Latest / Integrity at Scale™ / The Deep Dive: Ethical Visibility and Real Conversations w/ John Sanders

Transcript

The Deep Dive: Ethical Visibility and Real Conversations w/ John Sanders · Integrity at Scale™

• Okay. So marketing and mental health is just one of the things that every practice knows that they need, but I would say almost nobody feels really good about, like, they don't feel confident. They don't feel competent. I think it can be noisy. I think it's confusing. I, I think that a lot of it is full of vanity metrics and half the time, at least from an owner perspective, from a visionary perspective, it feels like throwing money at a black box. My name is Dr. Tara Vossenkemper, and you are listening to the Culture Focused Practice podcast. Thank you, of course, for being here with me, with us. I have a special guest today. His name is John Sanders, and I'm going to let him introduce himself real quick. So primarily what I do is I do mental health, uh, Google Ads. Uh, 90% of my business is helping, uh, mental health practitioners get their practice found and ultimately people on their website, and then hopefully their website is good enough and they can get some clients out of it. So that's mainly what I do. Yes. All day long. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then tell the, what's the business name? What's your business name? Just so people know Rev key. Perfect. Which naming businesses is very hard, and I, oh, man. If, if you're listening to this podcast, you've. And you started a practice, you probably agonized over that name, um, for, for quite some time. It's, it's like naming a child, um mm-hmm. It's really, it's, it's really difficult to nail down. So, but yeah. Yeah. I, I landed on, on Rev Key, so I, you know, I feel like it's actually harder than naming a child because for a child, like you're capturing the essence of how they feel like it's sort of like in your body, you know? Or if you, once you have them, you know, I, my friend didn't name her first born until they had the baby, and it was like, who is she? Who is this baby? But I think with like a, a business, I, I don't know if this is a visionary mindset thing, but it's like, I don't know what this is gonna be. I don't know what that's gonna look like in 10 years or five years, or fuck six months, you know? So a name, like, how do I capture what is right now and like what it might be. I feel like that's harder, honestly. Like Yeah, it's very difficult and there's so many similar named things out there. Mm-hmm. Um, like there are other marketing companies that I found later who have Rev in their name, and I'm sure Oh, that's so funny. Yeah. We joke internally that a lot of our, our clients have very similar names and how I have account managers who will all end up with, I was talking to one of my account managers the other day who has like three clients who all have heart somewhere in their neighborhood. Yeah. Insightful or insight mindfulness or like some comments Yeah. That we see. Oh, that's so funny. And so it's really hard to, it's really hard to name a, a practice. I It is, yeah. Particularly. Yeah. Okay. So I we're talking about names, but today we're really getting under the surface of basically like marketing. I, I don't wanna do, I'm not interested in doing, you know, how to run. And this is not a, this is not like, I'm not adding you right now, but this isn't like a technical how to run a Google ads. It's not a 1 0 1 type. Yeah. Um, episode, but we're gonna talk about like the emotional and the strategic and even the ethical layers underneath the, the visibility that we need. Absolutely. So what does it mean to market from clarity instead of insecurity? Why does data actually matter? What does real client conversion look like when you are serving a vulnerable population? I mean, a variety of things. So the deep dive conversation flow. Um, for anybody listening, you've heard of deep dive before, John, I, I, we've talked a little bit, so you probably have the sense, right? It's just a series of questions, whatever questions feel relevant, pertinent, et cetera. So, are you ready? Yeah, let's go. Let's do it. Like we haven't already started. Yeah. Are you ready? Let's go, right? Yeah. Um, okay, so real quick, I'm gonna just reflect on what it feels like as a, as a visionary, like what visibility feels like as a visionary. And then I'm, I'm really, and then I wanna segue over to you and I sort of want the flip side of the coin. Um. I think when I first started, marketing felt a sleazy. There was something about like, Ew, I don't wanna, you know, there's something about this. And I know when I initially I had to, I had to start to conceptualize networking and marketing as how do I serve others? How am I like doing this in a way that's also serving other people? And so when I meet with somebody, this is more networking. But when I'm meeting with somebody, for example, what do they do? Like, how might I be able to send people to them? Who do they work with? Who do they specialize with? You know? And then from a marketing perspective, it became, how do I say in the clearest language possible, what things I do well and who I help best. Rather than trying to have this like giant, giant bucket that captures everybody when that. Quite frankly, like, I don't wanna work with everybody. I'm not gonna be good at working with everybody and I don't want to. And I'm, it's like jack of all trades, master of none, like I'm saying, a bunch of nothing. Basically, like I'm saying a bunch of like mindful based, I use a mindful based approach and I help all my clients, you know, with insight. And it's sort of like, that doesn't tell me anything. But if I can say instead I specialize in high conflict couples on the brink of divorce. Like if you start talking and it ends up where you're both storming outta the room, Hey, you're actually a good fit for me. Like, that's who I wanna work with. That's so much more clear. And so, um, I, I think part of, I promise I'm getting somewhere part of like conceptualizing, like networking and then marketing and how I'm like talking about what I do. It felt like it was in a, um, not like a self-important way, but it felt like I'm able to be of service immediately. 'cause people know right away if I'm a fit. That feels more comfortable and, um, necessary than like an alternative, which just, I'll work with anybody. I wanna, I wanna capture it all. So I, I, um, yeah, I think that's actually it. I think that there is, like, there historically anyway has been emotionality in marketing related to marketing. I will say the, the final piece that's like, especially like earlier years recently, marketing consistently for me from sort of this, um, marketing perspective, it is like so hard to know what is effective and what's not. It's so, 'cause there's not, I know with certain things you can like see Exactly. Okay, well this click is that, you know, and like, so I know there's analytics and tracking and it still is hard. Like it still to me is like, it's um. It always feels a little bit fuzzy as a concept. Like I'm trying to look through a mist, you know? That's how it feels. So I think I'm done talking. Okay. What I wanna know now from you, it'll be real abrupt. I'm really good at like segues and transitions, though. You can't tell. I, I noticed I did notice. Yeah. That was, those, those very smooth. Very smooth, yes. Okay. So I'm interested in your then emotional take on working with therapists. So what is it that you see? What surprises you about working with them? What are the fears that you