How to scale your private practice with innovation with Joe Sanok

Counselor, speaker, and consultant – Joe Sanok

I’m excited to have my great friend, Entrepreneur and Counselor, Joe Sanok on the show! In this episode, Joe talks about how his business, Practice of the Practices teaches healthcare professionals, mostly counselors in private practice, chiropractors, massage therapists how to start, scale, and grow their private practices online and offline with really innovative ideas. (things you don’t learn in grad school!)

As a BONUS to Eventual Millionaire listeners, Joe’s giving away over 30 different tools for FREE Visit practiceofthepractice.com/em. (You’ll find different checklists for different phases of practice and five different e-books)

A few Learning Objectives for this episode:

• How he launched Practice of the Practice to blog about what he learned in business, marketing, and private practice.
• The low-hanging fruit out there for anyone that’s at the start, grow, or scale phase.
• How to prioritize and scale and market your business online and offline
• Easy platforms to learn to be at the top 10 percent
• The processes that can help you continue to scale so that you can leave for weeks on end and have your practice still make you money.

Joe’s Website:

PracticeOfThePractice.com

Transcript: Download

Video Transcription provided by GMR Transcription Services.

Jaime Masters: 	Welcome to Eventual Millionaire. I am Jaime Masters and I am ridiculously excited to have my very good friend, Joe Sanok, on the show. He runs Practice of the Practice. He teaches different therapists and psychotherapists how to actually start and grow their practice. Thank you so much for coming on the shoe today.

Joe Sanok:	Jaime, I am so excited to be here. 

Jaime:	When we were giggling, or I was giggling, you were probably laughing like a man beforehand. 

Joe:	I can giggle. I have two daughters. I can giggle every once in a while. 

Jaime:	Because we have been friends for such a long time, so it?s so amazing to have you on the show. Explain to everybody what exactly Practice of the Practice does.

Joe:	We help healthcare professionals, mostly counselors in private practice, chiropractors, massage therapists, to start, scale, and grow their private practices with really innovative ideas. So, things that we typically don?t learn in grad school.

Jaime:	And that?s the funny thing. No offense, but when you look at the service professional side, what they?re learning on the skillset side is amazing. What they?re learning on the business side, like literally people will come to me and be like, oh, I?m supposed to get my business cards and hand them out at networking events, right? And that?s sort of the old-school way. Don?t get me wrong. That stuff can actually work too. But you actually go over a lot more ideas. So, what do you say ?innovative? is?

Joe:	I think a lot of those traditional ways still really work in the private practice space. People are going to refer to those that they know, like, and trust. So, if people don?t know that you exist, then obviously they?re probably not going to refer to you. But there?s so much just low-hanging fruit out there for anyone that?s at the start, grow, or scale phase. So, one thing at the very beginning that you want to look at is just the basic SEO of your website. People will have a counseling website and it looks like it?s from the late ?90s. It has clip art. This is like 90 percent of the websites. 

	There?s no reason to have an ugly website these days. There are great companies that specialize in helping therapists. There are really easy platforms to learn. And so even just doing a little bit of blogging, a little bit of SEO work to rank higher in Google, you can be readily be in the top 10 percent. 

Jaime:	Okay, so who is this for though? Because I also hear people come back, the reason why they have the clip art website is because they don?t get tech. They?re like, I don?t know if people are finding me online or not. So, is this only meant for people that really do want to grow online marketing or just they need to get over the tech side if they don?t know how to do that?

Joe:	Yeah, at Practice of the Practice, we really just focus on everything business in regards to having a private practice. And so we?re looking at the marketing, online and offline. We?re looking at the technology. We?re looking at automating systems. When you hire a virtual assistant. How you optimize your time. When you zoom out, what we are teaching is first you want to have a certain lifestyle. We want to say what?s the life I want to live for my kids, for my long-term goals? So many times we see practitioners that go full-tilt and then they burn out. 

	They really could?ve had another 20 years of serving their community or they could?ve hired a bunch of clinicians to join and serve their community from their point of view, but then they don?t because they burn out. And so we start with their lifestyle and then we fit their practice and their big ideas into that. And so on their practice side, we want to look at are you optimizing your practice? Doing only the things that you should be doing? And then on the big idea side, what are the things that you know as a practitioner that the rest of the world needs to know? 

	So, I have one consulting client, for example, she really helps people that are dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder. So, a really big issue that a lot of people deal with. It affects their marriages, it affects their relationships with people. She has a message that goes so much farther beyond just her individual work. And so she?s working on creating some sort of e-platform that she can spread that message. And so those big ideas oftentimes help us replicate ourselves and scale beyond just our typical community. 

