Community Marketing For Therapists ft. David Sternberg

Uriah
Hello there! Welcome back to the podcast! This is Uriah. I'm so happy to be chatting with you or sharing this content with you today. I I had a chance to talk to a new colleague that I just met recently, and his name is David Sternberg. Since 2012, he has run a psychotherapy group practice in Washington, DC, called DC Talk Therapy. It started with one part-time therapist, and now he has 12 therapists and two full-time office administrators. Prior to starting DC Talk Therapy, David had a successful solo practice in Washington, DC for 10 years. In 2020, he started another business called Pen & Practice, where he helps therapists from all over the country with their writing needs. Very cool. David has a master's degree in social work from Florida State University and a bachelor's degree in English literature from the University of Rochester. I really enjoyed this conversation, and I hope you do, too. 

Hello, David. Welcome to the Productive Therapist podcast!

David
Thank you so much for having me.

Uriah
Yeah, it's wonderful to meet you. I was telling you this before we hit record, but I was so happy that you reached out and suggested this topic because as we were chatting about this, I don't think enough people are talking about community networking, community marketing, and helping therapists understand how to do it. Just first of all, thank you for coming to me with the idea.

David
Yeah, of course. I love talking about community marketing, so happy to be here.

Uriah
That's great. For the audience, I would love to hear, and for myself, actually, because we just have met recently, I would love to hear about you, your practice, and a little bit about your story.

David
Sure. In 2012, I started a psychotherapy group practice in Washington, DC, called DC Talk Therapy. I started the practice after being in solo practice for 10 years. We now have 12 clinicians including myself and two full-time office administrators. We offer individual therapy and group therapy, and we see adults of all ages, but specialize in treating young adults, those in their 20s and 30s. We're an out-of-network practice, and we see clients in-person and online.

Uriah
That's fantastic. You've been doing this for a while.

David
I have. I started in solo practice, part-time solo practice, in 2002. It's hard to believe, but coming up, 22 years now.

Uriah
Twenty-two years? Yeah. You've been around the block a few times.

David
I've been around the block a few times, and I think I've learned a few things, too.

Uriah
That's great. This is a random question, but have you ever heard of the band DC Talk?

David
Well, it's interesting you say that because now I have. I didn't until I started this practice, and then I would Google practice, and DC Talk would It's come up quite a bit.

Uriah
That's so funny. I think it's a good name for your practice. I like that. Has that name worked out well for you?

David
It has. I came up with it. I wanted something that had DC or Washington DC in it. I wanted it to be place-specific. I liked talk therapy more so than psychotherapy. It sounded, to me, a little bit more approachable.

Uriah
Definitely. Yeah, I like that. Did you pick that name quite a few years ago, I'm guessing. Was that 2012 or before?

David
That was 2012. Well, technically 2011, I picked it, and then we launched in 2012.

Uriah
That's great. Last year, I actually changed the name of my practice and completely did a rebrand because I started my group practice and named it after myself, which was not really intentional. There is a story behind that, but in any case, I named it Guilford Family Counseling, and that was fine. But after a number of years, I thought, I don't think my name needs to be on the door. So we rebranded it, and I chose something which I thought was fun, I still think it's fun, which is in-tune family counseling. We help families with getting in-tune and attuned to each other. It's a whole music theme, too, in our counseling waiting room and whatnot.

David
It's fun. I like that.

Uriah
Yeah. Names are important. They are, for sure. Tell me, what were some of your first experiences with community marketing? How How did you get started with that?

