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Are you considering a rebrand of your practice? How do you get your team on board with the changes? What lessons can you learn from the rebranding process?
In this podcast episode, Alison Pidgeon speaks with Uriah Guilford about rebranding your group practice.
Podcast Sponsor: Brighter Vision
If warmer weather has you feeling like it’s time for a website refresh, or you’d like to boost your online presence, look no further than Brighter Vision’s custom digital marketing solutions, designed specifically for therapists.
And the timing couldn’t be better because they just kicked off their Spring Cleaning sale! Sign up with Brighter Vision before April 30th and you’ll get $10/month off of your first year of website service with the Brighter Vision team, plus they’ll throw in 3 FREE months of Social Genie to give your therapist blog and social media pages a serious boost, so you can focus on what matters most – your patients!
So get a jumpstart on your private practice’s spring cleaning list by contacting Brighter Vision. To get started and learn more, visit brightervision.com/joe.
Meet Uriah Guilford
Uriah Guilford, LMFT, is the owner of Guilford Family Counseling and the mastermind behind Productive Therapist, a business that provides world-class virtual assistants to therapy practice owners. He is a technology enthusiast, productivity nerd, and a pretty rad drummer.
Uriah is always searching for creative ways to provide counseling to youth and families as well as help therapists to get more done while working less.
Visit the The Productive Therapist website and connect with them on Facebook and Instagram.
Connect with Uriah on Twitter and LinkedIn.
See also: The Productive Therapist Focus Club – an accountability and support group for therapists.
FREEBIE: Take Uriah’s 7 Day Email Transformational Course
In This Podcast
- What does rebranding mean?
- Getting your team on board with the change
- Lessons learned from the rebranding process
What does rebranding mean?
Rebranding is changing your focus, or the focus of your practice.
A top-to-bottom or bottom-to-top rebrand is changing everything from the name to the design to the color palette … and all of the things. That’s what I am doing. (Uriah Guilford)
You can rebrand your practice and make a complete change, or launch a redo of the name, the approach, or from adding a new specialty.
Getting your team on board with the change
The more difficult part was when I had some potential logo designs … I had chosen the one I thought was the best and nobody liked it, almost nobody liked it, and I was crushed! (Uriah Guilford)
It can be difficult to get everyone – or mostly everyone – to agree on one change. With something like designs and logos, it gets trickier when everyone has differing opinions.
That process was challenging but then we went back and chose a different design and updated it to where we were all on board with it. (Uriah Guildford)
Lessons learned from the rebranding process
1 – Give the new name enough thought.
Even though a name may sound great, imagine it far into the future and consider the growth of your practice: will they work together in a few years? Is the name flexible enough?
2 – Avoid listening to old advice. In the past, clinicians were encouraged to use their name, or their city or state in their practice name for SEO purposes. However, now that the world is more digital, that is becoming less important.
3 – Set up networking meetings to promote the new iteration of your practice. Lead up to the launch of your new brand on your social platforms so that your clients are aware and excited.
Useful links mentioned in this episode:
- Visit the The Productive Therapist website and connect with them on Facebook and Instagram.
- Connect with Uriah on Twitter and LinkedIn.
- See also: The Productive Therapist Focus Club – an accountability and support group for therapists.
- FREEBIE: Take Uriah’s 7 Day Email Transformational Course
- Check out this Productive Therapist handout on changing your practice name
- Visit brightervision.com/joe and sign up before April 30th to receive $10/month off of your first year of website service
Check out these additional resources:
- RISE: Find the Best Clinical Supervision, with Catherine Moore | GP 116
- Group Practice Launch
- Group Practice Boss: www.practiceofthepractice.com/grouppracticeboss $149 a month
- Email Alison: [email protected]
- PoP Group Practice Owners Facebook Group
- Free resources to help you start, grow, and scale
- Work with us
- Consult With Alison
- Alison Pidgeon on Therapy for Your Money Podcast
- Practice of the Practice Network
Meet Alison Pidgeon, Group Practice Owner
Alison Pidgeon, LPC is the owner of Move Forward Counseling, a group practice in Lancaster, PA and she runs a virtual assistant company, Move Forward Virtual Assistants.
