Andrew Burdette 00:00:00  The grower Group Practice Podcast is part of the practice of the Practice Network, a network of podcasts to help you grow, manage and promote your business and yourself. To hear the other podcasts like The Practice of the Practice Podcast, go to practice at the Practice Network. You are listening to the grower Group Practice Podcast, a podcast focused on helping people start, grow, and scale a group practice. Each week you'll hear topics that are relevant to group practice owners. I'm Andrew Burdette, a practice owner, and I love to hear from people. Their stories and real life experiences. Let's get started. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the grower Group Practice Podcast. Today I'm here with Jamie Mills, who is the owner of Liberty Mental Health, which is in the Metro Detroit area up in Michigan. She also has an extensive background in marketing, which she brings to her role as a therapist, business owner, and group practice founder. So welcome to the show.

Jaime Mills  00:01:04  Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Jaime Mills  00:01:06  I'm excited.

Andrew Burdette 00:01:07  Yeah. So, you talked, a little bit at the conference that we just had a couple of weeks ago up in Michigan, and I always like to invite guests to talk a little bit about kind of how they got to this point in their career. also just to, to call you out, that was apparently your first time speaking. And I just want to say it went really well. So if you want to do future stuff, please, please consider that in the future, because it was quite an informative talk you gave.

Jaime Mills  00:01:31  Thank you. Yeah, I really wanted to give strategies and details that were useful and helpful. And then of course, being advised to practice and practice because of the time limit that we had. So it was a good challenge for sure. Thank you.

Andrew Burdette 00:01:45  Yeah. For listeners out there, we had basically about 18 minutes to do a talk, which is a lot shorter than you might expect if you're not used to talking or even if you are used to talking, it's a lot to fit in.

Jaime Mills  00:01:56  yeah. In high school is a 3 to 5 minute speech. And it took it was hard to fill. And then the 18 minutes was hard to not go over.

Andrew Burdette 00:02:05  Exactly. Well, cool. So how did you. How did you kind of, I guess, get into marketing and how did marketing. Translate into being a therapist? How did that transition happen?

Jaime Mills  00:02:15  Yeah. So I've wanted to be a therapist since I was in middle school. And so of course, going through, you know, undergrad and psychology and throughout grad school, probably around age 22, when I was finishing up undergrad, I, someone recommended a marketing job to me that was marketing a physical therapy clinic. And I said, yes, it paid well. They didn't require a marketing degree. It was on my own schedule, my own time. So I just kind of fell into it. And then I from there got a referral for another marketing job, another marketing and sales job. And after I realized I liked it, I would seek out other marketing jobs while I was in grad school.

Jaime Mills  00:02:55  So I've sold protein, I've sold vitamins. I've, you know, marketed for urgent care clinics, almost like a drug group. But you're not pushing. You're not selling, a pharmaceutical, you're selling a service. So once I graduated from grad school, became a therapist. A couple years of private practice is after that, I decided to open up my own solo practice, and I didn't realize how much I had learned over the last ten years of marketing experience. And so now that I've stepped more out of a clinical role in managing a business, I've going back to marketing almost full time for my practice, and I realized I like it, if not the same or more as doing clinical work. So I kind of just happened to meet marketing, fell in love, and I feel like being doing marketing and being a therapist is a perfect union for successful group practice.

Andrew Burdette 00:03:51  So are you able to for us therapists that kind of never did anything marketing. We hear the word marketing and we like, cringe.

Andrew Burdette 00:03:58  Like, is there a way to help dispel that kind of cringe reflex that many of us therapists have when we hear the word marketing?

Jaime Mills  00:04:07  Yeah, of course. And marketing can be a ton of different things. So really, I like to tell therapists, too. Marketing and networking can be custom suited for you and your personality. So even if you're more introverted or shy or nervous to do these things, there are ways to do them. And maybe we can go into some strategies later for that. But as far as the mindset so marketing doesn't feel as scary is the word vulnerability. If you can allow yourself to become vulnerable in a space that you are not familiar with and practice that, then I think it will feel less cringe and less nervous over time. So we're as therapists, we are always on the other side of the chair. We're helping other people be vulnerable. And oftentimes we aren't in situations where we have to be vulnerable. So showing off who you are, your business, trying to get someone to buy in to, referring to you can be scary, right? And if you don't believe in you fully right, we all have self-doubts.

Jaime Mills  00:05:11  It's going to be even scarier to be vulnerable because it kind of opens you up for rejection. And so maybe embracing that because we help people work through that all the time. And then the other thing is using the skills that you already have as a therapist to market and network yourself. So rapport building. Right. Being personal. Being friendly. Getting people to like you. Right. That's kind of rapport building as therapists. So harnessing those skills that you already have and not thinking that you need to be someone else to sell yourself or sell your practice. And that's more the mindset of it. And then, of course, we'll get into some actual strategies for different types of people and different types of practices.

Andrew Burdette 00:05:53  You kind of touched on here in the previous response, you were really emphasizing the rapport and the relationship, which I think is for me, that's been really huge. I've spent a lot of years kind of at the recommendation of Allison Puryear and Joe and talking about the networking end of things to where if you can just, you know, do like a virtual coffee date for 20 minutes a week and do that a couple times a month all year round.

