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Private Practice Startup Podcast
Episode 127: How to Grow Your Practice with LinkedIn
00:30:40
Lisa Wozniak
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- [00:03]
A
Welcome to the Private Practice Startup, where we inspire you from startup to mastery. We chat with entrepreneurs, experts in the mental health and business arenas, and successful private practitioners to give you the tools needed to make your dream practice a reality. Visit theprivatepracticestartup.com for awesome resources, free trainings, and so much more. Here are your hosts, Dr. Kate Campbell and Katie Lemieux.
- [00:27]
B
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Private Practice Startup podcast. I am one of your stand up comedians, I mean host, Katie Lemieux.
- [00:37]
A
We have been laughing away with Lisa Wozniak over here on the chit chat pre chatter, which we should have been recording because it was hysterical.
- [00:46]
C
Yeah, but then you'd have to change the rating of the whole show.
- [00:50]
B
Totally, totally. I think it would have gotten an X rating. Anyway, thank you guys for joining us. We hope you guys joined us last week for Jane Carter where we talked about three fears that are holding you back in private practice and keeping you from leveling up. Also, if you're new to the show and this is the first time you are hearing my voice, we want to open our arms and open you to the startup nation superhero family. You are part of one of our families now. So come on in, the water is warm. We're all here ready to support you guys. And if you are new, we have a gift for you. You. We have our customizable attorney approved private practice HIPAA form. If you're listening to this podcast, you probably are a therapist and if you're probably a therapist, then you definitely need paperwork in your private practice. Let us help you with attorney approved customizable private practice paperwork so you can have peace of mind and don't have to worry about reading and understanding all those laws, rules and paying high attorneys fees. So go ahead over to the website private practicestarter.com head over to sources tab and there you will see your HIPAA form for free. So go ahead and download that. We're going to take a break for our sponsor.
- [02:04]
A
Hey everybody, it's Dr. Kate Campbell. Katie didn't introduce me, she just introduced herself solo. But I am the other co host to the show. It's all good. We're just rolling with it. It's a Friday afternoon here and it has been a crazy week. Let's take a moment for our Startup Nation superhero shout out. And this is from Michael Dietrich Chasten, our friend. He says the Private Practice Startup has been an amazing resource for my business. Their podcast covers so many topics around private practice and so much is relevant to business development to business development in general. Very grateful to have this resource. Kate and Katie are fun to listen to and always bring such great value. Many thanks. Thanks to you Michael for your shout out and if you guys are interested and having a shout out, please share the love, subscribe, rate and review our show. That's what inspires us to keep providing this free, valuable content for you. Now it's time to take a quick break from our sponsor. If you're in private practice, you wear a lot of hats. And some of those hats are totally great. But some like filing taxes and running payroll for example. Not so great. That's where Gusto comes in. They make payroll taxes and HR actually easy for small businesses like your private practice. Fast, simple payroll processing and benefits and expert HR support all in one place. Gusto automatically pays and files your federal, state and local taxes so you don't have to worry about it. Plus they make it easy for you to add on health benefits and even 401ks for you and your team. Let them wear one of your many hats. You have so many better things to do with your time. Listeners get three months free when they run their first payroll. Try a demo and see for yourself@gusto.com PPS that's gusto.com PPS There are so many ways to keep your practice organized, but TherapyNotes is by far the best. They're easy to use, secure platform, lets you not only do billing, scheduling and progress notes, but also create a client portal to share documents and request signatures. Plus they offer amazing unlimited phone support. So when you have a question, they're there so you can get help fast. Get started with TherapyNotes today, trusted by over 60,000 professionals. Go to therapynotes.com and enter promo code PPS as in Private Practice Startup and you'll get two months for free. Also you can listen to episode 54 where we interviewed Brad Pleiner and took an in depth view into their ehr.
- [04:35]
B
Hey Lisa, how are you? It's great to have you back.
- [04:37]
C
Oh always great to be here. How are you ladies?
- [04:40]
B
We are fantastic. And if you guys did not actually, if you haven't been with us that long, Lisa was on the show I think back in 2017 at episode 34 where we talked about three tips for successful social media marketing.
- [04:53]
A
We go way back.
- [04:56]
B
We will definitely add the link to that show in our show notes and if you do listen to that, after you listen to this one you can see how much we have improved and it kind of reminds me of the podcast that we just did with Jane Carter about fears, like really just getting out there and just doing it. And so when we first started our podcast, it was very robotic, structured and probably a little flat. So you could definitely see how we've changed throughout the years. But check out that podcast anyways, because Lisa talks about three tips for successful social media marketing. And today she's back to talk about how to use LinkedIn to grow your private practice.
