can’t wait to say that we relate to the audience first we put them on the pedestal and say hey look.
You’re very poorly know that and we know you got some challenges in our area and here’s what we’re doing to help alleviate those problems for you.
And yeah it’s been night and day in the with the way that we approach our clients and the way that our client even respond so we always had this.
Very good reputation that’s very good relationship with our clients but you know were seeing this influx of new clients that we never seen before.
We getting very simple things that don suggest like we never had a like a by now button on our website at what he calls by now but new for us that is a ticket to work or reserve now can about.

[26:59] After other people be called make an appointment for other people and he takes scheduling and take or download this you know this helpful resource or whatever it is,
to their set of those traditions train transitional calls to action as they say which is something easy for people to sort commit to and then there’s the by now like commit to you know purchasing my service or product,
we don’t have any that on our website before it had a sort of looking find art so reservations page before you could i ever actually take any action so when the very first things is we put up,
right reserve now button on the very home page of our website and our reservations and inquiries went up.
I can’t remember the actual statistic but at like three times on my gosh it was crazy.

[27:45] Well i think it’s amazing i do as a lot of my consultation with people a website review elvis to screen flow of,
looking at it and one of the first things i notice is at the top of the page often times they don’t have their phone number,
they don’t have a schedule and take the exam is on a counseling page they don’t really using me to get convinced they need counseling the problem and thinking about it for nine months to find the right land on your page.
So even just having an apt and is kind of a waste of time just like book now let’s schedule this in taking get going,
when counselors do that they almost automatically get two or three times more people scheduled with just right from the get go with that so it such good advice what else did you guys learn from starbucks sorry rant.

[28:30] We weren’t saying too much to write off the bat you are our home page made the classic mistake of.
Trying to tell the whole story right there about,
everything that we do and so it was a very long string and a beach once and had no idea yeah i mean it was like almost too many links to hear it here and there and like and just trying to tell too much of the story,
because you know the old way of doing things was put everything you can on the home page because that may be all they ever see and,
now you know the thinking is it’s that sort a first date mentality like just reveal enough to keep them interested and have them take some action like that actually might be just clicking to another page in your site to get more information,
about a particular product or service.
So if we did that we simplified our story a lot and we were just we were just telling too much and as we even went back and looked at like our website our website had.
Why was i need the exact number but it had many pages.
On it and now we have this very small handful because what we look at the statistics for all these pages known was there visiting and they were just sort of making it up.
And so we cleared all that out we just got the basics on their of what people were actually visiting what they seem to want to know,
and like so now maintenance on their website is a lot easier we don’t have all this like weird outdated stuff floating around,
part of this to as it is hard to marketing director lasts.
July and so in she went to store brand as well i’ve gone through the year before and then she went through last year.

[30:06] And so she’s this is like her baby like she’s spends her entire day like thinking about story bread and i do to but she’s going s executed all and that’s a huge help because,
it totally relied on me i would probably,
yeah i get it started because i’m on my this i am a quick start kind of person i liked like get things going but i’m not so great at maintenance,
okay so that’s why she’s here like she not only helps with this strategy of everything but you know she’s the executor she make sure that it gets done and gets maintained along the way.
Very poor like if i didn’t have for i’d have to outsource it at happy have somebody there is one of the things i’ve learned about myself as an entrepreneur and a business owner is that.
I like to start things i’d like to get my hands dirty but like i’m not that the right person to run anything for more than you know just the initial.
Launch of the of the thing yeah.
And so that getting a hand something off as quickly as possible to somebody else and save run with that and make it even better i mean that’s critical to my success.
Well i think it’s important for every business owner to think through what are the things that really bring me energy and life if you can really good at and what are the things i might be good at but i just don’t like doing and what are the things i am,
actually standing in the way of success and need to,
totally get away because and the hardest part know things we he in there are bad apples are easy to search and need somebody to do my accounting for example.
Price but those things that you’re pretty good at but you really shouldn’t be doing like i was doing all the images for my podcast in the show notes and all these things and sam does those for me.

[31:42] And i feel like i did a good job to have an artistic eye.
But it was a terrible use of my time to be sitting doing two or three hours of show notes for each podcast episode when i could up sam twenty bucks for her to do an hour.

[31:58] So yeah and no resources are so you can resources are so cheap.

[32:03] No like in this sort of freelance economy that we have there’s somebody who’s willing to do something you know for twenty bucks an hour and it just like freeze up your life.

[32:14] Especially if you’re a counselor in private practice like most of the listeners are new billing hundred and fifty two hundred dollars an hour you’re the most overpaid designer or,
phone call administering person schedule or and the fact that,
if you could go to counseling sessions and pay for someone’s entire week of outsourcing is just is just ridiculous to me.

[32:36] Yeah i heard somebody got wish i could remember which podcast heard on.

