Chanlie Leavitt 00:00:00  When I started eventually working behind the scenes on podcasts, it all clicked for me. Many of the podcast hosts that I had developed a relationship with through their shows, I ended up hiring in some way. It really opened my eyes to how powerful of a medium podcasting is for connecting with potential clients.

Maureen Werrbach 00:00:22  Welcome to the Group Practice Exchange podcast, where we talk about all things related to group practice ownership. I’m your host Maureen Werrbach.

This episode is sponsored by Therapy Notes. Therapy notes is my favorite EHR, and it’s one that I’ve been using in my own group practice since 2014. They’ve got everything you need to be successful in your group practice, and they’re constantly making updates and have live support. If you want two free months of therapy notes, go to Therapynotes.com/r/thegrouppracticeexchange.com.

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Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Group Practice Exchange podcast. I’m really excited today because you’re going to be hearing from the person who does everything related to my podcast Chanlie Leavitt of Paradigm Podcasting. And we’re going to be talking about how to leverage a podcast to grow your group practice.

Maureen Werrbach 00:02:37  So hi Chanlie.

Chanlie Leavitt 00:02:38  I’m so excited to be here. I was just saying, I’m not usually on this side of podcasting, so I was so excited when you asked me to be here. And now I’m like, understanding the nerves of my clients who record podcasts and the guests that they have on. So it’s a whole new experience. But I’m really excited to be here.

Maureen Werrbach 00:02:56  Yeah, you’ve been doing my podcasts for, I feel like a couple of years now, and when we were coming up with the themes of the next quarter’s episodes and you had on there leveraging podcasting, but you had like someone else on there, and I was like, Chanlie, why would I be interviewing someone else on this? We got to have you. So thanks for coming on to this side of it.

Chanlie Leavitt 00:03:18  Yeah. Thank you for having me. I appreciate you, and I’ve loved working on your podcast. Learned a lot about group practices and working with you.

Maureen Werrbach 00:03:26  Well, I’m excited to jump in because even though I do podcasting, I do it for my consulting business.

Maureen Werrbach 00:03:31  And so I actually all the things I’m going to be asking you about are things I don’t know the answers to, because I don’t have a podcast that I can leverage for my own group practice. So I’m excited to sort of hear your feedback on it. Okay, let’s jump in. Tell me why you think starting a podcast, if you own a group practice could be helpful? Because for me, all I think of is overwhelming. But then again, you know me and you know I don’t love podcasting myself. So this is for all those that are intrigued by the idea of podcasting, or want to start a podcast, but want to know how to do it in a way that, like, actually can benefit their group practice.

Chanlie Leavitt 00:04:07  Yeah. So I want to start with my personal story of how I got into podcasting, because I feel like it illustrates how a podcast can really support potential clients for your group practice. So back in college, I stumbled upon podcasts, and over the next few years, my favorite podcast host actually, like became close friends through some pretty hectic chapters of life.

Chanlie Leavitt 00:04:32  Just college and early 20s and everything that goes with that. And while I listened to those podcasts, listening helped me just navigate a variety of experiences, like being married in my early 20s and my husband’s cancer diagnosis and shifting careers, living in a foreign country and teaching and so many things. So I kept tuning in to my favorite podcast and found myself being deeply impacted by the messages I was hearing, so much more than any message I would have stumbled across on social media, or through a blog post or anything like that. Like I said, my favorite podcast host became like my close friends. I would go to them for advice and information about different challenges that I was experiencing, and gradually my thought patterns and actions and eventually, sounds dramatic, but my course of my life transformed and changed, and in many ways like the paradigm, how I view the world completely shifted. Hence why I named my business paradigm podcasting. But it, just like I said, transformed the way I thought about things and really helped me navigate through different challenging situations.

Chanlie Leavitt 00:05:52  So when I started eventually working behind the scenes on podcasts, it all clicked for me. I was like, oh my gosh. Many of the podcast hosts that I had developed a relationship with through their shows, I ended up hiring in some way, whether it was as my therapist or their service provider, or I purchased their course or something like that. So it really opened my eyes to how powerful of a medium podcasting is for connecting with potential clients.

Maureen Werrbach 00:06:22  I love that. The thing I think about is because podcasting in my head is like so global, and therapy in a lot of ways is so community based or like local. You know, I can’t do therapy with someone outside of my state. How do you navigate that? Because there’s so much, like visibility that you can get so far away that, like, isn’t helpful in terms of bringing, you know, more clients into your practice. I get that it makes your name more well-known, but like it’s helpful to people who are outside of your state might not actually bring in new clients.