Jaime:	I love how you segment that too. Because the business growth is ridiculously important in your life skill, how you life your life. Ridiculously important. But getting that idea out, so it?s not just a hamster wheel. Because especially in therapy, I just told you that I rented an office and all the therapists are there all the time. I?m like, well, I coach on Tuesdays. So, I?ll be here on Tuesday, but they?re here like 9:00 to 5:00, back to back to back. I?m going, I forget that it?s that long of a day when you?re doing that constantly. So, they don?t even have time to think about the big idea, let alone all the rest of it. So, how do you handle that?

Joe:	There?s so much low-hanging fruit with therapists. So, for example, a typical therapist will be on most of the insurance panels in their area. Even just starting with, what?s the insurance panel I?m on? Which one pays the least and doesn?t pay me on time and they reject their bills and they?re just a pain? Well, send them a letter and ask to either negotiate rates, which you can do, or just leave that insurance panel. Then move towards more private pay and then you can choose your rates. You can choose your clientele. 

	When we start to even just run some of those numbers, it doesn?t take very long to see that if you?re at 25 or 30 clients on insurance, oftentimes you have half of that when you have a typical private-pay practice. The other angle that people might want to look at it is maybe you still want to keep insurance by of your community or your mindset or whatever reason you decide that?s best for you. If you?ve actually thought through it and said yes, I still want to take insurance, then we want to create systems to help you grow instead of just saying I?m going to do my own billing. I?m going to answer the phones. 

	Instead, we want to look at other people and processes that can help you continue to scale so that you can leave for weeks on end and have your practice still make you money. 

Jaime:	Which everyone?s like, wait, leave for weeks on end? Yes. Please. Well, there are those little steps that need to be decided on to take, like the private-pay thing where people ? let?s actually pick an avatar so that way we can walk through what you would suggest for them because what I hear back from the private pay is that, oh, well then I?m not going to get the people, the referrals, and then I?m going to have no money and then I?m going to blah, blah, blah. Right? So, let?s say that there?s somebody making maybe $50,000-$60,000 a year. So, not horrible but not like yay, lots of money. 

	They feel like they have to be in there and they have to do the insurance. What would you tell them for that low-hanging fruit? Besides okay, get rid of the crappy insurance because that?s definitely [inaudible] [00:06:06].

Joe:	Yeah. I would start with that fear of I?m not going to get referrals. So, let?s just think through our own lives. You?re down in Austin. I?m in Trevor City. Both foodie towns. If you go to a fancy French restaurant and say you take a friend who?s just a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy. He?s like, ?I just want a good burger.? At that French restaurant, if those chose to make your friend a burger, it?s probably going to be a delicious burger. But if you go to a mom-and-pop diner and say, I would dig some cr?me br?l?e, it is not going to be good. So, the natural assumption is that a specialist can be a generalist. 

	If you talk to a brain surgeon about that itch on your shoulder or whatever, they?re going to say, okay, go get some cream or talk to your primary care doctor. But you?re not going to talk to your primary care doctor about brain surgery; they?re going to refer you out. So, we always assume a specialist will be a generalist. And so when we specialize and say, ?I only do marriage therapy,? or ?I help young teens that are transitioning,? or ?I work on these areas. I help people that are cutting or hurting themselves,? or women in transition, whatever your thing is and you?re known for that, you can charge more, but then you get more referrals and people will make the assumption that hey, Joe used to work with angry kids. 

	I bet he can also work with anxious kids. I bet he can work with my angry husband. I bet he can work with all these other people. People make the assumption to work. So, I would start with people want to know who they want to serve, so I?d start with a specialty. We hear that all over in business. Christopher Lochhead?s new book, Niche Down, or any of those. You just got to know who you want to attract. Then I would say create different spokes out from that person. Who?s influencing that person? Because people make decisions to go to therapy really in only two ways. 

	A person or some sort of organization will recommend them and give their blessing. So, that could be a pastor, a doctor, an insurance company, friends or family members. Or they just do a blind search and that?s where the internet optimization comes in. They go on Google. They go on Yelp. They look around. They type in ?marriage counselor Austin? and then someone pops up and they?re going to try to reach out to them. 

Jaime:	And then that?s a specialty of mine. It?s so insane to look ? I have a client that?s in that space in Virginia. I was like, nobody?s even optimizing for any of the keywords. That?s like free money, people. 

Joe:	Like seriously. I had someone that they bought ?Texassupervision.com? for counselor doing supervision. There?s still so many websites that are just free. I think we bought LLPsupervision, which is our licensure for the State of Michigan and then I ended up selling that arm of the company. And so, you can acquire these websites so cheap because therapists just aren?t thinking this stuff. 

Jaime:	So, how do you pick though? So, even if you?re making some money as more of a generalist, it?s the whole, well, once I pick something I can?t change. Do they have to know what that big idea is that they want to submit their whole entire life for? Or how do we decide that?

Joe:	Yeah, I mean, I would challenge that idea that you have to stick with that specialty area. I would say it?s a good starting place. Start with the kind of clients that you really enjoy. Which clients inside when they come in and you?re like oh, yes! I got a referral for that. Start with that. Also, you want to look at your community. What?s lacking? Talk to other therapists. Are there other people in your town that are doing Gottman Level 1 marriage counseling? Are there people that are serving teen girls that are cutting? Are there people that are serving different people with acupuncture? There?s also going to be gaps in there. 