- [05:33]
C
Oh, absolutely. So, you know, LinkedIn, I think, is one of the biggest, biggest misconceptions in social media. I think. I think when people think in terms of LinkedIn, they often think of LinkedIn as this big resume repository where there's just tons of stored resumes and that's all it really is, or that it's only used by HR professionals, and that just simply isn't true. LinkedIn is such a fun, fantastic tool for marketing your practice, for looking for referrals, for looking for new clients. There are so many great things that people don't know that LinkedIn can do, and they've made some really great changes since they were bought out by Microsoft and they've become a little bit more user friendly. And the search tools that live within LinkedIn are absolutely fantastic. You can go after your exact demographic with pinpoint accuracy in LinkedIn, which a lot of folks will say, well, you know, that may be true, but you can certainly do that on Facebook. Well, you can do that on Facebook. However, you can do that on Facebook. If you do paid advertising, you can go after your exact demographic, but you can do that for free in LinkedIn. That's not to say that you can't at some point convert and grow into LinkedIn advertising. And I would encourage all of you to do that when the timing is right for you. But the difference between LinkedIn and Facebook is you can go after that pinpoint level of accuracy for your core demographic right out of the gate without having to spend money on advertising.
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A
That is so interesting. I never knew that you could get into that targeting on LinkedIn for free.
- [07:27]
C
Absolutely, absolutely. They have some great advanced search options that will allow you to search by job title, to search by, I want to say, core demographic, geographical area, you can search by education. It's endless, the number of ways that you can do that. And if you are somebody who doesn't mind putting a little bit of organization into your efforts when it comes to lead generation or looking for referrals or any of those things we just mentioned, you can arrange that and keep track of that. And you know something? I just use a Spreadsheet, you can use Google Sheets, you can use Excel, you can use whatever you want to. You can even use a CRM if that's the direction that you want to go to. But it allows you to organize the people that you're having conversations with. And just to give you a little, just to give you a little bit of LinkedIn 101. LinkedIn breaks down the people that you come in contact with by degrees. They have first degree connections, second second degree connections, and third degree connections. So for any of you listeners who are not aware of what that really means, a third degree connection is somebody that has never heard of you, you've never heard of them, they've never seen any of your posts, and vice versa. Completely cold bleed. A second degree connection is somebody who maybe has seen your stuff in the newsfeed. They might have liked it at one point or another, they might have even left a comment, they might have even shared your content, but they never clicked on connecting with you. It would be the equivalent of like a friend request in Facebook. So you're not officially connected with them, but they're somebody who maybe sort of follows you. And a first degree connection, I'm sorry.
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A
It'S like a warm audience.
- [09:28]
C
Exactly. And a first degree connection on LinkedIn is somebody who you are connected with, you've reached out to connect with them, they've accepted your connection request and they follow you, you follow them, leaving comments, sharing, all that sort of stuff. So when you're doing your searches for your core demographic on LinkedIn, you're going to want to search and break down the search by either your second or your third degree connections. And that's going to help narrow the list. And that's really important to do because when you begin those searches, you're to end up with numbers in the Thousands, I mean 100,000 depending on how broad of a search you're going after. And in order to make that a manageable chunk of people to start beginning conversations with, you're going to want to break that down to as small a list as possible. So you could organize it by geographical area. So in your case, let's say I wanted to look for. So let's say I'm a therapist that specializes in working with children and my practice is in Fort Lauderdale. So I'm going to go to LinkedIn and I'm going to organize a search in the advanced search options to look for pediatricians and school counselors in the Fort Lauderdale area. So I'm going to do that by a third degree Connection, because I want to start with people that I've never even heard of, they've never even heard of me, so that I can begin to then reach out and begin a conversation with them so that I can go after that referral audience. That's going to be necessary to grow my practice. So that's one of the things that I love so much about LinkedIn is you can really hone in on exactly the types of people that you want to be having conversations with. And then from there, it's a matter of creating messaging that is specific to your niche, your specialty. So my first tip for my first Ninja tip. Isn't that how you guys refer to your ninja tips? Okay, so my first NINJA tip for your audience is to be really clear on what your specialty is before you begin these conversations and make sure that your LinkedIn profile represents that. Okay? So you don't want to have a profile on LinkedIn that says, I'm a therapist, and then that's it, because that'll be crickets. And that's exactly what it's going to sound like if you're going to go to all of the trouble and the work that it's going to take to drive Traffic to your LinkedIn profile so that you can begin to have conversations with people that will yield referrals and clients. Make sure that your LinkedIn profile is ready to be seen. Make sure that it represents your best work. Make sure that it represents