Alison has been working with Practice of the Practice since 2016. She has helped over 70 therapist entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses, through mastermind groups and individual consulting.
Transformation From A Private Practice To Group Practice
In addition, she is a private practice consultant for Practice of the Practice. Allison’s private practice ‘grew up.’ What started out as a solo private practice in early 2015 quickly grew into a group practice and has been expanding ever since.
Visit Alison’s website, listen to her podcast, or consult with Alison. Email Alison at [email protected]
Thanks For Listening!
Feel free to leave a comment below or share this podcast on social media by clicking on one of the social media links below! Alternatively, leave a review on iTunes and subscribe!
Podcast Transcription
[ALISON]
You are listening to the Grow a Group Practice podcast. Whether you were thinking about starting a group practice or in the beginning stages, or want to learn how to scale up your already existing group practice, you are in the right place. I’m Alison Pidgeon, your host, a serial entrepreneur with four businesses, one of which is a large group practice that I started in 2015. Each week, I feature a guest or topic that is relevant to group practice owners. Let’s get started.
Hi, I’m Alison Pidgeon your host today. I’m talking to my friend and colleague Uriah Guilford. He is not only a licensed marriage and family therapist, he also owns a group practice and he is also the creator of Productive Therapist, which is a virtual assistant company that serves private practice therapists. He describes himself as a technology nerd, a minimalist travel packer, a rock drummer and business development enthusiast. Uriah is someone who I’ve known for a few years now. He actually helped me to get my virtual assistant business started. He is the most positive person I have ever met and he’s also super nice and funny.
Today we’re going to be talking about the process that he’s going through right now of rebranding his group practice. I also am ironically going through the same thing at the same time so we are comparing notes about the rebranding process. He also has a great handout for you on his website, and we’re going to put that in the show notes so that you can find that if you are thinking about going through the rebranding process, just things to think about and tips that he’s learned along the way. So I hope you enjoy this interview with Uriah Guilford.
[ALISON]
Hi, Uriah. Welcome to the podcast.
[URIAH GUILFORD]
Hi Alison. Thanks for having me.
[ALISON]
Can you introduce yourself to our audience in case they’re not familiar with you?
[URIAH]
Absolutely. My name is Uriah Guilford and I’m a licensed marriage and family therapist in Northern California in the Wine Country area above San Francisco, a pretty good place to be. I have a group practice here that mostly serves teens and young adults and families. Then I also have a business called Productive Therapist that provides virtual assistance to psychotherapy practices all over the country.
[ALISON]
Nice, and you have a podcast, right?
[URIAH]
I do the Productive Therapist podcast, yes.
[ALISON]
Nice. How long have you been doing that?
[URIAH]
Two years. Just over two years. Yes, every single week, I haven’t missed a week.
[ALISON]
Wow. How is that? Like having to produce something every single week?
[URIAH]
It hasn’t been too bad because I started out with very low, sounds bad to say it this way, but low expectations in the sense that like, I was just going to publish whatever I could put out, whether it was five minutes or 15 minutes and I decided to design it in a way that was easy and sustainable. So it has been mostly fun.
[ALISON]
Nice. So what topics do you cover on the podcast?
[URIAH]
It’s all about productivity, outsourcing, delegation and sort of business systems and business development for private practice.
[ALISON]
Nice. I know that we have a mutual thing going on of rebranding our practices right now so I’m curious to hear what that process has been like for you and also how that came about.