notice consistently? Like sort of the themes that you notice and, and I think like, I don't know, like your own sort of experience and working with people when you see a lot of similarity across them, assuming you see a lot of similarity across them. There's definitely a lot of similarities between a lot of therapy practices and, and a lot of therapists. One of the things that I see is usually kind of a fear of money, um, is, is something that comes up quite a bit. Uh, one of my favorite stories ever is I went to a conference, uh, for assessment psychologist, and I watched 20 assessment psychologists all go very, very pale during a session where somebody was talking about money. And I mean these, you know, here's 20 PhDs who all just look absolutely terrified. Oh, that's so funny. Yeah. Um, and who a lot of people are like, oh, it's a, oh, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a psychologist. Are they gonna, are they gonna judge me? And, and, and to see them kind of in that vulnerable position is, is is really interesting. But just because there is, you know, especially, you know, if we're talking about Google ads, people see this charge on their credit card of 500 to. You know, $4,000 a month and they don't, in a lot of cases, know what they're getting for that because of kind of that fog that you had talked about. Mm-hmm. You know, getting your website to communicate with Google ads sometimes can be difficult to say, like, how many people actually filled out that form or filled out your Calendly link or something along those lines. And then kind of the other thing you mentioned is kind of having the systems in place on the backend to like be able to see like, which of those people actually turned into clients mm-hmm. Is also really hard. And so, I mean, I think these are a lot of the things that are really intimidating about kind of the marketing side. And I do wanna say that the fear of marketing I, I, I think is real in, in that people don't want to feel like they're selling like a $2,000 used car to somebody. But yeah, you seriously, like you used car salesman, I think that that's, yeah. Funny. But no, that's not what you're doing. Like, you, you are actually looking to help people with their problems, not not scam them into, to buying a car that's gonna run for two months. Yeah, yeah. Geez. So I, I think that that's something that, that everyone really should keep in mind. And, and so it doesn't feel like cheap and tawdry to, to go out and actually do, um, to do this, you know, this marketing side. And it's, it's very much an absolute necessity. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you said something that. Um, oh, I think you are hitting on some of the other piece that's probably like the mist and like what makes it hazy and confusing. I, I, I'm sort of like stuttering over my words because it like, feel, I just feels, it feels big. This like takes up like big space in my, in my body. Like having gone through things like this, I know very little about technical things from my perspective. I know very little and I'm functionally able to do, like, I can get in and edit code if I need to. Like, I'll figure it the fuck out. I got this. Like, I'll go in on my backend stuff. I'll set up Google Analytic. I know how to do some of the CSS injections. Like I can do some of those things. But it's like very, very entry level. Like I know my mom will say growing up, like I know enough about cars to be dangerous because she had heard my dad, you know, he worked on cars all the time and I feel like I know enough to be dangerous because I get it a little bit, but like. Not enough that I could actually do this Well, like I could get it going, you know, but not do it well. But I'm giving that context to say the people that I meet when I talk about things, it's like there's way less, and this is, again, this is not like shade, but I'm thinking like I, when I talk to people about stuff like this, if it comes up or when it comes up, you know, there's like less knowledge and awareness. And I think for, I know for me and for some people there's more, of course, you know, I think for me, I feel, um, fuzzy with the technical stuff too. It's hard for me to trust something that I can't understand or see how it works. Right. And I know that if I feel that way, I can imagine that people who know and understand less and like can do less from a technical perspective, feel even less unsure. So it's like you're, you're ending up putting your full faith in somebody who's not. Uh, like embedded in your business, somebody who doesn't have the same sort of like liability or, uh, responsibility for your business as you do. And I, that to me is a huge, it's a huge ask. It's a, it's a huge, it's a huge ask. Yeah. Right. So to, if you're talking about CSS injections and editing code, yes. You are probably ahead of 90% of, you know, other therapists. Sure. And so it, it's really hard for them to, to do that. Um, I actually, one of my favorite clients, he actually just came back to us. He's, um, therapy is his second career. Before this, he was Oh, cool. A software engineer. And so like, he could do a whole bunch of stuff, but he recently came back and said something, broken my Google ads and I'm not sure what it's, yeah. And so, oh, okay. Let's, let's just go in and, and, and, and fix that. But yeah, I think for the average person it's. It's almost like much like you, you probably shouldn't be doing your own taxes because you probably don't know a lot about taxes. Yes. You, you don't need to be your own lawyer's. Funny. Yeah, yeah. Uh, you know, don't, don't be your own lawyer. What, what there's a saying about lawyers who, uh, you know, who are their clients. Like that's the, that, that, that's not a good idea. Yeah. That's so funny. And then to bring it back to market, don't be your own therapist either. Sorry, go ahead. Oh yeah. Don't, don't, yeah. Don't be your own therapist. Don't be your own therapist. There are people out there who, who specialize in therapy for therapist. Mm-hmm. But then also like on your website side is, um, you know, that's a mistake that I think a lot of people make too. It's like we feel like it's this rite in a passage and I did it. You know, you go out and you make your first website and you make it in Squarespace and you make it as, as well as you can. Mm-hmm. And ultimately that's a place that you should be investing because honestly, a, anything I do on the Google ad side, if, if the website is not good. They're not gonna go anywhere. And so in a lot of cases, like people will come to me and like, I wanna run Google ads, and they've got like, their, their basic Wix website and that's got the mm-hmm. The, the dreaded service page that says I do couples therapy and anxiety and depression and trauma and emdr. Mm-hmm. Like, that's not gonna work. Yeah. Um, I mean, at the, at the very least, you have to kind of like, put up those like different service pages. Yeah. And to kind of get back to the main point is, you know, Google makes it really easy for you to lose money in, in Google Ads. If you take like all of their recommendations, you're, you're gonna end up serving ads in a bunch of places that are not super effective. Mm-hmm. Because their goal is always gonna be one for them to maximize their revenue, and then their second goal way, way down, is for you to, to, to be successful. So, mm-hmm. Um, you much like. Getting an accountant who knows how to deal with taxes, like having somebody who actually like knows all of those, the, those tricks within Google ads, um, is, is really an important thing. Mm-hmm. And, and, and that's why usually when, when somebody comes to me and says, Hey, I've been running my own Google ads, and usually you cringe on the inside, you're like, oh, let's see how it goes. It, it's, it, it's always interesting, but sometimes on, on sales calls, I end up showing people, okay, you've been advertising a lot for massage therapy and yeah, that's not that, that's, that's not fun at all to, to tell people. And, and they realize, you know, that they've wasted hundreds or perhaps even thousands of dollars on, on, on ads that that never had a chance to do anything for them. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I hate that. Yeah. I think, I, I always think about this too, that if you have a, like if I send an invitation to somebody and they RSVP and they show up and the party sucks. There's no food and there's no music and there's nothing to do and there's no people like they're gonna leave. Or if they show up and it's a kid's party and they thought it was like a costume party or for adults, you know, what the hell? Like, they're gonna leave. Or, you know, I, I think about the, um, I think about this one with my employees too, but like in how, you know, um, related to how they interact with the business and what we ask of them and what they do and how we introduce things and how we talk about us and all of that. But I think about this with clients also. Like what is their experience coming through the door like from the, the, the first point that they start to meet us and form a relationship is our website. It's not, they call us and they talk to my, you know, client care coordinator who is incredible. It's that they land on the website and they have a, immediately they have some. Like judgment, and I don't mean that in a negative way, but like some assessment of this group and what they do and if they can help me, and then they might click around. And so yeah, if you're, I'm thinking if you have a Google ad up, but your website, like it's not compelling or it's not actually speaking to people's needs. Like it's just talking broadly about what you, what you do. I think about always the Donald Miller stuff, like the hero's journey and like, since you're not, um, and I've also been grappling a lot lately with this notion of not being the main player in my life anymore. Like my, my life, you know, people don't revolve around me. Now my life is like, oh no. I revolve around my kids for right now because of their ages, because of, you know, the dynamics of our family. Like they are the main players. They are the most important people. And like, I need to center them in my orbit. And then as they age, like it, it shifts a little, of course, but like this main player energy and. Centering us instead of like centering a client or, so I'm, I'm just thinking about that also as you're saying, like, yeah, if the website is just very generic or general, it's not gonna keep people, and that has nothing to do with the ads that are being done, that has everything to do with, there's no soft place for them to land. They don't know what the fuck you do. They don't know how you can help them, so why are they gonna stay here and trust you with a, a big decision? I think a big decision, which is do I go to these people for therapy or not? So the two things I, I think about that is one, yeah, I, I've definitely seen websites where the website is just a picture of the therapist and seems like it's very much about, about them with the thumbs up, like, yeah, and it's, I'm just kidding. Yeah, sorry. But ultimately, like, you know, it's not, it's not about you. You have to like sell the fact that you deal with high conflict couples in your case, but. It also has to ultimately be about the client. And, and, and often I, I see that there is some kind of centeredness in, in, in that. And then the second thing is makes me think of a client who, who's, who's in the Bay Area. So there's big tech there and lots of people are working for Facebook and Google and all of these guys and this longtime client, I, I finally looked at their, their, their website one too many times and went, this is just not gonna do it. And I, I literally went back on one of my favorite tools on the internet, which is way back machine. Oh yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Where you, where you go in and see what websites looked like in the past. Yeah. I don't even wanna look. Oh man, it's great. Oh, it's horrible. Yeah. And so I went back and, I mean, they basically are running the same websites since they were running in 2015. And so I got on a call with them and said, this is, this is not gonna work for the tech focused environment that you are in. And so it was like, you've gotta redo your website. Like there's just no, there's no way around it. And because we just, their time, the time people were spending on their website was really, really low. Mm-hmm. And it's like, this is really kind of hindering your practice by, by not doing this. Yeah. Yeah. I think that we're kind of dancing around this question, um, but I wanna ask it explicitly. What do therapists think their visibility problem is and what is it actually, I think a lot of therapists actually don't think about their visibility Problem is they think that they make their website and that clients will just magically find them. The, the issue is really like, even if you go get your website made, a lot of website designers are good at making websites, making 'em pretty. Yeah. Right. But they're not, they don't know about Google ads. They don't know about search engine optimization. And so it's almost like buying a car with no engine in it. Yeah. Yeah. And so you have to go out later and do that. And so you can't just put up a website and expect people to just magically find you. Especially on the organic side of things, that takes six to 12 months, uh, and even longer. And in some of the more competitive markets, like if you're in Los Angeles or geez, Miami or New York, you know, you are dealing with a lot of competitors who in some cases have spent tens of thousand dollars on their, on their websites. And so in a lot of cases, your DIY website that doesn't really have any, you know, actual things, trying to get people to it, it's not gonna work. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that that's the, that's the biggest visibility problem I think that people start out with when they're, when they're first starting, their practice seems to be the biggest issue. I remember, this is unrelated to therapy. My husband is, uh, his name is Steve and he, this is back in our very first house. I mean, more than it's been over 10 years. You know, um, and he is, he did dog training. He's just, oh, I always say this, but it's hard to like explain how incredible he is with dogs. You know, we'd be like at a dog park. And he would not only narrate the, it's almost like he could talk, he could talk for the dogs. He would narrate what was happening, but he would say like, that dog's gonna get into a fight, be like nothing. Nobody would look at it and say like, that dog's gonna fight. And then he would look and say, that dog's gonna get into a fight. Probably with that one, maybe with that one, sure enough, you know, five fucking minutes later, the dog would get into a fight with one. He's just, it's incredible really. He's like, temple Grandin was with cows or with farms, you know? I feel like he's the same way with, um, dogs and like seeing them. My point is when he and I were in our first house. I remember he was working at