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In this episode, Joe Sanok speaks with Dr. Mark Mayfield on how nametags made a multi-six figure practice.
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Meet Dr. Mark Mayfield
Dr. Mark Mayfield is Founder and President and CEO of Mayfield Counseling Centers in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He received his doctorate in Counselor Education and Supervision with an emphasis in Nonprofit Leadership and Management from Walden University, and a masters degree in Counseling from Denver Seminary. Mark has extensive experience within the realm of substance abuse (primarily with the adolescent population). He has worked with gang members in the inner-city of Denver, developed adolescent and family therapy programs working with at-risk youth, provided in-home family therapy and multi-systemic family therapy, and have developed Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy groups for child and adolescent survivors of mental and/or emotional struggles.
His doctoral research focused the effects of Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy on veteran survivors with partial or full PTSD and has recently been published in a human growth and development textbook. Mark is also launching a social media movement called #metoo which produces short videos where individuals are able to share their mental health stories. The hope with the #metoo movement is to reduce and/or eliminate the stigma surrounding mental health.
- Website: https://mayfieldcounseling.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mayfieldcounseling
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-mark-mayfield-09603a1a/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mayfieldcounseling/?hl=en
Dr. Mark Mayfield’s Story
When starting a private practice, you need to be willing to take a risk and market yourself. In the beginning, I had to learn to think like an entrepreneur as opposed to just a clinician.
Before he started his practice, Mark was working in community health. Yet, he had lost the joy around why he got into the field in the first place, which is why he decided to go into private practice.
Initially, what Mark did well was that he didn’t try to do it alone, instead he started his practice within a community. He is still getting referrals from the relationships he built in the first year. He went straight into starting a group practice as opposed to a solo private practice.
In This Podcast
Summary
Mark Mayfield speaks around how he started his, now flourishing, group practice and how he moved into having the mindset of a businessman. He shares the way he structures his KPIs as well as general tips and advice on how to grow and run a group practice. This podcast forms part of our series on interviewing owners of multi-six figure private practices.
KPIs Within Mark’s First Year Of Private Practice
“If I have to close the doors tomorrow, at least I’ve given it my all.”
- Increase caseloads of counselors on staff to cover expenses
- Put out a good product
- Aim for $100 000 in first year (did $225 000)
Mark Mayfield Counseling works with red, yellow, and green goals when it comes to KPIs, for example, relating to their goal for income within the first year:
- RED: Up to $50 000
- YELLOW: Between $50 000 and $100 000
- GREEN: Over $100 000
Ways To Grow Private Practice
Networking is always a good way to grow. One thing Mark and his fellow clinicians did was wear their nametags to the grocery store etc. to initiate conversations about their practice. Community talks also helped.
“If you don’t have a plan of where you are going, you’re going to miss the mark every time.”
Mayfield Counseling is constantly expanding their team and uses scorecards etc. to keep everyone on track.
Personal Boundaries
Mark works out a schedule with his wife to ensure he gets a sufficient amount of time with his family. He also turns his phone off when he gets home and makes sure he never works on weekends.
Useful Links:
Meet Joe Sanok
Joe Sanok helps counselors to create thriving practices that are the envy of other counselors. He has helped counselors to grow their businesses by 50-500% and is proud of all the private practice owners that are growing their income, influence, and impact on the world. Click here to explore consulting with Joe.
Thanks For Listening!
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Podcast Transcription
[SPONSOR TALK]
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[MUSIC]
This is the Practice of the Practice Podcast with Joe Sanok, session #247.
[MUSIC]
[INITIAL WELCOME – AND SOME INFORMATION]
Joe Sanok: Please welcome to the Practice of the Practice Podcast. I am Joe Sanok, your host. I am so happy that you are here. I am live in the radio center two building, here in downtown Traverse City. I hope your week is going killer. We are doing a whole series about six-figure practices and what it takes to get to that next level. It’s super exciting, interviewing some amazing people. Today, we are going to be talking with Dr. Mark Mayfield. We are also talking with Eric Connor, Ginny Mills, and Sherry Shockey-Pope over this series. What we are going to do is we are going to be rapidly launching all four of these, so that you can binge listen to them. We found that when we do those short series, people actually end up listening more because they listen to one and then they go to the next and the next and the next. They don’t have to wait for. So we are going to release all of these around the same time so that you can really take some massive action, learn from these four multi-six figure practices and just learn to rock it out. I want to share with you just a few clips from they have to say before we get into Dr. Mark Mayfield’s interview.
