This is the Practice of the Practice Podcast with Joe Sanok, Session 85. Well, I am Joe Sanok, your host and I am so glad you’re here. Man! Life is good. Hey, I wanted to let you know about a resource I’ve been using for a long time. It’s called AWeber. And that’s A-W-E-B-E-R. You can check them out at practiceofthepractice.com/aweber. A-W-E-B-E-R.So the way they work – if you’ve been listening for a while, you know about Aweber. You know that I have loved them. I used to use MailChimp, and I switched over to AWeber about a year and a half, two years ago. And whether you use MailChimp or AWeber, Constantcontact or Infusionsoft or Drip or any of those email service providers, they are awesome like you need to have one because what’s great about an email service provider is that you can send mass emails to people without being spammed, and you can personalize them so it says like, “Dear Janet” or “Dear Joe” or “Dear Phil” or “Dear Brian” instead of just “Hey, what’s up?”

So it really personalizes the email. But it also starts a conversation with your potential clients, and the way that I think this would work best for people that are in private practice like yourself, is to have you know your niche identified, your specialty identified so say you want to work with couples’ post affair. Like that’s your ideal client like one of them just had an affair. What should you do in the first five days is create a PDF that’s something like Five Things to Do in the First Five Days After You Find Out Your Spouse Had an Affair. Or something along those lines.

And so you create this really high quality PDF. Maybe you use Canva.com or Easel.ly or something like that to make it kind of visual and have some really good content there. And then this couple or this individual that signs up to your email list, they get not only that PDF but then maybe the second email comes like the day after like, “Hey, just wanted to make sure you got my PDF that I sent you yesterday. Just reply.” Yup. Yeah. I got it. Sure.

What this does is it then starts that conversation with this person but it also then tells Gmail, which is one of the biggest email providers that it’s a conversation. It’s not just a promotion, that it’s a two-way street. It’s not just one way, because otherwise that’ll just put you in promotions.

And then you can follow up with those people, and then you can do this automated emails. So if someone signed up for your email seven weeks ago, they might get a weekly email you know, about like you know, number eight, they might get. So they’re on number eight, whereas someone that just signed up today might get email number one. And so it saves you a ton of time, it builds trust and authority with people, and then also as you grow that email list, what’s really cool is if you ever launch an E-book, if you launch an E-course, I mean, it’s just pretty amazing to think of, if you had you know, a thousand people and then you, you know, offered some new product.

Maybe it was like an E-course. If you’re just 5% of them like 50 people, purchase that, imagine if you had 50 people that each spent like 100 bucks on some product that you did or 200 dollars like you could make a lot of money in a day if you’re offering some E-product and that would just be new income stream.

So I’ve been using AWeber for a while. I really like them. I think it’s really smart for any new private practice to invest in having some sort of email service provider. It’d be awesome if you use that affiliate link, practiceofthepractice.com/aweber.

But the reason that I bring that up is, I just got back from The Most Awesome Conference. So The Most Awesome Conference was actually a couple weeks ago. We had 31 people that came to this awesome house in La Jolla California. On Thursday night, we did some kind of visioning like what’s this going to be?

I led some team building activities for people to meet each other quickly, create just a sense of like community. People were laughing. We had a taco food truck come. And then on Friday morning, we did this huge like reveal of the swag bag and taught people about how to use social media to grow their audience and how to tag companies in it. And then we had all these different like breakout sessions. We had one on podcasting, we had one on help a reporter out that Julie Hanks did. We did one on sales funnels that Kelly and Miranda from ZinnyMe did. Joe Mearhead from Australia came in and talked about kind of being your authentic self and really selling yourself and the influence that you really have. And it was just this amazing event, and then what was cool is that after each kind of talk, we had an hour of action after every single one.

And people were just like through the roof excited about it. I think that if we were to launch another one, we would have most of the people that signed up for it come back, and so there’s definitely going to be limited sitting in the future and we’re evaluating how we do that next but it was incredible.

And one of the really cool things as part of The Most Awesome Conference was we had Ernesto from Fylmit, come and do one minute, short kind of promotional videos about every single person’s private practice.

