Joseph R. Sanok, MA, LLP, LPC, NCC

Joe Sanok is an expert on achieving ambitious results! He is a private practice business consultant and counselor that helps small businesses and counselors in private practice that are starting a private practice. He helps owners with website design, vision, growth, and using their time to create income through being a private practice consultant. Joe was frustrated with his lack of business and marketing skills when he left graduate school. He loved helping people through counseling, but felt that often people couldn’t find him. Over the past few years he has grown his skills, income, and ability to lead others, while still maintaining an active private practice in Traverse City, MI. To link to Joe’s Google+ .

Photo by Julie Hanks website

 

How To Get The Attention Of The Media | An Interview With Julie De Azevedo Hanks, MSW, LCSW

This is the Practice of the Practice Podcast with Joe Sanok, Session 66. How’s it going today? I hope you’re doing just awesome. My brain kind of hurts from being a little bit sick. I think I might be coming down with what my wife has, but I’m going to power through it. I’m going to do this thing because you expect out of me to hear something valuable. And I’m so excited about my interview today with Julie de Azevedo Hanks. She’s also known as Julie Hanks by a lot of folks. She is just fabulous and this interview today with Julie is just I’ve been saving it for the perfect time to launch it, because today’s resource lines up just so well with this and I’m going to tell you even more about this at the end but if you just can’t wait, go to mostawesomeconference.com and probably go slash about because you’ll get the most content there. But I’m going to tell you at the end all about this conference and why I saved this interview that I did with Julie over a month ago for today.

So, Julie is just this amazing woman. So many thousands of people are a part of her Facebook Tribes that she has created. She’s always giving just amazing content and today is no different. She’s going to talk about how she got onto the Wall Street Journal or into the Wall Street Journal, how she became just this media-mogul. I mean, she’s frequently cited in the Wall Street Journal, Readers’ Digest, Shape Magazine, Red Book, Cosmopolitan, Health Magazine, Closer Weekly. Let me look at some of these other things. I mean, Parenting, Parents, Lady’s Home Journal, Women’s Health, LA Times, iPhone Life, Huffington Post Live, E! Online, PsychCentral, Social Work Today — I mean, and I could just keep listing it, CNN, TLC, Fox News — the list goes on and on and on and in the middle of this interview, she tells you the trick that she figured out in how to get the attention of people that are just writing in these huge places.

I want you to be able to get the most content from Julie. And so, I’m going to just listen to this interview again and take some notes myself. So, I give you Julie.

Joe Sanok: Julie, thank you so much for being on the Practice of the Practice Podcast, today. I’m so excited to have you on.

JA: Thank you for inviting me, Joe.

Joe Sanok: Yeah, yeah. So, Julie, I’ve been following your work for a while and there are so many directions we could go in. I’ve kind of first virtually met you through your Facebook community and maybe we’ll start there and then I’d love to talk about you just are all over the place when it comes to media and consulting and we’ve a lot we can cover in this short period of time.

Why don’t we start with just how kind of I met you through your social media and how it’s grown and then we’ll just kind of springboard from there.

JA: Great. Yes, so we met right in Private Practice Toolbox Facebook group.

Joe Sanok: Right.

What Julie never dreamed she’d be doing

JA: Yeah, okay. So it’s an interesting evolution. You know, I’ve owned a private practice for 12 years and I never dreamed of being a consultant or kind of leading an online tribe because social media was just really new at that time. I’m an early adopter of technology in social media.

I did have a web page. It was just a one-page in the early 2000’s and so that I didn’t know that being an early tech and social media adopter would actually be the most important factor in growing a practice in a really difficult time economically.

I think I lucked out. I also have good intuition. I just felt like this is going to be important so yeah, I started out as a solo practitioner and then pretty soon into it, I realized I didn’t want to work with insurance because I was doing more paperwork and hoop jumping than I was doing therapy. I got into the field because I really like the direct clinical work not kind of jumping through hoops and a lot of paperwork.

