8 Tricks To Seriously Change the Way Your Run Your Biz: Interview with Lauren Deville – PPP: 069

Today we’re talking to Lauren Devill. The cool thing about today’s interview is we’re not focusing on one particular topic, instead, it’s basically a complete checklist of all of the amazing things that you can start to do to promote yourself, your business, and to get things jumpin’ and bumpin’. If you are listening to this around the time it’s being posted, the beginning of November, which for my Canadian listeners especially, this is the key time to be letting your patients know that they have 2 months to use up their benefits. I actually have one person, which I mention in the interview, who has promoted on Facebook, using Facebook ads, promoting that this is her client’s last chance to book now, and she’s already had a massive onslaught of bookings in her calendar. I can also tell you that my calendar is totally exploding right now too.

So get those emails out, let people know, and what I like to do around this time are a series of countdowns: an 8-week, a 6-week, and a 4-week, and then that last month it’s a weekly reminder to tell my patients to come in. We want to make sure Q4 finishes with a bang!

The Maximize Your Clinic Course is going to be opening for enrollment.

We have massive promos and discounts going on right now.

This will be the last time that we open enrollment for 2018!

Check out: maximizedbusiness.ca

Questions I Asked Lauren:

1. How has your brother, who has had no medical experience, had such a big influence on you?
2. What have you learned about writing articles that result in getting people into your office?
3. Describe how you’ve committed to writing articles for so many years?
4. Can you talk a bit about creating consistent content on social media?
5. Do you have certain strategies for blog posts?
6. What is it that you find about podcasting that has positively supported your business?

What You’ll Learn From This Episode:

• How Lauren niched herself within the naturopath space.
• What Lauren did to become the #1 naturopath in Tuscon, Arizona.
• Why she feels that blocking her schedule has increased success in her business.
• How she became an author and what that process was like for her.
• What Lauren suggests for someone who is just starting to create content.

Connect with Lauren

Website | Twitter | Her Book | Her Podcast

Today, we’re talking to Lauren Deville. The cool thing about today’s interview is we’re not focusing on one particular topic, instead, it’s basically a complete checklist of all of the amazing things that you can start to do to promote yourself, your business, and to get things jumpin’ and bumpin’. If you are listening to this around the time it’s being posted, the beginning of November, which for my Canadian folks, especially, this is the key time to be letting your patients and future patients know that they have 2 months left to use up their benefits. And I actually have one person, and I mention this in the interview with Lauren, who did a Facebook post, who has promoted on Facebook, using Facebook ads, promoting that this is her client’s last chance to book now, and she’s already had a massive onslaught of bookings in her calendar. I can also tell you that my calendar is massively exploding right now too. So, definitely consider that, get those emails out. Let people know! And I typically around this time will do like an 8-week countdown, and then a 6-week and then a 4-week, and then on that last month it’s a weekly reminder to all of my patients to come in. So, please consider doing that before the end of the year because we wanna make sure Q4 finishes with a bang! 

Alright, so I’m going to jump right into the interview shortly. I’m just going to start by letting you guys know that if you are listening to this this week that The Maximize Your Clinic Course is going to be opening for enrollment. If it’s not already open by the time you listen. So check out my website, it’s right there on the headers. We have massive discounts and massive promos happening with regards to the course and this is something you don’t want to miss because this will be the last time we open enrolment for 2018 especially with my favorite piece which is the Elite VIP in Mastermind group and that’s three months of coaching. So, check that out on the maximizedbusiness.ca website and let’s jump on to that interview with Lauren. 

[3:08] Andrea: Hi Lauren! Thank you so much for being on the Profitable Practice Podcast. How is it going up way up there in Arizona? For those who don’t know who you are I’d love if you’d give us your brief background story on how things are going on with you and your practice. What’s really helped to evolve to where you and your practice now and then we have like a really, really fun kind of rapid fire awesome tips for everyone.