And you know, I was thinking about like the value of this conference, and I’m not trying to sell you on it. I think it’s just something that is so exciting to me is that when you create something that has just immense value, people just are compelled to be a part of it.

So everybody got a one-minute to one-and-a-half minute video that’s professionally done. So I mean, that usually will cost about a thousand dollars a minute for a good quality video, and so everyone also got professional headshots done with Jessa, and then everyone got the individual consulting and then our swag bag was worth about $500 worth of swag.

And so when I’m like adding the stuff up in my head, I’m like, “You know, that cost of how much it was to be in this conference, like we had like five or six thousand dollars of just like content and value” and that’s really even counting like individual consulting or the networking or those sorts of things. It’s just so much fun stuff just from that conference and just to meet some of these people in person that I got to you know, know online, now in person is just – I just hope you can have that type of experience in the future.

And today, I get to introduce you to one of the amazing people that was a part of this conference. So, you’re going to meet Ernesto. Ernesto is going to be talking about using video in your private practice. And he reveals so many amazing tips that you can use, and you don’t have to get big expensive equipment. You can get you know, just use iPhone. And he talks about some really just amazing things that he helps you discover in this podcast.

So by the end of this podcast, you’re going to be able to make a very clear plan as to how to use video within your practice as a way to get new clients, and it’s just such an amazing interview and Ernesto has so much amazing content.

And what’s cool about Ernesto is he’s not just a videographer, but he’s actually also a counselor and he’s also a professor and so, he’s just like super just super cool and doing such cool things.

So, I look forward to you meeting Ernesto and connecting with him and connecting with his website and in the show notes, we’re going to have a link to it. He tried to spell out his website at the end and fumbled over it and it’s pretty funny. So at the end you’ll hear that.

So, again the show notes are practiceofthepractice.com/session85 and let’s take a listen from this interview at The Most Awesome Conference with Ernesto.

Joe Sanok: Well, Ernesto, welcome to the Practice of the Practice Podcast.

ES: Hello.

Joe Sanok: So, we’re here live at the Awesome Conference, and we’re sitting poolside in La Jolla and life is rough for us.

ES: Yes.

Joe Sanok: And Ernesto is doing all these crazy videos, not crazy. They’re going to be crazy awesome video.

ES: They’re going to be crazy.

Joe Sanok: With everybody here and he’s a clinician, he’s a videographer, he’s a professor and I’m just interested in hearing your story of kind of how you got into all these different things.

How to decide your direction in the field of counseling

ES: Yeah, you know, when you first get into our profession, there are some many things that’s available for us you know, as clinicians, being a professor, you can write books, you can you know, be a clinical therapist and all of those things. And there are just so many things that I wanted to do, and I think being a professor also gives me the opportunity to really reach out to those who are up and coming or pursuing this career in our field.

Videography just came out of the – a place within me that I just wanted to take my private practice to a whole different level because, Joe, you and I know that we were never taught how to market —

Joe Sanok: Yeah.

ES: –our private practice and so without the marketing aspect, there is no way we can get that revolving door.

Joe Sanok: And a minute ago, we were talking and you found yourself at a real estate conference —

ES: Yes.

Joe Sanok: — with a bunch of real estate guys and that was the beginning. I want to hear more about that story. So take us through that.

ES: Yes. So in the real estate world, as I understand it, they’ve been using video marketing for years and unfortunately, clinicians in private practice or the mental health field have not utilized that piece of marketing in their marketing endeavors. And so when I got – when I was invited to attend one of the workshops, I just thought, “Oh, my goodness. No one in our field is doing the video marketing piece of the profession.” And so I thought, “Hey, let me do a video” and so I did a video about parenting. And it was about five minutes. The room – the audio was horrible, the visuals were horrible, but I got about 9 clients off of that.

Joe Sanok: Wow!

ES: And it was one of the most eye-opening aspect for me because I thought, “If we continually utilize video marketing to market our practice and to show to our community and the world our expertise through video, maybe about two or three minutes of it, we can reach a broader range, and it’s great for branding.”

Joe Sanok: So you say two or three minutes. Why two or three minutes?