I’ve read the book, “Building Your Ideal Private Practice” by Lynn Grodzki and that was a turning point for me because I got a clear vision that the way that people have been practicing that I had known personally were kind of stuck in a box and I didn’t want to be in that box but I didn’t know there were other boxes or you didn’t have to be in a box when it came to private practice.

I really did what Lynn suggested and I identified my ideal clients and where they — how I could reach them, how I could serve and build trust. I resigned from my all insurance panels and raised my fee at the same time. My husband just about had a heart attack and said, “That’s stupid.” Like yeah. He’s in business so he was like, “Yeah, you can’t. That’s not how things work.” I’m like, “Well, that’s how it’s going to work for me.”

Joe Sanok: And what year was that?

JA: This was — let’s see — mid-2000’s-ish, 2005, 2006. And so you think okay. Drop off insurance and raise my fee and what happened was this.

Joe Sanok: It went off.

JA: It kept growing, which you think that how can that be. But I really focused on how I can I serve my ideal clients? How can I get in front of them? How can I help them and build trust with that community? And like you mentioned in the beginning, I’ve doing that a lot through media and social media.

My clinics have grown now from a solo practice to I think we have 20 clinicians and three locations.

Joe Sanok: Wow, wow! When you painted the picture of your ideal client, at that time when you first made that jump, what was your ideal client’s profile?

JA: My ideal client was a young adult woman who had access to the internet, was likely in college or doing something to better her life and her options. I really wanted someone who had the resources or access to the resources to pay my full fee. At that time my children — I had three children at that time and they were young, at home I thought if I may be away from them, I want that time to benefit them.

Joe Sanok: Yes, absolutely.

JA: I’m not going to give away my time and so anyway, I wanted to be paid for the time that I was at work and I wanted to be paid immediately. I didn’t want to wait six weeks. I don’t think that’s so wrong.

Joe Sanok: No, no. I mean, you pay for your sandwich when you go out to eat right away so why should you know, wait six weeks or whatever and then fight to get paid for what they’ve already said you should get paid for and at a reduced rate and yeah.

I love the point that you just made that you really knew who your ideal client was. And so you’ve got this ideal woman. What did you do to then attract that client to your practice?

JA: I started thinking, “Okay. Where –” I mean, in Salt City, Utah and so I thought, “Where are women in Utah gathering? How can I get in front of them, how can I serve them, how can I educate them, how can I build a relationship of trust with them?”

What I did is I started reaching out to local women’s magazines. I also felt like I wanted to get more into media contributing so I just put out there, “Hey, I would love to do more media interviews, I got a hosting gig on just a really local station here that was the best baptism by fire of — it almost literally killed me but it was a really great learning experience.

I did a hair school, too. I thought, where are young adult women in Utah? There are lots of cosmetology schools in the valley here and so I put together an hour workshop where I did — I talked about nonverbal communication skills, how to put your clients at ease, because I think hair stylists are the real therapists. They’re like the front line ones.

Joe Sanok: Yeah. Absolutely.

JA: They talk to everybody even the people who don’t want to go to official therapy. And then I also did some psycho education in terms of what are some signs of mental health problems that they will see before a therapist will see? So, trichotillomania, eating disorder, you hair — things that manifest in hair and skin and nails. And so I talk to them about that. Also skin, like domestic violence, things like that.

I went around and met with hundreds of young adult women in the valley and built that relationship with them.

Joe Sanok: What a referral network you developed so quickly and you then became a consultant to them and I mean, this is brilliant.

JA: My goal has always been I want to be a resource for other people whether they come to me for therapy or not, I just want to be a resource and a place where people now, “I can call her and she’ll help me either get the book that I need or refer to medication provider or whatever.”

I also put together a two-hour workshop for women and started presenting that to religious women’s groups in the community and that just kind of spread and over it, but I did it for about 10 years and that ended up being the content for my first book that published last year. And I had surveys from 3,000 women —

Joe Sanok: Wow!