Lauren: My name is Dr. Lauren Deville. I’m in Tucson, Arizona. I niched in two different ways in sort of accident. One of them was, I advertised my website back when I was a Christian, I did not expect that it would end up niching me. A lot of people come to me for that reason. I have a podcast called Christian Natural Health and that causes people to come to me. I’ve got another one coming up next year, the first one is called Healthy, Body, Mind and Spirit and the next one is the Holistic Gut Prescription. The other thing that I have actually niched in is Biotoxins. I didn’t mean to niche in that, it’s just that people were finding me and so I have to become familiar with it. The book is called Holistic Gut Prescription because I do so much Gut stuff as a piece of everything else

Andrea: I find that very amazing! I wouldn’t even have thought about someone’s value outside of the health realm being a gateway to have a niche yourself.

Lauren:I kind of thought that it would going to hurt my business, but it hasn’t. Not everybody comes to me as a Christian themselves; it means that people feel to have an idea where I’m coming from.

[6:20] Andrea: Yes, so now let’s jump into your business, how did things change with your biz and the cool thing with your story is that your Brother that has no Medical Background at all, have this huge influence on you.

Lauren: Yes he does, he is an entrepreneur and an IT guy, he does a lot of programming and he has his own website Natural Healthcare. He does a lot of Social Media Marketing. When I started, he did not really start Natural Healthcare that yet, he just knew the way that Google Works, so the vast majority of my business came from the thing that he taught me to do in terms of writing articles and playing the popularity contest game on Google. When I started, he encouraged me to write. I was a writer and he knew that. So, I started writing so many articles, and he encourages me to find a place to publish them. At that time, there was an online newspaper in Tucson called The Tucson Citizen and I just managed to get a weekly Blog on there. So, I started doing that and he said that “Make sure that you’re linking back to your website” and I did that, and it caused my ranking to jump of probably less than 6 months of starting a practice. I was the Number 1 Naturopath in Google and all of a sudden, I started getting more traffic than I knew what to do with as soon as I had my own location. The consistency has been huge and I’m now in the process of expanding and bringing in another doctor and he’s running Facebook ads for her specifically because I don’t need it anymore. So we’re advertising her and it’s just like we’ve started the ads. It’s amazing how much traffic I’m already getting from that. 

[8:37] Andrea: That’s just a valid piece, even with my coaching client, this is the beginning of November and it’s a perfect opportunity to start reminding people in Canada that their extended benefits are lapsing, most of them lapsed from January to December and I had one person posted a Facebook ad, simply just saying “your insurance is up for the end of 2018” and so she said her calendar exploded like people just flooded into her calendar and as Naturopaths we just don’t get this business Social Media Facebook kind of background and because you’re putting caution with regards to investment it can be such a scary thing to do but you continuously hear stories just like your own of how an ad could have game-changing effect on your practice.

Lauren: If you know what you’re doing, It’s complex, I’ve been listening to different types of business Podcast for a long time and the ins and outs of how you do stuffs like that is so intricate, it’s another career, so having someone else manage that for you is totally necessary if you’ve got a busy practice also.

[10:09]Andrea: I completely agree with you. Now, I don’t wanna go too much into Facebook ads, because that’s probably a whole day of conversation, but I do wanna go through some of these amazing tips and tricks that you before we had a call and I think going back to where you’ve started, about just writing, because writing is something that anybody can do, a new grad, somebody who is just going to graduate. Give me your favorite things that you’ve realized about writing articles to get patients into your office and etc.

Lauren: I think so much of it is just being authentic. When I first started, I was focused on writing it in such a way that it gives people a hook and it kind of have the right keywords. So, that’s important you do wanna have the right titles and headers in order for Google to recognize it. What I started doing is, I write articles for me, it’s always based on questions that have come up as a result of my investigations or conversations that I’ve had with my patients. I don’t know how that works, I don’t know the physiology of this issue, so then I go research it once a week just for me to go investigate it, because I have discovered that you learn much better what you teach. So, I’m teaching myself essentially, in those articles. And that may be, I mean that particular articles may or may not be the one who resonates with somebody who wants to come and be my patient, but the consistency of doing it every single week over the years, does build up a lot of credibility. Then I have noticed too my articles have become increasingly obscure, because there are more things that I wanna know and that attracts a certain person too and that builds my credibility as somebody who really knows the ins and outs. So strangely enough, I’ve had many business coaches tell me that I should only be writing about the Gut for instance. That may be very well helpful but I don’t feel like that’s what I want to do because I write the articles for my own education; it makes me a better doctor. And I wanna make sure that I’m still living up to that, so I’ve actually found  that by doing that; writing what I’m interested in, it keeps me wanting to do it and it keeps me being consistent.