exactly who you are and how you show up in the world. So spell out those specialties. If you work with children, spell that out. If you utilize play therapy, spell that out. If you work with children suffering from adhd, again, spell that out. Make sure that you've got all of that in there. Make sure that you're providing your other social media profiles and to your website. So again, it amounts to being ready to be seen. And the second Ninja tip I think I already mentioned is make sure that you've got a justifiable way of organizing those leads, because that can become overwhelming pretty quickly. It's difficult to remember who you had a conversation with, what you had a conversation about. And although LinkedIn does a pretty great job in their messaging of allowing you to look back on that, it's really helpful to have some kind of a CRM or spreadsheet in place that will help you remember when the last time was that you talked to them. Now, for myself, when I do this for my own lead generation, for my own business, I color code it and I keep track of things like the last date that I talked to them, what I talk to them about, information that I've shared with them, when we're going to have a phone call. I mean, I keep track of everything so that at a moment notice when they respond, I know exactly what I'm going to be talking to them about and how I'm going to move that conversation forward. Adversely, if I haven't had a conversation with somebody in a while, that's going to show up in my tracking as well. I know that all of the therapists that listen to you are very busy professionals and a lot of them may not have a lot of time and desire to be spending on social media marketing. And I get that. So that's all the more reason why you need to put a foolproof organizational process in place that will make that as painless as possible. So you should be able to start working with some of these referrals and begin to have some of these conversations in approximately 30 minutes a day. So this should not be something that you're going to commit your life to all day, every day, because quite frankly, who has time for that, right?
- [15:03]
B
So, Lisa, I have a question in regards to like Facebook and LinkedIn. So for example, a lot of times people will go on Facebook and think, and again, I've probably done almost all the mistakes, right? So I remember the time when Facebook ads came out and I was like, oh, piece of money, put an ad, voila. No, that's not how it works with Facebook. You're trying to target your actual market, right? And then convert them really to your website for an opt in to nurture the relationship and hopefully eventually when they are in need, they contact you. The great thing that I think about LinkedIn and one of the reasons I wanted you to speak to Startup Nation in regards to LinkedIn and how to use it to market your practice is because so many referrals come from other therapists or other stakeholders and LinkedIn is a perfect place for that. So give just like some details. Are you like writing a post or putting a blog? Like, how do you nurture the relationship? How do you get seen by these second and third connections? Does that make sense?
- [16:06]
C
Yeah, it absolutely does. So it's a twofold approach, actually. So on the one end, you're going to want to constantly be looking for those people in the process that I just mentioned, right? You're going to want to build up a follower base of your exact core demographic. The other side of that is to be creating posts that appeal to that exact demographic. And LinkedIn has become considerably more intuitive since they were bought out by Microsoft. And they now have a new algorithm that determines what's going to end up in the main newsfeed and what isn't. And one of the things that they've determined is going to be a priority for them is when you're creating a regular post that goes into the main newsfeed, make sure that you're calling out that exact core demographic. So if you want to appeal to pediatricians as a means of those referrals or lawyers or whatever that looks like for your practice, make sure that when you're creating that post just like you would be on Facebook, that you're calling out that specific demographic. So, like I mentioned, it's a twofold approach. On the one hand, you're creating posts that appeal to that core demographic, and on the other hand, you're continually reaching out to those people for the purposes of referrals and taking the time to build that relationship that says, hey, you know what? I see people in my practice all the time that need therapy regarding xyz, PD and Q. Let me refer them to you. So it's really a twofold approach.
- [17:39]
B
I love that you say that because, you know, it's funny when Kate and I have really gone on this whole marketing journey and really created our marketing E course. And then it's so sometimes I kind of feel, like surprised, but not really, because a lot of times when we have folks like yourself who are also in marketing, it's just this constant reflection of exactly what we talk about. Like, there's a very specific formula for the foundation of marketing. And really knowing your ideal client and stating that in your content is essential. It doesn't matter if it's a blog. It doesn't matter if it's a Facebook post. It doesn't matter if it's your specialty. Ph. It doesn't matter if it's in the presentation. It's the same damn formula. And really identifying that ideal client, not just saying women. Well, what women? What women? I mean, that's, you know, 50% of the population. Like, you're not narrowing it down enough. You know, single mother business women who have two or more children. Oh, that's a very specific population. And that person will then be interested because they're like, oh, that's me. So it's so important that you do call that out right, right in the beginning. So, you know, like, is this for me or is this not for me? And it can't be general enough because people just don't know. I love that you say that. I love that you say that because it just continues to reaffirm everything that we talk about and teach.