[URIAH]
Definitely. So I’ve actually changed my name several times. This is the first time that I’m rebranding the practice as a group, but I started out in the solo practice calling myself and my practice Help This Kid. So my website was helpthiskid.com and then as things progressed and I started working more with teenagers I realized they didn’t want to be called kids. So I moved, I changed the name to your Uriah Guilford MFT. Then later on, when I started the group, I called it Gilford Family Counseling, still is technically called Gilford Family Counseling. That worked for a bunch of years and then it just came to a point, this has been a process. I’m sure years has been also a longer process but I realized that the practice is no longer just about me and it’s about the team. As I’ve worked myself out of the main clinical role it just made sense to take my name off the door and to call it something else and give it an identity that people in the community and the therapist here could attach themselves to and get excited about, that wasn’t just like, who’s this guy Uriah Guilford. So that’s the impetus. How about you?
[ALISON]
So what was, yes, I just want to ask one quick follow up question, what was the downside and the upside to having your name, your last name associated with the practice?
[URIAH]
I don’t think there has been too much of a downside. Well, no, that’s not true. I can think of a couple things. First of all, my last name is not easy to spell. People misspell it all the time and it may, it has made the name and the website domain, I think quite long, because guilfordfamilycounseling.com, that type of thing. Then as time went on, I’m in year seven of group practice, people don’t really call for me anymore that much. I still know people in the community and all of that, but I’m not the main source of referrals coming in and then going to the clinicians.
So at some point it didn’t seem to be as much of an advantage as it was just sort of like, yes, I could tell you a funny story actually. One of my daughter’s friends has been coming to the counseling center and I didn’t know this and my daughter didn’t know this and they were having a conversation about it and then discovered, oh, I go there and then it was a funny thing because I was like, did she not see my name, like your last name on the door of the counseling center? Just didn’t connect. Then she was like, oh, I saw your dad, his pictures on the wall at the place I go to counseling. So there you go, there’s an example.
[ALISON]
Yes, yes, yes. So for us the rebranding has really come from at outgrowing our original specialty. So we had branded ourselves as a woman focused practice. We were doing a lot of things with pregnancy postpartum, mental health, which nobody else really in the area was doing at the time. So that really did set us apart but since we have grown now to be 30 clinicians, we’re doing a lot of different things and so it just didn’t feel like it quite fit anymore. So we’re going through the process now of figuring out, well, what does that look like? But we’re keeping our name and our logo and we’re just changing our tagline. So I think that’s another interesting point that I can ask you. I think rebranding means lots of different things. So what do you understand it to mean? What does it mean in your case?
[URIAH]
What you’re doing is a lot easier than what I’m doing. Yes, that sounds fantastic. No, I mean, changing your focus certainly is a rebrand so that you want your marketing and your messaging to then be focused on more things, a broader expanse of things. So that certainly makes sense. I guess, from a top to bottom or bottom to top rebrand is like changing everything from the name to the design, to the color palette, to the fonts and the website and all of the things. That’s what I’m doing. So we’re going from Gilford Family Counseling to InTune Family Counseling. We’re leaning in on the music metaphor and the tagline that we came up with, which I think is fantastic, says where families go to find their rhythm.
[ALISON]
Oh, nice.
[URIAH]
So it ties into that. Then when people see the website, that’s under development right now and when they walk into the waiting room, they see there’s guitars on the wall, there’s record albums on the wall. Each therapy office has a name, that’s a genre of music. So there’s the jazz room, the rock and roll room, et cetera, et cetera. So yes, we’re really going all in on the sort of music theme. I was super stumped on picking a name because I don’t know how many times you’ve had to do this or help your consulting clients do this. It is one of the hardest things to do. Like how can we come up with a few words that communicate real quickly, who we are and what we do?
So I ended up hiring a professional copywriter through Practicery. This person was a copywriter, proper copywriter as well as helped businesses with naming. So we spent a couple hours on that and we didn’t get it till the very end. Then we landed on that because we’re like, we want to do the music theme, but there’s so many choices and most of them are super cheesy and like, no, that’s we can’t do that. We landed on that one and it’s like, In Tune is pushed together. So it’s capital I N capital T U N E and it’s the logo has like some motion of music. It’s really nice.