[13:13]Andrea: Now, the key thing that you said there was writing for years and years and this is the piece that I find that all people having hard time is: getting things invested in the long game. So describe to me how you get that grit.

Lauren: Again, it depends on where your passion is in terms of marketing. I tried a lot of things. I did try in-person presentations while I’m working, in my experience that is not really that effective. It felt thick to me, I don’t know if it’s because of my personality or how I do it, I did not stick with it because I hated it, so that wasn’t the way to go. Writing is so natural for me, it was something I knew I could stick with and I was interested enough to do it, it’s not to say that I never have to force myself to do it, I also do. But, I also block off a time in my schedule, same time every week to make sure that it actually gets done. So having it blocked like that, I also write fiction at this time, so that’s the same thing I also wanna do for that, I have to block off time with my schedule every day or this point of the week. I’m going to write fiction at this time whether I like it or not, I do the same thing in writing for my Blogs. So, I think in order for you to stick with any habit, you have to set yourself up for success in that way.

[15:10] Andrea: I love that, I love blocking off schedules just to make sure that you’re effective, and that’s another piece that I know it’s not on the list, but maybe we can touch on it very briefly, since we’re here, there’s such a tremendous fear of reducing our hours, and yet a lot of clinicians are having four-hour gaps between their patients or they’re book ending them and they’re afraid that, when I offer four hours in a day instead of twelve, I’m going to lose all these patients, but you just have a great example why blocking off is very important for marketing and the flow of patients to your business. So, what else have you noticed about blocking off your schedules?

Lauren: I remember talking to somebody when I first graduated; about my ideal schedule, being where I could still continue to write fiction and I could do my practice as well, and he said “Well, create it, just do it now, cause you won’t be able to come back later, you can come back but it’s going to be difficult, but if you set it up now, those patients are going to end up filling in where you want them to, you can also be fully invested in something else in another time, I also found it for my own sanity, that’s very helpful because I can mentally know  I’m supposed to be doing this time. Like, I should be seeing patients this time but nobody shows up. I’m going to see if I could come up with something else this time, and I feel scattered that way. So having structure and feeling like “I’ve already earmarked this thing” really helps with focus for me. Also, people will end up filling in where you’ve instructed them to. I never did open up with Saturdays, even with a lot of people initially feel where they have to do that. I didn’t want it to be my lifestyle so I decided that I am going to create the schedule in the beginning and people would fill in 

Andrea: And there’s no reason why you can’t do that now, I think the important piece you said right there is “Just do it”. Like we’re not talking about five weeks around I suggest that you do it next week. So the next thing that I wanted to ask you about on our tips and tricks list, is going to be about consistent content publication on social media sites. Again, this is all about leveraging your time in the format of automation. So, describe to me how you find that to be helpful.

Lauren: Initially, before I knew about cross listing sites, I used to try to put my content on my Blog, I tried to go to each individual Social Media site and put it up there. So, it is very helpful to me to use essential service like that even though it would cost you about ten bucks a month but it is still worth it. So that I can make sure that I am hitting the entire major group, all of the social media sites. And again, I do it once a week; I used to do it often, but at this point it’s not that high priority to do it on a daily basis because I do not have the time. But, I think that whatever you do make sure it is consistent and if you got all of those sites you make sure that you’re posting enough to keep them current. So I think doing something like that is a really great idea.

[18:51]Andrea: Do you have a particular strategy that you use for a particular Blog post, for instance, I love the strategy of taking little snippets out of my Blog post each snippet is a days’ worth of post on all social media platforms and doing it in a course of twelve different post, to kind of reinvigorate that same Blog post.