JA: — in Utah and also in the western States and so it just kind of evolved. I call myself the accidental researcher because I stood up with — it’s not scientific data but still really interesting, helpful information.

Joe Sanok: Absolutely.

JA: Yes, those are some of the ways that I started out reaching my ideal clients.

Joe Sanok: Was there a point when you realized, “Wow! There are too many people coming to see me. I need to add some folks here.”

JA: Yes. Yeah, that was pretty early on. It was after I resigned from managed care yeah and I started my practice the month that I had my third child. I wasn’t wanting to work 40 hours a week seeing clients. I wanted to work under 20, you know, probably 15-20. I found that the networking and the serving in my community was working and then I had people referring to me and I didn’t want to have a long waiting list so I started adding people. It just was really an organic process. I remember my first office was like a waiting room and one office, you know. Then I made this huge jump. It was like three offices and a waiting room. I thought, “Maybe one day, this will be” — and I rented out space and I thought, “Maybe one day, this will all be [? 12:22] therapy therapist and that happened pretty quickly and I’m like, “Wow! We need a bigger space” and so we’ve just kept —

Joe Sanok: That’s so funny because our first place was one office and three of us shared it and had a waiting room. Then we just in August jumped to a four-office and I’m kind of at a point like, “Okay. I got to get some people in here” and that’s so encouraging to hear about that jump.

What are some things that you learned maybe in that process of bringing people into your practice?

How Julie protects the emotional setting of her practice

JA: The most important thing that I looked for in people that I hire is and this sounds so — anyway, I won’t qualify it, is do I like them? Do they put me at ease because if I can attach to them easily, then clients will. This is assuming that they have the credentials and the experience and all of those key things. They’re open to learning but it’s really, do I want to spend time with this person, because they’re going to be in my intimate space and I’ve been really protective of the emotional climate of my practice because I want to be a place where people want to be, no drama, no back fighting, no bureaucracy, you know, where it’s just this kind of a securely attached family at work.

Joe Sanok: Right.

JA: So, that’s been the most important thing and also really I look for people who were born therapists so we train a lot of interns, graduate level interns and I always look for people who were born therapists that just have to jump through the hoops to get the license to actually do the work.

How Julie encourages people to not see her

And then I look for people who’ve done their own work because I think you cannot be a tour guide for other people to places you’ve never traveled and so that I really value people who have a handle on their own stuff because I think they make better therapists

Joe Sanok: Wow, those are all awesome tips. Wow! So then things start to grow for you and I’m thinking when you’ve kind of built a practice around your own personality being that resource, how do you encourage people that say, “I want to see Julie.” “No, I’m sorry. I don’t have room for you. Go see all these other counselors.” Like how did that happen because I know I deal with that a lot because you know, people know Joe Sanok because I’m on the radio, I’m you know, out there but I have these great counselors here that maybe don’t do as much work in the media, how did you do that? How did you get people to see other people in your practice?

JA: Yeah. It’s been a process of learning that I’ll share what I’ve learned. I raised my fees so there’s a financial incentive to go to other people and I have learned how to state my confidence in them. So, for example, if you were wanting to see me and I didn’t have availability, I say, “I have hand-selected therapists that I trust. I would refer my friends and family, too. If they could come to my clinic I guarantee their confidence and if there’s any problem you can come and talk to me.”

Joe Sanok: I think that’s such a great line, that I’ve hand-selected therapists that I trust. I just wrote that down because I feel like that’s such a good quote to help people grow beyond just their own personality because I feel like anyone that’s you know, following you, following me, following other people that are helping practices grow, they run into that where they’ve been the one that’s been blogging, they’ve been the one that’s been promoting it but it’s so important it sounds like, to really make sure that you have these people in your practice that can genuinely represent you.

