What’s the point of having a beautiful website that doesn’t attract the clients you want to see? As the worldwide leaders of website design for therapists, Brighter Vision sees this issue happen way too often.

A nice looking website doesn’t equate a successful website. The truth is, your current website may even be turning off potential clients.

That’s where Brighter Vision comes in.

Brighter Vision’s team of web designers will create you a website that is centered around attracting and retaining your ideal client so that you can have a nice looking website as well as a successful one.

The best news yet? They’re having their biggest sale of the year RIGHT NOW! For the month of January, you can lock in your first year at Brighter Vision for only $49/month, a $120 savings from their base plan.

If that wasn’t enough, they’re also raffling a FREE spot to the Next Level Mastermind Course for therapists that are ready to take their thriving private practice to the next level.

To capitalize on this offer, simply visit this site: https://try.brightervision.com/joe/ to get started on your journey towards a successful website.

Cheryl Janis is the principal of Cheryl Janis Designs–a wellness design studio in the San Francisco Bay Area dedicated to helping purpose-driven doctors and wellness professionals achieve the very best healing environments possible.

Unlike conventional interior designers, Cheryl uses a integrated holistic and evidence-based approach to design—evaluating the patient experience from the moment they walk through the door until the time they leave, and every step in between.

File: PoP-273 Your Office Lighting is Hurting Your Business and other Tips from Cheryl Janis
Duration: 00:42:46:00

[SPONSORSHIP MESSAGE]
Joe Sanok: What’s the point of having a beautiful website that doesn’t attract the clients that you want to see. A nice-looking website doesn’t equate a successful website. The truth is your current website may even be turning off potential clients. That’s where Brighter Vision comes in. Brighter Vision’s team of website designers will create you a website that’s centered around attracting and retaining your ideal client, so that you can have a nice looking website as well as a successful one. The best news: They are offering their biggest sale of the year, right now, in the month of January. You can lock in your first year with Brighter Vision for only $49 a month. That’s a $120 savings from their base plan. And if that wasn’t enough, they are also raffling a free spot in my next level Mastermind group which is a $600 a month value which includes slow down school this year. So if you want to capitalize on this offer, just go to www.practiceofthepractice.com/brightervision to get started with you journey towards a successful website.

[MUSIC]

This is the Practice of the Practice Podcast with Joe Sanok, session #273.

[MUSIC]

[INTRODUCTION]
Joe Sanok: Well, welcome to the Practice of the Practice Podcast and happy new year. I hope you’re doing awesome and that you’ve set your goals for the year and that you are going to set up systems to make sure you reach those goals. This year is going to be an amazing year for you and your practice, and this very first month we have some incredible guests coming on the show. I want to share with you who we are going to be talking to this month. It’s all about professionals that support the field of counseling. So we are going to be starting out with Cheryl Janis who is talking all about how your office and the vibe you put up there can increase your profit margins and the type of clients that you attract. We are then going to be talking to Bobby Klinck who is going to be talking about intellectual property. He is an attorney that is just insane. He is so awesome. And then we have Phil Singleton who is going to be talking SEO, how to rank higher in Google, everything you need for your website. Then after that we are going to be talking to Caleb Breakey. He is a ghostwriter for a six and seven figure business owners as well he is going to be sharing with us great tips for us who aren’t even at the point to hire a ghostwriter. And then lastly, we are going to have Jeffrey Shaw who is going to be teaching us all about how to use specific lingo different ways to understand our ideal client in a way that’s authentic and attracts the people that we want. So it’s going to be an amazing month. We are going to have tons of great interviews and let me just share with you a couple of them. I am going to play a couple clips right now.

“So that there is a couple different approaches on that. One, I think if you go the blog series, you are talking about smaller chunks of at least 500 or 600 words of prose. We can stitch that together into an e-book and do a kindle, right? But you are right. You are spot on in saying that the longer form blog posts are the ones that tend to rank better online.”

“Really think through you book from all angles, specifically your readers, like who are they. Who is the ideal reader who is going to be reading my book. Take them out to coffee. Talk to them about what your book is about.”

“Your Job is to make your area of expertise clear. You can’t just say I’m a therapist counselor. Like to make a not just I’m the counselor of, and identify the audience [00:03:40.22]. Like really make your area of expertise clear that I am particularly good at helping people whose lives take a sudden left turn.”

