Podcast 84: Visual Marketing an Interview with Pete Sanok and Brittany Heins

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Pete Sanok and Brittany Heins help us discover lessons from a coastal lifestyle company that apply to private practice.

Today’s Private Practice Resource

 

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PoP Culture Meet Pete and Brittany

pete Founded by adventurers, Pete and Brittany, who realized that where we are going is less important than appreciating the moment, Specifically Pacific was created to express their passion for the coast through The 101.

Having been to the East Coast, the Midwest, the Rockies, and places between, they realized that there is nowhere like the Pacific Coast.  Though their company is from the West Coast, the lifestyle our brand stands for is felt beyond the Pacific.

Specifically Pacific and The 101 lifestyle is realized every time you surf, fish, paddle, kite, spear, sail, swim, bike, camp, skate, hike, climb, hunt, run, each time you stop to enjoy the scenery, lighthouses, palm trees, giant pine trees, cliffs, tide pools, sand and sun.

This life and how we live it are Specifically Pacific.

What you will discover:

2:45 How to establish emotions in branding

5:15 How to love your area and grow your business

8:58 How to use your friends for inspiration

17:17 How to grow products in your private practice and where to invest social media time

18:18 How to build a relationship-based private practice

 

 

PRIVATE PRACTICE CONSULTANT

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

Joe Sanok is an ambitious results expert. He is a private practice business consultant and counselor that helps small businesses and counselors in private practice to increase revenue and have more fun! 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+ .

Here is the Transcription of This Podcast

Visual Marketing an Interview with Pete Sanok and Brittany Heins

This is the Practice of the Practice Podcast with Joe Sanok, Session 84. Well, welcome to the Practice of the Practice Podcast. We are live here at the Most Awesome Conference, in one of my sessions about podcasting. How’s everybody doing in the session today?Well, so glad that you’re here and we, today, earlier today, we went all over how to interview for a podcast, how to decide when a podcast is a good move for you, and we have a handful of people here that are going even deeper to learn about the editing of a podcast.

So I interviewed my brother, Pete Sanok from Specifically Pacific and his fiancée, Brittany Heins, earlier today and they talked all about visual marketing and all sorts of other things. I’ve told stories about Pete in the past. Probably one of my favorites is when I was full in my private practice, I was just overwhelmed with it and I said, “Well, I’ll just have a waiting list” and in talking to Pete, he said, “Well, why would you have a waiting list? Why don’t you just raise your prices?” and at that time it just felt really kind of icky to raise my prices. I thought that you know if I was going after money, I was somehow a bad counselor.

And you know what ended up happening was, he said, “Well, if someone paid you $1,000 for 45 minutes of your time, would you do it?” And I said to him, “Well, yeah, for $1,000, of course, I’d do it.” And he said, “Well, then it’s not you know, that the money is a key so you’re getting paid enough.

So he worked down. He said, you know, “What about $500, what about $200” and I just realized I had to raise my prices at that time. And Pete’s taken that business savvy with Brittany and they’ve just expanded this really great company, and we’ve got a lot to learn from them in regards to just visual marketing and growing a private practice.

So without any further ado, I give you Pete and Brittany.

Well, Pete and Brittany, from Specifically Pacific, welcome to the Practice of the Practice Podcast. How are you doing today?

PS: Good.

BH: Great. So excited to be at the Most Awesome Conference.

Joe Sanok: Well, we are here live at the Most Awesome Conference in the podcast track, and we’re going to be talking all about visual marketing with you guys.

So, let’s start with what is Specifically Pacific and then we’ll go from there.

How to establish emotions in branding

PS: Thank you, Joe. Specifically Pacific is a coastal lifestyle company. We specialize in apparel and accessories, really focused on the Pacific Coast and on the emotions that come with seeing the 101 and feeling what it’s like to be on the coast.

Joe Sanok: Awesome. Hold on a second. I want to make sure that I’ve got the right settings. We are back and the settings are great. All right, so coastal lifestyle company, the 101. What is the 101? We’ll start with that.

PS: The 101 is the highway that goes from Canada to Mexico along the Pacific coast, to most people who are driving, but to us, it’s the symbol of the coastal lifestyle, our passion for the coast that being on the water isn’t about getting from point A to point B but about appreciating where you are the moment and being to take in everything that’s around you.