- [18:57]
A
Kate, quick question. Lisa, this is great. This is great information. Thank you so much for sharing the strategy for LinkedIn. Super, super helpful. And I'm curious about how do you call people out on LinkedIn or population. Does LinkedIn work with hashtags? I really don't know much about LinkedIn because I don't use it.
- [19:14]
C
They have gotten better lately at not only calling out hashtags, but providing some suggestions on hashtags. That's pretty new for LinkedIn and they're working more within that. But really, Kate, it's more about the algorithm crawlers that they have going on in the background that's going to determine whether or not the post that you put up is going to be seen. And I'm glad that you brought that up because this really brings up a great point for me anyway, that I always like to share with people. When you first started, or when many of us first started on Facebook back in the day, it was lots of fun to put up little memes or little cat videos or little dog videos. And even if it didn't appeal to your exact core demographic, it was usually cute enough and meaningful enough that that it could cross over into the main newsfeed or people who were part of your demographic or your target market would end up kind of seeing it by accident and then they'd click on it and then all of a sudden you had them as part of your demographic and you were being seen more often. LinkedIn draws a line in the sand. They don't play when it comes to that. You're calling out your demographics or your target market right from the get go or you're not. And that's going to determine whether or not you're going to make it into the main news feed. So the moral of the story here is don't waste your time with cute cat videos. If you're going to play on LinkedIn, that's a sandbox that is very specific about how they want to play. So free little ninja tip for your viewers and your listeners. If you're going to play on LinkedIn, make sure that you're calling out those people. And the reason for that is LinkedIn prides itself on being a social media platform that appeals to working professionals. So as far as their concerned and in their mind, they don't want to play around with cute cat videos. They want content out there that is specific to any given industry.
- [21:22]
B
And I love that what you just said is very isomorphic. You made the point of how you should conduct yourself on LinkedIn at the same time talking about LinkedIn's ideal client.
- [21:31]
C
What?
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B
That's good stuff right there. Sorry, my marketing mind and hat is always on. But that's exactly it. Because LinkedIn does have an ideal client and is the working professional. It's so important. And again, if you don't know who your ideal client is or what you niched and it's really important to do that. I know people struggle with this. I know this is one of the scarcity mindset things where people are like, well, if I niche down, you know that I'm missing part of the population. No, it's. You become the expert. It's more abundant. You will enjoy your work more. And obviously LinkedIn agrees. So it's really important that you know your niche, your ideal client, your target market. So you know who you're marketing to and they know that you're looking for them.
- [22:10]
A
Absolutely.
- [22:11]
C
And it also solidifies what many of us in marketing have known all along. Not all social media platforms are created equal. So what works on Facebook is not going to work on LinkedIn, is not going to work on Twitter and is not going to work on Instagram. So you need to organize your content to reflect that. And that doesn't mean that there isn't still some crossover. I do it all the time myself and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. But if you want. Looking back at the example we just talked about, about the cute cat videos, it just isn't going to fly. So don't, I mean, like, don't spin your wheels and waste your time and your energy and your effort putting stuff out there that just isn't going to translate in that particular platform.
- [22:56]
A
What type of content have you found works best for posting on LinkedIn?
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C
Some of the things that I find works best on LinkedIn is anytime you have the opportunity to inform or educate on LinkedIn, that's going to work a lot better. Something that works really well, say, on Facebook, is if you have the opportunity to. Edutain is usually what we say, you know, if you have the opportunity to educate through an entertaining format, that's gonna play really well on Facebook. But LinkedIn is that line in the sand that we talked about. Their whole thing is they want to appeal to working professionals, so you need to structure your content accordingly. So if you have the opportunity to educate through quick little snippets in A post. They have a really great blog on LinkedIn called Pulse. And if you're calling out your core target market on a Pulse article, you can almost assure that it's going to end up in the main newsfeed and get you a ton of exposure.
- [24:04]
B
Can I give a little NINJA tip?
- [24:06]
C
Absolutely.
- [24:08]
B
In regards to what you just shared. So Startup Nation, you're probably saying, what's the NINJA tip? In regards to what Lisa was saying, there's a very easy acronym to remember on how to market. It's called the E DI formula. So A D I E. So the first C is educate. D is for demonstrate. So if you ever go to Amazon, right, and you want to purchase a product, sometimes they have a little video that demonstrates the product and the likelihood of then you buying it is way higher. I is informed, so providing information. And then the other E is entertain. So if you can do one of those or many of those together, usually you will have a higher probability of consumption. Converting people or building more of a warm or hot audience when you do those things, when you're just kind of like requesting or I know you mentioned about, like, don't be like the sleazy sales marketing strategies, right? Like, it's about me. Send me this. That's just not going to do it for anyone.