Without any further ado, I give you the one, the only Cheryl Janis.

[INTERVIEW – THE START]
Joe Sanok: Well, today, on the Practice of the Practice Podcast, we have Cheryl Janis, and she teaches healthcare entrepreneurs how to design deeply nurturing healing environments that keep patients delighted and referral business flourishing. She is the author of the recent book, the Waiting Room Cure, that has over a 100 graphics to help you design an amazing waiting room and environment for your client. Cheryl, welcome to the Practice of the Practice Podcast.

Cheryl Janis: Thanks Joe, it’s so exciting to be here.

Joe Sanok: Yeah, yeah. Well. We already did a full interview and then I, for some reason, it didn’t record it like it was supposed to. So thank you so much for coming back on. That was great trial run that…

Cheryl Janis: My pleasure.

Joe Sanok: …only I got to hear. But I am so glad to have you back. How things have been for you?

Cheryl Janis: Things are so great. I am loving this work and I can’t wait to talk to your audience about things that they can do and you guys, in your own practices, in your own mental health practices, you know psychology practices, psychotherapy practices for to enhance the patient experience because that is the new big trend emerging in modern health care design. So super happy to be here.

Joe Sanok: Yeah, you know it’s interesting, ah, I went to visit a counselor and just kind of network with them and after talking with you I kind of had new eyes to see. You know, already I kind of have a sense of design.

Cheryl Janis: That’s great.

[WHAT KEEPS YOU UP AT NIGHT?]
Joe Sanok: This person is so good at what they do. They have an amazing reputation in town, but then I walk into their office and they have these, like, terrible overhead lights. They have cricket pictures. They have a hotchpotch. I think a lot of therapists don’t even… they don’t even know there is a problem. So maybe let’s start with, like, what if therapist need to know about the problem before we talk solutions because I think a lot of people don’t even really realize like what’s going wrong with their environment.

Cheryl Janis: I am so excited to talk about this because there is actually, you know, very small tweaks that you can do to your environment to build your business and keep your attention rates high. So I was just asking Joe before we started recording what keeps you guys up at night and what I heard and what I have heard from other health care entrepreneurs not just in your field it is this fear that the patient is going to drop you or fear that the patient is not going to come back and you are going to lose this, you know, income stream that’s coming in or maybe it’s 2 or 3 at one time it could happen. So I have some good news for you. When you design your space according to the principles that I am going to give you which is just a really nurturing patient centered space set that looks at the experience and works on the experience, then your patients will want to keep coming back because they love your space so much. So I have actually tested this theory over the past 14 years of doing this work. And it actually works, seems crazy. So here’s the thing…

Joe Sanok: oh… Go ahead. Yeah, yeah.

Cheryl Janis: Your patients regardless of that if you are their doctor or you are their therapist, they will not tell you why they are not coming back and often times they just don’t feel good in your environment, whether it’s your waiting room or your actual treatment room where they sit with you when you do the work with them. So there could be things in your office and in your waiting room that could be really upsetting their nervous system, their brain, and their psychology. And they are kind of just feeling it so they may not even be consciously aware of it, but they are going, “Ah, ah, that doesn’t feel good. I don’t like it., I am not going to go back.”

So that’s the good news.

[HOW TO CREATE A NURTURING OFFICE ENVIRONMENT]
Joe Sanok: So what’s like some low hanging fruit that people are doing wrong and they don’t even realize that it’s not creating that nurturing environment?

Cheryl Janis: The easiest thing you can do that’s also the most affordable and you can do it yourself is to give your treatment room a new wall color. I mean how easy is it. It’s not easy in the sense of like you don’t understand what color, but once you understand what colors are nurturing and what colors are not nurturing, then you can choose one that is and give it a new paint job. Right? So that’s a low hanging fruit. So within that… I wrote a whole book dedicated to just nurturing colors. It’s called “The Color Cure.” You can get it on my site, but what I can tell you here is that blues and greens are really nurturing and reds and yellows are very stimulating, especially when it comes to mental health. So they have done all kinds of studies with the color red. It can trigger aggression in people with certain kinds of mental illness. It on the low end makes you hungry and excited and passionate and when there’s too much of it in a space. And this goes for a lot of warm colors, so warm yellow walls and warm wood and warm… all kinds of warm colors without balancing it out with some cooler tones like blues and greens and maybe even some lavenders. Someone can start… their feelings of anxiety can start to feel exacerbated in you even as the practitioner or the doctor might feel that way in your office when you are there.