Maureen Werrbach 00:06:59  How do you, like wrangle that sort of dynamic?

Chanlie Leavitt 00:07:03  So exactly like you said, podcasting does have a global reach, which is fantastic for building overall brand awareness, but it can feel really disconnected if your primary goal is to attract those local clients. So there’s some ways to bridge that gap and make your podcast a powerful tool for reaching potential clients within your state. So the first thing I would recommend is to think about using your podcast to establish yourself and your practice as a local expert, so you can create episodes that specifically address issues, events, or topics related to your local community. For example, you might discuss mental health challenges unique to your region, such as the impact of local policies, community events, or certain cultural dynamics. Yeah, another strategy is to invite local guests onto your podcast. So this could include other healthcare professionals, community leaders, or even clients who are comfortable sharing their stories anonymously. By featuring voices that your local community knows and trusts. You’re not only adding valuable content, but also creating a network effect where those guests will promote their episode to their local followers, increasing your visibility within your target area.

Chanlie Leavitt 00:08:23  Another really effective strategy is to use your podcast to build partnerships with local organizations. So this could be schools, non-profits, community groups. You can do this by mentioning these organizations in your episodes as a resource, or collaborating with them on specific topics. This also helps you tap into their audiences who are more likely to be within your geographic reach. One last one is to make sure you’re promoting your podcasts through local channels, so this could be through social media groups, community newsletters or even in-person events. So the more local visibility, the more chance of word of mouth referrals. So people are likely to tell their friends and family who might benefit from listening to your podcasts and then becoming a client at your practice. So the idea is, the more you route your podcast in local content, the more you can convert listeners into clients who are actually within your service area.

Maureen Werrbach 00:09:23  When a practice owner thinks about starting a podcast, what are like the first pieces of advice or steps that you would tell them to sort of consider, maybe even just you can go in any direction you want here.

Maureen Werrbach 00:09:36  The first couple of steps you would suggest that they take, but also maybe considerations before starting. Yeah.

Chanlie Leavitt 00:09:43  Okay. So before starting, I feel like my biggest piece of advice is to start with a clear plan for your show. So this helps make your podcast more effective from the very beginning and also helps you just stay more consistent when you understand the why behind why you’re recording episodes, and how it’s serving your practice and the audience that you want to reach. So the very first thing I would consider is the overall goal and plan behind your show. So I like to run through kind of a list of things to consider. First would be your audience. So who are you wanting to talk to and reach? And that would most likely align with the types of clients that you want to serve in your practice. Right? So who are they? What are their challenges and what will they get from listening to your podcast over all of the other shows that they could possibly get advice or learn from? Next would be what is the main mission behind your podcast.

Chanlie Leavitt 00:10:42  So how will you showcase your expertise in your practice? Through the topics you’ll discuss, and how will you take a unique spin to those specific topics? So really understanding like the mission and the why behind your podcast will inform the topics you’ll have on the guests you’ll have on, and the overall flow of the show. And the name of the podcast is also something to consider. This will help intrigue potential listeners, but also it’s important because you want it to authentically reflect your practice and the clients you serve at your practice. And then one thing that’s often overlooked when starting a show is the format. Like what types of episodes are you going to have? And sometimes people think about starting a podcast. They think they can sit down and just push play and record and it will turn out great. But you want to think about the format and types of episodes you’ll have. So are you going to host interviews, maybe solo episodes, or maybe you’ll bring on guest experts, things like that, and the length of the podcast.

Chanlie Leavitt 00:11:45  So going back to types of clients that you want to listen. So how long are they available and will stay engaged throughout one episode. So episode length is important there and then the schedule that you’ll release episodes. So that depends on obviously your capacity and your practice and the time commitment that you’re wanting to put in there, but also keeping to a schedule that will allow you to be consistent and keep your audience engaged week to week, or bi weekly or monthly, whatever frequency works best for you there.

Maureen Werrbach 00:12:17  I feel like that was one of my bigger struggles is what kind of episodes when I first started. Like I cringe at if I would have to listen to any of my first like 50 to 60 episodes because I had no idea. It was like, you know, years ago, but also, like, I didn’t know. I kind of jumped into it. And so I thought I would do just me because I hate having to schedule things with other people, you know? And then what if I am not in the mood to do it at that time? Like, I like solo ones because I can do them at my own pace when I’m in the mood.