	So, if there?s something you like and there are also gaps, you?re going to then help people refer to you because they?re going to be excited you?re there. Imagine if you?re a typical therapist and you don?t serve teen girls that deal with eating issues or cutting and then you find out there?s this amazing new therapist that can in town. They?re highly trained. That?s all they want to do all day long. You?re going to be thrilled to refer to that person. It?s also going to make you look really good because you then are able to refer to a really quality counselor. So, you want to look for those people that are going to be really thrilled with the fact that you have that specialty.

Jaime:	How do you find the people to refer to then? So, let?s say I pick an amazing niche and I am like okay, I am sticking the flag in the sand and this is where I?m at. Now what?

Joe:	Yeah, a couple things that you?d want to do is I would just start looking at something like Psychology Today and see what therapists out there that really are generalists and so they probably could improve a lot of things. 

Jaime:	They should be listening to this. 

Joe:	Yes, they should be listening to the Eventual Millionaire. But I would start with doing some of that kind of old-fashioned just reaching out and saying hey, can I bring a kombucha or a coffee over to your office and meet you? As well what you?re going to want to do is you?re going to want to look at what are some blog posts that can help me stand out? Do some basic keyword research. Even if you just go on Google Trends and see if people are using the word ?therapy? or the word ?counseling? in your area more. 

	Go onto Google and just start typing in ?marriage counseling? and then see what pops up. Those are going to be some really kind of basic blog posts that you can do. Then when you start to get some traction around that, that?s when you can start looking at how do you multiply your time to really start scaling?

Jaime:	Let?s talk about scaling because I love that part too. So, especially for that client of mine, they have an amazing practice. They actually have some people underneath them, but opened a new office and they?re now like, now I need to do the marketing and we have the ? there?s so many more facets to it. So, tell me about scaling and what options you give for that. 

Joe:	From the zero to about $50K market, we?re still in the start-up phase. When we?re at the $50K to about $100K, we?re in the growth phase and then above that, that?s scaling. So when you?re in that $50K to $100K, you?re going to start to ask yourself, how do I start to remove some of these hats? Because when you first get started, your biggest asset is time and so you?re going to do probably some of your own accounting. You?re going to be looking for cheap ways to do a website. You?re going to keep your costs and your risks down. Whereas then when you start to grow, you want to say, should I be doing my own marketing? 

	So, that could be a local marketing firm. It could be finding someone that specializes in therapist marketing. Really looking at how do I start to take hats off? Then when we look beyond that, we want to really start saying, what is the single best use of my time? It?s unique for therapists. They?re not like your typical business people where their hourly rate is so much higher than almost anything else they can pay for. So usually, if you do one more counseling session, you can pay for a virtual assistant to do ten extra hours. 

	Finding these people online is going to allow you to then be able to scale and put your time into the actual growth of the business and the scaling of the business, rather than just keeping everything going. 

Jaime:	So, how do you prioritize that though? Because if you?re like, okay, I need marketing help by do I hire a marketing agency, do I hire and try to train them? How do you figure out what goes where?

Joe:	I love how you dive into the details. What are the details here, Joe?

Jaime:	Tell me.

Joe:	I would say the first thing people need to do at that growth phase is they need to stop answering the phone and scheduling themselves. Most therapists at that phase are still answering the phone and doing their own scheduling. Think about if you call the doctor and he or she answered the phone, did the scheduling, told you about the insurance benefits. At first, you?d be like, that?s great. Customer service. But then at a certain point, you?d be like, that?s kind of weird. Why are they doing all of this? So, adding those levels of professionalism would be the first step. And that?s going to take tons of time off of you. 

	As well, it?s going to be a multiplier. Almost every time that you hire an assistant to answer phones and schedule, if you?re in that hour session and you really think through, okay, if I miss one client, if I?m charging $100 a session and they come an average of 12 times, that?s $1,200 that you missed on that phone call. So, paying someone $15 an hour to answer your phone, it?s going to be a multiplier, not an expense. So then after that, I would look at any of your digital side of things that you really don?t enjoy doing. So, that?s going to be your website, your finances, bookkeeping. When you buy something, where does that receipt go? 

	If you?re still entering things into QuickBooks and that?s not automated, we really want to look at that. And then after that, I?d say if you?re billing insurance, you really want to look at how do you outsource that billing. If you?re doing your own billing, you really should have a biller at that level. A good biller is only going to charge about 5 percent of collected claims, so it?s not even going to be an upfront cost. For me, to be able to have a biller is really going to be able to take that off of your plate. You didn?t go into counseling or into therapy to be a biller. So, take those things off your plate. 