Joe Sanok: Yeah. You definitely don’t want to be anxious or hungry when you are not supposed to be hungry (laugh).

Cheryl Janis: Right. So avoid… so the first tip is to avoid any reds, any… I mean you could do like [00:09:31.00] of reds on your pillows, maybe in your artwork, but don’t do any kind of burgundy or red family walls, even if that’s your favorite color. And don’t do yellow walls, because yellow is also a very stimulating color and it’s the only color where the eye cannot rest upon. It’s kind of like we can’t look directly at the Sun and you know we were told not to look at the eclipse [00:09:53.14]…

Joe Sanok: Right.

Cheryl Janis: It’s kind of like that, but on a very, very, very minute level, you know. So yellow makes people feel irritated. They have a hard time relaxing.

Joe Sanok: Does that happen if I wear a yellow shirt to work? [00:10:08.08].

Cheryl Janis: It depends on the yellow. So it’s a very soft yellow, it might not be as bad. It depends what you combine it with, but if it’s a bright yellow and you are giving a speech or you’re giving a lecture somewhere in front of an audience, yeah, it can make people feel a little bit irritated. Blue is the color of trust. Blue is the color of trust. It is a calming influence on our lives. It’s in the sky. It’s in the water. Just even talking about it my voice relaxes.

Joe Sanok: Yeah (laugh).

Cheryl Janis: Blu… blu… (vocalizes blue). So there are certain blues of course. Don’t [00:10:44.15] neon blue. If you sign up, I have a free color course on my website which I will talk about it at the end, and it’s a 5-day email course that’s free, that gives you the very basics. And it will give you some suggestions as well. So that’s my first, eh…

Joe Sanok: So paint is low hanging fruit. What are other kind of simple things people can do without buying thousands of dollars of new [00:11:13.03].

Cheryl Janis: My gosh. Lighting is something that is overlooked. So here’s the thing. You know those overhead lights you are talking about, Joe. I don’t know if they were overhead fluorescent lights, but you know the kind that we have grown up within the United States in the 80s, in particular 70s, where you go into buildings and there are these harsh lights that you just go, “Ah.” You did your best to kind of avoided and get through it, but your first impression of it is kind of a hard overhead glare. We all know what that is. I mean that’s nothing new. Everybody, every single person I have talked to knows what overhead glare is. And so science tells us that the cool fluorescent tube lighting can contribute to melanoma, the development of melanoma, headaches, eye strain, all kinds of things. So the light bulbs you use are important. So the first thing is to if you have an overhead light fixture that’s glaring in any way or that’s a cool fluorescent light, maybe you can turn that off if you can’t replace it . Of course, you know, if you can replace it, replace it with just a pretty light fixture. You can look on Pinterest. I have a board called lighting for healing spaces with all kinds of suggestions. You can just choose a single light fixture. And if you can’t do that because you’re releasing the space, you don’t have any money and your landlord or landlady says, no way Jose, then you just keep that light off and you bring in a floor lamp and a table lamp. So why is it important to bring in a floor lamp and a table lamp, and why not just keep one overhead light. Well, guess what, this is so important for you therapist out there to know this. Science, all the lighting gurus and experts know this, but science tells us in research and data that when you have a single overhead light that illuminates the whole room with no contrast, it causes and contributes to sadness and depression. So again, if you have an overhead light and there is no contrast, you just have like single overhead light, sit in the chair and you do a thing, it exacerbates and contributes to depression and sadness.

Joe Sanok: So come to counseling if you want to feel more sad and depressed and [00:13:44.25] (crosstalk) and I happen to wear a bright yellow shirt today. So you feel anxious. (crosstalk) Wow, it’s like super low hanging fruit.

Cheryl Janis: Super low hanging fruit because you can go to Ikea and take [00:13:55.09] this for under a 100 bucks.

Joe Sanok: Right. And you think about if your clients say, oh, my gosh, you just feel so much better in here. You just changed a few lights out. Like, that’s amazing, so yeah.