[MUSIC]
[CLIP TRANSCRIPTS WITH BACKGROUND MUSIC]
“We did and we networked about 25 to 60 people a week amongst the team. It was… you know, whether it be just handing your card to the person at the grocery store, wearing a name tag and people asking about it. There is something about wearing your name tag out in the community and people, “oh, what it’s all about?” “Oh, let me tell you.”. [Inaudible 00:02:30.00] here’s our card.”
“I was very deliberate about having a clinical team meeting and an individual supervision meeting, but I think it was as I moved in the direction of trying to define a model of care such that I could teach that model and ask people to follow that.”
“For me, like there’s a few people that when I say, hey this [Inaudible 00:02:56.15] is launching, they love telling all their people about it because they know it’s going to be a good experience.”
“Mm-hmm, and so that’s something or kind of like to it…I don’t kind of ask clients directly to market for me, but they will just naturally begin to talk about the other groups that they are part of, or the church group that they are in, and then before you know it they have some recommendations. And that’s really effective because you can trust a lot of the times that people that your clients are going to bring in, because a lot of them have shared stories.”
“Well, we went back to our business plan and we said that we’re doing what we had visioned initially and we will be doing it well, and is there anywhere where we could automate things.”
Joe Sanok: So without any further ado, I give you the man who went from not having a practice to a six-figure practice, a multi-six-figure group practice in less than two years, the one, the only, the never replicated Dr. Mark Mayfield.
[MUSIC]
[INTRODUCTION TO THIS PODCAST – THE STARTING PHASE]
Joe Sanok: Well, today on the Practice of the Practice Podcast, we have Dr. Mark Mayfield. I have known Mark for a number of years. He did consult with me when he first started his practice, Mayfield Counseling Centers, and he is in Colorado Springs, Colorado and is multi-sites and multi-clinicians. Mark, welcome to the Practice of the Practice Podcast.
Dr. Mark Mayfield: Thanks for having me, Joe.
Joe Sanok: Yeah. It has been so fun to see you grow over the years and just, I mean, explode really. Why don’t we zoom kind of backward when we started working together and you were launching Mayfield Counseling. Take us through that startup phase. What were things that you did for people that are listening that are just in a startup phase? What do you learn through that? What were kind of essential components of your startup phase?
Dr. Mark Mayfield: Sure, I think a big one was just the willingness to take a risk. You know, the starting of a practice in any form is a risky thing because you are putting yourself out there. You are learning to market yourself, more so than even the product that you offer just because it has a counselor. They are buying you. And so that was, I think, a real eye opener for me, but all the business piece, I think the piece of consulting that really helped with me was just taking a look at the different aspects of becoming an entrepreneur going from that of a clinician. And a lot of us who start practices are good clinicians, and that’s why we don’t want to work for a community mental health organization, we want to step out from there and do our own thing. But it is really getting… really for me it was getting that shift of thinking going from, hey, I have got to be a business owner now. I have got to be an entrepreneur. I got to make this thing work, and I think that was for me at least the collusion of those two things – you know, I need to learn how to sell myself and i need to learn to do this as a business – was really eye opening. It was also a good learning experience for me.
Joe Sanok: Now, what were you doing right before you started your practice?
Dr. Mark Mayfield: I was working in community mental health. So I was seeing 40-50 clients a week, had a 120 of my cases load. I think that kind of a typical story of managed healthcare from a mental health standpoint, and just really had lost the joy and the reason I got into this field in the first place.
Joe Sanok: Yeah. So then you launched the practice, and take us through maybe that first year – things that you did well, things you screwed up, things you should have done differently.
Dr. Mark Mayfield: Yeah. I think things that we did well. It became a very relational business. I think the biggest thing that I did, I thought we did well, was that I didn’t start this by myself. I jumped in… it was my name, it was my license and those kind of things… but it was did in community. And I felt like that I have seen a lot of individuals fail in starting private practice when they try to do it by themselves – I think because it gets lonely and it gets difficult. And so doing it in the context of relationship was really great. So it started with three counselors and myself, and then it was just about going out and building relationships in the community. Even to this day, people ask me, you know, where do you get referrals from and I say, yeah, like, we get them from everywhere. And then simply just lot of it is just word of mouth. It’s the relationships that we built early on in the first year. And then also the things that we just offered. We go out and do free talks on certain topics for a certain amount of time and what not. And so it was, I think, the relationship piece that laid the foundation for the credibility.