Maureen Werrbach 00:12:50  But then I realized it’s really hard to just, like, talk alone in a microphone all the time and so then I started to include interviews and guest experts. But it definitely was one of the bigger learning curves for me, which is like, what do I want the episodes to look like? Yeah, I kind of just jumped right into it, which means you just have the messy middle.

Chanlie Leavitt 00:13:10  Yeah, and I know we’ve talked as we’ve done planning for your episodes. You’ve mentioned like, yeah, solo episodes are great because you can record whenever you want, but then it also is fun to add that variety and of different guests and allowing different perspectives to come in. And guests that have different expertise in different areas can really bring a lot of value. So I always suggest a mix of both solo, where you really get to showcase your personality, and maybe if you’re having different therapists in your practice, showcasing those different personalities and expertise of the therapists in your practice, but also maybe bringing in outside perspectives of maybe people that have experienced different situations and getting their personality and understanding perspective.

Chanlie Leavitt 00:13:57  Yeah, as a great variety.

Maureen Werrbach 00:13:59  So I feel like when people are interested they get excited. And then they buy a headset, they buy a microphone and then they kind of jump in. What are like the planning and production and distribution, what’s the process like and what’s involved in all of that? Because I feel like people kind of try to wing that after the fact.

Chanlie Leavitt 00:14:19  Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, like you said, people often jump in and buy all the things and they get really excited when they start a podcast. They start off really strong and then quickly a lot of podcasters learn. It can be a lot. I mean, other than just sitting down and recording, there’s often the planning that goes into like we talked about earlier, like the format and what you want the show to look like, and just having an understanding of how you want each episode to flow before you even sit down to record. If you’re having guests on, you want to prepare for the types of questions you want to ask to really leverage their expertise as well.

Chanlie Leavitt 00:14:55  So there’s the planning aspect of it. But then also there’s if you’re having guests on, there’s the scheduling aspect, the corresponding with them to make sure they’re prepared as well. And then after you record. So there’s the recording, of course. And then after you record there’s the editing of the audio. So like with your podcast we’ll edit out like long pauses. Today with my episode, I’m sure I’ll edit out some of the words I’m stumbling on and things like that. So editing out any content that doesn’t flow, filler words and stuff like that, and that often takes you think of like, oh, it’s just going to take 30 minutes to sit down and edit it, but it often takes 3 or 4 times the length of the episode to actually edit out the content and really make it sound like high quality audio. So there’s that piece of it. And then there’s also writing the show notes. So the show notes that people are seeing on the podcast player, if they go look at the podcast we’re listening to now and then uploading and then any episode assets.

Chanlie Leavitt 00:15:54  So if you’re promoting the episode on social media platforms, putting it on your website, writing blog posts about it, anything like that can take a lot of time. So it can be anywhere from 5 to 10 to 20 hours of additional work per week, or however often you’re releasing episodes. So one thing that I like to help my clients avoid is pod fade. Have you ever heard that term?

Maureen Werrbach 00:16:18  No, but I’m assuming it’s when you start strong and then put her out.

Chanlie Leavitt 00:16:22  Yeah, yeah. So pod is exactly what you said. They start really strong and then they might become, like more sporadic as they publish. And then eventually they just kind of stop producing episodes and their show just fades quietly into the night. So that’s what I try to help my clients avoid having a specific podcast production schedule and helping them avoid pod fade. Getting into a really good schedule like you have with batch recording episodes. And then if you can, hiring a team member that will help you take some of that load off of that whole production process, and also keep you accountable for consistently producing episodes.

Chanlie Leavitt 00:17:02  Yeah, because it’s really easy to skip a week. And then once you skip a week, it’s easy to skip another week and just kind of put it on the back burner so.

Maureen Werrbach 00:17:10  I know that feeling well. what advice would you give someone who’s thinking about starting a podcast, but they just don’t know where to start? Yeah.