Cheryl Janis: So I want to just explain really quickly why that is and why you should bring in different lights to highlight, to create shadows and kind of cozy areas in the room and highlight things. That’s because [00:14:19.08] rhythms in the body that regulate our light and how we feel about light and healthy light feels better when we have those kind of shadows and it mimics daylight. So you know how throughout the day, we have shadows and we have bright light and we have soft light and we have all kinds of light. The body loves that. So when you can mimic that in your treatment room with a table lamp in between the two of you, a floor lamp or two here on the corner and use the type of bulbs you should use… I wouldn’t go over 60 watts and I don’t recommend cool, compact fluorescents. I recommend warm LEDs, incandescent because most incandescent are now, they have halogen bulbs. You don’t have to worry about energy savings as much. But incandescent bulbs with the halogen inner inside feel really good, feel really soft. So that is such low hanging fruit you could go out in the next hour and take care of this. And then you could do this experiment, do it, and then notice what your patients say the next day when they come in.

Joe Sanok: Mm-hmm. And we are actually going to have Sam, my designer, go through and make a check list for you guys, so it’s easier for you to implement all these amazing things that Cheryl is putting together for you. So keep taking notes if you’re taking notes, but also know over in the show notes of Practice of the Practice that we are going to have a worksheet for you to download that’s going to help with some of these tips because it’s hard to remember them all. There’s just so many. So Cheryl, what’s like some more advanced tips. So people are like, okay, I get it. I have painted. I have changed out my lights. I am ready for this. What are some… you know, you got a few hundred dollars or maybe you know a thousand dollars. You know, is it art work, is it some new chairs in the lobby… where do you put your money when you are in that midrange?

Cheryl Janis: Sure, the next step is art work. Absolutely. So the biggest evidence… there is a field called evidence-based design and it’s through the Center for Health Design which is here in the San Francisco Bay area. They have been around since the 70s, you know, working on the stuff, doing the research about how people respond to art. So evidence-based art is literally nature art that is so immersive it triggers these opiate pathways in the brain and they kind of release that feel good feeling in the body, in the brain that that happens when you are really out in nature. So, for example, when you think of your favorite place in nature that you like to go to… maybe it’s Hawaii, maybe it’s the mountains, maybe it’s a lake or maybe it’s the ocean. And when you put not just the flat image of that. So I’m not talking going to Ikea or whatever, and getting a very flat surface image of the nature image. I mean like a really high dimensional, immersive image that’s maybe medium to large. So when I say medium, I mean like 24 inches, maybe wide by 18 inches tall or something like that. And you know large could be depending on how bigger room is. It could be 45 inches or 65 inches. And so within that range I hear… when I say that I generally hear people go, but I can’t afford it. That’s exclusive. That’s like for the high end, you know doctors and psychiatrists who are in Beverly Hills and Manhattan. That’s actually not true. So I just want to say that you too, whatever you budget, you too can afford beautiful, highly immersive nature art. And so you can actually go online and to a place called https://unsplash.com and there are photographers on there that let use their art for whatever you want. And then there are people, and if you have more of a budget, you use people like Peter Blanchard who at Manifestphoto.com. Peter is a friend of mine and because I am a super fan of his work and he actually does these gorgeous nature photography Healing Art. So he specifically specializes in healing art and evidence-based art. And you can find him at manifestphoto.com. He prints on different styles, like he prints on this Aluminum packing so that you can – if you want to sanitize it every day with harsh chemicals you can without injuring the print. So most of you guys out there you don’t have to sanitize stuff the way that hospitals and other types of facilities do because of infections – spreading of infection. So you can kind of… there is places for you. And if you have zero budget, but you have a beautiful iPhone, you know, 7 plus or 6 plus or whatever, you can go out and make your own images of, let’s say you live in New York town…

Joe Sanok: Traverse City… yeah.

Cheryl Janis: Okay. What’s maybe you’re there and you are like okay I don’t have any [00:19:38.15] practice there and you are like, hey, I have zero budget, maybe $50 to get something. So then you go out with your iPhone and these have great cameras on them and you take a picture of maybe a beautiful park in your city. Do you have a park that you talk about or some kind of a (crosstalk)…

Joe Sanok: I mean we are right on the water. So I mean we have sale boats every Wednesday.