[ALISON]
Nice. That’s awesome. I love it when branding is consistent throughout the whole experience for the client, like it’s going to be on the website, it’s going to be obvious when you walk in the door to the office that the branding continues throughout. I think that is so cool.
[URIAH]
It’s important to give people the experience of feeling like they’re in the right place to get the help that they need. One example I guess, of that not happening is, and you can’t be all things to all people and that’s not generally a good idea but I think you, and I sounds like we’re both sort of moving to more of a general group practice, which I think is actually a fine thing. But in our waiting room, besides all the music stuff, one whole wall has stickers on it that make it look like a video game level from Super Mario. I don’t know if you played that when you were a kid.
[ALISON]
Of course.
[URIAH]
I love it. I think it’s amazing. We’re taking it down because it just doesn’t quite go but we’ve had some clients, at least one or two come in, middle-aged men coming in for individual therapy and they’re like, ah, I don’t know if this is the place I should be. Compare that to quite a lot of the teenagers that come in and they go, this is the coolest therapy office I’ve ever been in, or this is much better than I thought it was going to be. There’s guitars in the wall that thing. So that’s the experience we want them to get like, oh, this is a place where I think maybe this will be okay.
[ALISON]
I think too, like not being so serious about therapy, I think just makes it so much more approachable for people. I mean, not that you don’t want to take it seriously, but at the same time we try to bring a little bit of lightheartedness to it just so that it’s not so scary or not so stigmatized for people. So it sounds like you did a really nice job with that.
[URIAH]
Absolutely. It’s fun. That’s one of my core values is having fun. Like today I’m the only one here just yet because it’s early, but today’s a Taylor Swift day. So we’re just playing Taylor Swift music. Well, we might have to switch it up because that could get to be too much, but Taylor Swift playlist. How about that? That’s what’s happening.
[ALISON]
Nice. So there’s a rotation of different playlists?
[URIAH]
We’ve got all kinds of playlists through Amazon Music and Spotify. It’s fun.
[ALISON]
Nice. Do the people in the waiting room like it?
[URIAH]
They do. Yes, they do. I remember one time I walked out there and I was walking out the front door and there was what looked like a couple sitting there and I was walking down the hall and I realized that Smells Like Teen Spirit was playing by Nirvana. That song has some pretty heavy portions and I was like, oh no, is that okay? Is this going to bother somebody? So I was walking out, I was like, and I asked them, I was, “Hey, do you want me to change this music?” They’re like, “No, we love it.” So you never know what people love or don’t like. I mean, we try to not offend anybody as they’re coming into therapy, but yes, some music is better than white noise, in my opinion, I think.
[ALISON]
Yes, yes. So what was the process like? You mentioned you worked with a copywriter and they also specialize in helping re name practices and that thing. So what was that process like for you? Do you feel like that was a really integral part of coming up with that new branding? Do you think you could have done that on your own or?
[URIAH]
Yes, I think it was really important and I decided to also bring my team along for part of that process because I wanted them to feel energized by the new brand and not to just pick it because it’s something that I like and that I’m into. So whenever you get a group of people together to try to decide on anything it’s challenging, but I came up with a bunch of names and I bought a bunch of domains too, because I was like growth family counseling, that’s totally safe, but it makes sense. I’ve got a bunch of domains I need to let go of actually, but so once I finally chose InTune Family Counseling, then I sort of pitched that to the team.
They had been along for the ride and of coming up with names and when everybody, without exception was on board with that and they were excited about the idea, I knew that that was the one. It would, I mean, ideally a rebrand has a lot of positive, creates a lot of positive momentum for the business and for the community. So that was important to me. Then right now I’m sort of, I guess, in the middle of the process and I have a free checklist too, that I came up with based on this whole experience and talking to another person named Dr. Tara Sanderson who has done this a couple times as well. So I’m happy to offer that to your audience.