Chanlie Leavitt 00:17:19  So, like, we kind of talked about earlier, really taking some time to sit down and consider all those things that we talked about. So having that clear plan. So like we mentioned it will help you just understand why you’re doing it and help you be more consistent. So thinking through all those things we mentioned earlier, your audience, the mission behind your podcast, name of the podcast format, things like that. As I’ve kind of worked with other business owners to help them launch their podcasts. We work through all those pieces together, and I noticed that people are having that same question of like, how can I make sure that I have that clear plan and that I’m being consistent and I’m not just starting out and then shifting to a whole nother strategy once I start, and really just having a clear picture of nailing down all of the essential elements that are important to really help your podcast be an asset to your practice and make sure it’s aligned with the values of your practice and is an asset.

Chanlie Leavitt 00:18:18  So it’s serving your practice well. So I created something called the Purposeful Podcast Playbook. So it goes through all those elements we talked about and just has prompts and questions that help you consider how you can make your podcasts irresistible to your clients, that you want to serve, and also serve your business well.

Maureen Werrbach 00:18:37  Will that be in the show notes?

Chanlie Leavitt 00:18:38  Yes, I will link it in the show notes.

Maureen Werrbach 00:18:40  Awesome. I know we’re heading in towards the end of our time, but we didn’t talk about this marketing it. I know that’s probably a whole nother podcast episode, but what are your maybe a couple of suggestions I guess specific to, you know, it’s likely going to be a mental health related podcast because if it’s to, you know, feed in new clients to the therapy practice, that’s going to be something therapy related. What are some marketing strategies to getting the podcast kind of locally known in that way?

Chanlie Leavitt 00:19:10  Yeah. So like we mentioned earlier, it’s important to really tailor your podcast towards the clients that you want to serve and where they’re mostly likely serving that local population, really tailoring the content towards that local population and in the specific area of practice that you cover.

Chanlie Leavitt 00:19:28  So a lot of people, when they start podcasts, they kind of think, oh, I’m just going to produce an episode. It’ll show up on all the podcast platforms and it’ll grow, right. But what I always tell my clients is, you want to make sure to share about your podcast in other places, so people can just be aware of the podcast outside of maybe they happen to stumble across it.

Maureen Werrbach 00:19:50  On their well. Also like Spotify or the podcast app like there’s a billion shows on there. Like you being on there is not going to make you visible.

Chanlie Leavitt 00:19:59  Yeah. Right. Exactly. So I always recommend creating assets to help promote each episode. So one of my favorite things about podcasting is that you can use your podcast as a form of macro content. So it’s really easy and efficient to sit down for 30 minutes, record an awesome episode, and then be able to use that episode to create a bunch of pieces of really awesome content that only took you 30 minutes to create initially, right? So I would recommend, like I said, using your podcast as that macro content to then create other forms of content.

Chanlie Leavitt 00:20:37  You could do so many things with it. It could be blog posts on your website, which then creates more traffic to your website. Long form video. If you record your video and put it on YouTube, short form video clips that can be shared on social media graphics for social media, email newsletters. There’s just so much that you can do from one podcast episode that can not only help your show grow, but then the ultimate goal is help your practice grow and help become more visible to your ideal clients.

Maureen Werrbach 00:21:09  So I love that. So if people are interested and want that support, because of course anyone who’s listening is a group practice owner, they also don’t have all the time to do all the parts of it. But if they’re thinking about starting a podcast and recording and they want that support which you offer and I highly recommend channeling, how can they reach you.

Chanlie Leavitt 00:21:30  So you can find me on Paradigm Podcasting? Com and then I am on all the social platforms. I hang out on Instagram most of the time, but paradigm podcasting on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn.

Chanlie Leavitt 00:21:45  So connect with me there. And if you’re interested in launching a podcast, I can help with the initial creation. So creating that concept and nail down all of the ideas and the format of the show like we talked about earlier, but then also that continuum of production and management of the show. So managing guests, reaching out to them like we do for you, scheduling and planning your episodes and then producing them. So the audio editing, creating those assets like we talked about and just keeping you accountable, helping you from pod fading.

Maureen Werrbach 00:22:17  So you definitely do that because I would have been a pod fader a long time ago if it wasn’t for you. Well, I appreciate you coming on to this side of the podcast and yeah, thank you.

Chanlie Leavitt 00:22:29  Thank you for having me. It’ll be a whole new experience editing my own voice. So.

Maureen Werrbach 00:22:34  Yes. Yeah. Enjoy that. Yeah. Well, anyways, I appreciate you and thank you so much. Thanks for listening. Give us five stars on whatever podcast streaming service you use, and I’ll see you next week.