JA: Right, right. I tell them, “Look, I have worked in this community as a therapist for 20 years. You are representing my brand. You’re associating with me and I want to protect that, you know. I want to protect my reputation as a professional and I really value the trust that the community has in the services that we provide. A huge part of what I do to with my team is I train them in the importance of building trust with the community through blogging, through educating, speaking, being involved. We have a blog editorial calendar where everybody rotates through. They contribute content and so they are out there online and in the community, and I tell them you know, building their practice is a team effort. I can build the brand, they have to build trust with them.

The therapists who build their practice more quickly are ones that are also going out there and building direct trust because people go, “Hi. I want to see Chelsea. Or I want to see, you know.” They bypass you know, kind of the vetting process and they just get more referrals.

So I give the therapists who work with me responsibility together to build their practice with their ideal clients and I’m there as a resource. “Okay. Who’s your ideal client, how can we get you in front of them, which radio stations are they listening to, which publications or websites are they going to?

I do a lot of business training that way and networking training.

Joe Sanok: So, when you mentioned your blog calendar for your team, how frequently are you shooting to have a new blog post go live with your practice?

JA: At least weekly if not several times a week. I post my media interviews which sometimes are several a week. Depending on what I’m doing, I’m probably the most active just because I am posting video and audio podcasts, things like that but we have at least once a week from someone other than me.

Joe Sanok: Sure.

JA: And so that it’s at least once a week.

Joe Sanok: Do you guys do any like keyword research around that? Is it just what they’re interested in? Like how do you guys decide what you’re going to write about?

JA: I let the therapists decide based on who their ideal client is and what they’re passionate about. So, I frame into you know, this is the way that you can let our community know who you are, your philosophy and to build that trust with you. You know sometimes, if people will say, “Well, really a blog post, does that matter?” I say, yes because someone googles your name, they heard you speak and then they can go and get to know you and continue to build trust because you have content that really speaks to them. It’s a way to introduce yourself to potentially millions of people that you would never have access to.

Joe Sanok: Right and if someone types in depression counselors Salt Lake City, and the first three things are blog posts they’ve written, there’s something that –well, Google has said that this person’s the best. I guess I should at least look at them.

JA: Right.

Joe Sanok: And that may even bring in clients more than even a friend referral because that person’s providing that content and showing that expertise directly to that client without ever even meeting that client.

JA: Yeah. I think the internet is — we have never as therapists had direct access to potential clients on a regular basis like we do and it’s so exciting to be able to have that direct contact with the community and we also blog not just to get a client. We just blog because it’s a way of providing education for people all over the world and we have readers all over the world.

They’re not going to become clients but it makes me happy that they’re coming to the blog as a trusted resource.

Joe Sanok: Well, at least what I’ve found is when I started blogging, I started seeing new ideas and opportunities everywhere. I’d hear something about NPR and you know, read something and I’d say, “Oh, my gosh. I could twist this and talk about it this way.”

JA: Everything’s a blog post.

Joe Sanok: Exactly. I mean, you know. You have a thing happen in your family and then you have to decide well do I want to blog about this or not? But it’s everywhere and I think that just getting started is probably the hardest part but then once you get going, the ideas just tend to flow and you see the opportunities everywhere.

JA: Yeah. And that’s why I did the therapist blog challenge on my private practice toolbox blog because in my consulting, the biggest barrier to blogging is I got to know what to write about. It’s like you already have hundreds of blog posts in your brain or in your notebooks or files or books on your shop that you just don’t think about it. People think it has to be some original brilliant you know, paper with tons of citations. I’m like, “No, that’s not how people feed on the internet.” Most content is recycled. Take something. Take a research study that just came out and put a paragraph of your take on it. That’s a blog post.

Joe Sanok: Yeah.

JA: You can share other people’s videos. You can share my videos and say, “Hey, this is my colleague and I think this is a great way to reduce stress around Christmas.” That’s a blog post. Borrow the best — curate the best of other people’s content and put it on your blog and you know, of course you’re going to give — you’re not going to say that it’s yours if it’s not, but you know link and then those people love you. You know, you post one of my videos embed that and link back to me. I love you. Like I go, “Oh, awesome! Thank you.” That’ the networking aspect of the internet.