How to sort through videos on YouTube and how to catch someone’s attention on YouTube

ES: Well, the thing is, our brains can only handle so much. And the length of time is very vital in a way in video. So if you notice on YouTube there are tons of videos out there, and when people are sorting through what they want and what they need at that moment, you have about actually 10 to 15 seconds to catch someone’s attention. When you have something, when you have a video a little bit longer than 10 to 15 seconds all the way up to five minutes, you can actually lose a person because there’s just tons of information on the interwebs you know. So you got to get them real quick. People want to know what they want to know at the moment at that time.

Joe Sanok: To kind of get to the point.

ES: Get to the point and the good thing about videos is that you can add a lot of visuals that can catch people’s attention. You can put in visuals of flowers. You can do B-rolls. You can do all of these creative things and right now for macs and for PCs there are softwares that make it possible for you to look like Steven Spielberg, right? So easy.

Joe Sanok: So what are some of your favorites for mac, what are your favorites for PC?

ES: Okay. For macs, hands down, I would say Final Cut Pro. It’s a little bit expensive.

Joe Sanok: Like what kind of range for it.

ES: I would say, the last time I checked, I think it was between $300 to $500 depending on where you’re at, with the program. Now, I have a PC and I use Power Director 13 which is $99.

Joe Sanok: Wow!

ES: And so, you kind of look at that but I got to be honest. I guess I’m a PC guy but macs are just top of the line videography stuff. But for those of you who are just doing you know, video blogging and you know, just professional, semi-professional looking videos you can get away with a PC and with Power Director 13.

Joe Sanok: There are all sorts of ways that you can do video.

ES: Absolutely.

Joe Sanok: I mean, you can do screen cast, you can do just like – I mean, I’ve even opened up – I feel whereas you can call that mac where you know, you’re just videoing from your own computer. You can use fancy cameras. You said you started with kind of a really crappy video and got nine client. So how did you promote that video and then let’s talk about maybe things that would be a very entry point. You know, when someone that’s not done anything, they don’t want to pay someone to do it. So take us through your marketing of that video and then just kind of a quick entry point from you.

ES: Absolutely. So the way that I did a video was one, I just literally just used a DSLR camera. At that time I had I think it was a Nikon – I forgot. It was just a long time ago.

But all you have to do is just whatever camera that you have. You can even use your iPhone or Android and I got to tell you, this generation right now can use those phones and you can just do a video blog just from that phone but an entry level, okay. You just open up a YouTube account. YouTube actually has their own editing software, editing tool in YouTube. And it’s for free. And you can also use Royalty free music in there. So they actually provide that for you.

Joe Sanok: Did you see that video of the guy who was trapped in an airport?

ES: Oh, yeah.

Joe Sanok: And he used his iPhone to make music video of the whole thing?

ES: It’s amazing what people —

Joe Sanok: It’s like nuts.

ES: Yeah. It’s amazing what people can do. So if you don’t money to spend $99 or even you know, $1,000 for a software, for editing software, go to YouTube. YouTube is free. They have their own editing software and just use a camera on your phone.

Joe Sanok: And even like there’s an app you can download to edit right from your phone, too.

ES: You know, I think I checked the last time. There were so many apps on how to edit videos on you iPhone. I mean, that’s just amazing with our technology nowadays. And by 2016, a lot of – it’s predicted that a lot of businesses I think within the 75-85 percent range will have and be utilizing video marketing in their marketing endeavors.

Joe Sanok: Wow! So when you launched this crappy parenting video, that worked to get you clients, how did you let people know about it or did you just put it on YouTube and then walk away?

ES: So what I did was – so here is the trick for letting your audience see your videos. When you upload a video on YouTube, people don’t automatically see it. You actually have to do some leg work. So what I did was I emailed that video to my referral sources, not my clients, okay. The difference is I want to keep that boundary between my clients and myself.

How to distribute marketing to get counseling clients. How to use your network to grow a practice.

So the way that I did this was I emailed all my referral sources which consisted of social workers, lawyers, doctors, even family members within – that talks a lot. Meaning, that are so proud of what you’re doing and they are so willing and able to distribute whatever marketing that you do, right? So I sent that to them, my pastor, my church; they sent that video out to people, and that’s how I got clients. In fact, that’s where my branding started for Fylmit.com, because I started doing a lot of videos after that after I saw people scheduling appointments with me.