Joe Sanok: I think that’s one thing I really appreciated about when we worked together, was like your willingness to go full tilt ahead. Like most people don’t hire consultant when they are first starting out. They don’t start with a group practice when they are starting out. They kind of boot strap it and limp along for a long time, then realize maybe I should get some help here. What was different for you that you said I am going to start with a group of people. I am going to start with consulting. I am going to start with like rocking this thing out right from the beginning because the results which we will talk about in a bit that you got in your first two years are like mind blowing. So why did you start with a group practice versus kind of doing it on your own for a while and then add people later on?
Dr. Mark Mayfield: I think that a lot of it was just little like coming back to the relational piece. I am not the smartest person in the room and I wanted to make sure that I had people surrounding me that were smarter in different areas. And I have got a really good solid team around me, you know they have become my executive team. But I think that, I just, I had never, never was a desire to go out and do solo practice. I think you can do some good work and people are doing great work in their solo private practices, but I had a bigger vision for the city, a bigger vision for what counseling could be in the city and in the region. And I thought, you know, why not go all out at the beginning and that’s kind of my personality anyways. I am going to do it all out to the best of my ability and do quality work. And if I fail, at least I failed doing my best.
Joe Sanok: Yeah. When I was leaving my community college job after mental wellness counseling had taken off and Practice of the Practice was sustainable and I knew that like the amount that I was bringing in I could support my family, I remember thinking like my mantra for a long time was am I going to regret not trying and being safe or am I going to regret failing but at least giving it a shot. Because I think for me that fear of failure you know being a first born, having high achieving parents, it was like I didn’t want to fail people, but then I realized like if I just stayed in this job that I actually really liked, but if I didn’t give it a shot and fail, that was going to kill me more than that I have tried it and failed.
Dr. Mark Mayfield: Right. Exactly. And I [Inaudible 00:10:01.04] even now we were taking some pretty risks which we will talk about in a little bit, but it’s… I know if I have to close the doors tomorrow, at least I have given it my all, and I think I will get a job as a leader or a teacher or something, and being okay and then I won’t be awesome, but it would be enough to take care of my family and I am okay with taking that kind of risk.
[KPIs WITHIN FIRST YEAR OF PRIVATE PRACTICE]
Joe Sanok: So in that first year, what were some of your KPIs – your key performance indicators – that you thought like this is what we want to achieve in the first year and then like what did you achieve and then what happened in the next couple of years?
Dr. Mark Mayfield: Yeah, I think, you know initially it was just a basic KPI. We wanted to get the counselors that are on staff. We want the cases to get full to where I they wanted to be. Rather it was a very basic KPI. You know, let’s pay the rent. Let’s pay our expenses. And you know, we sat down in that first three months of being open and set out a… we have a pretty strategic score card now, you know, of extensive KPIs, but then in the first couple of months and year it was, let’s just be in the black, let’s not get in debt. Let’s make sure that we are paying our bills. Let’s make sure we’re taking care of the team members that are there, but let’s put out a good product and I think that was the big piece of it, is… we wanted people come into our offices and feels cared for from the moment they open the door. And so how we designed it, you know the furniture we used, the paint collection on the walls, the coffee bar… you know everything that we did was very strategic in that sense. And so we worked up to that piece. And then monetarily, without… how cool would it be that we will be able to do a $100,000 the first year.
Joe Sanok: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Mark Mayfield: So that was a KPI. We had, iike…
Joe Sanok: Did you do it?
Dr. Mark Mayfield: We did it. We far exceeded it, yeah.
Joe Sanok: You might share what you did in your first year.
Dr. Mark Mayfield: Yeah, we did $225,000.
Joe Sanok: (laugh) Oh, man. I knew that it was up there. I didn’t remember the exact number and I didn’t want to look it up from my notes. So, oh…that’s a killer.
Dr. Mark Mayfield: It was a killer. So I mean, we like, okay. Our strategic plan was we aimed low and so ever since we have been in the higher, you know… We do our initial get goals red, you know, and then we go to yellow – it was kind of somewhat of a stretched goal – and then of course green was kind of the let’s shoot for the moon type of stuff, and then… we have been in the yellow and green’s for our KPIs ever since.