Joe Sanok: What’s really funny about that, I’d actually forgot it till you just said that. I did a podcast. I want to say it was like episode 20 or so. It was a two-part podcast with Sarah Barnes who is this SEO expert and she was going through my website live like and I was just recording her talking about it and she was looking at site rank authority and who was linking back to Practice of the Practice and she’s like whoever this Julie Hanks is, you got to connect with her more because she’s got such site rank authority and like she’s back linked to you and Julie is doing a little dance right now for those of you that are just on audio. But it was just such a cool like, “Wow!” Like I never even realized like site rank authority and all this.

You’re right that when people link to other people’s blogs or other people’s websites that free promotion for that person is so exciting for whoever you’re sharing their content.

JA: Right. Because it says this person matters.

Joe Sanok: Yeah.

JA: This person who has more authority says this person matters. You should go to them. Yeah. I think that brings up another really good point is the importance of being generous with sharing other people’s content on social media, linking back to them, interviewing other people and collaborating there’s — we live in a culture and I think this goes into the culture as therapists of this scarcity. You know, there’s not enough. There’s not enough clients for — and I just don’t buy it. I just never have that experience. I think you know, no matter where you are, and every therapist I’ve consulted with has said, “Oh, the market is so saturated there.” I’m like, I don’t care. You don’t need to see all of the, you know, millions of people in New York City. You just need to find 50 at any given time who think that you are the therapist for them. It doesn’t matter how many other therapists.

Joe Sanok: I always use the example of sushi because you think about sushi like 10 or 20 years ago, and like there’s one shop in any town you know, maybe any larger town. But now you can find it in every super market, and it’s like and people were educated on how delicious sushi is like it spread. As we educate people, as we provide more value as we go beyond just your typical insurance-based system you’re going to find more clientele which kind of leads into, I want to talk about your consulting practice because you went from you know, owning, and you still own your practice and you got all these clinicians working there but then you’ve added consulting. How did you add it and maybe let’s through some of that.

JA: Sure. So, what I found was people started coming to me particularly when they found out that we don’t have any managed care or government contracts that it’s all private paid. It’s like, wait I’m having a hard time doing that as a solo practitioner and you have how many that you know, and I didn’t realize until then people started asking me that it was unique or hard to do. I was like, “Well, it’s not. It must not be that hard.”

Joe Sanok: We’re doing it with 20 people.

JA: It’s not that hard. I don’t have a business background, I don’t have a social media background, I don’t have a marketing background.

Joe Sanok: Right.

JA: I realize, oh well, there might be something that I have to share that would help other people and not just that’s what really lights me up there is making a difference for other people in whatever way that is. That’s part of that is why I started blogging for PsychCentral’s private practice toolbox. I talked to the owner, John, and he said, “Hey, I want to do this.” And he thought that was great and it was just really a way that I could share what I learned with other therapists because I realized wow, I’ve learned some things that not everybody knows and I would love to share so people don’t have to go through the learning curve that I had to go through. I’ve been gosh, it’s maybe been three plus years that I’ve been blogging there and so I have this theory that if you blog somewhere for year, you become an expert.

Joe Sanok: Okay, and how many blogs in that year do you think you wrote for PsychCentral?

JA: In the first year, you know what? Let me look. I couldn’t even tell you. Probably 60-100 maybe.

Joe Sanok: Oh.

JA: Maybe, not. I don’t know. Let me just look. I’ve slowed down recently just because I’m finishing up my PhD and that just takes a little bit of time.

Joe Sanok: Sure.

JA: Let me just see here. Oh, the archive — they moved — it may take me some time.

Joe Sanok: That’s okay. You know, I mean, 60-100 that’s a ton of blog posts.

JA: Yes. No, I’m all like on this mission. I need to tell you.

Cross-talk

Joe Sanok: That’s a couple a week, you know. You’re doing you know, one or two a week, that’s like — and the reason I ask is because I just had emailed that recently because you and Miranda and Kelly and other folks all seem to be on there and like you know, I should probably look at PsychCentral more and see if that might be a good connection and they just emailed me back and said they’d like to have me blog for them.