	Then if you?ve done all of that and you?re starting to scale, I would really say that you want to start adding clinicians that complement your specialty so that you can be making money when you?re not in the office. 

Jaime:	Okay, I love it. Because this is so pertinent for other businesses that are service-type also. So, it?s not just oh, you have to be a therapist in order for all this. 

Joe: 	Totally. 

Jaime:	So, that?s what I love because you break it down super simply. Because therapists, the time that they have to spend on anything is so clear, where as a business owner that?s like oh, I?m doing all this stuff. It?s not nearly as clear. So you?re like, eh, totally makes sense. When we do want to add somebody else though, especially if it?s another clinician, what do you suggest first? Do they go for somebody who?s a little more green that you get to mentor? That sort of thing? They?re cheaper? Or you?re trying to find somebody to really expand your practice areas? How do you decide?

Joe:	Yeah, the first things you really want to look at is first thing your state, is it more W-2 friendly or 1099 friendly? So, talking to a good employment attorney locally is really important because there are states like California where it?s basically impossible to have a 1099. And there?s other states that they?re super friendly to 1099s. The other question you want to ask yourself is how much control do I want? Do I want this to be a group practice where I can tell people what to wear? What filing to do? What therapeutic methods? Or do I want it to feel like they?re just a colleague, almost like renting a space from me. 

	So that?s going to help you decide, am I more on the W-2 side or the 1099 side? Then next, you?re going to also look at am I just going to pay an hourly rate to these people or do they get a percentage of what they bring in? The percentage side makes it that you have less up-front risk, but then also your ability to scale and make more changes because if you?re just paying someone $40 an hour, if you raise their rates to $150 an hour, then you?re gross revenue and your net revenue definitely go up. So, those are all factors before you ever start hiring someone; you want to ask yourself those things. 

	So, once you land on W2 versus 1099, you look at your compensation model, then you want to start saying, what are the kind of people that I?m already getting calls for but turning away? So, if I?m say a marriage counselor. That?s all I do. I just help people with their relationships. Maybe I want to have a play therapist for kids that are going through things. Maybe there are people that it doesn?t work out with marriage and they get divorced. And so I help men and women that are in transition. So, then I?m going to look for people that they want to come on. That complement my specialty. 

	When you?re doing that, there?s some times that you want to have people that are brand new, that is really makes sense. That?s where if you want to keep your costs down, you don?t want to be having people be able to pay too much, you probably want to have someone that?s more in a limited license capacity. Whereas if you want to be able to continue to raise your rates, then you can mentor them. I would say that in general, someone that?s fresh out of grad school is harder to market and also doesn?t have the connections in town. 

	I would much rather have somebody go out and work at a nonprofit for $20 an hour for a year and get paid to network and then come back to me, show me that you can really put in some time and get to know some people, sit on some committees locally. So, then you come back and you actually bring some value to the practice. 

Jaime: 	I love this. You said this before, I can tell. It?s amazing. Because you can go down ? you?re very logical and going oh, well when the calls come in, just decipher which one is going to be the logical next step. Which is easier to say and harder to do for yourself, right? Because I?m assuming that the people that are getting the phone calls aren?t recording the ones that they?re not taking, right? Oh, yeah, I should do ?

[Crosstalk]

Joe:	Actually, I would say that would be a system you want in place for your virtual assistant. And so every month, so, for example, I have a private-pay group practice. I see only one or two clients a week now and do mostly the consulting work. But I have her track how many were insurance that we turned away. How many had insurance and decided to come. What are the main issues that we?re turning the people away from? Each month, I get a dashboard report of we turned away five people. They wanted specifically a play therapist. Okay, we don?t have a play therapy room. 

	I don?t necessarily want to turn one of our rooms into a play therapy room. But could we have a mobile play therapist or a part-time play therapist? I?ll then start thinking about that. And I may or may not land on it, but at least then I have the data to help inform the business decisions I?m going to make.

Jaime:	I love this, especially because you want the therapist to be able to do their highest calling, right? And most likely the billing and the calls and all that stuff is just extra chaos that?s just added. That goes into what you do your Slow Down School stuff. So, I want to talk about this stuff because you are adamant and I adore how adamant you are about slowing down and how big of a deal that is. So, tell us a little bit about what Slow Down School is.

Joe:	Yes. Slow Down School actually came out of an idea when my wife and I were in the Detroit airport headed to a conference I was speaking at. She got really into the adult coloring books. She was doing on in the airport. I said to her, wouldn?t it be funny if there was a conference where people played with Play-Doh and they colored? She?s like, that would. We just started riffing off each other and just had this hilarious conversation of picturing a bunch of therapists playing to come and just slow down. 

	Then in typical Joe-and-Christina form, she took a nap on the way to Asheville, North Carolina and I sketched out the entire conference and as soon as we landed, I bought slowdownschool.com and had this idea. So, the basic premise of it is we do our best work when we allow our brains to rest. You think about when your big ideas come, it?s usually when you?re taking a shower or you?re on a long drive and you just turn the radio off and you?re not thinking about anything. It?s like oh, wait, you have these breakthrough moments that happen. This is typical throughout business that this happens. 