Joe Sanok: Yeah. Talk about that a little bit. I think some people may not have heard about KPIs. They may not understand that red, yellow, green kind of score. Talk a little bit about that because to go from not have a practice to doing $225,000 in your first year. Most people right now, they don’t know much of your back story, are probaby pulling over, so their mind is not blowing while we drive (laugh). So let’s give them some real big takeways. So you said this KPIs, tell us about that red, yellow, green method that you use.
Dr. Mark Mayfield: Yeah. For us red was like okay. This is kind of the baseline goal. You know, red light you think about it needs attention. And so we had put our red goal for our income, we should say, let’s say $50,000 would be great. Would be able to pay our bills and take care of ourselves. So that needs attention. And then we did $51,000 to $99,000, was the yellow. If we got to that goal, you know, we are doing okay. And then kind of the stretched goal, the green, like you know thumbs up, doing great, was a $100,000 plus for the first year and obviously we far exceeded that. But it put it in perspective for everybody on the team. This is what we were shooting for, and so there was no question in the team of what our goals were, and like I said our first goal for first year was very simplistic. And it has gotten pretty extensive since then.
[WAYS TO GROW PRIVATE PRACTICE]
Joe Sanok: Yeah, so if you were to bullet point that first year, like here, like if I was talking to someone that they just launched like, you have to do these three things in your first year, so really amp things up and through gas and a fire what would those couple of things be, like super practical, like network with 50 people a week or whatever. Like, what are your things that you did that you would recommend?
Dr. Mark Mayfield: Yeah, we did. We networked with about 25 to 50 a week amongst the team. That was, you know, whether it be just handing in your card to the person at the grocery store, wearing your nametag, and people asking about. There is something about wearing your nametag out in the community and people, “oh, what it’s all about?” “Oh, let me tell you.” [Inaudible 00:14:38.26] here’s our card. But it was then also setting up appointments with strategic individuals that we wanted to meet with based of our ideal client. Right, we didn’t go outside…for the first six months, we didn’t branch out beyond our ideal client which was the military family, and could be living in a very military community. So thing was that the networking piece never let that grow grass under your feet. It was getting the sustainable client load. Right? And so I think those two go together. And then I think for us it was… I think with the networking piece, what kind of giveaway services could we provide for the community. And so we were invited, you know, five or six times a month to different organizations to give a 45-50 minute talk for free, and now those people have become very, very big referral sources. And then it was also really setting down those goals. I don’t think if you don’t have a plan of where you are going, you get to miss the mark every time, and…
Joe Sanok: So you went through that scar in growth phase probably in your first six or seven months. So then what I observe, maybe you have seen this, is the things that bootstrapping that hustle, that running full tilt, when you are looking to scale, like that’s a big mindset shift and I think you started with that mindset in a lot of ways, but how did you start to take things off your plate, so that you could only focus on the things that only you could do?
Dr. Mark Mayfield: I think that’s in having a good team, and so I have got, you know, my director of operations is a 32-year-old veteran in the Air Force Colonel. This is her second career. My director of development is a second career [Inaudible 00:16:27.00] writer. My director of marketing and outreach is a retired coast guard. So finding good people to fill those spaces and this is part of the relationship building. I had building relationships for many, many years prior, and so just handpicking some people to be in leadership that had those skillsets that I didn’t have. I am relationally minded. I have become very business minded when it comes to marketing, when it comes to development, when it comes to any of the day-to-day operations. It was really good to scale that out. And for a while there we just had director of operations and director of marketing and outreach, and we all shared a lot of the rules. Now I have got five directors. I have got a director of hospitality, client staff here too. So now being able to delegate, so now I focus on the higher level stuff. I focus on our board development and our higher level relationship things. So, there’s a lot of different things that we are working on.
Joe Sanok: And did those folks started is W-2, 1099, what was your actual structure of a payment as you are growing?
Dr. Mark Mayfield: Sure. Yeah, in Colorado, we are kind of faced with the fact that 1099s are frowned upon and very highly audited and scrutinized, and so from the beginning we started with W2 employees, condition based, and so we had, you know, mental health lawyers in town, which is another must to look over your stuff, that they helped set up our structure. And so you know it was a commission-based employee agreement that we started out with and we still have to this day.
Joe Sanok: And then so as you guys continue to grow, take us through, like, 2016, what did that look like with the numbers, what were some of your things you were focusing on, and you referenced to pretty robust score card. What did that look like last year? And then let’s talk about some of the, after that, kind of the structural changes you guys have done recently?