It goes through a whole bunch of things more than we want to talk about today, but the whole process of naming, the legal aspects of things, you got to go through, the marketing and then a whole bunch of miscellaneous things because there’s actually, I think it stalled me for a minute because there’s so much to do. Yes, even just on the legal side, because I’m set up as an S-Corp, a corporate entity here in California. So I do have my stamped paper now though that says, filed, like the amendment has been recorded with the state of California. So I’m officially InTune Family Counseling. Then I got to go down to the bank and change all my accounts and do all the, and then change the name and everything with the insurance companies. So it’s a longer process.
[ALISON]
Yes. If you can give us that checklist, we’ll make sure we get it posted up along with the show notes. That’s awesome. Thank you.
[URIAH]
I’m most excited about getting the new signs for the waiting room though and then doing the proper announcement because it’s like anything that you do, whether it’s starting a group practice or rebranding a group practice, it’s like you do so much work on the back end and then finally the day comes, when you get to flip the switch and go like, “Hey everybody look at this.” I’m looking forward to that. That’ll be fine.
[ALISON]
That’s the gratifying part, when you’re done. So with having your team get involved in this process was that difficult because I’m assuming everybody has their own opinions and their own maybe judgments about which way things should go. So was that, I mean, obviously you want to have them be a part of it, but at the same time you don’t want to have 10 different opinions and then nothing gets resolved.
[URIAH]
That’s what I was scared of.
[ALISON]
How do you manage that?
[URIAH]
That’s what I was scared of. I’ve never taken on a partner in any of my business ventures partially for that reason too because I just, I have very defined preferences on what I like for design and for all kinds of things. I’m fairly opinionated, even though I’m easy to get along with but yes. So when we were just in the brainstorming phase, that was easy because we were all just throwing things out, like the worst, the name is, and we just had fun with it. So that was easy. I think the harder part was when I had some potential logo designs and like I said, I’m particular about design specifically, so I think I had chosen the one that I thought was the best and nobody liked it. Almost nobody liked it. I was like, crushed.
[ALISON]
Oh no.
[URIAH]
Well they had like the name, but if they don’t like the logo, then they’re not going to, someday we might want to get t-shirts or like nice puffy jackets or something like that or whatever the thing is and if they don’t like the logo, oh no. So that process was a little challenging, but then we went back and chose a different design and updated it to where we all were board with it. So now we have nice, we have stickers. That was the first thing I had to do. And one of my therapist, friends called me out on that one time, she called it procrast branding. She’s like, you’re just procrastinating by ordering all the swag. Yes I am, absolutely. So I got fancy stickers here. I’ll show you. They look really nice.
[ALISON]
Oh nice.
[URIAH]
The palette is like different shades of blue and then the sort of accent color is orange so all the buttons on the website can pop. It’s coming together. For the first time also like for what, maybe 12 years I’ve been building my own websites, just enjoy it, it’s fun. Then I started building this website and I just didn’t, I wasn’t feeling motivated and I wasn’t excited about it and it wasn’t turning out like I wanted it to. So for the very first time I’m outsourcing web design, terribly nervous, but I think it’s going to be great and I’m not doing it. So that is saving me time.
[BRIGHTER VISION]
If warmer weather has you feeling like it’s time for a website refresh or you’d like to boost your online presence, look no further than Brighter Vision’s custom digital marketing solutions designed specifically for therapists. The timing Couldn’t be better because they just kicked off their spring-cleaning sale. Sign up with Brighter Vision before April 30th, and you’ll get $10 a month off your first year of website services with the Brighter Vision team. Plus, they’ll throw in three, free months of Social Genie to give your therapist blog and social media pages a serious boost, so you can focus on what matters most your patients. Get a jump start on your private practice spring cleaning list by contacting Brighter Vision. To get started and learn more, go to brightervision.com/joe. One more time, that’s brightervision.com/joe.