Joe Sanok: So you guys have done a lot around Instagram, so tell us kind of what your social media strategy has been there and why you chose Instagram among all the social media?

PS: I’ll let Brittany answer this because she handles that.

BH: So for us, we wanted people to be able to relate and be as personable as we can so we’ve kind of tried to post pictures of us wearing the clothing, of other people wearing the clothing, getting people really excited about it and also knowing that there are people behind it. It’s not just this big old company that’s mass-producing stuff. We do all the screen-printing ourselves. So I really like to capture that when Pete’s screen-printing or when we run into a random person and they’re wearing a 101 shirt or our sunglasses, and I really like to promote that.

Joe Sanok: So let’s talk about kind of your business formation like you guys do like almost everything in Oregon. You’ve created relationships with a lot of these businesses. Take us through how you’ve developed those relationships to kind of keep if local and then maybe how that might apply to private practice.

PS: Well, it didn’t start out that way. It started out with getting inexpensive shirts that were made overseas, having them printed in Florida, and what we found is that we were really disappointed with the quality. We didn’t believe that the way that the quality was observed was what we wanted our brand to be observed.

How to love your area and grow your business

And so we worked really hard to find as many local vendors as we can. Our clothing, our t-shirts and tank tops are made in California by American Apparel. We hand-print them with non-toxic water-based ink in Oregon so that we can really – I mean, we love the coast and so if we’re using plastisol and other types of inks that are polluting, that doesn’t fit with the lifestyle. Knowing that we can our ink and it’s easy on the environment that goes along with the lifestyle.

Joe Sanok: So it sounds like with a business, any business, like knowing what your local economy needs, what the environment needs, what is going to help build those relationships you know with people on the coast for you, or for other folks – if you can hear that, it’s an espresso machine which is in the back, kind of part of the Most Awesome – no you don’t have to be sorry. We have an espresso machine here. That’s awesome. We’ll just spot light one of our awesome things at the Awesome Conference.

So like talk a little bit more about how you guys decided that and maybe how that might apply to a private practice.

BH: So we decided to use high quality products because it’s really exciting to go into a place and be like, “By the way, our clothing is made in California. We’re doing all the screen printing ourselves. We’re not sending it out to get printed” and a lot of people like that because they meet us and we’re really personable when we go and do a business, and I think that’s important as we also do a lot of follow-ups. So we’ll go in and make the sale but then after like for example we have a winery.

We go in and we’ll have a glass of wine and the winer will be like, “Oh, how is the business going?” And then we’ll talk about, “Oh, by the way, we switched our clothing where we’ve got made in California products. We’re printing it ourselves with non-toxic water based ink.” Then that opens up the question, “Oh, do you have pictures of it? Can we see it?” Then we show them that product and then we usually can get a sale out of that and move forward.

So it’s really awesome to build a relationship and build that rapport with that customer because then they’re excited.

PS: And I think that really relates to private practice in that you have to know your target market. The truth is if we wanted to be in Walmart, we wouldn’t do that. But that’s not what our goal is. Our goal is to find those other people that appreciate the coastal lifestyle, that care about the coastal environment.

With a private practice, it might have nothing to do with the environment. But it would have to do with saying, “Who is my market? Let me market to them. Let me build for them who makes us feel good and makes us you know, not feel guilty and feel confident in what we’re doing. Those are also the people that we want to attract.

Joe Sanok: So let’s talk about what makes a good online promo. So if someone’s you know, trying to promote their private practice, what are some of the best practices around just good-looking promotions?

PS: You got this one.

BH: I got this one? Well, for us it’s you know, we do a lot of sales so that’s one thing that we try to do to promote people to come in and you know, check out our website more if we put on you know, 20% off. Come check out this new shirt. We’re going to do a promo for you know, five days. And then more people are coming to our website to at least check it out. Maybe they might not purchase it, but they’re coming to our website because there’s some kind of sale going on where they at least are more interested like, “Oh, this could be a good purchase. Let’s check this out.”