Andrew Burdette 00:06:18  You you build a really vast network. And that personable introduction of I'm a person and you're a person. It seems to be kind of a really gold standard when it comes to like, connections to people. And so you eventually end up after five years with a giant network of people that have met you at least once.

Jaime Mills  00:06:35  Exactly. And I think tackling on to what you had said, what you just said is that networking like that is a long term goal, right? It's for longevity of your practice because those relationships do take time to develop. So there are some low hanging fruit. Short term marketing strategies. And then there are the long term more. It takes investment of time and energy. And I think both are important. But definitely for sustainable practice. Those relationships are key. And that's why I even mention it at the conference, is that if you go drop your card off to a doctor's office and just, you know, here's my card, I do therapy. Thanks for the referrals. They're not going to remember you.

Jaime Mills  00:07:16  Right? Because all you did was go in there, ask them to help you, and no follow up. And that's some of people's marketing strategies, is to blanket 50 doctors with a business card. And for the most part, that's it's not effective because like you said, there's no relationship. So garnishing that relationship and making it genuine because people can also tell when you're not genuine. And that comes out over time as we were discussing. So going back to the mindset and going back to the heart and your character and really what your intent is because your intent can totally be. How can I help this other practice as well? Like what I mentioned was psychiatrist stopping in. Hey, I noticed you had great reviews. I'm trying to find a clinic that I trust for med management for our patients, and you're creating value for that other person instead of trying to only have value for yourself in that relationship. And I think that's the key to networking.

Andrew Burdette 00:08:16  One of the when I'm coaching my team of people about building relationships or starting that process in the community, how I kind of differentiate networking versus marketing is networking is just meeting people.

Andrew Burdette 00:08:28  That's it. And if you kind of go in with this, hey, I'm looking to get a referral out of you kind of thing, people pick up on that, and then it kind of really deflates the capacity to have that mutual relationship. Whereas if you just go in and say, hey, just start over. Andrew's practice, he recommended I just introduce myself to you. I've watched the before and after of, like, my team members doing that. And the difference is night and day between your random person on Psychology Today or a website versus here's a real person we're having a conversation with. And now you've shown me kind of a bit about your real person too. Like I'll remember that.

Jaime Mills  00:09:03  Right. And doing what you say. So if you say you'll keep them in mind for a referral and they never, ever see one from you. Well, chances are they're you're not going to see one from them unless there's a high demand service and you're kind of just automatically needed. Right. But the market is getting saturated and clients have more options.

Jaime Mills  00:09:21  So I think that personal touch goes a long way. I don't know if I needed to do this, but I met with the local psychiatrist and I said, please. She was further enough away where she mailed me some business cards, and I said, I will put these in my waiting room for patients and therapists. And I sent her a picture of them in my waiting room because I wanted to show, hey, I was serious, and I wasn't just saying that to say that in hopes that you'll send me referrals, because that's happened to me before, where I can tell someone said that. And then over time, it felt like they were more following up on getting more from me versus having to just be a collaborative and as needed relationship. So even if you can't give me any referrals, someone you know that you come across, if we have a good relationship, you might think of me for them. Even if you personally can't send me referrals if it's not needed right. For what the the patient needs.

Jaime Mills  00:10:18  So definitely that personal touch and being genuine and following through is what you're going to with what you said you would do.

Andrew Burdette 00:10:27  Part of what's interesting about being in a really saturated area here in Asheville, certainly for therapists, is the lack of saturation. It seems like for other services like prescribers, like there's lots of prescribers. But what I mean by lack of saturation is most of them are 3 to 6 months out for booking. So finding somebody that could see somebody within three months, or you have a relationship with that says, hey, I've got a client that's escalating, can you fit them in this week? That's where that personal relationship really comes into play. Right. And then same thing with primary care here. The hospital system pretty much bought out all the family care doctors. And so trying to find a primary care doctor here is really difficult. And even though I think, you still statistic from, the conference, about 70% of people here seem to be therapists. And. Yeah, it feels that way sometimes.

Andrew Burdette 00:11:15  so since we kind of started with long term strategies, what are some of these other ones that listeners can maybe do while they can also kind of do in the background while they're doing some of these more short term, immediate things that we're going to get to talking about in a second.

Jaime Mills  00:11:28  So you're saying what other long term strategies.

Andrew Burdette 00:11:31  Yeah. Would you advise somebody to consider as they think about their marketing.

Jaime Mills  00:11:36  And yeah, of course. So I like to divide it between digital marketing and community marketing. So when we talked about networking with other providers that would fall under community marketing. And what I encourage people to do, which just builds trust within the community, is be creative within your community. That could be, you know, depending your financial means, doing a scholarship for a local high school or creating, not a raffle basket I just like to do. Enter your name. Submit your email to our blog and then you're entered to win a raffle basket. So we don't collect money. We don't do anything like that.

Jaime Mills  00:12:13  But subscribe to our blog and you can win this, holiday basket or whatever season we're in. Halloween basket. And then we've actually given away turkeys on Thanksgiving. So we've done turkey dinners and I've I've handed a client a turkey in the waiting room and they carried it out to their car. So just being creative and even if you don't get a new client from that, it kind of just shows, wow, this clinic is they care about their community or they're doing something that's memorable, right? Who's getting a turkey from their therapist? So things that are ethical. Of course, we don't want to cross the line of we're not giving away vacations or trying to bribe or monetize these things, but we're not even trying to get direct referrals. It's more just creating that reputation. And to me, that is another essential long term strategy to just build trust within your community to increase word of mouth over time.