Petco, just some little side job, you know, and then he was like starting dog training. He built his website and he was like, I gotta quit my job. I, I can't, I can't do Petco anymore. He was training at Petco too, and he, and I was like, Steve, don't do that. Like, that's dumb because you, you don't have any clients yet. Like, why would you, you could just do both. And he was like, no, I need to be available to schedule. And I was like, I don't think you need to be that available. Well, what do you think happened? He quit his job and his dinky little website, which was fine. He didn't get clients. Like there was nothing that happened. And so he sort of stuck at home, twiddling his thumbs and yeah. Anyway, that's the story that's coming to mind, which is like, oh yeah, no, he did that thing. Like, I, I even told him not to, I knew at the time like, that's not a good idea, but also, you know, do what you want. It's not like the PECO income was so necessary that Yeah. I'm just, I remember saying that story. Yeah. Gosh, sorry. I did something similar with, with, with Rev Key, but like, probably the year, year and a half before I started Rev Key in May, 2018, like I was actually like doing contract work at the, before I was working, I was running a, a at a dental marketing agency. I was running their Oh, yeah. Department during the day, and then, so at night I was working on like my own clients and like Got it. Yeah. How was practice and, and, and things like that. So, so yeah. It was kind of, kind of more of a soft launch. Actually, I, I had recorded a podcast episode and so I knew that I needed to quit my job before the podcast episode dropped, so. Mm-hmm. That was, that, that was kind of the, I was like, I know I have to quit by this dates. Yeah. Here's the deadline. Yeah. Yeah. That is a much softer transition where you have some clients already. Yeah. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so this is the totally like changing tracks question again with my really smooth transitions. What Very smooth. Didn't even answer. Very smooth. Thank you so much. I don't know how people do it. I can't like plan what I'm gonna say. So if it's like, all right, I think that's done. Let's move on to this. It just, we are moving on like it's time to move on. Unless you have more to say about the Yeah, it's just time. We can just move. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, good. I'm glad you, you are okay with my, um, abrupt to transitions. What makes a marketing strategy? I really actually love this question because I will say personally, this is a constant player at my table. So with regard to marketing, what makes a marketing strategy ethical in your view? Okay. And what crosses the line? Sure. And I, when I get people from. Larger agencies who, larger agencies who maybe don't specialize in mental health mm-hmm. Will try to tell them to do things that they, they shouldn't do. In a lot of cases, they're not actually allowed to do either From a ethical standpoint Yeah. Or from like a Google perspective. And so an example of, of both of those would be, from an ethical standpoint, it's the whole review problem that you guys have. You can't go out and ask clients for reviews. Nope. At all. You can't even respond to negative reviews. Uh, and a lot of those larger agencies would be like, yeah, get on there. And, and u usually the therapist knows better. And it's like, I, I cannot acknowledge that this person was a client, even if they came on my Google ads and yelled at me. So that, that's, you know, kind of the ethical side. And then on, on the Google Ads side is, oh, well, when people come to your website, you should start showing them ads. After they leave your website, like you're a car sales person or you're selling shoes, Google doesn't actually really allow you to do that. You might be able to get away with it for a while. Mm-hmm. But you're not supposed to and I did not know that. Yeah, absolutely. Whoa, I did not know that. Okay. Interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If, if you try, like you might be able to get away with it with, with Google for a while, but they will eventually figure out that you're a HIPAA sensitive business and and they will, they will eventually stomp it out. That is super inter They'll, they'll, the IRS, they will track you down. Yeah. You can run, but you can't hide. That's, and then I think the last thing is like, you know, we don't wanna be promising in our ads that. You know, cure anxiety today or something like that. Fortunately, in Google ads, you cannot actually put everything in all caps. I was thinking about that this morning because I was scrolling through YouTube and how like everything in YouTube is now such and such destroys in all capital ads. God drives me crazy. Yeah, I, it, I just, I lose respect for, for people who do that. But fortunately, Google Ads doesn't actually let you, um, yell at people like that. Yell. It's, that's actually what you're, that's actually what you're doing. But if, if you could, I know that there are a lot of marketing agencies who would be like, do you have anxiety? All capital letters? Like, no, let's not. Yeah, let's not do that. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't even think about that. I think for me it's, it's the, no, there is something about, because I, this is years ago, I think I actually worked with, I've worked on and off with like marketing agencies throughout, you know, throughout the years. Um, and there was definitely. A lot of back and forth about like the language being used and like the way in which it's being used. And there, it does feel like there's such a fine balance between How do you, um, I don't even wanna say like instill a sense of, instill a sense of urgency. Like, I think if I was trying to sell widgets, I would want, like sale right now, buy today, it's gonna be gone. Like, I'd want that sense of urgency, right. But I'm not, I'm not trying to sell a widget, like Right. I'm trying to make sure people know that there's space here for them to step into when they're ready and, and to, it's a relationship. Like, I'm not, I'm not trying to like chase you down and force you into a relationship with me, you know? And so I think the, there, it does feel like though there's a fine line between, how do I say what I do, show that I'm effective, make sure people know how to find me, say it better than other people around me. Like be more clear with language or more like. Compelling to the people who I work best with specifically, you know? And so it feels like you can just keep like, like burrowing down further and further to get to like the right answer. But it's hard to do. And I also think that, I don't know this, but my, my guess, my best guess, or maybe my, my gut, gut feeling thought is that, um, most people stepping in don't have any idea that there's like multiple layers of things that they need to go through to get to, like, the right language for the one ad that they're gonna go live with. Or, you know, maybe two or three. And so I don't know if that is accurate or not. I think it, it, it was more accurate. Maybe five years ago, because now what we're doing in Google and they're really kind of pushing towards is where instead of me giving them headline one, two, and three, serve them this order. Yeah. You have like, your perfect setup is now a lot of the ad types, we're giving them 15 headlines and it's using, its AI to mix and match those together. Interesting. Oh, which sometimes can end up with some really odd results. Especially because, you know, kind of the assignment that Google gives you is says you need to give us at least 10 headlines, otherwise we're gonna, you know, say that you're not doing, you know that this is a ad or something like that. And so then having. To say those three things and having bunch different ways, four different ways to, to say all of that. It definitely can be a challenge, but also like, you know, we want to go back to the website and like kind of mirror some of the language that you use. Yeah, yeah. And so like if you're a really evidence-based practice, we don't want to use like some softer language and then like, kind of vice versa as well. Mm-hmm. Like you're, if you're more talk therapy, we don't wanna talk about, you know, instant results. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So another, uh, smooth transition. I should call myself the smooth operator. Really Smooth operator. Smooth operator. That sounds like a good name for a podcast. It does. Uh, what emotional stories do therapists carry about money visibility or taking up space? No, I don't know if I wanna ask this question. Actually, there's two that I'm going back and forth on. One is what emotional stories do therapists carry about money visibility or taking up space that sabotage their marketing? I do wanna ask that question. I lied. Okay. So what emotional stories do therapists carry about money visibility or taking up space that sabotage their marketing? I actually, I like this question a lot. Yeah. I think it's fear, and it makes me think of this, this one particular client who I really, really like in Florida, who is absolutely never wants to meet with us because she's, she's, she doesn't want to, she doesn't wanna think about this stuff. She doesn't wanna think about the money that she's spending and like the marketing stuff is Yeah. Is scary and much like the same way that like, taxes might be scary to somebody. Um, and, and so she like, you know, will occasionally send us an email and, and I think that there is like, it, it's kind of scary to deal with that, with that business side, especially when you don't have a whole lot of. Business education. 'cause you, you know, I famously say that we have none. You, you, you guys, you know, do not get six business classes while you're, while you're trying to figure out how to be a psychologist, uh, in school. So, and so that part is very scary. And I think that there's also kind of this, there is that hesitation to invest in this business and think that, you know, goes back to, you know, you can put up a Wix website by yourself. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you can, but it's not really what you should do. What you should do is you should spend the $5,000 to go ahead and get the, the right website out the first time. Mm-hmm. So you can get those clients and so you can begin growing your business and you know, that $5,000 investment, you might go, oh, that's a lot of money. Yeah, yeah. However, it will pay for itself very, very quickly if you are running Google Ads to it and you're doing all those search engine optimization things and like you will get a whole bunch of. Clients off of that really fast and, and, and pay that $5,000 off. Mm-hmm. I think really quickly. Yeah. Yeah. It's such a, um, it's such a, so let me just, I wanna make sure I'm getting this too. Part of the sabotaging their own stuff is fear about, I mean, spending the money, honestly, like fear about investing in this and maybe, maybe like functionally, like not actually having the money, not having enough, uh, space on a credit card even to charge for this or what, whatever, you know, but let's say that that's not the case. Let's take out like possibility and say, no, no, it's possible to do. Uh, but it's not prioritized. And so, oh yeah, is this helpful? Is this actually something I need to do? I can do my own website, so why wouldn't I, I can do my own ads, so why wouldn't I without realizing, um, how little you probably know about any of this stuff. And then, I mean, I think about the year, literal years, I think I spent. I did our website. I am the one that like created the saying and like I am the one that did it. And so that's why I know some of the stuff that I know is because I spent hours trying to figure out what little, I do know about like, the technical side of things, hours and hours and hours over years. Um, that was like hard earned because it had to be hard earned because that was my only option in my mind. Like that's, I had to do this thing. And so it wasn't even in my frame of reference that I would need to, um, like work hard, like outsource the website to somebody else to build. Although what I will say is that I did very soon, I also tried to do all of my own, like SEO related stuff and I, I, I spent way too much time, way too much time. Right. Way too much energy. Not role alignment, but also I was, and bootstrapping, like it's the beginning of everything. It's all bootstrapping at that point. Right. And I remember, um. Going to Joe Ox Slowdown School. This is back in 2017, I think, and then meeting John Clark there. Mm-hmm. And I'm like, new in the whole field. All of this is entirely new to me. And he looked at everything and he, like, he looked, he reviewed all the stuff that I'd done, and he was like, well, you've done all the stuff. Like I had done everything, but I still wasn't ranking on page one. I think I'd gotten us to page two or something. And so then I started working with a guy named Matt Millaway again, this is years ago. And I, I still, I use Matt even two years ago, I think. Uh, and he helped like fix the back end of stuff and then did some additional things and then got us to page one. Uh, and so it's like, okay. And also I think he, we started doing Google ads for a little bit, and so I, why am I talking about this? I think there is something about like, not knowing as being one thing, like not knowing what you don't know or thinking, well, I can do this. It's, I can do this thing. I have a really high self-advocacy, so I just trust, like I'll be able to figure it out. And then also. Like the financial burden when you're first starting, when you don't have money. But then also, like, I think there is a sense of, um, you said fear. I, I agree with you that there's like, there's fear around, I'm like, gonna not only spend this money, but like, what if I do this and it doesn't help, and like nothing happens. Or how do I know who to trust with this? Like, how do I know that they're gonna do a good job? And, and also then there's, um, oh fuck, one more thing. I was thinking that it was like a big, a sort of big feeling with it. Um, I think there's also like a battle for what's most important, you know, like in those beginning spaces, especially like, what's actually most important to do and how do I prioritize when I'm also trying to learn how to run a business, how to employ people, how to create policy manuals. How like, so it ends up, I feel like collectively it all just ends up like blocking it from even happening. At least for people who are less intentional about bus building a business, which at that time I was not intentional. And then it's, it's like it ends up being sabotage where you're not Right. Prioritizing this and then, and then what? And then you're sort of, I think that a lot of business owners, and this is just outside of therapy, like just don't know when to let go of task and delegate things. Mm-hmm. Like I remember from my wife's practice, the, I, I was pushing her constantly to get a virtual assistant. I was like, you can't answer the