Joe Sanok: So it sounds like really just using that network you already had.

ES: Yup.

Joe Sanok: And then it was also like an online business card you know, that people could hand out to other people except it was better.

ES: Exactly. And you know, my philosophy is start with the people that know you, right, instead of going after the people that don’t know you, and you’re trying to win their trust and respect, go with the people in your circle that know you, your church community, your pastor, your friends, all of those people that will be willing to distribute whatever you have, and then as soon as you establish your personality and you online professional identity, then you can start going out to those people that do not know you.

Joe Sanok: So it sounds like you’re saying that taking action with whatever you have is more important than getting some professional equipment or software.

ES: Absolutely. And you know, I wished someone, when I was going through learning how to market, would tell me that because again, the leg work is so great and you want to start with what you know. I think people stress themselves out in the field with starting with what they don’t know, they try to learn so much but they already have their marketers in their home, friends, and all that stuff.

Joe Sanok: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. So then you decide that you’re going to do more than just you know, a couple of videos for yourself. You’re going to help counselors do videos. So tell me about that leap and how you kind of developed that business.

ES: Right. So I had a friend of mine see my video and said, “Hey.” And she’s also a therapist out in the Orange County area. And she said, “Can you do a video for me?” and I said, “Okay.” And at that time, I was doing videos for a hobby and I loved doing it. It was fun. So I went and then I did her video, did her piece and everything, and she wrote me for a $400 check.

Joe Sanok: Wow!

ES: And I was like, “Holy crap! I think I can do a business out of this.” And I started advertising myself through Fylmit.com, and actually the word Fylmit.com, was actually an accident.

Joe Sanok: Oh.

ES: So you see a ‘Y’ on the Fylmit.com. It was actually supposed to be an ‘I’ but I turned away and I actually pressed ‘Y’ and that’s how Fylmit.com came out and so it’s not a – it’s actually a misspelled word of film. So from then on I started promoting myself as a videographer, clinician, and a professor at the same time. That seems to be a selling point for a lot of us.

Joe Sanok: Yeah. Yeah. Hey, let’s walk to the other side of the house over here because I think that I’m seeing some of that wind that you all might have been hearing. It’s just the La Jolla wind and it’s all good you know. I’m not one to edit things out so – oh and actually let’s go to the side of the house here. Let’s get this screen door shut back in though. Closing that screen door. I could have paused this but we’re walking around the outside of the house here. There’s a nice little shaded area with less wind probably over here. There we go.

So as we’re walking. So then someone writes you a check for 400 bucks and then how did you decide, “Okay” at that point, “I’m going to do something as a business now.

ES: Sure. So I had to first study the market. I had to understand what people would pay and should pay at that time. And that time I got to be honest with you. I didn’t know my worth as a videographer. And rightfully so because you know, videography is such an expensive profession out there. And people spend thousands of dollars just for a 30-second video but I didn’t want to do that to my clientele and you know, starting off clinicians need to at least have an affordable piece.

So what I did was I studied the going rate and I knew that a lot of therapists were new to this concept of marketing so I had to kind of go on the low end, work at it, work on my craft, get to a place where it is now, and get better along the way and you know, kind of go from there.

Joe Sanok: So how’d you figure out you price point?

ES: So what I did was I went on the internet, and I looked at videographers in the area and what they were charging for. And in Orange County alone, for a three-minute video, it’s up to $2,000. And sometimes even more. I mean, for those of you who hired videographers for your wedding, you are paying a lot of money. I mean, it’s in the thousands. I’ve heard even before that people paid $10,000 for their video and so I based it off of that.

The other thing that I looked at was I based it on the quality of work that I did as far as the videos and also compare that with how much people would pay for a three-minute promotional video in the world of mental health because it’s a little bit different.

How to determine your rate. How to know your worth

And so during that time, I was literally charging about $100, $400, $500 because I didn’t know. I didn’t know what the going rate was.

So now I’m in the process where I know my worth now, and I’m basing that price at a point where my videos are quality and it’s effective and so now instead of comparing what the going rate is in the area, I’m now comparing it to what I value myself.