Dr. Mark Mayfield: Yeah. So the score card piece, we did everything from personal development of the counselor to, you know, continued education, licensure requirements. We are a [Inaudible 00:18:30.01] informed practice. Everybody has to be [Inaudible 00:18:32.04] trained by certain points. So those types of things were on the score card. And tracking just those numbers. Everybody knew where they stood. What are our client goals? We are always stretching our client goals. We have over 300 clients in our case loads now. We see about 600 appointments a month and we are always stretching that. Right? So we update our score card on that sense every quarter. But then with the client goals, we have our financial goals. But then we have conflict resolution goals within the team. So just a lot of operational stuff now to make a growing practice sustainable, you know, beyond the individual, if you look.
Joe Sanok: Wow. So, then recently you guys did some structural changes. May we talk about what you guys did and then maybe share how you came to that decision?
Dr. Mark Mayfield: So El Paso County, where Colorado Springs is located, has had 18 suicides in last 19 months and it’s a [Inaudible 00:19:36.11] our target population was military for a while, but we [Inaudible 00:19:40.16] expand into teens and parents and families and that kind of stuff. And it’s been really on how do we get the community wrap around this idea of mental health and wellness in Colorado Springs. Colorado Springs is about a 4 or 500,000 person city and then like the county itself is about a million people. And there was no mental health center that bridged the gap between the Medicaid population, and these single solo private practices. We want to fill that gap and our goal is to really have a counseling center in every school district in the county in the next five years. [Inaudible 00:20:24.05] doing that, we are like, okay, we can do this as a for profit and in a lot of ways limp along and so we get enough funding and we kind of buildup that reserve, but that’s going to slow and really with the state of our county, slow is not going to be good. And so we decided to become a 501 C039 profit and get the community involved. And so whether they help out through volunteer basis or help out through financial, and we have been receiving a lot of good feedback and had a lot of very influential donor step up, and business owners in the community step up, to sponsor and to help support the growth, to provide endowment to different things, for people that cannot afford therapy. But we still pay counselors full, even though we are providing free therapy. Those kind of things. Just for our community, we felt like becoming a 501 C3 nonprofit was the best way to go. Plus it really opened up the fact that I have got 11 people on our board of directors now that have our best interest in heart and have an higher level of leadership and ownership in the community which has been another level of delegation that’s been phenomenal.
Joe Sanok: Yeah… so how does that affect maybe the salaries of staff or how does it affect some of the financial bottom line for people on your team, and then also, obviously the impact is tremendous. And so, we often talk about, it’s not just about the income, it’s about the influence and impact that you are making. So the impact is such huge, is that going to affect your staff salaries or… talk about that side of it too.
Dr. Mark Mayfield: Yeah, I mean nothing has changed. They are still commissioned based, we are still a fee for service and I think a lot of ways it’s actually going to help them. Because we have always had this impact model, you know the social return on investment, which is what are we giving back to the community. Even if we were a for profit, we require [Inaudible 00:22:20.01] staff. The hope kind of we are pushing for is that our staff are going to be taken care off better because we will have funding, we will have endowments set aside specifically for staff [Inaudible 00:22:33.25] let’s say if a staff takes a pro bono client on, we can still pay them. Where in the past, they have been taking that on as part of their case load and not getting paid for that. So that’s hope as we grow. We have different organizations, we will be writing grants towards these things and that kind of things where our staff would be taken care of even better. I think a lot of times people think, non-profit what you think is free, and it’s no. You can still be a pay for service model, but the social impact can be a lot greater. [Inaudible 00:23:04.00] doors that can open for that can be a lot greater.
Joe Sanok: Well, I think the coolest thing about having been a business is you have created a DNA of profit which isn’t a bad thing. It’s a sustainable thing. So, so many nonprofits start with like we just are donor based, we are only going to go after grants and then when that one grant dries up, it’s like they are out of luck whereas when you had kind of a business mentality with good branding, good networking. It’s almost like a model for non-profits. Only, you know, kind of the flip. Take us through also some of the actual structural things, that what does it take if a business said I would rather switch to be a nonprofit. So we can do what Mark and his team have done?
Dr. Mark Mayfield: Yeah. I mean definitely get a good lawyer. So I have my mental health lawyers that I use for just kind of the day-to-day stuff. We have also hired a lawyer that changes organizations [Inaudible 00:23:57.26] with the charity. So it’s just having the knowledgeable people there, but I think, you know making sure that we have a good board. And so we didn’t take that lightly and found a lot of good people that understand our vision and our mission and they are an advisory board, not a leadership board in that sense. They let us [Inaudible 00:24:18.12]…
Joe Sanok: Dissect kind of the differences there are between the two. Yeah, I know, but not everyone might.