phones. You're, you're testing somebody for three hours and then you're doing a feedback session. Like that's not, yeah. You're not gonna get back to these people. And like finally, like once she did that, like her business almost immediately started growing because she was getting more clients because she had somebody, she had somebody responding, yeah. The phones. And so it's, yeah, it's that delegation piece that I think a lot of solo, you know, people who start a business have a, a, a problem letting go with, and I think that there is a difference between like the solo practitioner who's like trying to do everything themselves, but pretty much by the time you hire employee one. All that has to go. Mm-hmm. Like you, you, you have to get the accountant, you have to get the website person. Mm-hmm. You have to get the Google Ads person and the SEO person. Mm-hmm. A lot of them. That's in a lot of cases, three different people. I don't, I don't really do SEO, uh, I have, uh, like you were talking about earlier, I have SEO companies I've networked with that I Yeah. People over to them and I'm, yeah. Because even though all of that stuff shows up on the same page on Google, we do two completely different things in terms of how to get to those places. Yeah. So, but yeah, I think it's the delegation piece that, that, that scares a lot of people and they, they think that they're, they're supposed to do all of this mm-hmm. For themselves. Like I used to like do my own invoicing and, and, and, and stuff like that. And it was, once I got an assistant. People have been telling me for a long time I needed to get an the system. I was like, eh, I got this, I got this. Yeah, yeah. No, it's fine. I got all of this. It was so freeing. I'm like, things actually started working so much better. Yeah. So I think that if, if, if you take away one thing from this entire podcast, it's you, you've gotta learn to delegate like those business tasks mm-hmm. That you're not good at. So you can do what you are good at, which is mm-hmm. Therapy and generating revenue for the business. Not mm-hmm. Like you did trying to figure out, you know, uh, JavaScript code way too much. Yeah. Which I don't even wanna do. I'm not even interested in doing it. Right. I don't, I'm not interested. Yeah. There's something about the quadrant thing I always think about. I don't know what it's called. It's not Raven's matrices, is it? No, no, no. That's something else entirely. It's the quadrant of like, uh, one axis is I always think of Michael Scott, when I say axis, the x axis, one axis is like every time in my head, he is right there. Um. What you are good at, and the other is what you enjoy doing. Right? And like trying to figure out those things. Trying to figure out, okay, what am I good at? What do I enjoy doing? Or like, to what extent, maybe, you know, it's, um, maybe you're using a nine point scale and like five is in the center for both. Like, you know, if there's nine like hash marks along the, each of these axes. I think there's something about too, um, I think in this conversation I'm also like, I'm, I'm like, I, I think I have a lot of compassion for early on practice owners and mm-hmm. Um, even people who are like in that spot where they're trying to be more visionary, they're trying to be more role aligned. They're trying to like get clear on accountability charts and well, who does what and where does what live? It's, that is such a, um. It's difficult thing to do. It's such a hard thing to do. And this this idea of like when you're in the thick of doing something, it's hard to see how you are probably not as good, even at your best as somebody who's very good, you're never gonna be at the level that they're at. Right. And like you're in the middle of like, you're in it. Like you're sort of in the eye of the storm of trying to create and do, same with the VA stuff, where it's like, it's easy to see it with your wife, but for yourself. It's like, I don't need a va. Like I got this. And then you get one and you sort of feel this relief and realize like, oh shit, you know, I never actually thought of it that way. Yeah, totally parallel. Yeah. Oh, you just hit me with that. Oh man, I just learned something about myself today. I told her to do it. That's so funny. And then I resist. Oh my God. Yeah. And the time too. I'm gonna have to go think about, I'm gonna have to go think about all my life decisions now. This is bad. Yeah. Seriously. Yeah. I feel like anytime I'm saying to somebody else like, you need to do this thing, I'm immediately also thinking. Fuck, do I also need to do this thing? Where in this thing am I, where in my life am I not doing this thing? You know? Like I end up doing the same thing. So, uh, that's so funny. And you did it like one right after the other too. So it's funny the timing of you talking about it was like, my gosh, your wife and then your I I need to go work on some self-awareness. For sure. That is so funny. Okay. Okay. Okay. So there's two questions left. Sorry, I keep backtracking myself. For a practice owner who wants visibility but is overwhelmed, what's the first question they should ask themselves? Can I do this better than somebody else who works on it as their day-to-day job? As in, can I do a website better than somebody who designs websites for a living? Can I do Google ads better than somebody who is in it 40 hours a week? And the answer is probably no, probably not. What would you say is the second question then? If that's the first question? Um, I'm thinking of like, you know, if then, you know, if, if they say no, then what? Like, what's the next question they need to ask themselves? Then it's who do I hire to, to do it? And I think, uh, especially in this space mm-hmm. There are a lot of people I have. I have a list of referrals for people who specialize in therapy Websites that is, is over 10 companies long. It's probably closer to 15 at this point. Yeah. Cool. There are companies that do SEO specifically for therapists. There are companies who do Google ads specifically for therapist, and I think it's, you know, there's the big national marketing agencies who you call them and they're gonna tell you, oh yeah, you need to spend $5,000 on Google ads every month, even though you only have, you know, three employees. Which is insane. Yeah, do not, that's nuts. Absolutely. Do not do that Well because what they wanna do is that agency is, they always want to tell you to spend more money because they're gonna get paid a percentage based on how much you spend, which is a horrible way to charge customers and is gross. And if you hear anyone. Tell you about that. Run screaming the other That is, that is really fucking gross. I agree. Yeah. It's, it, it's bad. So, and then there's also kind of the local agency who they're gonna do, you know, they've done garage door companies and, um, you know, roofers and, and things like that, but they don't have, and neither of those actually has the expertise that, that you need of somebody who, who spends most of their time actually running mm-hmm. Uh, running Google ads for therapists. Yeah. Because it's, it's such a unique space and there are like regulatory things that you're like, not allowed to say. Um, like, I can't allow Google to, to write my ads because way back in the day, Google thought it'd be really fun to call a, a master's level therapist, a psychologist. And I was like, oh, that could get us in trouble. Yeah. And so that we, we just, we refused to let AI write, write those ads for us, because Yeah. Yeah. Smart. Yeah. There was, um. I, I think one of the things, this is a little bit of a segue actually into the last question. I lied. There's actually two more questions I wanna ask. Okay. What is like the thing that's like sticking with each of us from this conversation and what, what I'll say the, what keeps coming up for me is the, it's like the more I, the more you know, the less you know, like the more you know, the more you realize you don't know shit. And I think with, I always have this thought, like with marketing, it seems like marketing. Like it's one little pretty package thing. And the minute you step into that door, it's like the, it's like in Harry Potter and what book is it? The fifth book. Where they go into that room and it's circular and all the walls spin around them, and then there's all of these doors and you have to like walk through. Yeah. It's when they're in the, the Ministry of Magic, I forget it. Book six, right? That is book five. Yes. Book five. Oh, so good. Well, well, well done. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, that's marketing. That's stepping into Mar. And if you haven't read Harry Potter A, you must live under a rock B you need to read it. It's an incredible series still. Also. So is Legend Born, the Legend Board series by Tracy Dion. I could talk all fucking day about Legend Born and my adoration of it is so gd. Good. Okay. I that aside, I, I don't know that one. And I have a bunch of Dungeons of Dragons books. No. So, um, it's like Arthurian legend. I love King Arthur. Okay. But it's a, um, a young black female is a protagonist and Okay. It's like grief and, um, identity and like. Race and King Arthur all rolled up into one and like Lineage and Ancestry and Oh, it's so good. It's so, so good. It's, uh, it was supposed to be a three book series, but it was so incredible that, uh, she couldn't wrap it up by book three. So there's a fourth book coming out and I think it'll close out the entire series. I like it better than Harry Potter, honestly. I guess. I mean, I, I'm gonna have to go look this up. It's so freaking good. Okay, so what's my point? Oh, stepping into marketing is that like fifth book scene where you step into this room and then it's circular and there's a bunch of doors, and the minute you close the door behind you, everything just spins and you have no idea what door you've been through and no idea what door you need to go to. It's so much more complex once you walk in that the notion, I don't know this actually, but my guess is at least for some of the listeners, the idea that you have distinct people and distinct businesses for certain aspects of marketing. Might be new. Like the idea that there's somebody doing your website isn't gonna know how to rank it, they're gonna know how to make it look really good. They might know how to do copy really well. That's not the same thing as ranking on Google, which is where one of the ways people find you. So then there's graphic design related, like aesthetic stuff. There's brand voice and copy and visuals and having like a, you know, a, a brand guide so to speak. There's SEO and like consistency with it. It's not one and done. I think much like a business, I think a website is alive. It's, it's a, it's a living, breathing to thing. Absolutely. It, it has to be tended to and nourished and you know, and now we have also ads and somebody who's good at Google Ads isn't necessarily gonna be good at SEO and isn't necessarily gonna be good at website copy and isn't necessarily gonna be good at website design. And so. And there's probably fucking more, that's not even it, like this is just some of the things that you can do related to Mar There's also social media, which we're, I, that's a whole conversation that, that we're not gonna get into and that isn't relevant for right now. But that for me is like just continues to, to be loud. Like, oh fuck. Oh yeah. There's so many different things that are relevant for marketing that I think people lump together. Right. That are entirely different professions, like literal professions. Absolutely. Well, and this is the problem with, especially with a lot of larger agencies who like, they'll do your website and they'll do your ads and they'll do your SEO and they'll do your social media and they'll do all of these things. The thing is, they typically start off with one thing that they're really good at. Mm-hmm. And they'll continue to be good at, and then they start bolting all of these other pieces on that they are kind of mediocre at. Or in some of the cases, they're, they're gonna be pretty bad at, it's kind of like how, like Facebook used to just be Facebook and now you go in and Facebook has got all of these little tabs on the side Oh. For a whole bunch of stuff that you don't, don't, and they just keep bolting new things into the platform. And that's what marketing agencies do. And like when I left, like the big marketing agency, I was like, I, I don't wanna do that. Like, people are like, oh, John, you should get into websites. I'm like, no, I don't wanna get into websites. I, I, I, I don't know enough about like the construction of websites do not come to me and ask me about like. A, a font or the visual stuff. Mm-hmm. Because I'm more of the, the numbers marketer who I'm gonna ask of what's your conversion rate? And like Yeah. How much are you paying per lead? That's the my side of marketing. Like Yeah. All, all of that visual side of marketing not good at I have to go to somebody else. Yeah. To, to get done. And, and I think it, it, it's really easy to just go to a big agency and, and, and do all of that, but they're usually not gonna do a good job with a number of those pieces. And so it's, it's good to kind of build a team of, you know, of, of these contractors who, you know mm-hmm. Got your SEO person who is gonna be really good at the SEO stuff and you've got your person who's gonna be able to do that in your ads person. Yeah. Yeah. I think that this is actually one of the things that drives me the most fucking crazy about businesses and probably, um, this is not one of the reasons why I love, I, I use EOS, we use the entrepreneurial operating system. We use Traction, Gina Wickman, just all of it. Live and breathe EOS stuff. But one of the things that I really value about it is the core focus is being able to say like, no, that's not what we do. It drives me fucking crazy. Like it drives me nuts when businesses are doing something and then they tack on something else. Therapy Notes. I love Therapy Notes. We've been strong users for years. Fantastic platform. They just released a blog. Something about like now, like there's some sort of directory. Why? Why did you do this? You are not a directory. Don't even do it. All you need to do is focus on being an incredible EHR because that's what you do and that's what you do well, and. That's where like we are here for the EHR. Don't, you don't need to be all in one. You're only diluting your energy now is being spread elsewhere and it shouldn't be and you're diluting your product. I fucking hate when companies do that. I hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it. If you wanted to set a separate company, cool. Start it separately. It's not part of what you're doing. I'm so sorry. Go ahead. It's a little soapbox. It makes me think about a book that is on my reading list and I just saw an interview with a, a guy named Corey Drow was talking about the in acidification of the internet and kind of like how. Yeah, it's literally called the ification of the internet. Oh, that's funny. Okay. And, and how like Facebook and Google and Amazon