Andrew Burdette 00:13:10  Yeah, there's community relationships. I've probably gotten more indirectly out of them than directly. But the cool thing is, is I don't.

Andrew Burdette 00:13:19  If I need something, I have people I can reach out to and I'm maybe two degrees away from the connection I need to fulfill whatever need I have, whether it's clients, clinicians, it doesn't really matter at this point. And and also to having done that longer game of things like you get known in the community of like, hey, Andrew's a resource, even if they don't have somebody that can fit, heal, you know, spend some resources helping, getting somebody's place with the right therapist. And so that's another, thing that our practice does is the value is it's much easier for us to find somebody with an opening for a specific need than it is for general person in the public trying to sort through like 2000 therapists on Psychology Today for our area.

Jaime Mills  00:13:59  Right. Because clients at your clinic will likely trust the referral and expect it to be quality. So even if you connect in the community and you get to know different practitioners, different, even fitness dietitians, doctors, and they have a good experience with that referral, it ultimately is going to help build your reputation as well, because while they had, they had a good experience at your clinic, and then they also had a good experience with the referral that you gave them.

Jaime Mills  00:14:27  So then it makes them even more value your role in the community that you have these quality resources for them and in any aspect. Right? We have financial advisors. I'm connected to physical therapists. You know, postpartum fitness for for parents and all these different things that aren't just related to mental health. So I think even having that network outside of the industry is very important to building a reputation in the community.

Andrew Burdette 00:14:58  Yeah. And also to if you are in an area that's prone to disaster, is having those community connections are really huge. And it's just been interesting watching Asheville as a collective group of people have a deeper network and a lot more cross-pollination, I guess, of connections that we didn't necessarily have ahead of the storm. So it's been kind of cool surviving that whole experience and then also having a whole new kind of rearrangement of deeper connections across a wider range of things, like I'm more connected to some artists locally and, some business owners, some outside of health care altogether, just from navigating how we kind of came through the storm and getting re situated depending on where people are at.

Andrew Burdette 00:15:36  So talk to those, you know, furniture store owners and other things like that. They're pretty amazing to and to that whole end of things. So do you want to pivot over to like some more immediate things people could think about doing now if they're looking at like, hey, my numbers aren't really what I want, what would be a good way to, strategize that? I guess maybe we could start with, if you're doing a one of the things you talked about at the conference of like, here's kind of your care package, you'll enter your introductory package to go meet a doctor's office. Right. and I think you were talking about, you know, calling ahead, like, if you want to bring chocolates, like, you know, are you a white chocolate practice? Are you, like a milk and dark? And if so, kind of. What's the arrangement? I did actually order a custom, chocolate bar mold with my, like, logo on it, so that'll be nice on a month.

Andrew Burdette 00:16:24  and then connect with one of the foodie chocolatiers around here, too. Speaking of networking. yeah. What are some what's your kind of, I guess, press packet box to start that introduction with the doctor's office. And then obviously there's the follow up about once a month to remind them that you still exist and right for things.

Jaime Mills  00:16:41  So still falling under community marketing and networking, asking yourself, okay, well, where are my potential clients? At which doctors offices are they frequenting? What providers are potentially giving these clients referrals for therapy? So that could be, we'll say, doctors, but specifically that would be up to each clinic to determine. But going in, of course, with a smile and confidence, because these doctors and office admin, they don't owe you their time. And oftentimes they're stuck there all day. They're trying to fight off drug reps that they don't want to talk to, who are even more pushy. And sometimes the last thing they want to do is talk to another rep. Most of the time I walk up and they say, are you patient? And I'm like, no.

Jaime Mills  00:17:25  And then you can see their whole demeanor change. They want nothing to do with you. So you have about ten to 30s to really sell yourself and provide value enough for them to give you their time. And some ways that I do. That, of course, is being friendly. But that's not enough. You have to bring something for them, and that's debatable, right? Some people might not think that's ethical. I had someone on Facebook on one of these groups say that, you know, their license would get taken away if they gave a candy bar and a thank you card to a referral source. So there's a little debate on this topic, but to me, a candy bar is probably not going to put my license in jeopardy. once you start adding monetary value to that is where I would caution, of course, and then also not make not bringing homemade goods. but something as simple as, you know, lint, truffle chocolates or a nice candy bar with your logo on it. Or in the summer, I brought popsicles to offices with my sticker, and it goes in their freezer and they have a nice treat.

Jaime Mills  00:18:26  So something to brighten their day before when the Dollar Tree had solar. Those solar flowers. I would buy the solar ones for each season and give them to the offices. And they really like those because they could see it moving and it would be they'd have a Halloween one, they'd have a all the seasons, they'd have everything. so being creative with that and then anything that the doctor or office staff will see over and over again. So that could be a pen, a notepad, a script pad even I've created for a clinic something that they will see and use the business card. Most of the time, if I'm being honest, I collect them and they get thrown somewhere into the abyss. I don't know where where they are. So just a business card or even just a pamphlet sometimes is good, but not enough because where's that going afterward? So thinking about those strategies and then also touching on the frequency, like I said before, is you need to go at least three times, But that doesn't mean you stop going after three times.