Lauren: I’ve done that before, and that was really great for engagement. There was a time when I had somebody that I hired to do that for me to go through all of my post and create little tweets and tweet links. So I had a post everyday across all of my social media site and I got more engagement. That person isn’t working for me anymore, so I haven’t done it since then. But, it actually does work very well.

Andrea: So next one is Guest Vlogging. How can we go on to other sites? I know that everyone reaches to Huffington Post, but is there any more blogging sites?

Lauren: I did write for NDR, in that case they reached out to me, and I didn’t agree, so I haven’t done it again, but with Tucson citizen, I asked them, I also write for Natural News I haven’t been consistent with that because I was in the process of expanding, but for that you just have to ask them. Some of them will say yes, and some will say no. So just put it on your list of weekly goals to apply to certain numbers of larger publications per week and keep sending queries until you get one.

[21:01] Andrea: Have you ever used Help a Reporter out that HARO website?

Lauren: I have, I do get their emails, frankly overwhelmed by them, because I got and they send a lot of them. But I have done them before and there was a time when I had someone to monitor that for me and would send it if she saw something that she thought would be appropriate, I tried that but I have never been that consistent, but I do think that it is a good one. Even though in that particular case it would not be as regular as if you were a registered contributor to Tucson Citizen Natural News, Huffington Post or something like that. But it is a great way to get your name out there especially if they let you link your name right there because it would give you more Google Power.

Andrea: So, again it is a free site to open as say that you are going to be a Research Contributor and it is called Help a Reporter Out, and they send out emails three times a day with a list of all publications that Journalists are just looking for assistance on with regards to information, and that is something that’s a really great way to start leveraging yourself as an authority and getting involved in all people’s blogs or pieces of writings or publications so check that one out. Now I wanna talk about my favorite piece of media and that is video. So tell me about the success and the power of video/Youtube.

Lauren: Yes, I have done a couple of Youtube interviews and linked to those on my websites and I have discovered that it ends up consistently on page one of Google when somebody is looking for me for whatever reasons, that seems to be prioritized in search engines. Most of the time, I wasn’t even looking for them it was other people were doing it so they could reach out to me. And I could then use the video after the fact that it has been huge because it also helps people feel like they know you. So if they search for a Naturopathic they kind of get the feel for who you are and what you’re all about. I did actually start a Youtube series, so again it comes back to what you love and how you’re being consistent with it and I do feel awkward when I’m on camera. But, I think I could get pass out at some point especially for promoting my book that’s coming up next year. I know videos came right now and I know I needed it. But the ones that I do have, is working.

[24:15] Andrea: Have you ever been dabbled in any facebook live or anything like that because that seems to be the new big way to stay into the new feed because I know that facebook is changing.

Lauren: I have not, I did for a little while jump on the bandwagon of Parascope for a little while. More for my fiction author stuff than my Doctor stuff because I knew that if I’m going to present myself as a Doctor, I need to be polished and professional, if I am a fiction writer I can just talk and be me. So the same reason I’ve shied away from doing any facebook live stuff is because I often feel self-conscious. Again, it’s on my list I will do this at some point.

Andrea: Well, congratulations on releasing not only one but two books now. Every time I go to a seminar, this is what everybody wants to do, they say only two percent of people who wanted to start writing a book will actually publish a book, so you are within the small community of the two percent of the planet that has actually done this. But let’s talk about having a published book and why is that such a fantastic tool.

Lauren: It’s another way of people to get in to knowing you and I didn’t actually write the book for the marketing idea in mind. I wrote my first book because I felt that it is what the people needed, but not necessarily want it and so it is kind of like straight naturopathic theory like give yourself building blocks you need in order to heal. From the marketing standpoint, nobody is looking for how to be healthy; they are looking for how do I get rid of my certain problem. That’s why I ended up writing the second one which is The Holistic Gut Prescription, and it is taking a lot of the same information because anything that a naturopath is going to write is going to have a lot of the same stuff, you still have to eat and other things, it’s going to be there regardless of what you call the name of your condition. So, I took the same step and I repackaged it into something that was more Gut specific, so I have to get back to you on how that works in terms of marketing. I did it on the advice of Dr. Alan Christianson who is in New York Times Best Seller, he wrote to books, well he’s written several about the Thyroid but his New York Times was Adrenal Reset Diet. He was saying, “Okay, that is great you can take all that information, make it something that people will be searching for”.