I will be joining your PsychCentral tribe shortly.

JA: Whooho.

Joe Sanok: Yeah.

JA: I’ve been blogging there since 2007 or wow, 2011. I had no idea it was that. So, wow cool.

Joe Sanok: So 2011 you start doing that. You’re blogging there, people are asking you these questions and then where does it go from just blogging to actually making money off of people like if they want to consult with you.

JA: I started doing some lecturesspeaking like for NASW in Utah, some workshops and then I started a small group of just local practitioners who wanted to learn more. Then as Private Practice Toolbox grew and I started the Facebook group and I just started getting requests for consulting and I was, well I don’t know. How do you price that, how do you… So I just started doing it.

Joe Sanok: How’d you price it?

How to charge more, the value of perceived value

JA: I’d underpriced at first and then I talked — I consulted with some people and they’re like, “Oh, no. Business to business you can charge a lot more than clinical.” I was like, “Okay. Well then I better charge more.” I started charging too low and that’s usually what I tell my clients, consulting clients what their clinical fee is like you’re charging — you’re not charging enough.

Joe Sanok: Yeah.

JA: So, l learned something kind of jumping back to one I resigned from managed care: the value of perceived value. It was like people thought I was better because I didn’t — I charged more and I didn’t take insurance. They’re like you must be really good. We want to see the best.

Joe Sanok: Right.

JA: I was like, “Wait a second. I’m still the same person I was last month.”

Joe Sanok: Right.

JA: I learned about the value of perceived value. And so I think that applies to consulting, too. You know I realized, I don’t want to just charge nothing even though I love doing it. I mean, that’s why I do it because I love it.

Joe Sanok: Right.

JA: If I undercharged I am not valuing myself and other people don’t get the benefit of perceived value. They don’t invest as much you know.

Joe Sanok: Well, I know that every time that I’ve raised either my consulting prices or my clinical prices, I’ve got more referrals and it’s just amazing how when you do that, you know, in consulting also if you’re doing an hourly versus okay this package you’re going to get this discount on. It just gives you so much more flexibility if you start high, and then you can always work down if you want to if someone’s going to work on a package or something like that.  

JA: Yeah, yeah, definitely. I learned you know through trial and error and then I learned how to kind of automate that. I don’t like online scheduling for client, for clinical kinds of things but it’s been great where people just go on, sign up, pay you through PayPal, again email then you know, show up on Skype or phone or whatever and do that.

It’s just been such a fun just different shift because there’s still — it’s interesting how much emotional stuff comes in to the consulting right, but it’s not my responsibility. It’s just a different, different kind of thing so I’ve really enjoyed that.

Joe Sanok: What system do you use to do the PayPal online scheduling for your consulting clients?

JA: I use Acuity and interfaces and it has like a little form they fill out.

Joe Sanok: Is there a monthly fee for that? Is that one of the free scheduling?

JA: No, I think it’s like 9.99, something like that. It’s only minimal.

Joe Sanok: Okay. Cool. I just have to know the actual kind of things people are using.

JA: Yeah and if you have better ones, I’m always open to kind of what’s new and what’s cheaper and what has more features. Let me know.

Joe Sanok: Well, there was one that I haven’t used personally except for scheduling with someone called calently or something like that or cal something like that. And I think it’s free but there’s also an upgrade. I haven’t looked into it but it worked well with the person I scheduled with.

JA: Okay.

Joe Sanok: He’d done all of his podcasts interviews through that if someone was going to schedule with him for that.

JA: Oh, okay.

Joe Sanok: And he had it right in his email signature if you wanted to schedule with him.

JA: Yeah, that’s cool.

Joe Sanok: Let’s talk a little bit about media because you just said a little bit ago you’re often doing your two or three times some sort of media appearance. Tell me what have you learned I guess. What can you tell us people who aren’t out there in the big media?