Cheryl Janis: Ah, ow.

Joe Sanok: I mean for us, we have plenty of nature and we have, the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes National Park is right here and..

Cheryl Janis: Okay.

Joe Sanok: … clear water, but…

Cheryl Janis: You [00:20:09.16].

Joe Sanok: Yeah, so if I was to go with my phone, what are some of the elements… I am hearing nature, I am hearing maybe kind of local things that people identify with.

Cheryl Janis: Yeah, right. So here’s the thing. When your patient comes and sits down, and behind you on your wall you have got some piece of art that has a scene that is familiar to your patient. Then familiarity decreases the stress response. So familiarity decreases the stress hormone cortisol and calms people down. So your patient comes in and they sit down and they look above and they see that there is a boat in a water with some beautiful light coming through. And they go, oh. I reckon in their brain it happens so fast. So like, I recognize that I can relax. So you, this actually helps you do your work more effectively because your patient is actually relaxing, resting. This is especially important for first time patients before they get to know you and it helps build trust because there is this image behind you of this beautiful artwork that constantly looking at. So maybe while you are taking notes or maybe while there is a moment of silence, your patient can look up and feel nurtured by that print. And so that helps your business.

Joe Sanok: Yeah, so if you are on Unsplash which I love for marketing images too. I mean it’s such a great service for free images, if you are going through that… one thing that I hate to see and you are probably… I am guessing you are in this camp is when a website or someone’s lobby has pictures of mountains and you are like there is no mountains around here. Why are the mountains on your website or…

Cheryl Janis: Right…

Joe Sanok: …having the ocean and surfers when it’s like you live in the middle of Iowa. What are you doing? And so what you look for on Unsplash if you are going through some of those images, so that there is that response that feels local, but most of the images aren’t going to be local.

Cheryl Janis: Wow. Here’s the thing about what you are saying. I understand when you walk into a place, you’re like, what these? These are ridiculous. You know, these aren’t here, but the other part, the other flip side of that is that if those mountain images are incredibly special to the doctor or to the therapist and there is a story there, and that therapist in their waiting room is creating a story that later they share with their patients, it builds trust. It builds relationship. So let’s say you have the mountains in Utah, because you took a trip there and you love all of those orange and you know red colors and they are just so nurturing and earthy. And if you hang some of those, your patient might ask you and mostly they do, what are those gorgeous images in your waiting room? And it’s because you have a special connection with them and then you can share, “Oh, that was from my trip to ___ (fill the blank), and I just have such a connection with that. What do you think of that.

Joe Sanok: Got you. So as long as there is a connection there and not just some random mountain, then that’s when you can go outside your area.

Cheryl Janis: Right. Yeah, you always wanted to be super intentional.

Joe Sanok: Okay, okay. So next level stuff. So you get some art , some photography, paint, lighting. What do people consider maybe with furniture because I think that’s usually one of the bigger expenses other than technology for a typical practice?

Cheryl Janis: Right. This is a great question. This is very important for therapist in private practice and it’s the position of the chair in the treatment room. Do you call it a treatment room?

Joe Sanok: Some people would just call it their office, session room.

Cheryl Janis: So when your office or session room, people with low self-confidence, and I know this is common for a lot of solopreneur. We have low self-confidence, and we put ourselves in a position in the room where we feel, where that low self-confidence continues. So what I mean by that is in Feng Shui there is what they call the power seat or the power position. And if you think of an executive office, you never see an executive with their back to the door. They are always usually at a diagonal to the door. They can have a full view of the room. They have a wall behind them for support. This is kind of like the mountain of support. And in front of them or to the side of them, you know kind of tucked in, is a seat for the guest or a seat for the patient. So Joe, tell me if you think most therapists that you know have a desk and then they talk to somebody across the desk or do they generally have a chair and then opposite to their chair they have maybe a sofa – which I think of typical therapy is having a sofa. Or is it another chair? How is it typically set up?