[27:38] Andrea: That was brilliant, now that you have said that, I have been itching to get back to my book now that I published because it doesn’t reflect kind of where I am now, but I want to do it all over again. That’s a beautiful way to that, but the first piece of doing it is to commit to write it, and then you can do whatever you wanna do with it. And just being able to say that you are an author, typically that gives you next level way to be an authoritative piece, people will want to feature you in their pieces of work because you have an authorship and a book after your name. Have you found that it has made impact with regards to networking and getting more publications out

Lauren: I have certainly noticed that it gives me more credibility in the patient community. 

Andrea: Now, another piece that I want you to talk about is Podcast. But just talk about creating a Podcast or something that is Podcast like, because there’s a lot of way you can do it, can be done with live streaming, or just having a live Youtube channel if you want to. But, what is it with Podcasting that you find also is a fantastic tool for your patients, business, and so on.

Lauren: My Podcast is Christian Natural Health, and there’s two different Podcast that I do, and I just alternate between the two. One of them is essentially taking, I’m repurposing my vlogs all over the place. I’m taking vlogs that are high in Google Analytics so people are interested in this. Basically I just talk about it in an episode; it gives people another way to consume the content if they are not reader. So, I do that and other Podcasts that I do are Scripture Medications. I started doing that for me because I started looking for that kind of Podcast, and I discovered it didn’t exist and I thought I’ll just make it myself. I’ve had a lot people come to me and they’ve said that they have enjoyed those and find it encouraging and it also another for people to feel like they know me and now I’ve got enough of the following and some patients that come in and say “I’ve listened to your Podcast so long I feel like you’re my friend, I feel like I know you. It means that those people are going to be my best patients because they already self-selected themselves. So, find that very helpful, I originally did it in part because I was looking for something that is in Scripture Medication and because I thought that eventually if I could get enough of the following, I could turn this into passive income string that could allow to me cutback with my hours and spend more time with other things. 

Andrea: And I love that, I’ve always wanted to deliver my knowledge to greater global population that I would be able to see in my practice. So I think that’s a heart-centered place to be. And we have to be developing all of our business tactics and we have to be around just to serve and not to have some sort of financial return immediately. I just wanted to go back you said that you would create a Podcast episode with what is trending in Google. Describe to me how you do that. 

Lauren:I just go to Google Analytics for my website and I can see my content; which blogs are hot and I make Podcasts based on those. So the ones that are very top priority made Podcasts about a long time ago and I just go through the list, because I have been doing this for so long I got a lot of contents on there to pick from. But like I said I was repurposing my content all over the place and also my books are largely a compilation of blogs that are just all eccentric on one idea. So when you start writing those articles you can use it all over the place like for social media, for Podcasting and books.

[32:53] Andrea: If someone was just starting out, wanting to start to create content on what’s trending like that week or that day in the news or in the Google. Is there a strategy around just finding pieces of information that people are searching for.

Lauren: I guess if I’m just starting out I may use the Pocket that’s my new favorite place to get content on what is trending across all different kinds of topics. So you could go to Pocket and see what is trending and how. And then basically start taking that information and rewrite it in your own words and posting that. Again, going back to what you said few minutes ago about serving a greater population without necessarily wanting monetary game. We’re talking about writing what you’re interested in. It’s funny how when you’re writing and you do that from a place of service and in a place of being a better doctor educating yourself. If you’re seeking money sometimes it doesn’t seem to work as well as when you’re seeking to serve, people end up coming to you anyway as a result of that. Pocket is an app that I have on my phone. Now, when I go to Google Chrome it shows me the top three trending articles in the genre I have selected. I go there and see what turns to be trending. You can also go to media and see what is trending in the Medical area and get the same types ideas that way.