PS: But one of the things that I’ve found recently is that although the sales work when our promotions are targeted so for example with the Most Awesome Conference for attendees here, we’ve got a promotion. But it’s not for the world. It’s for you guys.

And we just came up with some aviator sunglasses that the reality is, Brittany hates how she looks and the other sunglasses we have, she loves how she looks in aviator, so she wanted them.

Well, one of our biggest fans is also a skydive pilot. He wears our sunglasses, he wears our shirts, he takes pictures of himself through the airplane while he’s flying.

BH: With a selfie stick.

How to use your friends for inspiration

PS: Yeah. And so what we did in looking at those is she likes the style, but they were also inspired by him as a pilot and so we’ve named them the Chris Lyon’s aviator sunglasses, and we promoted them with pictures of him, with pictures of the skydiving people. So his friends on Facebook who have no idea who we are, are seeing this and he’s telling us, “Wow! I feel like a rock star. This is amazing.” But to anyone online, this guy is like the coolest extreme support pilot ever like he’s like my oldest friend from years and years ago that –

Joe Sanok: Yeah. I think you met – we were kindergarten?

PS: No.

Joe Sanok: Like pre-school?

PS: No. Mom and his mom were at the park when they were both pregnant with us when you and Josh were playing.

Joe Sanok: Yeah. And when our sister —

[cross-talk]

PS: We met when we were in the womb.

Joe Sanok: When our sister was born that was the people that we stayed with while my mom was giving birth.

PS: Yeah.

Joe Sanok: So he just happened to go into extreme sports.

PS: Right and he’s always been like in adventure. He you know, climbed the mountains and always went to camp in Canada and did all sorts of things. So it just seemed, it seemed right for him to be the person, and to put that face on it, people can relate with that a heck of a lot more than if I just put a picture of sunglasses.

Joe Sanok: So I want to ask you guys like what questions do you have for Pete and Brittany about visual marketing, about using Instagram, about any marketing questions you have?

Female voice: Well, we don’t have products as therapists, but there’s this idea that you know, we want to get people to understand what we’re doing, so is there a way that we can do visual marketing to get people to understand what we’re doing, but we don’t have sunglasses and we don’t have shirts, but is there a way that we can use visual marketing to do that for therapists or counseling or for something like that do you think?

PS: Absolutely. As you’ll find out in the upcoming podcast of how to be consultant, I also have done consulting for the last nine years, and that has been all about selling a service, selling the intangible. And visual marketing is far more important, in my opinion, when you have a service because you don’t have anything to hand someone. And so I believe, having an outstanding logo is a great idea. I think trademarking that logo is extremely important especially if you’re doing anything online, because it crosses State lines and that protection’s important. It’s something that I would say, if you’re going to spend money, spend it there.

As well as trying to look at how can I create the emotions that I want to create in people without anything physical? You can do it through your voice or you can do it through their eyes. Those are really your options. And so the more engaged your visual marketing can be, the more people will believe and feel like that service is tangible.

Joe Sanok: So what might that look like if so Mercedes does some Facebook post that take a new like this visual marketing approach? Like what would that actually look like in her next couple of weeks online?

PS: So let’s say Mercedes is – she’s thinking about this podcast she’s going to do. Well, you could put on Facebook, “Hey, I’m doing a podcast.” Big deal. I’m probably not going to read it.

On the other hand, if we’ve got a really cool graphic that looks like it’s a DVD box, it’s got a cover that looks something you’d pick up in a store, it says, “You know, upcoming podcast. It’s going to be 15 series” and there are all sorts of images, people see that and they think, “Wow! Okay this is tangible. This is something valuable worth paying for” rather than, “Oh, cool. I hope I can get this for free since it’s online.”

BH: Yeah. I think having like a good image with any type of thing that you’re going to open up, that’s going to grab the reader’s eyes because first, they’re going to see that picture and then they might click and read something like, “I read blogs. I really enjoy that. If they have a really cool picture, that just gets me to open the blog, I don’t mind sitting spending the five minutes to read what they have to say because I’m engaged first, by that picture and then follow up with what they have to say.

Female voice: Do you think shorter content and more visuals is helpful because I find that especially with the youth, I work with a lot of teenagers and I work with couples so I just wonder if shorter you know, they seem like their attention spans are a little bit shorter. I’m just wondering what you think about that.