Jaime Mills  00:19:30  So for therapists just starting off, I typically recommend create an hour or two in your schedule a month and hit maybe 1 to 3 or 3 to 5 different offices once a month, and then after that, do a quarterly blitz where you have a quarterly plan to visit those offices and either bringing donuts or seeing if you can set up a coffee date with them, because once they get to know you, they're more willing to connect on another level where they might allow you to go back and talk to the doctor, or they might allow you to do a lunch. But those that typically isn't happening until after they get to know you and they're comfortable with you. So again, building the rapport skills, not coming on too strong, but just saying, hey, here I am, I'm here if you need us and if we need you type thing and then leave the information small, you know, gift not gift but chocolate little expendable item. And then that's it. Write down. Write down who you talk to.

Jaime Mills  00:20:31  Keep track of what happened. Because if you go in there and introduce yourself again, and the same office manager is like, I already met you, and you're acting like it's the first time because you forgot after a month. So paying attention, remembering people. And I always make this joke with one of my friends. Have you watched The Office? Are you an office person?

Andrew Burdette 00:20:52  I'm such an office fan. I have the office game in my office, actually. Yeah.

Jaime Mills  00:20:57  Or when Michael goes to whoever to do a meeting and he has on his card, he's like, how's your. Do you remember? I don't want to say it because I don't want to be inappropriate, but he's he's describing this guy's like, how is your son with the lazy eye like he had written.

Andrew Burdette 00:21:14  In a very Michael kind of way. Yes.

Jaime Mills  00:21:17  So he tried and we may we make light of it and joke, but it honestly is serious to write down. Hey, this person. Write down their name. Write down, you know.

Jaime Mills  00:21:29  Were they happy to see you? Did they seem closed off? And then that kind of gives you your strategy. We're almost taking a clinical note of that experience, similar to a client and using that over time. And like I said, this can be an hour to two a month to start this process. Right. I actually I know I don't know if this is just audio, but I just bought these with our sticker on them and I have these ready to go out. so she goes grocery shopping. I bought them, so.

Andrew Burdette 00:21:57  It is just audio. So for listeners, she talked about at the conference, getting stickers to kind of put over things like, you know, bag of truffle logos and stuff like that. And so having that branding or kind of rebranding a bag of chocolates, off the shelf.

Jaime Mills  00:22:10  Right. And the goal of that is exactly the brand to create brand recognition and something so simple. But it works, especially if you're being met over time. If you notice an office is accepting of you to keep going.

Jaime Mills  00:22:26  If after a couple times you notice an office just really isn't interested at all, then find somewhere else to go. Try to see kind of who's worth your time, who's willing to collaborate, and who is interested in your services. Because some doctors are all on board with therapy, and other doctors sometimes don't believe in therapy, they're not going to refer to therapy. And in those cases, you have to gauge if it's worth your time and energy at that point.

Andrew Burdette 00:22:53  Yeah. One of the nice things about Covid and I realize, like this is going to be from a telehealth or just virtual standpoint of being in isolation, but it really opened up people to have virtual conversations like, hey, do you want to meet over lunch? You know, and get into those doctor's office kind of things? also to people do mention family and friends and these things going on, like the people that delivered my couch finally, after the storm and coming in, they were like, oh, what do you do? I'm like a mental health therapist.

Andrew Burdette 00:23:21  and like, oh, we have lots of family members with this issue. I was like, cool. We don't really work with that, but I have some friends that are really good at. So here's my card. If you need anything, reach out. I would help get them aligned with whoever. And so the next time I see them, if I do, it'll just be like, hey, how's your family doing? Right? You can just simply ask that. It doesn't need to be, like, specifically like, you know, the lazy eye and be less lazy this week versus the last time, like Michael Scott might. But.

Jaime Mills  00:23:46  yeah, natural over time.

Andrew Burdette 00:23:47  Yeah, yeah. And this is, you know, the active listening skill that we have as therapists that we get trained in. And it does help that rapport building. And I think most of us that succeed in this field are generally good about quick rapport building. especially if you've worked in other community mental health settings that are like inpatient or other things where you need rapport.

Andrew Burdette 00:24:06  Yesterday and they just came in today, you know.

Jaime Mills  00:24:09  Right. And a reminder to that you are marketing at all times, whether you realize it or not. So any connection right at the conference, any person you meet, any friendly smile you give that is all kind of showing someone who you're about. And that's going to be reflected in the clients that you see, the colleagues that refer to you, and even the therapists that want to work for you. Right. Just your demeanor, your character, your vibe. Right. It's that's all selling yourself and what you offer the world in the community. And I think that's really important to notate, especially if you are a practice owner, being more self-aware in that regard of how how you are presenting yourself to people.

Andrew Burdette 00:24:56  It's also okay to just be like, hey, you know, I'm sure we've met. I'm sorry, I can't remember. I'm like, don't do this to a doctor's office you went into. But if you happen to meet somebody at a networking event or other things like that, that's like, hey, do you remember meeting me? It's like, I don't, I apologize, like, where did we meet? And you just own that and go from there? And, I have yet to have anybody have a problem with that? If I've forgotten how we initially got connected.