Joe Sanok: Yeah, I think most therapist won’t have a desk between them and they won’t have a coffee table between them, just because they don’t want to have that kind of barrier between them and the therapist, between them and their client. I would say that a lot of therapist don’t think through the positioning. So it may be that they have a desk where they sit at to do their notes, where their back is to the door. But then they just have like an office chair they swing around and sit in that. In my office, I have an established chair, that’s like my therapy chair. Then I have my work desk that I work at, and then I am kind at an angle where I am looking at the door, but then there is a couch where they kind of walk in. And then on the same wall is the door they walk in, that’s where they typically will sit in that couch. So I see most people will have a couch and then maybe a side chair. So if there is a family, they can kind of all fit in there, and then across from that somewhere they will have a chair. But I doubt that it’s highly intentional, the exact place [00:26:32.18]. I think it’s probably based on space. Unlike in executive office, that might be you know 30 feet x 30 feet, most therapy offices I would say are going to be, you know 12 x 15 feet square and then 12 x 15 feet the other way. So not always large offices, but I imagine they could more effectively place their furniture.

Cheryl Janis: Right. So when I think of an executive office, I don’t think of 30 x 30 [00:26:57.08] like. I think of smaller spaces because I specialize in helping health care entrepreneurs who have smaller spaces.

Joe Sanok: Sure.

Cheryl Janis: But if you even went into a lawyer’s office or anything, you would never see their back to you. So the best way for me to walk you through this without visually showing you a picture of it is just to describe the space and walk you through it. So, let’s say you have a door and the door is on the right side of that front wall. So you walk in and right there you want to have to the right, you want to have some kind of table or something, so that with maybe something on top of it, so it can give a nice first impression. So maybe to a half moon table or your bookshelf right there. And maybe on top of [00:27:41.01] leaned up against while I see you walk in and the book shelf is there, pushed up against the wall, not opposite to you, but just on that right wall. And then maybe in the left, you look to the left, and there is like a corner there, right? There are two walls that meet and maybe that’s where you have, you know, your intake area. Maybe you have your so sofa, not intake but your actual therapy area where you work with your patient. So you would have maybe a small sofa on that wall, so that you have the opposite. So maybe you walk in on that right side and you are sitting, you know, to the left rear of the room which is a small room. And then you are sitting there and you have a view. You are facing your patient. There is nothing in between you. You are facing your patient who is sitting on that sofa or loveseat. And they feel so you are in command. Right? You are sitting in your chair which should definitely have arms and a high back because it’s very supportive for you and your work. And if you look around you, when you are seated in your chair, you are at a diagonal from that door. Your patient is across from you, sitting on the sofa. And they are in a receiving position. So there’s actually psychology and physiology to this. When you are seated in that executive place where you have a full command of the room, your confidence improves. You feel better and your patient across from you can go, ah, can relax. I can relax into receiving the expertise and the support from this benevolent person. So it’s important that you don’t put your sofa in the power position and give that to the patient which lot of us do unconsciously because we’re like, “Ah, I am scared. I don’t…” You also self-doubt and all the stuff – the impostor syndrome. So you just sort of unconsciously put yourself in the wrong position. And so what happens when you do that. Well. I have seen over the years when my clients have done that, there’s respect issues. They start attracting patients who are little bit more demanding and they are in the power seat. So this is so critical and I wish I had a picture to show you, and I have hoped that I have described it well enough for you to least got a sense, of like, to be able to think okay, do I have the command view of the room. Am I in the power position. I need to be in the power position, not my patient (crosstalk)….

Joe Sanok: Well, the grad schools often times are teaching, well, you don’t ever want anything between you and the door because if a client gets volatile. But then you think about, well, then that client also could feel trapped. They could feel like they are kind of… and so that idea of having that kind of more powerful position, a view of the door versus your back to the door… it would be interesting if grad school started to kind of teach some of these concepts to therapists as well.

Cheryl Janis: It’ll be great. It’ll be a great business tool. you know.

Joe Sanok: Yeah, yeah. What are some just kind of final tips for people as they are thinking about kind of designing their office and making sure it’s from perspective of healing in the design of it.

Cheryl Janis: Yeah. So the new trend. So this happening in modern healthcare design. They are studying the effects and the desires of the two largest living populations in the United States, and who are they. They are the Boomers and they are the Millennial. And they are more demanding and fussy, and I am sure, I am positive that listeners out there have experienced this in one way shape or another. And so Boomers want kind of 5 star hotel kind of quality with all of their health care practitioners, but without compromising the clinical experience or expertise. And Boomers want, you know, they also want a beautiful space, but they also want… in addition, they want superfast technology, they want to be able to like schedule with you online and reschedule and all that stuff. Right?