	But how often do we go to a conference and travel was terrible. American Airlines canceled our flight. It?s just over and over these things happen. And then we?re supposed to concentrate and work on our business? So, we kind of flipped it where the first two days of Slow Down School, we genuinely slow down. We encourage people to turn their phones off, take their phones and put them in these little envelopes called Zenvelopes that a friend of mine invented and zip them up. We sit on the beach. We go for hikes. We had a silent disco. We brought in a DJ that just killed it. We did improv on the beach this year. 

	Which, improv with therapists, I thought it would be a flop. It was hilarious. So, we now have two days that we?ve all connected with each other, bonded with each other. Just got to know each other as people. Then for two and a half days, we just run full-tilt towards their business. The ideas that people have when we do these sprints ? and I know you?re a tech person, Jaime ? is we?ll do these 20-minute sprints where people say, what am I going to achieve in these 20 minutes? How am I going to get it done? What am I going to work on? What tools do I need? Now, let?s go. 

	For example, this one lady, she had an idea of a consulting business. In 20 minutes, she sketched out the entire consulting business, her unique selling point. She named the business, bought the URL. And everyone was like, that totally fits you. In 20 minutes. Most people spend months figuring out what they?re going to name their business. But because they slowed down first, it?s like these doors just open up and people have great ideas on how to grow their big idea and how to grow their practice. 

Jaime:	See? I don?t think this is really ? I was going to say hinted on, but not even hinted on because the creative side of being a business owner gets thrown by the wayside, right? So, for me, and for all clients, we buy shower notepads because no offense, the shower is the very best way. Or, I paint and I didn?t realize that painting to me is working on my business because I listen to my music and do nothing. 

Joe:	Painting walls or painting like paintings?

Jaime:	Paintings. 

Joe:	Me too! What do you like to paint?

Jaime:	Acrylic.

Joe:	Me too!

Jaime:	Really?

Joe:	I hate oil. To me, oil takes so long.

Jaime:	I thought we were friends. I know. How do I not know this?

Joe:	Yeah, I just started painting again too because I found it?s one of the few activities where I can just be totally mindful.

Jaime:	Yeah. So what do you do? So tell me, so, let?s unpack that a little bit. Because you?re a guy that has a thing called Slow Down School, right? And your wife is the one coloring and you?re the one coming up with all the ideas on the plane, right? So, what are you doing and what are you using the creative side for?

Joe:	Yeah, so for me, I have to have very clear boundaries of what I can and can?t do. Otherwise, I?ll think about all these fun ideas. Like, I literally every day, I?m like, I can?t believe this is my job and I make money doing this because it?s so fun and such a creative release to say, what if we launch this to help therapists? What if we did that? I could probably think about this night and day. So, I need for myself to set very clear boundaries. And so that looked like a couple summers ago doing an experiment where I started taking Fridays off. I?m really big on experiments versus pass/fail mentality. 

	So, I packed it all into four days a week and then that fall, kept that going because it worked really well and the income kept going up. And then the next summer, I started taking Mondays off. And so now for a year and half or so, I?ve been taking four-day weekends every weekend. And so that clear boundary of what does a three-day workweek look like and what does it look like to be multi-six-figures every single year and growing at a certain percent every year? Those are the boundaries that I want to do because I could work every day. Now, I do a little bit of emails on Monday and Friday. Probably 15 minutes. 

	But then I have to set up systems so that the business keeps moving. So, I have a director of details that goes into my email. She texts me if something crazy happens that I need to address right away. I set it up so that I attract people that understand that I work three days a week and so they?re not going to text me on a Sunday and be like, when?s our consulting meeting? What are we doing? No, they?re going to email Emily and say, sorry, I lost the calendar or the calendar invite got deleted, whatever. I then attract people that fit that mentality of slowing down so that we can spark massive innovation. 

Jaime:	You call them cool names like the director of details. That sounds awesome.

Joe:	I stole that from Grant Baldwin. I?ve got to give him credit for that title because that?s just such a good title. 

Jaime:	Was it Grant that did it? That?s hilarious. Grant was a client of mine a long time ago too. 

Joe:	Oh, really?

Jaime:	Yes.

Joe:	I was on his podcast a while ago talking about how to use speaking to grow your coaching and his director of details was emailing me and I?m like, can I steal that? And I think they said that they stole it from somebody else. I?m like, that?s a good name. 

Jaime:	That?s a ridiculously ? I bow down to Grant on that one then too. Because I totally noticed. But the whole point too is having somebody that does all that stuff. So, now your weekends are longer than your work weeks, which is very impressive.

Joe:	My wife said, ?You know, Labor Day, Memorial Day. Why does it always fall on a Monday? You always take Mondays off. It?s not an extra day for us.? I?m like, ?Christina, we get four-day weekends. Come on.?