Jaime Mills  00:25:21  Right, exactly. Because that does show just authenticity. You're not trying to be something or act in a way that is not true. speaking of marketing all the time, I had printed my flyers at Fedex, and it was a flyer of my four therapists that have openings right now, and I was going to hand them out in my next rounds to my doctor's offices. And the guy at Fedex who printed them, he's like, I want to see her. He saw them printing and he said, where's this at? Who are you? What is this? I have anxiety. I want to see this person. And I'm like, wow, that is really just a testament of. You really never know. So what if I had been in a hurry or rude or demanding to these employees and they saw this, they probably would have been really turned off to that. So again, that just reiterates, not that you have to be perfect and happy and nice all the time, right? We're all human.

Jaime Mills  00:26:17  But being mindful of those interactions with acquaintances and who potentially needs to find you and needs to find your therapist to receive care.

Andrew Burdette 00:26:28  And that's also not the same as everybody you meet. Your hand a business card too. It's just that I've tried to practice a little bit about having cards available because people do. I'm like you, I've got a stack of cards over here that have been sitting in this desk thing for years, probably at this point. but yeah, that just being available and showing people you're available and meeting them in the moment where they are is huge.

Jaime Mills  00:26:50  Yeah.

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Andrew Burdette 00:27:26  All you have to do is click the link below or type promo code Joe on their website. And receive a special two month trial. Absolutely free. If you're coming from another EHR, therapy notes will import your demographic data quick and easy at no cost, so you can get started right away. Trust me. Don't waste any more of your time and try therapy notes. One thing that comes up a lot is copywriting for websites and anything you know, whether it's your actual practice website or Psychology Today. Directory profiles. Do you have any perspective on that and how people may approach those in a way that's maybe a little more helpful in conversions? I think would be the marketing term as well. Like how does that if you've got ten people on your website and you're looking for a therapist? How many of those do you want to capture? And is your copy working for you to to actually capture those, potential clients?

Jaime Mills  00:28:23  Right. So in my experience, and there's so many ways to do digital marketing as well.

Jaime Mills  00:28:29  But what I do is I put a lot of effort into my Google Business page, almost, to draw clients to my website and then the strategies on my website to convert. So it's it's a two step process. And whether they find you on your website, through Google or in other means, they most of the time, either they're calling just right from Google and not going to your website at all, or they're going to your website and then calling. So strategies over time that I have used, I guess my main ones that I'll share is having as much content as possible, but valuable content. And that could be a whole episode itself as to how to do that, but kind of speaking from your heart again and who you want to serve. If you're talking to a one person directly about what you do, how would you say that? And really coming up with your own writing that would resonate with somebody and what they can expect to feel from working with you. So a lot of people have heard, don't use the therapy speak.

Jaime Mills  00:29:27  Don't just talk about yourself or your credentials. And that is very true. Another thing that I have been researching, as well as limiting, I use limiting content that's solely AI because for Google and as of right now, Google can can detect AI and it'll actually down rank your site because it doesn't seem genuine or trustworthy. So again, you have to build rapport with Google and show them that you're a real person. And here's what we do and help them get to know you. Not all AI is negative, but if you don't at least modify it enough to where it sounds human to Google, it could be negative for your website. And that same thing goes with Another thing that I put a lot of effort in my website is using original images versus stock images. We still have some stock images because I'm working on getting some more photos done, but especially home page having original image that is going to build trust with Google in a sense that hey, these 20 therapy pages websites all have the same stock photo and this one has an original image.

Jaime Mills  00:30:35  They're probably the realest person out here. So they're going it's going to help you in the ranks. So Google and your website really work in tangent together. I think I talked about two, which I'll try to explain as much detail as I can right now. Is that Google Analytics on your Google Business page has a spot for keywords. So if you look what people are searching to find you and add those keywords into a blog or a content page on your website, that is going to help. Again, the goal. Build rapport with Google. If you're best friends with Google, they're going to tell the public about you and your clinic before they tell a stranger you know about a stranger's clinic that they don't really know much about. So that's how Google, I guess, the simplistic version of how it works without talking about all of the medical or excuse me marketing terminology. another tip that people can do right now is embedding Google Maps into your website. So you're kind of we want Google to like us the best.

Jaime Mills  00:31:39  So anything that Google produces that we can put on our website is going to be a positive. So linking Google Maps, whether it's a link, a picture, linking your Google reviews onto your website, which I do in a discreet area so it's not broadcasted right. If people have chosen to write a review, kind of on the bottom of the contact page where even if people don't see it, it's showing Google that, hey, we like what you do enough to put it on our website. Site, and those are probably the most simplistic tips that people can do right now. And then, of course, modifying websites over time. So if you have an outdated website or you have a therapist bio page that they haven't worked with you in a year, delete it. Those are called zombie pages and it'll downrange you if you have so many just fluff on your website that's not purged. So even once a year, every six months do a spring cleaning of your website, delete a page and add a new page even if it's the same topic.