Joe Sanok: Sorry. The Boomers?

Cheryl Janis: I mean the Millennial. I am sorry. [00:32:14.26] (crosstalk)…

Joe Sanok: Yeah, I am like, wow, Boomers [00:32:16.22] long way (laugh).

Cheryl Janis: Some Boomers, but [00:32:19.02] Millennial.

Joe Sanok: Yeah, okay.

Cheryl Janis: So what that means for you are little things that you can do. You know, you don’t have to spend a lot of money. One of those things is to create either a hospitality table in your waiting room which all is a beautiful table [00:32:37.10] table cloth where you offer… you go a little bit about next level service over water and paper cups,.

Joe Sanok: Right.

Cheryl Janis: So you get real cups that maybe tie into your branding and you offer… you have a self-service table in your waiting room that has water. Maybe in the winter, it has tea. When somebody is in pain and suffering emotionally and mentally, there’s something incredibly nurturing about holding a cup of tea in your hands. And it says this person cares about me and I can trust them…

Joe Sanok: I am so glad you bring that up because I wrote in a article few years ago, right after I got a micro fridge and we have tea and we have water, and then we also have this fridge that has unlike many of them, it has a clear front. So you can actually just look inside without opening it. And we have it full of like [00:33:24.28] and Starbucks, Frappuccino and all sorts of other things in there, and people love it. And I think we are able to charge more also because it’s such a healing environment where they are like ah, I am getting this dollar Frappuccino. I will pay $20 more than average counselor…

Cheryl Janis: Exactly. They would love the experience and it’s very important to them. So you have to… so I think that what my hope is today that that you were listening out there, can open your mind up a little bit to this and not feel like, oh, no. I have to have all these expensive thing you don’t. Just do a little bit above and beyond to add to your compassion and care, and you will create such a memorable experience. And you will stand out from the crowd. And you will create a memorable experience so the next time your patient is going, do I want to go there [00:34:17.02] remember. Oh, I totally want to go there.

Joe Sanok: Yeah, and I think this falls into the category of multipliers. So I have talked in the past about how multiplier, having a virtual assistant should be a multiplier where instead of being expensive, actually multiplies your business or if you offer tea and drinks and you pay a dollar a drink and get some really nice things, this probably is going to multiply your business more than just being a expensive like that piece of paper where the quality of that paper isn’t necessarily going to change your bottom line. But to me what you are talking about is going to multiply your business, multiply your ability to grow versus it just being a flat out expense.

Cheryl Janis: That too and it will also start attracting the right kind of patients. So you certainly have an idea of who you want to specialize, who you like to work with more than others. Everybody does. And so I think [00:35:10.11] safe to assume that here…

Joe Sanok: Mm-hmm.

Cheryl Janis: And so what you will start doing, you will start attracting different people because the people that have a great experience there then resonate with your service. Your next level of service will then refer that out to the kind of people that you know are like them. And so the people that you want to attract will start showing up and it is not just a multiplier. It’s also the type of people that you want to work with and it also improves your quality of life. So you might be really freaking stressed out. Find about your business and you are always doing paperwork or you are stuck in your office. Think about how many hours you work. You know how much time over in a week/year/months that you spend in your office. You know this is good for your health. This is like good for you because it helps not just your patient’s feel more relaxed, calm and sustained and all that good stuff. It helps you feel better. You get the dopamine hits too or the endorphins. So think about that too. Think about your quality of life.

Joe Sanok: Yeah, I remember when I first started out, I was subletting an office. So I had no control over what the office looked like. It was the right price point and it was where it was at, and then we upgraded to a multi office suite and I was in charge of it. I remember that first year like every time I walked in, I’m like I love this office. Oh, my gosh, I love being here. I can’t believe this is my office. Like, I feel like a rock star. And, you know, when you walk in and you just feel like, oh my gosh, this is my space. And yeah, some of the people that are at the startup phase like you are not there yet. You maybe don’t have that creative control because you are subletting, but when you get there, it just feels amazing to walk into a space that you love. Cheryl Janis, if every counselor and practice owner in the world were listening right now, what would you want them to know?