[ALISON]
Yes. That is excellent. It’s interesting because we’re not changing our name or our logo. Like I said before, really the biggest change is going to be our tagline. So my marketing person sent the staff a survey to ask them their opinion about what do you think the practice represents or the clients that we attract and all of that stuff. So I’m excited to see what their input was, but interestingly, my staff was really the one who kept bringing up the fact that our branding and our tagline no longer fit what we were doing and they’re like, when are you going to change that? When are you going to change that? Of course, it’s like you have a million other things to do that take precedent.
[URIAH]
Do you have a tagline yet or is it in the works?
[ALISON]
No, it’s still in the works.
[URIAH]
That’s also challenging.
[ALISON]
Figuring it out. Yes, it is because what was interesting about having the sort of women centered tagline was that people saw that and assumed then that we didn’t see men, which was not the case. We can definitely treat men as well if that’s something that we’re qualified to do, but so that was working against us. So that was one of the main reasons why we decided to change.
[URIAH]
That makes sense.
[ALISON]
Yes. So what other tips do you have for rebranding that you could share with us?
[URIAH]
Let me see what else is on the list that people might want to pay attention to. Yes, I think as you’re choosing a name, I mean, I’m imagining people listening to this podcast episode, very few might be in the middle of this process like you and I are. But probably a lot of folks will be thinking about like this might spark thoughts about, well is my name, is my tag, does my tagline really working for me? Those things. So as you’re thinking about that so you want to make sure that the social media handles are available and that also the URL is available. So you don’t want to name your practice very similar to something else like website.com versus website.org because you don’t want to confuse people. So that’s honestly one of the first things that I did is to go search for the domains and make sure that nobody else owns it already and even do a general search of like, does anybody else have InTune Family Counseling in the United States, in the world? I was pretty excited.
[ALISON]
Does anybody?
[URIAH]
No, no.
[ALISON]
Oh, you could get that trademark.
[URIAH]
It’s like that thing that tech companies do where they make up a new word. I didn’t quite make up a new word, but I sort of made a new combination of words that I think is pretty unique. Then the new domain is intunefamily.com, so it’s shorter. And I was also able to grab intune.family. So I don’t know if that could help anybody out there, but if you want, if you do family counseling and you want a website that’s [.family], you can get that.
[ALISON]
Nice. That’s a good idea. Any other tips about rebranding? What’s something that maybe you learned that you didn’t think about before you started the process?
[URIAH]
To be honest, when I go back seven years ago, choosing my name for the first time, like I said before, I had changed my name a couple times, but I feel like I didn’t give it maybe enough thought because I think it is super important what you choose for your name, for your identity as a practice. So if I could go back, I would star where I am now. What I’m doing now I would’ve done then, but I just didn’t know it. So like the advice back in the day used to be for SEO purposes, you should use the name of your city in your website, santarosateen counseling.com. I actually still own that domain but now it seems like it’s not a great idea to use the city or state necessarily or your name. So that would be a recommendation and something that I would have done sooner if I could have. I think with choosing this name though, it should be, it should work for us for a long time. Even if I want to sell the practice at some point, because then now it can be less associated with me, my identity, I think that hopefully will be a win.
[ALISON]
Yes, definitely. What do you think about in terms of the marketing side of it? Like you said, once you get the logo redone and the name and everything is sort of set up and the website’s ready, like, do you have a plan for how you’re going to roll that out?
[URIAH]
I do. I haven’t really gone deep on that. I’ve got the list, like I said. We’re going to do press release. We might do an open house. We’re going to do probably a print mail campaign. I haven’t done that in a long time, but send out letters to local referral sources because we don’t want, I mean, we want people to know that this new thing has actually been around for a long time. So part of the messaging and the marketing, we might even do some Facebook and Google AdWords campaigns as well, just to like really sort of blanket the community with this information. I’m not sure about like on the website or on the front door to be like “InTune Family Counseling, formally known as.” That might get a little bit cumbersome, but somehow we want to let everybody know we’re still doing the same exact work.