Jaime Mills  00:32:42  You can rewrite the content into Google that shows as a new robust page versus them crawling that old page. So I guess to recap right, it's zombie looking at zombie pages, linking anything. Google provides maps reviews to your website and what else did I say? Trying to recap, but. Really the AI versus stock images and the original content versus AI content are things that I do on my website continually over time. And we are ranked in the top three at all times for both of our locations. And that's something that whether a pro marketer who has a degree would tell me I'm using the right terms or not, I see the results with what I do and just refining those skills and terminology of what I know over time to help therapists.

Andrew Burdette 00:33:35  For listeners out there, I've ranked relatively well, just doing my own and similar kind of definitely top five, often top three depending on the search term. but doing some of the basics you're talking about too, and not even doing the, the updates on content and other things.

Andrew Burdette 00:33:52  but just, you know, looking for the kind of keywords you want to have found and having them kind of laid out a certain way within the content on your website. So it signals to Google, this is what we really care about. and trying to do as many original images as possible. If you have a smartphone nowadays, it's hard to take a bad picture. So if you're practice owner, especially a smaller one that doesn't have a lot of budget, you can use your iPhone or, you know, Samsung Galaxy, whatever they are, to go take some phenomenal pictures. Right now we're recording this in May. Most of the countries in spring. This is a fantastic time to just wander around and take pictures of flowers and stuff, pop in, and there's your kind of just decor pictures on your website and other things like that. And no one else has them because you took them. the AI thing too is really interesting. It's great to use as a starting point, especially if you're somebody like me that doesn't really want to write a thousand words about anxiety therapy.

Andrew Burdette 00:34:45  So have I start that and then I'll rewrite what I did kind of in my own voice. And so it's got my blessing on it and my input. But it's it's not my grad school essay on anxiety therapy for my website. You know, it's it's a it's a hybrid.

Jaime Mills  00:35:01  Right. And I've done that to where I say, you know, give me ten ways to cope with X, and then maybe I pick three of them and the rest are my own, where it's just a collaboration to help you brainstorm and get ideas without copy and pasting the content, which can get iffy, which, you know, I is so new ChatGPT is fairly new, so I'm sure this conversation might be different over time with how Google detects that content and ranks you. But as of now, that's what my research has shown that we don't want a page that's just fully been. I created from the images and the blogs and the content. because it's not going to show up to users as much as a genuine site.

Andrew Burdette 00:35:46  so outside of the digital content piece, well, I guess let me before we go too far off that the Google business profile thing you're really big on. And for listeners out there, Google's like the largest search engine, if you didn't already know, they have the big Everybody else really refers to Google first. So sure, you could go down a different avenue and emphasize some other website, but most of them are circling back to what's on Google. So that's really your best starting point for pretty much everything on the internet. you, you're using some additional aspects of the Google business profile that I'm not. And I didn't even actually didn't even know where was the thing until your presentation a couple of weeks ago. I was like, oh, it does all these other things too. So is there could you point listeners to like a guide or what to ask the internet about how to build out a Google business profile that really does work for them? It's not just simply like, here's our, you know, 300 character description of our business and our phone number.

Jaime Mills  00:36:45  Right? So to be honest, I haven't seen anyone talking about how to fill out a Google business page. And so I'm the only one that I've heard actually talk about the details of it. People talk about you need to have one and you need to add pictures, reviews, things like that. So as far as having people search how to I'm not sure because I haven't found it. I think the challenge is to go to your Google business profile. If you don't have one, make one and hitting edit and then seeing all the options you have, because I showed there were about 8 to 10 different icons that you can click to add content. And so if we have that same mindset as as much content as possible. Take your time. Maybe one day you click the products tab, the products button, and you add products. Even if you're not selling them, you don't have to list a price, but you can add individual therapy, group therapy, family therapy, and fill out a couple of sentences about each one.

Jaime Mills  00:37:51  And so that's probably the best place I can point is looking at your performance tab, which will have your keywords in the amount of views. So then over time you can see if your. These website strategies and these Google business strategies are working because you can see that increase in it list views calls website clicks, keywords. And that's all on Google. So like I mentioned, treating Google like it's its own social media account. And to me it's the most important social media account above Instagram, Facebook. Anything else you can add updates. So you'll see a button where you can add a text update a picture update. And it was actually it was pretty funny. After the conference, I looked at a couple people's Google business profiles after I spoke, and they had added things in there since hearing what I talked about. So I'm like, yes, it worked. They listen. but yeah, a lot of people just don't know that that's an option. So again, being curious about how can I really ramp this up, what is available to me.

Jaime Mills  00:38:54  And that's going to take some digging personally. But I'm telling you, I've done the digging. And there are about there's so many different things you can add on there. The Q&A portion, the services, you can add descriptions to each service under different categories. So you can have 20 different kind of mini blogs about each service you offer. And that takes time. It's taken me years and I still have a couple I need to fill out. So again, taking a couple hours, even an hour a month to just sit in your Google business and add something to it will be valuable for the longevity of your Google ranking.

Andrew Burdette 00:39:34  One of the things to from at least I took away from the conference was to not think about any of the static, including the business profile on Google. And, you know, you just said in this conversation here about just the importance of posting something regularly, and, I don't know, 4 or 5 years ago when I first started solo practice and I was looking at metrics, it was a lot more important to have, like, you know, your keywords and your URL and business name and these other things.