Dr. Mark Mayfield: Yeah, I think definitely there’s board out there. They are the ones that are leading the direction of the organization and then the executive director or the CEO in my case fulfills their mandate, but our board is an advisory board where we brought them on to advice to use connections to help us grow, but they are a sounding board in the sense that… like we have a board meeting this Friday. We are getting our budget approved. We are getting our financial development piece looked at and approved. And so they can provide insight from their perspectives into what we are doing, but ultimately it’s still our business. Unless there is a gross oversight, there are not going to step in.
Joe Sanok: So lot of thing through, but it definitely sounds like you guys are able to make just such a greater impact as a result of that switch.
Dr. Mark Mayfield: Oh yeah, one of the things I didn’t mention going back to just what we have been doing. Everything we have done has been on cash basis. We don’t take insurance.
Joe Sanok: Yeah, I was going to ask about that because when you hear military, you often think you have to go through insurance if you are going to focus on military because I have heard a lot of people that do focus on military talents that they are like oh, you can’t survive without that… like how did you do it?
Dr. Mark Mayfield: We just priced yourself below market value and after making a living and to make a decent living, but you got to provide a service that’s quality for less [Inaudible 00:25:48.23] competition. And so we priced ourselves… continue to price ourselves 20 percent below market value and then we also just talk about the benefits of not using your insurance. When we talked to people on the phone, it’s a hard sell. You have to be a businessman, in that sense of businesswoman, in that sense of I am selling a product and how do I close the deal when I am on the phone with somebody. That’s a hard switch I think for people to make.
Joe Sanok: Yeah. So how do you train your front desk staff or your counselors to think that way because whether social workers or counselors or MFTs like, that’s not anything we learn in school in regards to sales. So, what do you teach them?
Dr. Mark Mayfield: Well, we have a policy procedure manual and it has different scripts in there that we just say if it’s hard for you, just use the script. And so we scripted out for them. We also, when we hire somebody new, we always pair them with the mentor who has done it for a while, and they can learn from it. And you know, in the last two years, we have had… we have 17 counselors on staff and three support staff right now. We will probably be hiring about two or three in the next four or five months, but we have had out of… you know, over the last two years, we maybe had three or four people that just wasn’t a good fit and it kind of worked itself out. Part of that was the salesmanship piece of your… we gave you 15 clients and you are only able to secure two. That’s not sustainable for the company, it’s not sustainable for you and so let’s have a conversation upon that. So it’s kind of what we have done, it seems to have worked.
Joe Sanok: Do you guys do any paid advertising, any like email opt-ins, any of that or is it mostly networking and… basically how do you find clients?
Dr. Mark Mayfield: Yeah, we have tried. We have tried some of the paid stuff. We just find it’s not a good return on the investment. We did radio commercials, we have done ads in the paper and that kind of stuff. So we utilize lot of Instagram . We did Instagram and Facebook paid ads. We have also kicked off a social media movement called “me too,” and we have high quality videos of people sharing their story of a mental health struggle and then how they’ve overcome, in 5 minutes or less, and that’s been a really good advertisement as well, but also just helping break the stigma in the community. So because of all of those things, we have been looked at as kind of the leading organization in town now that people go to when they have questions. But then it’s a lot of, you know, we do a sponsorship [Inaudible 00:28:14.26] 5k and we will do different things like that, but it’s more strategic now, because we have realized that just that kind of shotgun approach to marketing just doesn’t work and you waste a lot of money.
Joe Sanok: Yeah, yeah. I love that idea of really focusing in and where you are going to sponsor – that’s something that mental illness counseling has done. A lot of… like we are sponsor different [galas 00:28:35.20] in town or if private schools are doing a fundraiser… people that are more our target market, rather than dropping $500 for the local paper and it just kind of gets recycled with everybody else.
Dr. Mark Mayfield: Now we are in the process of becoming a continuing contributor to the paper in town. There are a couple organizations in town that do magazines and they are asking us to possibly do some continuing contributions. So well I get paid for that, but it’s also free marketing.
Joe Sanok: I have written for our local paper for probably four years and I feel like it just creates a certain bedrock of knowledge, so that when someone does need counseling, they are like oh, who that guy in the paper, and it’s hard to track, but I think that just in getting feedback from people, especially people over the age of 50. They are like, oh, I cut out your article and sent it to my kid,” and like… It’s a great way to just demonstrate that expertise.