Jaime:	Oh, poor baby, I know. Everybody feels bad for you right now that?s listening. They?re like, you suck, man. But the whole point is that you?re building up the systems. I know, your systems are freaking fantastic. So, once you go in, you go all in and you commit. Give us some tips on creating systems. Especially for somebody who?s in the chaos of trying to do a lot of it themselves.

Joe:	Yeah, I mean, I love the book, The One Thing. And just saying, what?s the one thing that?s going to make everything else easier?

Jaime:	I?m laughing because I literally interviewed Jay right before I interviewed you. About 20 minutes ago. 

Joe:	Oh, really? We texted you a picture when we were at TEDx together. So, I got to hang out with Jay for a few days when they were up here in Trevor. And [Inaudible] [00:25:09] and all these people that like we both know. 

Jaime:	It?s so funny though. I had totally forgotten that you?d sent me that picture until just now when you said his name and he was 20 minutes before. He really is fun. 

Joe:	So that book, it doesn?t just apply to business. It also can apply to your life or other things. Like, what?s the one thing that?s just going to make things easier? So, even in our own life, our daughter?s bedroom was just always chaos. It doesn?t make us feel like now it?s a good bedtime. You?re going to sleep in all this, books and crud. So, we created a system for it. Where here?s the little container. You can keep whatever you want in the container. The books always need to be put away. All of your little buddies. I mean, this is a 4 and 7-year old. They?ve got to have a pretty simple system. 

	Your little buddy has got to be on your bed every night and there can be nothing on the floor. So they then take less into their area because they now have a system. And so if we start with okay, what?s the thing that?s just kind of pissing me off? What would make everything easier? If someone checked my email? I hate looking at 200 emails when I come back from vacation. I hate looking at all these things. Have somebody check your emails. Figure out the system for that. Observe what you?re doing and then teach someone else to do it. 

Jaime:	See, I love the way that you do it though too. And I highly recommend people going on vacation or taking Fridays off or whatever it is. Because the amount of time that we think we?re working as an entrepreneur versus the amount of time that we can actually compress into a certain amount of time, it?s insane when you actually just put constraints around what you?re doing. How did that work for you? Were you like, I?m going to take Fridays off. That worked well. Now, I?m going to take Mondays off. Did you have to redo all your systems or was it super easy to do?

Joe:	No, I just looked ahead a couple months and started blocking it off. Then just put it on repeat that it was blocked off. It?s amazing. I had half an hour between two Mastermind groups today. One of the other consultants that works with Practice of the Practice, she had this new idea around something and wanted to talk about it and I texted her earlier, like I have half an hour starting at 1:30. She called me right at 1:30. The Mastermind went over by a minute, so I then called her back. But then something happened in the Mastermind where I had to text somebody else. That half hour wasn?t dinking around checking email. 

	That was getting things done that are going to help my bottom line. So, those three days are full, all-out sprints. But I think it?s natural to say, okay, I can run full-tilt from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. three days in a row knowing I?m going to have a four-day weekend and I?m going to go home in a few minutes and then go hang out with my daughters and my wife.  

Jaime:	I love also it?s not like a 12-hour day. 9:00 to 4:00. It?s 9:00 to 4:00. 

Joe:	Yeah. I want to drop off my daughters at school every day. I want to be home at 4:00 to help with dinner. There?s going to be times where there?s flexibility. Because I think your original question of how do you structure it for yourself? I need to have some basic regulations for myself and then I can always say okay, I?m going to see somebody at 4:00 because it?s a unique opportunity. Or I?m going to meet with someone on Friday because man, I just can?t fit that in for a month on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. I can then have that variability knowing that most of the time I?m going to follow my rules.

Jaime:	See, and I appreciate that too. Someone was asking me not that long ago about how I stop at a certain time. I was like, ?I have children and they have to be picked up from school and if I don?t, then that?s bad.? So, that?s why it works really well for me, right? Whatever those constraints are, do you actually do them? Whatever it is. Don?t get me wrong. I?d probably keep working because I love it. But being able to go, oh, I have this. But then I also have the flexibility of being able to do what I want. 

	How do you not just be flexible all the time? Because that?s the other piece where you?re like, oh, this is my overflow day and now it became a day of working instead of just the overflow day. Does that make sense?

Joe:	Yeah, I think there are times that I intentionally do that. So, for example, a friend of mine and I are launching a new podcast that?s really for fun, exploring some positive psychology things and how to be ? it?s called a ?hapitalist? podcast. Like hapitalist with an H. So, happy capitalist kind of stuff. So, we?re brainstorming this. We don?t have a specific launch date. It?s fun, but it?s also work. So, if I spent a Friday morning working on that, that?s intentional that I?m putting time into it. Even though it feels like work. Now, if people aren?t doing their own self-work, where they?re saying, what?s driving my business? 