Andrew Burdette 00:39:59  And now most of that doesn't matter as much. It's not weighted the same. Now what matters is are you doing regular posting and adding new content and is it fresh instead of stale. And some of that's just simply like, let me go in and kind of rearrange this description of, say, what anxiety therapy is might be, but it shows you're you get rewarded for engaging with Google is, I guess, what I'm saying, right.

Jaime Mills  00:40:20  Even if it's not consistent. So if any therapist are like me, I am not routine. I'm abstract. My brain is artsy, I don't I don't have really a concrete strategy, like you said, where it's so static and rigid. But I've been at the dentist office waiting for an appointment, and I posted an update on the Google business page. Hey, same week appointments available, call this number or I've been waiting for a client and I take a picture of my coffee on my end table. Come see us at Liberty Mental Health. You know, if you need mental health care or something like that, where it can be done in such a short moment, but make the impact is greater than the time that it takes to do it, than the stress and time that you'll be putting into that each post.

Andrew Burdette 00:41:06  Got it. outside of the Google business profile on the website stuff, are there other like I guess maybe secondary areas that people can focus on for digital marketing?

Jaime Mills  00:41:17  Of course, the directories I like psych today, but again, it's very saturated. That's one. I guess another thing that relates to the Google page and the website is build any profile that's available to you, because it's going to show Google that you have an online presence. So even if you don't post regularly and you can come back to these over time and ramp them up and add content over time. But make a Pinterest account, make it Instagram, make YouTube, make an X, make every LinkedIn right and put those on your Google Business page? Link the social website and put that on your website as well. And even if you aren't constantly active on there, but add a little bit enough for people to contact you if they come across that page, but then leave it for months and come back to it when you can. It just is kind of like back linking, where you're showing Google that you have this vast online presence.

Jaime Mills  00:42:18  Hey, Liberty, mental Health is here. They're also here. Oh, they're also here. Wow. They're really they're really around town here. So I think even though it's related to Google, that's another place that people can focus on just creating accounts linked to their business.

Andrew Burdette 00:42:33  There's a really great resource I've used for years. It's pretty affordable. it's kind of the first like marketing digital online tool I've used. It's a company called Bright Local. They I think they're based on the UK. They do local SEO, which is more about how you rank in like little, was it the the map pack They call it top three. but one of the things that they do and is they do citations and that's kind of what you're talking about, like your, your Yelp directory thing and LinkedIn and these other things. And you can pay them. It's a couple dollars apiece and they'll go through and do it. And the nice thing that they'll do to is they will verify things on your behalf and maintain it for a year.

Andrew Burdette 00:43:08  So you don't have to take the time to, like, find every little website you need ranked on and they'll tell you how many sites are missing. And so if it's something like Apple, you need to go in and do yourself. they'll at least tell you is it in line with Google or other things? and they've been really great to work with for years. So just throwing that out there for listeners that there are services that will help ease this for you and do a lot of the work for you in the background, too.

Jaime Mills  00:43:32  Right. And there's, like you said, a lot of tools. I'm trying to think of tools that I've used. I think I'll just do a Google search and say website health checkup. And of course, be careful with the security on that. But there are some legitimate services that will actually tell you how many of your pages are kind of faulty or not being shown or not being visited often. So. And that honestly takes time. So people who are new in private practice don't feel the pressure that you have to hurry up and do all of this and get all this data and do all the KPIs, because I didn't do it for a long time.

Jaime Mills  00:44:07  Probably a year or two into group practice is when I really started honing in on these specific numbers. Referral sources. At the beginning, you just throw anything and see what sticks, right? You do a couple posts on here, you add the maps to Google. You're just kind of doing a random acts according to what time you have. Despite what else you're doing clinically. You might not not have time to focus a whole day on marketing, but if you have ten minutes, I encourage people to really take advantage of that and help bolster bolster their marketing until they have time to focus on it more.

Andrew Burdette 00:44:44  Okay, one other plug for services like Bright Local is. They will explain your Google Analytics information to you like you're a kindergartener, so you don't have to learn all like because if anyone's ever tried to go down Google Analytics, that's a whole other like experience of data. And it's a lot of data and it's easy to get overwhelmed. And so I appreciate services like bright local, that'll kind of summarize things in a useful way as an end user to then address if I choose to.

Jaime Mills  00:45:12  Oh and there's also ones for website speed because that's another thing with conversion. If your website is slow or you're using a certain host that's not great and users have to wait for pictures to load, that's they're going it's going to be a higher bounce rate. So definitely, I wish I had some more services. I'm trying to remember all the ones I've used, but maybe we can link them afterward.

Andrew Burdette 00:45:33  Yeah, we I think as a team at pop, we probably want to have a better resource list than we do currently about these kind of things to share. But, page Speed isn't Page Speed Insights, which is the Google platform for doing that is really good for kind of scoring your website about speed and then technical things that maybe need to get fixed. In terms of Google Maps, I've learned. if you embed a Google map, it kills your page speed time because it has to pull from Google Maps and then it's really slow. But if you take a picture and then link to that on Google Maps, it's like a workaround and it'll speed up your website a whole bunch.