JA: I do several things. I do TV, radio, print and web so I’ve kind of — and I’ve blogged about this before but I use Help a Reporter Out and that has been really life-changing in terms of the media exposure. I consistently respond and have had really great success getting top tier publications to Coogee.

I did some webinars about that because again I love sharing like “Hey, if you’re going to do it let’s get you successful and get you out there.”

Joe Sanok: So on HARO on Help a Reported Out like I found I haven’t received a lot of return emails and so I bet 10% or so will get back with me. What are some maybe tips around that that you’re having people respond to you because I just —

JA: You have to sign up for consultation for that.

Joe Sanok: Okay.

JA: No, I’m just kidding.

Joe Sanok: No, that’s fine.

JA: I’m teasing, I’m teasing. So, the biggest, biggest mistake that people make is they don’t answer the questions in the first email. So, journalists are pressed for time. Do not respond back, “Hey, I’m available.” No. If they ask questions, you give the full interview. What I found is often, they will not respond back. They’ll just quote you and you have to have so — set up a Google alert for any versions of your name and clinic because I have found that I’ve been quoted where I had the journalist didn’t notify me because think about like they don’t have time for that. So, you may be quoted more than you think.

I respond to a lot and my actual quote like where I get a hit is about 20%.

Joe Sanok: Okay.

JA: I don’t know how many I’ve had but just think about that’s only 20% of what I respond to, but save your responses because those are blog posts.

Joe Sanok: Great

JA: Sometimes, I’ll write tons of you know, and I won’t get a response and I’ll “cut and paste” doctor it up, blog post.

Joe Sanok: Well, just that advice right there has helped me because I was saying, “Hey, I’m Joe Sanok. You’re on Mental Wellness Counseling. I’d be happy to talk with you. Here’s my cellphone–

JA: No.

Joe Sanok: — number. Perfect so actually —

JA: Most people do not — like think about if you get 25 responses like that and you get one that just nails everything you were asking for, you will not waste your time.

Joe Sanok: That’s such a good piece advice. Thank you for giving that for free.

JA: You’re welcome. The best thing I want to challenge you to do this. Use it as a journalist and see what works. Does that make sense?

Joe Sanok: Yeah. Well, I think you’ve done a couple of your PsychCentral blog post where you posted on the Facebook page and I responded to you and then like it was just you know, what I responded to was then in the blog post. We never even talked back and forth but it was like so I was so impressed with how automated it was. Like you just ask the questions, I responded it was in the blog post.

JA: Yes or a few. I think I’ve quoted you a few times on there. If you use it as a journalist, you’ll see what makes a good interviewer, what you’re looking for, what stands out. People who’d to send way too much information or not enough, you just wipe those out because you get enough that are right in the pocket and if you use it from the other end, you see what makes a good interviewee.

That’s the same with media. My baptism by fire I mentioned earlier where I was hosting and producing an hour-long weekly talk show. I was doing guest management, guest booking, I was writing script. It was so hard, but I learned how to be a good guest.

Joe Sanok: That’s great.

JA: How to make like why I would want someone to be a regular and why I would never want to invite someone again. That information I took and it was like, “Okay, I want to be the guest that people are like, we want her back. She made our job easier. She sent just the right amount of information. She wasn’t high maintenance. We didn’t have to hold her hands in panic attack. You know, she was prepared, she knew when to look at the camera, when not to. So, I learned how to be an easy low-maintenance guest who always delivers.

Joe Sanok: I know one thing that I do. I’m on the radio once or twice a month locally is I always bring like show notes. Here’s are my main points, so that that person that’s interviewing me can sound really smart.

How to make the media sound smarter

So, hey, wasn’t there a Harvard study that said XYZ and then I’ll jump in, “Oh, yeah. I’m really glad you brought that up. That’s a really important point.” But it’s like we had the handout in front of them that said these. Here’s what I’m going to say. And they can then interview me and sound a lot smarter and if you make your interviewer sound smart, it just you know, makes that experience with them a lot easier.