	Is it a fear that all of a sudden I?m not going to have enough money? Is it some other negative mindset? Well, I need to do my own self-work That could be listening to podcasts, that could be reading a book. It could be going to see a therapist or working with a life coach. In some way, work through your junk so that?s not leading the process. Because if we look back at what?s our why of business? That?s the gasoline or the electric energy of our car that is our life. That?s going to move us forward but that why, if that?s not the correct why, we?re just going to continue to go in the wrong direction. 

	And so if we can find that navigation, for me that makes sense to work through my own junk so that?s not going to be the lead. I can say, you helped me in the past, now sit in the back seat. 

Jaime:	See, it?s so awesome because self-awareness is a wonderful thing. As a business owner, as you?re trying to go through, things come up. Don?t get me wrong, I think business is one of the best personal development things humanly possible. But when it?s unconscious and you don?t realize, you don?t realize that it?s driving you. You?re like, ah, I?m still bumping up against the same thing and it makes pain not only in your personal life, but it really brings it to the forefront in your business. How do you have that awareness?

Joe:	I think for me, I?m just a naturally curious person. So, continually working on what are the things that are hard for me? So, for example, shutting my mind off is really hard and so I?ve got the opposite direction of really trying to learn to meditate more. I?m working with a Buddhist therapist that he is my personal therapist. I use my Muse to see how my brain waves are. I try to meditate. It?s always a struggle, but I?m getting better at it. And so, like anything, you?ve got to put in the hard work to make that big step forward because I believe if I can let my mind settle more and really live, kind of slowing down and genuinely slow down, that?s going to make my life better. 

Jaime:	You were the one that introduced me to the Muse and I use it every day. Every single day.

Joe:	Every day?

Jaime:	Every day. I can show you my little thing. Every single day. Well, I think my streak is 40 or something like that. I keep going 40 days and then I lose it. I?m like no, so close! 

Joe:	It?s like my daughter, my 7-year old, she has a big personality. She?s very strong and brave. She also, that can be very difficult at times. I want her to stay on the trajectory because I think we need more strong, bold women. But as a parent, I also need to help her chill out sometimes. So, she started during the Muse and it?s amazing because almost all of her meditation time is in the neutral or calm zone. So I?m like, when she wants to, she can calm her brain down. So, she always gets way more birds than I do. 

Jaime:	Mine too. 

Joe:	She thinks that?s hilarious.

Jaime:	I know. So, for anybody who doesn?t know, the Muse is a meditation headband that actually tracks your brainwaves, which is amazing. 

Joe:	Yeah, it?s the first medical-grade EEG. You know, it?s EEG?

Jaime:	So, I?m a little biohacker lady. So, you get the other app where you can actually see all the brainwave. Have you done all that stuff?

Joe:	I haven?t.

Jaime:	Okay, I?ll show you that later. 

Joe:	At their world headquarters, they connected it to a beer keg, so they can pour beer with their mind. 

Jaime:	Okay, wait. I need to learn that. I don?t drink beer, but I?m sure I could figure something for that. So, to me though, being able to show that to the kids. I show it to my clients. I showed it at one of your retreats. But for the kids, they?re better than me. Like, my son will meditate. He doesn?t need the Muse because he?s more Zen. His goal this summer was to become enlightened. That?s what his goal is. 

Joe:	That is awesome.

Jaime:	Let me know how that goes. But he?s meditating every day. But my daughter is very similar to what you said. And so, being able to go ooh, not only can I see my, not faults, but my work-on, work-in-progress type things, but we can help our kids do it even more. And it?s probably a lot easier to see it than it is in ourselves.

Joe:	That?s such a great example to our kids to show that we?re constantly developing. I feel like previous generations of parents had kind of a we?ve got it figured out, just listen to us approach. And what does that show us? That you stop developing when you?re an adult. That?s not true. We should keep developing. And so even just starting painting, my 7-year old was like hey, I want to paint too. And so I set up an easel. What I did is I just sketched out what I was going to draw, which was a basic landscape and then I mixed the paint. 

	I?m like, here?s what I?m going to use for the sky, but do whatever you want. So now we have these sort of matching paintings, but it?s her own interpretation of it. Which how fun is that? Now we have these paintings. But I just wanted to calm my brain down and go do something that was better than straightening up the house. 

Jaime:	Right? It?s hilarious that you said that. I and my daughter are planning on painting tonight. I sold my first painting to New Zealand not that long ago. 

Joe:	Nice.

Jaime:	And the kids are going like, you just painted something and sold it online? I?m like, I did. Didn?t really know how but it was great. So now they?re like, ooh, what can we make to sell online? But it?s amazing for them to see the creativity behind it instead of, I have everything figured out. I know everything I?m doing. I mess up everything and for them to be able to see it, that?s amazing. And for me to remember that I am allowed to mess up stuff, right? Or that whole piece, the permission side of things, that?s more me tapping into the creative side gives me so much more of a breath of relief instead of the business owner, this is what we do. Right?