[32:43] The way they were talking about how it was important to.
And if they have made in europe i guess i can’t remember this but it was it was recently were even a two minute task you should spend like an hour teaching somebody else i always rory vienne and story brand.
How is it with three minutes are.
It seems to be no absolutely insane to do that because the psycho two minutes i could just get it done myself but like adding up those two minutes over a year you spent way more time than our teaching someone else how to do it.
So if it’s not does that thing thirty times and it took you an hour to teach that two minute task then are at your in the black in that situation.
But that’s so hard to do though like me nuts and i think even acknowledge that on the podcast was that.
Oh really tough to stop and do that because it’s just it is easier in the moment to just not try to knock that out yeah what i started doing it for my email for example just recently brought on an assistant that would help with managing some of the e-mails,
is it just keeping track of my responses to certain things in a google drive document,
and then just here’s the ones i want to personally respond to star these are the ones that you can reply as family joe’s personal assistant,
it’s amazing how quickly when i just kept track of how i was answering those e-mails how much free time i have in the last season two weeks and she started doing that it’s been same.

[34:11] An email is amazing cuz one of the i think one of the best things that i have done in my life and it’s taken me probably two years to.

[34:21] Totally clean up my email and get unsubscribe from everything and get it to the point where the millers is going to the right people in my company instead of coming to me.
And its like its taking a long time but now i probably get i probably twenty miles a day.

[34:38] Yeah tonight and i know you people to get two thousand e-mails today.
Because they just and they refuse to stop and go through that process of cleaning that system up for themselves and i can’t even imagine you know the tiny either the time you spend on that.
Or the energy that you re just reserve even if you’re not.
Dealing with my wife for instance he was the last two thousand messages montreal you know in it and it stresses her out ends in i know some people even wear that like a badge of honor micah badge of honor that’s a that’s a badge of like.
No no discipline their site right.
I have cleaned that mess up like that is so it draining on and it feels like every e-mail is equal but it’s not,
like one oh well could be from a really amazing podcast guest and one could be from a potential consulting client or potential counseling client,
and the other one can just came by my product and so i think that that’s such an important point market every counselor in the world were listening right now what would you want them to know.

[35:42] Oh wow i’m well this is interesting because i’ll come at it from it may be slightly different angle than the than you were expecting.
I have a i have a child to needs counseling and is in counseling and has a pretty severe need for counseling.
And it’s because of that i have also need counseling and have recently tried to engage counselors.

[36:09] The number of counselors that i have reached out to and talk to.
And found it very difficult to get hold of to get through to get a call back from two even find information on a website is bit has been mind boggling.
So if you know if i was gonna tell anybody is like figure out ways to make it easy for people to connect with you.
And get those systems down because they are playing phone tag is the biggest dragon world so imagine you know i.
I am a potential patient and i’m reaching out to because i need i need help i need assistance i’m i’ve hit a point where i’m.
I need it now right and so when i reach out and then if i have to play phone tag for four days to try to just even make intake call appointment a min.
It’s crazy and it’s like it is not helpful in a universal i finally.
I actually can i would do some back channel and got into a counselor through a friend of a friend of a friend kind of thing and was able to eventually skip that process with this particular counselor.
But several of the other ones i even tried to get into it was that it was that frustrating experience because either their so overwhelmed with new clients whatever they just have really bad systems and i’m guessing they have really bad system.
Yeah because you know i go to other places like my for my primary care doctor.

[37:40] He’s got amazing systems i’m you know he’s got it down i don’t have to wait when i go there on he’s never really running behind if he is it’s just barely hear he’s figured out like those things are important to a practice,
and i think a lot of other doctors have not figured that out yet because there is no-no i get it you know you’re the practice of being a practice.
And a lot of people don’t look at it as a business that’s why you’re doing what you’re doing right joe ass like that’s why you have the bread,
so the practice podcasting that the whole business you happy yeah so i can’t stress that enough how important the work that you’re doing is,
and how important it is for people to pay attention to that kind of work and get those systems and processes down so that you can help,
people more effectively because there are people out there that just desperately needed when they need it they need they need now,
mark thank you so much for sharing that i feel like it’s such great advice from the other side and i often hear from people that.
The people at the schedule without the people answer the phone because someone out of the phone and they can schedule and it gone through the list and you just think about from just a financial standpoint.
You’re losing the fight the could come for ten sessions at whatever your rate is and you’re gonna pay someone fifteen bucks an hour to answer the phone like it makes sense from the.
Point of view from income when you look impact on the world you and accounting to help people and so if your systems are failing people in being able to schedule with you then that’s just that’s one of those things that.

[39:05] That’s so easy fix why wouldn’t you fix it so thank you for bringing that up mark hanson from spark space thank you so much for being on the practice of the practice podcast thanks to.

[39:15] Music.

[39:24] Just so thrilled that mark was on the podcast where a cool guy with so many dang things in common as you heard.
And if you want the videos to go along with the serious head on over to practiceofthepractice.com/slowdownvideo they are so inspiring and so excited i couldn’t have done it without problem media,
yeah and head on over there and get your videos thanks for letting us in two years into your brain will talk to you soon.

[39:49] Music.

[39:55] Special thanks in advance ounces sexy thank you for your music in this podcast was designed after thirty information.

[40:03] Does he want with gas and a host to guess where the publisher running legal.
Other professional information if you need a professional you should buy when head over to slow down school that have to find out more about this conference with.

[40:15] Music.