In our example, we’re still doing the same exact work and we’re here. We’re just better than ever. We got a fresh coat of paint. So refer, refer to us. I’m sure there’ll be a period of time where it’s going to take at least three to six months, maybe even longer for the community to know and recognize us with our new name. So we’ll do all the things, including setting up networking meetings and going out and meeting with people, especially our most common referral sources, the individuals, and then the groups, I think we’ll do that too. So yes, big push.
[ALISON]
So there’s a lot of different things, a lot of different strategies to make sure that everybody’s aware that your name changed and the branding is different and all of that kind
[URIAH]
Of stuff. Maybe we’ll rent an airplane to drag a sign through the sky or write a message, I don’t know. We’ll see.
[ALISON]
Are you planning to do that, like on a certain day, like as of this date, we are the new name and the new website rolls out or is that going to be more of a slow transition?
[URIAH]
Yes, honestly, once the website is done, that’s the biggest thing that I’m waiting for, the website and then the signage, I could do the signage before that. Once those two things are done, then we can sort of really move on all the other things that I just mentioned. So I’m thinking that will realistically be quarter two, quarter three of this year. As we’re talking, I just got an idea since we’re naming it InTune I probably should have an event with live music. Wouldn’t that be cool?
[ALISON]
You definitely need to.
[URIAH]
I wonder if they would let me do that in the parking lot here. Oh, that’s a fantastic idea. I’m like, thank you brain. And I have a good friend who has an amazing band too, that could come play. Oh, that’d be so much fun and we’re doing better, at least in my area with COVID, so hopefully that could happen in the middle of this year.
[ALISON]
Yes. Well, especially if you have it outside
[URIAH]
For sure, for sure.
[ALISON]
Nice. So was there something about now that you felt like it was time to make that change, was time to go through the rebranding as opposed to three years ago or as opposed to two years from now?
[URIAH]
Yes, it’s a good question. I think probably the decision to end providing direct services at the end of 2020 sort of prompted this over the last year and during 2021, I realized that it was a good idea to make the change, because I’m no longer seeing clients at all. I think that was probably it.
[ALISON]
That was the big impetus that you stopped seeing clients and you felt like, okay, I should probably not have my name on the door at this point.
[URIAH]
I’m wondering if my face should be in the waiting room too because if people see my face and for whatever reason they think I would like to work with them, they can’t. Or maybe I should, I don’t know. I don’t know what I should do about that, but yes, I think that prompted me even more so and made me realize that this is a good idea as a part of a bigger strategy to systemize the practice as well, to run without me. I know you’ve done a lot of work with that and I would love to hear about that at some point. So that, yes, I don’t have to be here day to day and then eventually, maybe I’m maybe I’m not even on site. It’s I think part of a hopefully a bigger strategy.
[ALISON]
I think too, I mean, we find that when people start group practices, especially if they have their name on the door, so to speak, then everybody’s calling saying, can I see that person because they’re like, well, they must be the best because their name’s on the sign. Did you find that was the case too, that people would call and say, I want to see the owner?
[URIAH]
For about the first year to two years because the practice was built on my reputation and my networking and my marketing. So yes, absolutely. It seems like all group practice owners deal with that in the beginning and it’s very difficult because they’re like, oh no, I don’t have any more room to see clients. I really want clients to be open to seeing my associates. So yes, that happened for a couple of years and then it tapered off over the last four years or so.
[ALISON]
Yes, same with me. I always like to be ask people about mistakes that they’ve made, because I feel like we can all learn from other people’s mistakes. So any mistakes that you see people, other people making, of course not yourself, in the rebranding process?
[URIAH]
Oh my goodness, I make plenty of mistakes. Are you kidding? Yes, I learned the best from making mistakes yes. I think hopefully this will answer your question, but I was reflecting on this just yesterday actually that I’m not the type of person that likes to spend months and months and years preparing to make something perfect. I prefer to take action on an idea and to take imperfect action and then adjust and iterate as I go, as you can tell by my several names over the past 12 years but I think most decisions you make with a group practice, there are probably some exceptions, but most decisions that you make are irreversible.