Joe:	Totally.

Jaime:	And so, having those two sides. Do you think everybody needs something like that?

Joe:	I think that when I ? I can?t say what everybody needs. They may have different needs. But when we set up something that?s outside of our business ? so even this weekend, I put up this big shelf thing in the garage that was such a pain. And measuring. I got covered in drywall dust. But I was not going to let this stupid hanging shelf thing beat me. So some of my competitiveness came out, but it was physical, it was mental. I had to measure like a carpenter and I?m not really one of those kind of carpenter-type guys. But I think we do need those things that give us a true respite away from our business. 

	But then I think there?s also overlap where our business and family can interact. So, for example, Lucia, my 7-year old, she wanted to do a lemonade stand. We started brainstorming. How much money do you want to make from this? So, instead, she did Lucia?s Homemade Lemonade and we made simple syrup and we squeezed all the lemons ourselves. She had frozen strawberries and basil and then also served coffee and did it right outside of a marathon that was going on. She made like $120 an hour for three hours. It was just like crazy. No, that?s wrong. She made $120 over three hours. So, $40 an hour. 

	And that?s after she paid us back for all of the supplies. She actually hired some kids to work it when she didn?t want to work it anymore and paid them $1 an hour. So, we can transfer these skills and have it be fun for our kids too without it feeling like we?re just pushing our business skills down their throats.

Jaime:	Can you imagine being that age and ? I mean, I had lemonade stands, but I think I made like $2 over three hours, maybe. And it was sad, right? At the end, going like, this sucks. 

Joe:	People are like, wait. I can have basil and frozen strawberries in my lemonade and you handmade the simple syrup as a 7-year old with your dad? What? She charged $2 a glass and people are like, I can give you more. This is worth more than that. She was like, wait, what? 

Jaime:	I have goosebumps. See? That?s why we do what we do too. That?s why you should have four days off on the weekend. So you can actually be there for your kiddos too. And that?s what really, really matters. I know I have to stop wrapping up because I have to go pick up my children. 

Joe:	And today is my daughter?s birthday and I?ve got to go to a birthday party.

Jaime:	And you did this? Wow. Then we should go, but I have to ask the last question I always ask. What?s one action listeners can do this week to help move them forward toward their goal of a million?

Joe:	Yeah, so I briefly touched on it when I was talking about taking Fridays off of having an experimenting mentality. So often, people that go to college or grad school or whatever your phase is, they think about things in a pass/fail mentality. I write this paper. I turn it in. I get a grade. That?s just now how the business world is. It?s all about experiments. So, at Slow Down School, which I put so much effort into launching and then only sold two tickets. And then I started working with you and you helped me sell way more. I got a lot of information about how people don?t buy things in the private practice market. 

	They don?t just buy things straight up from a podcast. So, we if we can have an experimenting mindset when we launch something new, when we?re doing something, that allows us to always be gathering information, rather than have that pass/fail mindset. So, I would say do some sort of experiment that?s going to move you towards the life that you want and I know that by slowing down you?re going to spark so much creativity that you?re going to continue to level up. 

Jaime:	I wholly appreciate that. I think everyone needs to actually do that. Not just think about oh, that?s great. I should paint. I should test something. Awesome. But actually right now, take some time. Turn off this podcast right now. No, not right now. Wait until he?s done. Then think of one thing to test. It can be short. It doesn?t have to be long at all. So that way we don?t feel bad if we don?t accomplish, right? I am of the mindset of I?m really good at being mean to myself, why don?t we be nice and just test and have fun and actually enjoy the lives that we have? So, where do we find out more about your site, about Slow Down School, about next-level practice, all that fun stuff? 

Joe:	PracticeofthePractice.com is our main site. We?re giving away over 30 different tools to your audience. So, if they go to practiceofthepractice.com/em. Often, people just have their one giveaway and everyone?s at a different phase. So, we have five different e-books we?re giving away to your audience. We have all these different checklists for different phases of practice. You can find us on iTunes. You can go to slowndownschool.com. Our next-level practice is for people that are starting a practice and want to be in community. You can request an invite over at practiceofthepractice.com/invite for that. 

Jaime:	That you so much for coming on the show today. Happy birthday to your daughter too.

Joe:	Thanks! This is so awesome. Thanks so much for having me.

Tags: Business Owner, entrepreneur podcast, eventual millionaire, how to expand your private practice, how to get referrals, how to refer, jaime masters, Joe Sanok, millionaire entrepreneurs, podcast, scale and market your business online and offline, scaling your private practice, start-ups / startups, startup entrepreneur, top entrepreneurs

Categories: All, Business Growth/Scaling, Featured Millionaire Interview, Innovative Marketing, Millionaire Interviews, Personal Finance/Wealth

Hi I’m Jaime. Each and every week I bring you the top business advice from the people who know best.

Learn More