Dr. Mark Mayfield: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and so I think we are more intentional about those things now, but again it’s those relationships. So we offer, we have actually been invited now as experts to the school systems to give training to the school counseling – the principles, the parents, and stuff, but it’s just the ongoing, like we will provide anybody in your community a free 90-minute training as long as we are allowed to bring her marketing materials, you know, our cards and our flyers, and that kind of stuff. And that’s been well received and we have been doing that like crazy.
[PERSONAL BOUNDARIES]
Joe Sanok: That’s awesome. So what are some things you said in regards to kind of personal boundaries, because we can always do more with our businesses. Often times, business owners like have million ideas. How do you capture those ideas, structure those ideas. How do you make sure that it doesn’t… that you are not working 7 days a week, because we all could do that. What kind of personal boundaries do you have around that?
Dr. Mark Mayfield: I think a big part of it is… if you are married, dealing with your spouse [Inaudible 00:30:32.04] and going… what kind of schedule is sustainable. And so I have worked out with my wife that if I am out late one night, I don’t leave the house until 11 or 12 the next day. So I am with the family. But choosing to stay out, maybe once or twice a week, late, to see clients or to do marketing meetings, just in meetings or networking meetings that kind of stuff. But I turn my phone off when I get home. I mean my staff knows that if they have an issue, they are ways to get hold of me, but it has to be an emergency. And if it’s not an emergency, we will deal with it in the morning. And then [Inaudible 00:31:06.07] then [Inaudible 00:31:06.09] Saturday and Sunday, that’s my weekend and you know you can text an email if you want, but I am not going to get back to you until it’s Monday morning.
Joe Sanok: Yeah, and have you found that people just adjust their expectations when you set those expectations?
Dr. Mark Mayfield: Oh yeah, absolutely. And I tell my staff all the time. I said, you set your schedule with your clients too. Tell them when you are going to be there because if they really need counseling enough, they will work their schedule to fit yours. Don’t stay out every evening or the weekend. You know, be there early in the morning, and that’s been really beneficial as well.
Joe Sanok: Yeah. I remember when I first started Mental Wellness Counseling, it was probably a year in. My wife got pregnant with our first kid and she wanted to take a water aerobics class. And it was like a Monday, Wednesday, or Tuesday, Thursday. And I had people scheduled for like every evening of the week. And I was like, this is my kid and my wife. I need to do this. And I was really scared that these people [Inaudible 00:31:59.04] I can only come Wednesdays. We aren’t going to shift over to Tuesdays and Thursdays. And ho and behold, they all switched over. And it wasn’t a problem and it really taught me that when people see value in counseling and they see value in the outcomes, they will shift everything around to make it happen.
Dr. Mark Mayfield: Absolutely.
Joe Sanok: And I get to do water aerobics with my wife and a bunch of retired women. So that was just fun stories. I was amazing how hard [Inaudible 00:32:25.15]. I was suddenly the wimp in the group. So Mark, take us through like where are you guys headed? I know you kind of talked a little bit about that, but what are your own personal big goals moving forward, but then what are for the practice? What are your kind of big goals in the next year here?
Dr. Mark Mayfield: Well, couple of things. I think one is, we are really… actually today this evening we are launching the “me too” movement to the world. [Inaudible 00:32:51.10] conference with about 5000 teenagers and we are getting some stage time and then we are doing a breakout and stuff, and the “me too” movement is in the official launch tonight. But out of that actually, we are partners in organizations in town. We are going to be doing the “me too” conference in November, November 4th, and it’s a conference for [Inaudible 00:33:13.03] parents, teachers, the lay people that don’t have any understanding of counseling and that needs some of these things in their daily life, just an understanding. So it’s going to be a low level training. But it’s an all-day thing. We got a keynote speaker coming in from California and just a lot of [Inaudible 00:33:31.05] sponsorships around that. So it’s a kind of a big thing we want to do and try to do that on annual basis. And the goal would be to see if we could take it nationally over the next five or six years.
[CONCLUSION AND USEFUL LINKS]
Joe Sanok: See if people want to read more about the “me too” conference. Is there a website or way to connect with you on that?