[cross-talk]

BH: Yeah. I would say like a good picture and then for me especially, like six paragraphs or less especially on your phone if someone, a lot of teenagers are reading on their phone so but super long, then I want to open up my laptop and then am I really going to get to it? I might not. But if it’s on my phone and it’s just like a one, a one swipe, okay. I just read everything you had to say, but it was short sweet on to the point.

Joe Sanok: So for a blog post six paragraphs not for like Facebook.

BH: Even for like Instagram or Facebook, if you can get a paragraph there, that’s where I would say is really good. So an Instagram for example, I’ll post a picture of us, and then I might explain in a paragraph what we’re doing really quick but that’s to the point. I mean, you got that Instagram to get people to see what you’re doing.

PS: And I’ll give…

Female voice: You can take them somewhere else.

BH: Yeah. Exactly. And they’re not going to look in something else.

PS: … a different perspective because Brittany’s a lot faster reader than I am. I’m not going to read your six paragraphs. I’m not. I’m not going to read your first paragraph. I will read your numbered things. I’d read Psychology if it says, “15 Ways to Make People Like You. “ I will skip the first paragraph. I will skip the last paragraph. I will go to number 1 and I’ll read the first line. If it intrigues me I’ll keep going. Otherwise, I’ll go to number 2.

BH: He likes bullet points.

PS: And that’s just from a different type of person.

BH: Yeah. That’s a helpful thing.

Joe Sanok: Well, and on Instagram how are you guys using hashtags like how do you decide what hashtag you’ll use?

PS: So we’ve got our own hashtag that we’re building, hashtag Specifically Pacific. We also use hashtag the 101 or hashtag 101 which other people use for all sorts of different things. We use those because they’re already searching for that. And so if we can have that on there, they may find our company and say, “Well, this is really cool.”

Brittany also, is a lot better with hashtagging and will sometimes do random ones like hashtag puppies just because people like puppies.

BH: I tried to keep it somewhat to where I’m at, but one thing that I found actually that works is in your general area. So if I post a picture that’s really cool, sometimes I’ll put hashtag organ, hashtag Pacific Northwest. Or if I’m wanting to get a wider audience, then sometimes I’ll do you know, hashtag San Diego, Portland hashtag Sacramento. I mean, any town, maybe or a county around. People still hashtag guys. Kind of odd, but people really do hashtag local names and areas.

So that’s another weird hashtag that some people don’t think of using, but I’ve actually got followers just by doing that or liked on a photo because they accidently went hashtag San Diego beach or hashtag Olivia beach, just because they were there on vacation or they were there, and they just clicked that and then our stuff came out.

PS: And one of the most used hashtags is hashtag love so if you’re doing anything with relationships, hashtag love.

Joe Sanok: Well, I think one thing to remember, too, with Instagram is that if you type a URL into your picture, it won’t link. So the best way to have a URL is to say, “Hey. Check out our new promotion or our new blog post. It’s the URL that’s in our profile.” Because in the profile, it’s the only URL you get on all of Instagram.

What other questions do you guys have for Pete and Brittany? When are you launching a podcast? Just kidding.

PS: Well, I can ask a question to them.

Joe Sanok: Yeah.

PS: I mean, what should we do a podcast on?

Female voice: About how you integrate your product with the love for the environment and the travel. I think it’d be great if you did a trip from the whole coast.

BH: We are planning on to. Not this time.

Joe Sanok: So if they just kind of recorded their experience and talked with people on the coast, yeah.

[cross-talk

PS: We’re almost at [00:17:11] now. We could start heading north.

Female voice: In all of their you know, some products here, products there you can just try it with some things or I don’t know.

Female voice: That’s awesome. Yeah, I love that.

How to grow products in your private practice and where to invest social media time

Joe Sanok: Well, and I think one thing to remember is just that using social media that you enjoy and so if you don’t like Instagram, if you don’t Twitter, if you do like Pinterest, like invest first in the thing that you really like, see what works there with your audience because you’re going to be your most authentic self wherever your favorite social media is and just use personally.