- [24:59]
C
No, that's true. That's true. And we often refer to that as the 8020 rule. So you're going to want to inform and educate 80% of the time and only sell 20% of the time. So that's another thing that I share with folks all the time. If you find yourself. And sometimes folks don't even realize it's happening. But if you find yourself constantly posting things on social media that, you know, oh, call my practice for a free consultation or call to schedule an appointment today or, I mean, if you do that all the time, you're going to lose your target market. You're going to lose them before you even get them because they'll turn a blind eye to it. They won't hear it anymore and they won't see it anymore, or they'll get irritated and they'll stop following you altogether.
- [25:45]
B
It's interesting you shared that, because yesterday I got a call and I'm going to be pretty vague about this just to not give any descriptive details, but I got a call from a clinician yesterday requesting that we do something for this person. And so we don't really have a relationship with this person. And this person then begins to tell me all of the accolades and awards and reasons why I should do. And I was so turned off. Like, it was just like, gross. Oh, I just wanted to get off the phone. So when we do, like, talk about ourselves or push ourselves, it doesn't leave a good feeling for others. And, you know, I know I made those mistakes too. Like, I felt like I had to talk about all of that to feel like people would then respect me or want to work with me. So I totally get why we do that, but it just doesn't feel good on the other side. So I'm glad that you mentioned that.
- [26:30]
C
Absolutely. And the same is true with the LinkedIn messaging that you create when you're reaching out to connect with those other people on LinkedIn and asking for referrals. Oh, for the love of God, do not come out of the gate and ask for a referral. Do not, do not, do not. Do not take the time to get to know them. See if you can offer them something of value first. Get to know them, offer ways that you can help and support them. And then only when that relationship is built is it okay. And are you greenlighted to begin to ask for referrals if they haven't already brought it up to you already?
- [27:03]
B
I think a great analogy is would you ever go on a first date and just meeting someone and ask them to marry you?
- [27:10]
C
Exactly.
- [27:11]
B
You don't, because it's not the proper right time. You haven't built up that relationship. So I think about thinking about marketing the same way is really essential. So don't ask someone to marry you on the first marketing date.
- [27:21]
C
There you go. That's a great point, Lisa.
- [27:23]
A
Your strategy makes so much sense and I love hearing about it. And it's so refreshing to hear about the LinkedIn approach and the relationship building. So much of this works in person and oftentimes people don't think about translating it into the online arena. And then this goes both hand in hand. Because when you're networking with people, especially locally, that can transition into face to face networking too, with the same people. So thank you so much for being on today and talking about this. And what do you want our listeners to take away?
- [27:50]
C
Something that they've probably heard a hundred times before, either out in the marketplace or from you. And that's build the relationship first. Take the time and the energy that's necessary to build a relationship with people. I'm sure you've also heard it said a ton of times before. People buy from those people that they know like and trust. So take the time and the energy that's necessary to build a relationship where they know you, they like you and they trust you and you will have more business than you know what to do with. Love it.
- [28:19]
B
Well, it was such a pleasure having you back on. And if you guys, like I said, missed episode 34, go back and check that out. That's three tips for successful Social Media Marketing. We will put that in the show notes. But before we go, Lisa does have a giveaway for you. Lisa, what is that and where can they get it?
- [28:35]
C
Yeah, absolutely. I've got an ebook that I would love to share with your readers. It's called how to Build. You'd list the easy way and it's for people who are getting started in email marketing in their practice. So if you're thinking about starting a newsletter, it's got all the details in there about how to get one started, how often you should be sending out that newsletter letter and the content that should go into it and how to convert that into paid business. So you can get that@WozMarketing.com Very good.
- [29:07]
B
Thank you Lisa. So I just want to summarize for our guests today, we talked about how to use LinkedIn marketing to really grow and build your practice. Lisa talks about being clear on your niche and how important that is, really having an organizational system to track your efforts. And that goes back to the 8020 rule. And give first, don't be sleazy and salesy. Give, give, give, give 80% of the time and ask about 20% of the time. Next week we want you to join us as we invite Carrie Nola on our podcast which we're so excited. We've been wanting to have her for about a year now. We're going to be talking about scarcity proofing your practice. So again, another mindset podcast which we need so much, especially in business because it's a completely different arena than therapy Startup Nation. We hope you join us next time and thank you for allowing us to inspire you from startup to mastery. Have an amazing day.
- [30:00]
A
See you next time. Thanks for joining us on the Private practice startup. Visit theprivatepracticestartup.com for awesome resources, free trainings, attorney approved private practice paperwork, and so much more.
- [30:17]
C
SA.