Joe Sanok: Yeah. And I think that’s such an important thing where you know, for example in podcasts, the sponsorships are often based on clicks per thousand, so how many people will listen to a podcast but for me, I don’t have huge numbers compared to some of the really big podcasts, but I know that the people that are listening, they take action, you know. So if they want a website then you know a logo, whether it’s Legendary Lion or Brighter Vision or other people so even though I don’t have the numbers I know my worth with who’s listening.

And so I think that you know, knowing, “Oh, I could just you know, have a new therapy client for a hundred and whatever per hour or I could go do some videos so I need to try it like make my own worth kind of make up for that.

ES: Absolutely. You know, Joe, I appreciate what you just said right now as we have the trucks going by. The thing about videos is that when you put up a video out there, you kind of look at the clicks per video and when you look at my video, it’s not viral. They are not viral. I think the most I’ve had was about 500 views or something like that.

What I tell people is that don’t look at the quality or I’m sorry, the quantity of the likes or the views. Look at how much it’s working for you. Like I said earlier, my crappy video about parenting gave me some clients. But if you look at the actual views, it’s pretty darn sad compared to all of these viral videos and think about this. Viral videos can be – you can have a lot of exposure but sometimes, they don’t make money.

Joe Sanok: Yeah even like to look at how much you know, they’ll actually pay on YouTube for if you have you know advertisements and even if you have a million views, it’s not that much. But when you look at, “Okay. I got nine people. They each came 10 times, they each paid this amount of money.” I mean, that could be $10,000 worth of income that came in through those nine people or more.

ES: Absolutely right, Joe. So you know, sometimes when clinicians look at their website and they go, “Oh, my gosh. There’s only these many people that watched my video.” I say, “Don’t panic.” Because it’s not about the amount of clicks or likes or do you say you have. It’s the quality and how much of a rate of return that’s coming back to you.

Joe Sanok: So let’s think about like what are three just things that everybody should know if they’re going to start making some videos? Like what does everybody need to know if they want to make some videos?

ES: Oh, my gosh. I just did a guest blog the other day about this and I actually had four.

Joe Sanok: All right. You can have one extra.

ES: Let’s do one extra. Okay. The four main I think essence for an engaging video is one, sound. If you watch videos that have echo sounds or has ambient noises like wind and humming and all that, that can be incredibly distracting and I would invest in a mic lapel or a very good microphone so that you know, your voice is clear and your voice is isolated just like the microphone that we’re using right now.

The other is to put emotion in your videos. No one wants to hear a monotone-like individual in front of camera, talking about marriage counseling. And the way that you can kind of create emotion is by facial expression, the way that your voice is projected, your body language even. You can actually create emotion by just using those.

And the one emotion that captures and captivates people is inspiration. So if you with your video can develop inspiration or can cross that bridge with an individual, you will have followers no matter what. If you can inspire them from hopelessness to being inspired and hopeful and encouraged about life, you will have those followers.

Joe Sanok: So, get a good mic; have the inspiration in your voice. What are the other two?

ES: The other two is connect with your message. Don’t try to be the expert of something or a topic that you’re not an expert in.

Joe Sanok: Yeah.

ES: Don’t try to appear like someone that you are not. And that’s going to go in my next thing. But connect with your message, know who you are, know what you’re passionate about.

So let’s say if you are passionate about working with couples struggling with their marriage, connect with that. Do videos on that. If you are not connected – so let’s say with topics like EMDR. And if you’re just starting off with EMDR, and you’re not connected with that, you’re not sold it in, don’t do a video on it.

So start with who you are, what you’re passionate about. Go from the inside out.

Joe Sanok: Awesome. And was that three or four? Sorry. I was listening somewhat. You know, you get listening and you’re not thinking of your next question. Okay so number 4.

How to have a genuine image on video

ES: So the fourth thing is do not be fake. Whether you believe this or not, we can detect fakeness or someone who is not genuine with their message. If you’re projecting a sense of fakeness, you’re going to sound like a salesperson and no one wants to sound like a salesperson. Everyone wants someone who is genuine, who are themselves. If you say a lot of ‘uhms’, if you blink your eyes, if you talk with your hands that’s who you are. And if you’re excited about with your message, your voice will project that, and you don’t have to try so hard.