[35:14]Andrea: Now, the final piece that I wanted to talk to you about is, there’s something about putting free information out there but I think there should always be some sort of action, something to drive somebody back to your website, something to drive somebody on your email list. Like you should always be trying to ask your audience to do something with the information that you’ve just delivered. What have been your favorite calls to action that you have used with your Social Media and Vlogs.

Lauren: When I first started, I’ve got a really short PDF that is 10 things that everybody should have in their medicine cabinet, so that’s my freebie, if you sign up then I’ll send you that PDF. And then what I’m also doing now is I got a quiz on my website, it is Gut related as well and it take about 5 minutes and once you’ve answered all my questions then you have to give your email address in order to get these specifics, I got 5 different possible buckets of what your issue could be one of them is kind of broad ideas. And there’s some free duties right now and we’ll see results but you have to give me your email address in order to get in the list. So that has been more effective than just doing the basic freebie because everybody wants to know their information. I will also say that probably the very best free giveaway that has translated into profit has been free 15-minute phone counsel offer. Because people are interested in becoming patients but it is becoming a big investment, they wanna know especially there are people who have been to doctors and have not been getting better, they wanna know if you are different. So I have my office coordinator put them on my schedule because I really don’t like spontaneous things. I wanna make sure when I’m going to talk to you. I usually start by saying “Tell me little about what’s going on” they tell me their story and I say, this might have gone wrong and etc. I don’t give them any specifics in terms of “I think you should take this herb, I think you should do anything like that”. I would just say, from a philosophical standpoint “This is what I think is happening, this is the approach that I would take” that seems to really convince them, and I have a grasp on what I would do in order to approach it. Most people end up being patients.

[38:29] Andrea: I wanna go back on the quiz piece, because I completely agree that quiz is one of the best driving factors in building their list and getting people in their funnel. Is there easy way to put a quiz together? Because initially when you think about it, it gets incredibly intensive to have all of these different buckets of questions in order to get to this specific answer. How did you put together your quiz?

Lauren: The hardest part was actually the technology piece of figuring out the plug in. So the one that I used was called drive dashboard and is with word press. So that seems to do the trick then I could separate things out into bucket. That I think is what I would do and it’s the basic kind of question that you’d ask a patient face to face, so if you’re discussing with a new patient and you’re trying to differentiate between whether they have leaky gut syndrome or yeast overgrowth. I put that kind of question in the list. 

[40:19]Andrea: Anything that we may have missed of our rapid fire tips and tricks today?

Lauren: It is really critical to encourage happy customers or patients to leave reviews for you. So, I make sure that, if somebody seem that they were better, but the people that have been excited, I’d say “Hey! Please go, leave me a Google Review” I still have my hand out cards that my front desk hand out to people if they seem to be excited I give them the exact website to go to, not all of them will actually do it but at least some them will do. And I got some people come to me because they have read my reviews.

Andrea: Lauren, if people wanted to go to you, what is the best thing to do so?

Lauren: My website is www.drlaurendeville.com and you can find me on Facebook and Twitter as Dr. Lauren ND as well, either one of those would be great and my contact information is on there and there’s also a link on my website.

Andrea: Thank you so much for being on the show. I hope you have a wonderful day! Alright Guys, I hope you wrote down that review of all the points that we talked about and I hope at least one of them will be the strong consistent pieces that you want to do. Because quite frankly you enjoy doing it, I can tell you even between the time that I recorded this Outrow and doing this Podcast interview which is a couple of hours, I even got to think about doing patient research and this would be things that maybe my audience want to hear about and maybe I will record a video or write a Blogpost about it or maybe I’ll do both. If you are struggling with action taking we are getting towards the end of 2017 and perhaps the year doesn’t look like the way you see it would end, perhaps there are still things on your list that you would like to achieve before 2018 starts. If that is the case, contact me let us set up a strategy and a plan to get you executing to get this year end with a bang. Just personally email me at info@themaximmovement.com I’ll be glad to set up a call with you. This is Andrea Maxim with the Profitable Practice and, I’m out!