Cheryl Janis: I would want them to know that it just takes a few changes to improve the lives of so many people. So you actually have it within your power to make a couple of the defined changes that I am talking about that are scientifically proven for any skeptics out there. And for those of you who are just open-minded and you know, shaking your heads – aha, aha, aha – try and see how different the experience is, so you will heal more people. You will be able to do your work better. You will help heal the planet more profoundly when you just look at these different design tips that you can do. It’s called patient centered design for a reason and it will help everything about your business. So that’s what I want you to know. And my home work for you, if you were willing to accept the challenge, is to do a couple of things on that we’ve discussed today and then, you know, email Joe [00:38:10.04] I don’t know how people get in touch with you…

Joe Sanok: Yeah, email is great.

Cheryl Janis: …and tell him what’s working and what’s not working because in that way he will know what’s working and then he can share that with all of your colleagues and just hit the goal and keep it going. Spread the good word. So that’s what I would say.

Joe Sanok: Yeah, and if you guys want to take pictures of your office as you make those changes, use the hashtag popoffice. We have been using that [00:38:42.06] for our last practice of the practice magazine where we did spotlights on people that had done changes to their office. And you can look at all the other changes people have already made. Again, that’s pop for practice of the practice office (popoffice). It’s on Instagram and Twitter. So definitely add that hashtag if you are going to do on social media or if you want to check out what other people have done. Cheryl Janis, you have a podcast, the Wellness Design Podcast. I would love for people to listen to it. Keep learning from you. What’s the best way for people to access that podcast?

Cheryl Janis: We are starting season two. It starts in just a week. So maybe even by the time this goes live, it will be out. So the Wellness Design Podcast is my podcast and I hostess it, and every Tuesday morning I will interview top industry healthcare design professionals, artists and creatives with the kind of design resources and tools for your patient-centered practice that you want to know about. So it will help you to stop feeling overwhelmed by all the design choices which I see a lot, and all you have to do is go to the wellnessdesignpodcast.com and you can subscribe in iTunes and just get it on your phone. So that’s the wellnessdesignpodcast.com with [00:40:00.23] before it or just plain wellnessdesignpodcast.com will get you there and you’ll get more of what we have talked about today for free.

Joe Sanok: Awesome. Cheryl, thank you so much for being on the Practice of the Practice Podcast.

Cheryl Janis: Thanks Joe. It’s been great being here.

Joe Sanok: All right. Talk to you soon. Bye.

Cheryl Janis: Bye.

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[CONCLUSION]
Joe Sanok: Next week, I have an interview with intellectual property attorney Bobby Klinck. Here is a clip from that episode:

“Look some people want to [00:40:31.05] just want you to give the attribution to them, but there are some unsavory characters out there who put up images. They give away for free. They give the other things, but they require attribution, and they are doing it expressly so that people will infringe their copyrights making then send them a letter demanding money”

Don’t forget if you want a chance to win access to the next level Mastermind group, it’s a $600 a month in value. You have to be a Brighter Vision client. So if you want to sign up for Brighter Vision and you are not yet a website client, head on over to www.practiceofthepractice.com/brightervision and that will take you to Brighter Vision’s website to get that process started. If you are already a Brighter Vision client, make sure that you let them know that you want to be in the running for that raffle. Couple of requirements, you have to be bringing in at least $60,000 a year. You are going to be in a cohort of people that are in that $60,000 up to $200,000 range as well you need to commit that you are going to be coming to the Mastermind group twice a month. It’s going to be on the first and third Wednesday of the month at 2 o’clock Eastern and so you have to commit to that. You are going to get assigned to an accountability partner where you can meet with them and then Slow Down School is going to be included in that price, usually a $3500 cost. That’s going to be included. All you got to do is pay for your airfare to get here to Traverse City to hang out with us on the beach. We are going to be slowing down and then working on your business. It’s going to be insane. Last year was so fun. We got so much done that so many people said that they made more money in that month afterward than they could even expect. So the return on investment for that time and that money is huge. So in order to get access to that next level Mastermind raffle, you have to be a Brighter Vision client. If you do want to apply for the next level Mastermind, you can just head on over to www.practiceofthepractice.com/contact-us and fill the application there. Thanks for letting us into your ears and into your brain. Have an awesome day. Bye.

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[END OF PODCAST 00:42:45.25]