Joe Sanok: I think that really goes back to just move forward. You know, so if you have a lot of ‘uhms’, if you have a lot of ‘likes’ whatever it is, just get comfortable with the camera, get moving on it, and I like your idea of having a lapel mic, because I would watch a great-sounding crappy-looking video over a great-looking video that sounds like crap.

ES: Absolutely and research is actually saying that. So there’s actually some videos out there that I’ve seeing that are shot with Nikon D53. Their visuals are crisp, clean, awesome, and they don’t have a microphone or a mic lapel and the sound in room like it’s hollow, it’s echoing, and you can hear noises that are so distracting to watch.

Joe Sanok: So, the question I always wrap up with is if every counselor in America were listening right now, what would you want them to know?

ES: I would say, do not underestimate your ability to reach other people out there through social media especially video marketing. You may have some fears about getting in front of a camera. That’s okay. Embrace that fear. Be friends with the negative scripts that go on in your mind. We can’t get rid of that. But just be friends with yourself and have grace with yourself.

It’s amazing that when we tell the – in our counseling sessions we have somebody who’s struggling with self-esteem, self-worth, we tell them how to become hopeful to have high self-esteem. But unfortunately, we therapists need to listen to our own voice and our own advice.

So my advice to you, if you’re going to utilize video marketing in your endeavors, first have compassion on yourself.

Joe Sanok: So Ernesto, if people want to get in touch with you or consult with you, what’s the best way for them to get a hold of you?

ES: Absolutely. They can just go ahead and visit my website at www.fylmit.com. Again, that’s with a ‘Y’ not with an ‘I’.

Joe Sanok: Can you spell that out?

ES: Sure. It’s F as in Frank, Y-L-I-M-I-… Did I just lose what I just… ?

Joe Sanok: Just start over.

ES: Now I’m confused. So it’s www.fylmit.com. It’s F-Y-L-I-M-I-T.

Joe Sanok: Cool and we’ve have a link to that in the show notes also.

ES: Yes.

Joe Sanok: So if you’re driving —

ES: I still think that I misspelled that but you get, you know what I’m saying.

Joe Sanok: We’ll make sure it’s accurate for you in the show notes. That’s awesome. It’s all of being authentic.

ES: Exactly.

Joe Sanok: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. It’s awesome to meet you in person, finally. I know we’ve connected online for a while and this is really great.

ES: And you know, Joe, I got to say something. That you are doing a lot of great work with our community, and I want you to know that my students, people that are around me know who you are, because I’ve been distributing a lot of your stuff.

Joe Sanok: Oh, thanks so much, Ernesto. Well, have a great rest of your conference, and we’ll talk more soon.

ES: Absolutely. Thank you.

Joe Sanok: What’s so cool about Ernesto is that he is teaching things that hardly anyone else out there is teaching and to teach counselors about video and to be doing videos and to recognize that he was undercharging people for such a great service is just super exciting. I just hope that The Most Awesome Conference can afford him next year and that he’ll be a sponsor again. What cool videos.

If you are friends with me on Facebook, you’ll see some of the videos that people are posting or you know, connect with Ernesto on there. He’s sharing it as well.

What I’m going to do

Again, if you want to see more and actually I might just embed some of his videos. I think that’s what I’ll probably do to make it easier for you to view. I’m going to embed them in the podcast show notes. So that’s practiceofthepractice.com/session85. Can you believe we’re at 85? Deng. Those of you that have listened to every single episode, man, thanks for committing 85 episodes. Remember, we’re fastly approaching that 100 number mark that – 100 number mark? That just sounds weird.

Anyway, don’t forget about that awesome resource, AWeber. I love using AWeber. Again, practiceofthepractice.com/aweber. One ‘B’ in ‘weber’. And that’s my affiliate link. For it so I get a small commission. So thanks for giving back in that way, if you want to, if it’s a good fit for you. Otherwise, have a good week.

Thanks for letting me into your ears and into your brain and just keep rocking out private practice.

Special thanks to the bands Silence is Sexy and the Tom Ginger. What a cool name.

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, me, nor the publisher also me, nor the guest, in this case, Ernesto, is rendering legal, accounting, clinical or other professional information. If you need a professional, you should find one, like a consultant, me. Have a good day.