And then yeah you look at the analytics of where people are coming from and so like I’ve found that Pinterest is actually ahead of all the other social media, but I probably only spend 5% of my social media time on Pinterest. I should probably amp that up if I wanted to get more people that take action.

Well, Pete and Brittany, I have some questions I guess about like a consulting type thing. So you guys have like worked with businesses and engaged kind of relationally, and I know that that’s something that therapists don’t always do a real great job at kind of networking. You know, a couple of people might do that well. What are some of the best practices around just working with people that you know, will about for you, put their product in the store but for us, it would be refer people to our private practices.

How to build a relationship-based private practice

PS: So coming from a consulting point of view, I’m really bad at that because – I mean, there are certain facts and we know that it’s a fact, so we don’t really need to beat around the bush. Well that doesn’t work. And so, thankfully, Brittany is really, really awesome relationally, and she can navigate pretty much anyone in a conversation to figure out where they’re at and how to move forward, so I’ll kind of let her handle that.

Joe Sanok: All right.

BH: So we can even be out at a bar and we can just be talking to people. We’re really social people. We like to sit at the bar when we go out to eat or if we go anywhere just because you can talk to so many more people, and I found that we’ll be talking to one person and then all of a sudden, we’ve got four or five people listening to us and so what I really like to do is you know, talk to somebody, “Oh, what do you do?” And they ask us, “Oh, well we have a coastal apparel and lifestyle company.”

Then it turns out, “Do you have a business card or oh, here’s a sticker.” So one thing that I would say is don’t play down that you’re a therapist. Really talk about it. I mean, if someone asks what you do, let them know because you never know who could be sitting there and say, “Oh, my gosh. You know, my brother is having a really hard time with his relationship with his wife.” That would be awesome especially if they get to know you as a person and they start liking you, then it’s comfortable to be like, “Oh, here’s a business card.” And that I think is a really easy thing to do, is like handing – first handing out business cards for me was so awkward. I thought it was the weirdest thing to be like, “Oh, well here’s my business card.” Like I didn’t like having that upfront like, “Oh, do you want to buy something from me or do you want to do that?” But it’s kind of now, if you’re just talking in every day conversation, you can just give it to them and if nothing happens of it, nothing happens.

But if something does, you’re going to be really glad that you talked to that person and let them know really what you do.

PS: The other thing is our business cards have a sticker on the back. So when you give a business card, you can be just like, “Oh, here’s one of our stickers” and it’s got the 101. It says Specifically Pacific. So it’s also a really like non-intrusive way but one thing Brittany does, and people say, “What do you do?” She tells them, “We have a coastal lifestyle and an apparel company” then keeps talking on whatever we were talking about. Most of the time that person will inquire more, rather than like trying to explain everything you do. Nobody usually cares about everything you think that is awesome. They care about well, oh you’re a therapist. Well, my brother was talking to me about this. Any ideas what that is?

If you can give them a little of value in that five minutes, chances are pretty good that you’ll be who they want to come back to next time.

Joe Sanok: Well, Pete and Brittany, thanks for so much. Thank you so much for being on the Practice of the Practice Podcast, coming out to the conference. Let’s give them a hand.

I just love what Pete said there at the end about how he introduces himself to people, and then he kind of lets them follow up and that whole like non-aggressive marketing I think is so important when you’re growing a private practice.

I used to sell Kirby vacuum cleaners door-to-door, and it was like the worst thing to feel like you’re pushing a product that nobody really wanted and you know, when you’re developing that relationship and that rapport with people, it’s really great to just see how that helps your practice grow.

So thanks for taking time out today. We’re here at the Most Awesome Conference. I hope to meet you here next year. It’s just been a phenomenal thing to see people come together, grow their practices and grow their businesses. For more information about Practice of the Practice, you can go to practiceofthepractice.com/session 84 where we’ll have some show notes there for you, all about the things that Specifically Pacific was talking about, and we’ll have some links to a little bit about the conference, as well.

Have an awesome week. Thanks for letting me into your ears and into your brain, and I’ll talk to you later.

Special thanks to the bands Silence is Sexy and Builders.

This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, nor publisher is rendering legal, accounting, clinical or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one. See you.

So sometimes I fumble my words and I often will just lose that altogether. And I’m now recording that, as well.