Andrew Burdette 00:46:07  So just these little things I've learned over the years about playing around.

Jaime Mills  00:46:11  Yeah, definitely. So. So if depending on the server you use, like you said, it could make it slow or not. So if one way is making it slow, being creative and finding another way to link it. definitely. Yeah.

Andrew Burdette 00:46:25  Well, so for listeners out there, do you have any like key takeaways of, maybe like 1 or 2 things community wise they could think about if they're not already doing, and then 1 or 2 of the like more immediate, I guess, digital space things that they could focus on.

Jaime Mills  00:46:39  Okay. So for community I really recommend Researching, finding two doctors, whether it be psychiatrists, OBGYN, pediatrician. Find two in your area that are close. That their website looks good. Their Google page also looks good, right? And stopping in going to the store, just buy two little treats, right? If you're only going to two and think of it as practice. So if it doesn't go well, well, if it's too embarrassing, well I'm not going back to that one.

Jaime Mills  00:47:11  So think of it as practice. And not that you have to do it perfect. So just put yourself out there a little bit. Try it to 1 or 2, because I think that's going to give you a gauge for how you feel and what maybe you need to polish for next time. Don't try to go to 20 not knowing what you're doing yet. Find a few in practice to connect with. as far as other community things. Find a local networking group. So whether it be a virtual networking, whether it be in person, whether you have to start your own. I was doing a monthly networking group where it was all practice owners and it was great. We did it for a year and then I wanted to take some time off, but connecting with other providers who are doing what you're doing to collaborate because it's not a competition. We can help each other as you're familiar with in your community. So if you can't find a good one, start one. Even if it's you and one other person or two, I think that could be really valuable for even practicing that networking piece and practicing talking about who you are and what you're doing to other colleagues who are also trying to do that same thing.

Jaime Mills  00:48:15  So it's good practice for both, for everybody. As far as the digital space, I would kind of do a sweep of your Google business page, delete old photos that maybe you added three years ago and upload new ones. Just do a spring cleaning of it. Look, scroll down, see where that section is, where you can add updates, maybe add a text update If you have any social media, Instagram, LinkedIn. If you do, you can copy and paste those posts to your Google as an update. I guess the key takeaway is yeah, do some spring cleaning, but then also add some decor to your Google profile. So we're going to kind of redesign your Google profile. And that is also not a one time thing. Let's try to do that periodically and maybe do a bigger revamp every year. But start small where you can do that initial purge and add decor. And then like we talked about, add little posts maybe every week or every couple of weeks. And then just same thing with your website.

Jaime Mills  00:49:19  I think if there's any fluff in your website, take the fluff away and then see what you have, and then you can consider after that point what content you'd like to add, because maybe you offer more services than you did, or maybe you don't offer service anymore because a certain therapist left, so you can't really market that service. So again, a little spring cleaning to see. Okay. If I was a client looking at my website, how attractive is this. And another good place to start is either asking forums online or networking groups online to review your website, or asking family and friends so they'll give you the most honest feedback. Because I've gotten it before where they've given me tips just from a client who is not in the mental health industry. So I think as far as website, you can start with asking friends or family for feedback just so you can get an idea of what you can modify over time.

Andrew Burdette 00:50:13  Cool. And for listeners out there that are like me, that set up a Google business profile years ago and then maybe re updated last year when we added an office.

Andrew Burdette 00:50:22  There's so much more you can do on that platform now than you could probably even two years ago. It's amazing how much more you can do within that platform. So, just like Jamie's talking about, I encourage you to revisit that and see what else you could do to leverage some potential that's already there.

Jaime Mills  00:50:37  Yeah. And look at other people's Google business profiles. Look at mine if you want ideas, I don't care. Just to see okay. What really what features do they have that they didn't have before.

Andrew Burdette 00:50:47  Got it. Well so I think that's a great way to kind of wrap up. So if people want to reach out to you and contact you for different things, and we'll link all this in the show description as well. how can they find you and what could they contact you about?

Jaime Mills  00:51:00  Yeah. So currently I'm still with Liberty Mental Health. I haven't officially branched out and done consulting, but it's something I'm interested in so they can reach me at any of our social handles at Liberty Mental Health, or email me directly at Liberty, or at info at Liberty Mental Health.

Jaime Mills  00:51:17  Com. And they'll that'll go to me directly.

Andrew Burdette 00:51:20  Cool. Well, thanks so much for being on the show. thanks for expounding on what you talked about at the conference and sharing that with listeners. and it's been a pleasure to have you on the show.

Jaime Mills  00:51:30  Of course. Thanks so much for having me.

Andrew Burdette 00:51:32  Thanks. Thank you so much for listening to this show today. We could not do this show without our amazing sponsor therapy notes therapy notes as the best electronic health records out there. You can go over to Therapy Notes. Com and use promo code Jo at checkout. That's going to help get you a couple months off for free. It also helps let them know that their podcast sponsorship is working. Thanks so much for hanging out with us today on the grow Group practice podcast, and we'll talk to you soon. If you love this podcast, please be sure to rate and review. This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher or the guest are rendering legal, accounting, clinical or any other professional information.

Andrew Burdette 00:52:31  If you want professional, you should find one.