JA: Right and that’s a great point, Joe. It’s how can I make their job easier. That’s how I approach every pitch, that’s how I pproach every contact. How can I make their job easier by working with me?

Joe Sanok: Well, Julie, there’s one question I always end the podcast interviews with, and that’s if every counselor in America were listening right now, what would you want them to know?

JA: About what?

Joe Sanok: Anything. I just give you the floor to announce from the mountain tops to the counselors of America what they should know.

JA: Gosh. I think just what we said is lead with how you can help that person whether it’s a client, whether it’s a colleague you want to network with, if you are really about serving whoever it is you’re working with, that comes through and you will be successful. You can’t fake caring about people and what I found is the fact that I really do care about the people in my private practice toolbox group or my consulting client or my online tribes or the therapists who work with me. I really, really care. I want — I’m a cheerleader. I want you to succeed. And so I think that’s been something that I learned and I didn’t know how important that was but if you really lead with not like how can I get my needs met but how can I use my unique gift and talents to improve other people’s lives that you’re going to be successful.

Joe Sanok: And it’s amazing that’s a theme that I just hear over and over from highly successful people is basically, if you give a whole lot of great value, it’s going to come back.

How can people get in touch with you if they want to hear more about your consulting or the work you’re doing?

JA: Yeah, juliehanks.com. That’s the one-stop for everything that links through to my practice, consulting, blogs, media kinds of things. That’s kind of the place, juliehanks.com.

Joe Sanok: Wonderful. Julie, thank you so much for being on the show. She’s going to be one of our first 15 consultants with the How to Become a Consultant Podcast. This is coming on early 2015 so you can hear more about that on becomeaconsultanttoday.com and we’ll have links in the show notes for all that stuff that we talked about. Have a great day Julie.

JA: Hey, thanks, Joe.

Joe Sanok: Julie, awesome. So, Julie and I definitely connected during that interview but have connected offline as well and I was interviewing someone else. It was Kelly Higdon. I was interviewing her for the new, How to Become a Consultant Podcast and she and I were just brainstorming about different things when we weren’t recording and I said, “You know, wouldn’t it be awesome if there was a conference where people showed up like with their to-do lists rather than leaving the conference with a whole big to-do list because I was thinking about how you know, so often, you go to a conference, you’re inspired and then you have this big to-do list when you leave of things that you want to implement and it’s great learn. But there’s a point when consuming information ends and you just kind of start taking some action. And I had this idea of what if we like got together and had a small conference that was aimed at action, at getting things done rather than making a to-do list.

So, Kelly Higdon, Julie Hanks and Miranda Palmer and I are hosting the Most Awesome Conference for therapists ever and it’s going to be May 28, in southern California in this beautiful beach house and the most, the highest capacity we’re going to have is 50 people and tickets just went on sale last week to our audiences, so anyone that was on our email list. And we gave a super early bird special to that group but right now, there is an early bird special and we only have a handful of spots. So, at the time of this recording there’s only 20 of those spots that are left and so, really if you want to be a part of this and hang out on the beach house with me in southern California with three other AMAZING and I say amazing with all CAPS because these women to me are just so much more — I don’t know. They’re just like so much beyond where I’m at. I’m honored to be working with them on this project.

But if you’ll just go to mostawesomeconference.com/about, that’s going to be the best source for information. We have a schedule there, we’re going to be kind of agile in regards to what we do because we want to make sure we meet the conference attendees’ needs. So if we find out that there’s five or six people that need something specific, we’ll do a breakout session with them and so, we can do all sorts of different things in this beach house in southern California. It’s going to be freaking awesome.

We have some amazing sponsors already and we’re going to be talking a little bit more with them on the podcast because they just provide amazing content.

So, please check that out, mostawesomeconference.com/about and Julie, thanks again for being on the show. You never cease to amaze me. Have a good one.

Thanks for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Have a great week.

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Special thanks to the bands Silence is Sexy and Kelly Maize. We like you music.