Unless you pay your clinicians way too much to begin with, then you’re in trouble, but most of the things you do whether it’s choosing an EHR or going down the list are reversible and adjustable over time. So I guess my recommendation to myself and to others would be, if you feel like you need to make a change of any sort, whether it’s renaming, rebranding or changing office space or doing something else, go ahead and jump and figure it out as you go. That’s what comes to mind.
[ALISON]
That is what I live by as well. I think that’s very good advice.
[URIAH]
Ready, fire and aim.
[ALISON]
That’s right. I know there was one more thing I wanted to ask you about and I forget now what the name of it is, but is it the Focus Club, it’s called?
[URIAH]
Yes, probably.
[ALISON]
Tell us about that because that is something different that I think is not common that I think lots of people would be interested in. So can you tell us about that?
[URIAH]
Thanks for asking. So Focus Club is an accountability program that’s designed for therapists to help them reach their big goals faster. I found over my career and my journey in business that having the right support and accountability makes all the difference in the world because I’ve got ideas every day of the week. But what I need to do is actually get the work done and so I created Focus Club to help myself and others to do that. I know a lot of the people listening to your podcast and people that you work with in consulting have some pretty big plans and ideas about how they want to change the world and design a life that they love and they just need some help getting there.
So there’s a bunch of components in the program that I think are unique, somewhat unique. We do two, twice a month we do co-working sessions. So we just get on Zoom and we set our intention and we work quietly and then we come back and check in afterwards. Then I’ve got office hours where I do presentations about like tomorrow it’s going to be on building your life resume, so various different things that help people stay motivated and stay on track with their goals. We’ve got a private community that’s really pretty active and really supportive as well as a library of courses. Then people can actually through focus club, they can actually get access to our virtual assistant team to get small, like defined projects done for a very, very reasonable cost. So it’s pretty good combination of things. I’m pretty proud of it.
[ALISON]
That’s awesome. I love that because I feel like that’s so much of what people need, is that accountability piece or just to have like that time carved out in their schedule because I find that people are always like, oh yes, when I have time, I’ll get that thing done. It’s like, you never have time. We have to schedule it.
[URIAH]
That’s so true. What I like about it as well is that it’s a good add-on to any other program or coaching or consulting that people are doing because it literally just helps you get the work done. So we don’t fill your calendar with webinars and calls and things you feel obligated to show up to the things that fill your calendar are like, oh, we’re going to work on the thing that you said you were going to do. That’s what it’s all about. If people want to check it out, it’s open right now for enrollment at productivetherapist.com/focus.
[ALISON]
Nice. Well, Uriah, it was great talking with you about rebranding. I feel like that’s so interesting that we’re going through that at the same time.
[URIAH]
Definitely, I enjoyed this conversation.
[ALISON]
So thanks for all the tips. If folks want to get ahold of you, what’s the best way for them to contact you?
[URIAH GUILFORD]
Productivetherapist.com. That’s also where in the blog section, you can find the tip, the resource list for all the things you need to do to rebrand your practice right there.
[ALISON]
Excellent. Thanks so much, Uriah.
[URIAH]
Thank you. Bye.
[ALISON]
Once again, I want to say thank you to Brighter Vision for being a sponsor of this podcast. They are having a spring-cleaning sale right now. If you’re interested in learning more, go to brightervision.com/joe.
[ALISON]
Thank you so much for listening today. If you want to hang out with established group practice owners, people like Uriah who have built up their group practices, who have lots of knowledge and wisdom to share, definitely look at joining our membership community called Group Practice Boss. You can check it out at practiceofthepractice.com/grouppracticeboss. Whitney Owens, and I help establish group practice owners continue to level up, to solve challenges and it’s just a great supportive community of folks who are all group practice owners. So definitely check it out and consider joining us, practiceofthepractice.com/grouppracticeboss.
I’ll talk to you all next time.
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This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards 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.