Dr. Mark Mayfield: Yeah. We are in the process of developing it’s own website, but right now our landing page would be, you know, mayfieldcounseling.com/metoo and we will have our videos there. We will have information about the conference and that kind of stuff there. But the hope is to really break the stigma nationwide on what counseling is and isn’t, and how to get people help. And so that’s the big goal. That’s kind of the social enterprise piece of what we were doing. But also, I mean, we are set to do a $650,000 this year. And our goal is to break a million dollars in the next couple of years. We’ve just opened our second center, but six weeks ago of the three counselors we hired , they have full case loads. I mean they are already full. And so we are in the process of hiring some more, but we would like to strategically and wisely open a center in every district in Colorado springs. To be that neighborhood center that really partners with churches and schools and businesses to impact that area of town is our goal.
Joe Sanok: Wow, that’s super cool and so fun to see how much you’ve grown in just a short period of time from when you were dreaming about what Mayfield Counseling could be. Mark, if every counselor and practice owner in the world were listening right now, what would you want them to know?
Dr. Mark Mayfield: Be proud of what you do and what you offer, because it does make a difference.
Joe Sanok: Wow, Dr. Mark Mayfield, thanks so much for being on the Practice of the Practice Podcast. If people want to connect with you what’s the best way?
Dr. Mark Mayfield: Email. You can email me at mark@mayfieldcounseling.com or just check out our website. [Inaudible 00:35:30.10] is open for emails and if anybody wants to just pick my brain, they are more than welcome to.
Joe Sanok: Awesome. Well Mark, keep up the awesome work in Colorado and worldwide, and we will talk to you soon.
Dr. Mark Mayfield: Thanks Joe, appreciate it.
Joe Sanok: Right. See you.
Dr. Mark Mayfield: Bye.
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Joe Sanok: Well, Mark is just such a great example of having a vision, taking what you have learned whether that’s through consulting or other ways, and making it your own. I love that he says here’s what I learned in consulting, but then I twisted it a little bit to make it really my own. It’s just fabulous to see that. Hey if you are looking to get to that next level, I have a couple openings in my next level Mastermind. If you want to apply for that. The next level Mastermind is filling up and you can apply for that over at www.practiceofthepractice.com/nextlevelmastermind. It’s really for people that are at least $60,000. Most of them are at that early six figures. They are looking at leveling up, adding clinicians to their practice, having less stresses they do it, knowing where to spend their time and opted to have a big idea like podcasts or key notes or other things that they want to do to really change the world for the better. It’s really exciting to have already started with the other two Mastermind groups. It’s just so cool to see this group of six, say, you know what for a year we are going to work together. We are going to help each other get to that next level. We are going to push each other, give each other accountability, and create a community that can walk alongside each other to get to multi-six figures, while also not ruining our lifestyle. That’s the thing that I have discovered is that the people that build a six figure, multi-six figure practice, but work 60 hours a week, they just don’t sustain and they are not as happy, and that’s not just my jive. So if you are looking to increase your lifestyle to have those things that you want, the time that you want on the weekends, where you can genuinely push aside your specific practice, business, ideas and you know, enjoy life while also leveling up in multiplying your income, we would love for you to apply. As well, Slow Down School is included in the price. And so this year we are not going to have this many tickets open to the public. So if you know you want to come to Slow Down School in 2018, this is the best way to make sure that [Inaudible 00:37:57.24]. So we are going to have just a handful of tickets that are open to the general public. So if you want to do that, please make sure that you signup and apply for that.
Also, we love Practice Solutions. Practice Solutions is such a great way if you have insurance as part of your model, even if you are just on one insurance panel. They’re transparent. You know exactly where you stand with your billing. I recently had a client referred to them and they found $3000 in missed billing, just because the clinician wasn’t given the appropriate information from the biller, and they were able to recover all of that money.
So head on over to www.practicesol.com/joe and that will get you started. They will also transfer all of your current client from your current system over into their system totally free. There is no startup cost. So they are rocking out. Every single person I have sent their way has said it was a tremendous experience, it was amazing. It just was really a positive thing for them. So again, that’s www.practicesol.com/joe. Thanks for letting me into your ears, and into your brain.
Next, we have Eric Connor who really has grown a six figure practice by having groups, having lots of groups and leveling up his ability to make more by instead of just doing one-on-one, doing one-to-many. So can’t wait for you to hear that and we will talk to you soon.
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Special thanks to the band Silence is Sexy for intermusic, and this podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered, is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher or the guest are rendering any legal, accounting, clinical or other information. If you need a professional, you should find one.
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[END OF PODCAST 00:39:46:30]