and all of these guys have, like, they keep like, you know, they start off with a good product and then over time they mess it up, uh, because of, you know, they're putting ads in bad places, which is really funny for a guy who does ads to say, yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, I, you know, it, it, it's completely true. And they, they completely mess up the user experience over time by trying to get into all of these little side businesses that they really don't have any business doing. It's like, I, I, I would like to, you know, everyone's like, John, you should do like a course, John, you should do a course, you should do a course on Google ads. I'm like, and I talked to a guy who did one on Google Analytics. He said, this is all I do. I'm constantly rerecording videos. Like I, I, I don't have time in my day to do consulting on Google Analytics because I'm always recording having to curate this product. I mean, that would be like my entire job. And I have a marketing agency over here to run. Yeah. So I've kind of resisted the idea of, of putting together the course just just because of that then, and I don't want, I don't wanna draw my focus off, off of the core mission, which is to help therapists, like grow their, their practice. Yep. Yep. Man. Yes. What's the, what is the, that's, uh, Patrick Lencioni book. I think, like, of course it's, you know, in traction that, where Gino Wickman is talking about core focus and everything, and I think that's very clear. But I feel like there's a, also a Patrick Lencioni book where he gets into this, oh no, it's a, oh gosh, the five executive executive. I don't think I know this one. Actually, the five, it's something about like, there's uh, two companies that are similar and, and they're like, one is really fine for business and the other, they're like comparable it looks like on the outside. But then on the inside one runs this company with like five, four or three to five principles or something, and they're like real clear. And he, um, this other guy, it's like a kind of, in his mind it's a competition and he comes over and he's asking questions and anyway, the, the guy who is not in competition and doing well is like saying no to working with people. And this guy who's in the competition, in, in his mind is competition is like, how are they saying no? Like how, you know, we, we are trying to beat them. And one of the employees is like, there's no, no, they turn down people, you know? So I think there's something about like. I just learned about something called gravitational physics, which I've never taken a physics class in my life. And I always, I think I end up always thinking about physics concepts without like realizing, you know, like when I'm in the car and I roll down a window, I'm always wondering if the airhead color, what it would look like coming in. And like, if I roll down a second window, how does the airflow then change? Like, how do I feel it differently? Okay. I wonder how it looks in the car. Like my, I'm like, I don't, I don't know. That's, uh, same with water. Like I, but I've never taken physics, but I did learn something called gravitational physics, which is this notion that if something gets more dense, it has a gravita stronger gravity, a stronger magnetic field, or gravitational pull. Sure. I think about that with business, which is like, you don't need to do more. You need to do better at what you do, like get better and densify this thing. And the stuff that you attract, like your, your attraction field. Going to get bigger. Inevitably, like it's not even a matter of if, it's a matter of when, but it that doesn't entail looking outward and changing things out here. It entails turning inward and focusing more heavily on what you do well, so, oh, that was very long-winded. Yeah. Okay. I think there's the tendency to like just chase the shiny object of go after, you know, try doing a directory, thought about doing a directory at one point. Mm-hmm. Then I was like, mm-hmm. Also, that would just, you know, that would take up a whole bunch of my time that, you know, I need to be focusing on, on my business. And so I, yeah. I think there's, you know, that's another good business lesson is to like, not necessarily chase the, the, the shiny object and, and really kind of focus on the core business and, and don and acidification your business. Inify. Yeah. I wrote that down the, in acidification of the internet. Yes. Okay. Who's the author you said? Corey Doctoral co. Dro. Okay. Okay, cool. So, um, given time, 'cause I actually have to scoot and again, I'm a little pissed at myself for only scheduling us for a certain amount of time because I think this is a lesson for next time. Don't do that. Like, make it a little more open on the backend. You know, A, I'm never on time. BI like talking shop. So when people come on and we're having these conversations, I, it could just keep going, you know? So, um, feel free to have me back on sometime and we can, we can continue all this continue. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. This has been awesome. This has been really fun having you on and like talking through, um, I think more of a higher level rather than like the specifics of Google ads, you know, but like higher level, like, um, a little more conceptual about it or like some of the ethical principles and some of the hangups that people have and some of the, I don't know, emotional things, like themes that you noticed. Lessons you've learned. Yeah. Um, okay. I want John to be able to plug whatever he wants to plug, so, oh gosh. I don't know what he's gonna talk about, but. Where can we find you? What do you have to, what do you have to offer? What do you have for us, John? I don't mean it like that, but I mean, is there, is there anything you wanna talk about? Anything you wanna share with the people before we close out? Sure. So if all of this has sounded good, and you, you, you, you wanna talk to me, uh, or you can also talk to my vp, um, Kate Weiss. Uh, you can go to rev key.com, that's R-E-V-K-E y.com/podcast. And, uh, fill out that form and get on a call with us. And, you know, we can kind of look through that website and, you know, to, to get that outsider's view of do you have some holes in it that you need to address before you run Google ads? Which is something we definitely do. We tell people, please don't make me run Google ads to this. Please don't spend that much money. It makes me uncomfortable how much money you want to spend. Yeah. Um, and, and, and so, and finding ways that we can, that we can help your business. Yeah, I love that. Certainly get you some more clients. Cool. So rev key.com/podcast. I will have that in the show notes or the YouTube description or wherever you are listening or watching link, wherever you consume, link your content be. Yes. Yeah, I like that. Wherever you consume your content. Um, thank you for being on here with me, John, and thank you to everybody for being here with me. Also, I think you know how much I value time, even though I'm always late. I really do value time and so it means a lot that you spend some with me. Make sure that a, of course you subscribe to the podcast, you'll get any new episodes that they drop. It makes it easier to find and listen to previous episodes or B, send this to somebody who needs to hear it because what is the point of sharing information if it is not shared with people who that's true can benefit from it. So that's all I got. Thanks again, John. Appreciate you, everyone else. I will see you on the next podcast. Bye.