David
Sure. I started doing it 17 years ago. In 2007, I had a part-time practice. At the time, I was seeing, I don't know, about eight clients, maybe 10 clients a week. I was also working part-time at a hospital in DC, and I was looking to grow my practice. I really wanted it to be a full-time practice. I had this idea that, Well, why don't I reach out to primary care doctors and psychiatrists, all within about a two-mile radius of my office? I didn't want to go too far out. I just started cold calling them. I googled them and got names from the internet, and I just started calling them. I had mixed success, I'll be honest. That's part of my story, too, is that you really have to be comfortable with rejection, and in fact, lots of rejection. I started cold calling primary care doctors, psychiatrists, and I would say, I would introduce myself and tell them a little bit about who I was in my practice. Then I would say, Can I come in to your office and meet with you and bring coffee or lunch or whatever you would like? A lot of them right off the bat said, No, I'm not interested, and that was the end of it. But I would say about 25% of them were open to it. That number has pretty much been consistent over the years. Interesting. About one out of four have been open to me coming in. Then I would say, That's great. Thank you so much. Where can I stop by and pick up lunch? And they tell me. And then I would do that and pick up lunch for the team. And then I would go in. And my thought always from the beginning would be to do a lot of listening, a lot less talking. I'm not a hard sell person. I don't like that done to me. I wanted to listen. I wanted to hear from them what they're hearing from their patients and how I could help them, how I could be a nice adjunct to the work that they were doing with their patients. It just took off from there. I can go into a lot more detail if you like, but that's how it started.

Uriah
Thank you. I definitely have some questions. You were googling and then cold calling and then making a a soft pitch to just bring in lunch or coffee or snacks or something like that. Then would you sit down with whoever was available or was it sometimes several providers? Did it vary?

David
It varied, right. I learned very early on, you've got to be very flexible with your expectations. And so the first few times I did it, I thought, Oh, I'll meet everyone in the practice. No.

Uriah
Sure, they're all going to gather around.

David
That rarely happened. Most of the time, and I've done so many of these over the years, probably at this point, I don't know, 40 or 50, something like that. But typically, how it works is that a small number show up, and they show up on their schedule. So people I'd come in and out. Throughout that hour that I blocked out, I would say, I'm here from 12:00 to 1:00, and whoever shows up, shows up. And so a doctor or two would come in and grab lunch, and I'd have a short conversation with him or her. Same thing with a couple of the nurses, the techs, admin. I talked to everyone who came in. I wasn't there just to talk to the doctors. I wanted to talk to everyone who was present. Again, to hear from them and talk to them and tell them a little bit about how we could help. But I had to be very flexible with who showed up and for how long I got them. Oftentimes, it was a minute or maybe two minutes. Again, it was asking them a lot of questions. What kinds of issues are you hearing from your patients?  Sometimes they would say, Well, we're hearing a fair amount of anxiety or marital discord, or depression is on the rise, whatever it might be. We would talk about that a little bit, and then I would say, Well, we have these therapists on staff, and these are their hours, and so on and so on. The other thing that I learned early on is to prepare for basically the same three or four questions from-Oh, that's good to know.from doctors. It was, Do you accept insurance Are you in network? I should say, are you in network? If so, what insurance do you contract with? What hours do you offer? Where did you do your training? That was also a real big one because doctors, for them, that's a big part of their background.Your pedigree.Your pedigree. Where did you train? Then the other one was, what's your specialty? They always wanted to know that. We have on our staff an OCD expert, for example. We have a substance abuse specialist. We have a couple of trauma specialists, so I was able to let them know all of that. But I pretty quickly learned the doctors ask you the same three or four questions. I was already prepared ahead of time each time I went into the office.

Uriah
Sure. That's great. What I'm hearing you saying is, first of all, you got to be okay with projection on some level, especially if you're cold calling. To some degree, community networking, community marketing, probably starts out with contacting people that you don't know, most likely, right? Right. Being okay with rejection, then I heard you say, be flexible with your expectations, especially if you're going into another provider's office. That seems important because you don't want to... You don't want to set yourself up for disappointment. Then not bring your best self or your best energy.

David
Right. Yeah. Very much so. Then, as I said, I was there for that full hour. Sometimes I've had literally two people show up. Other times, I remember years ago, I sat for 45 minutes with a staff of eight, which was fantastic. Sure. But that didn't happen that often. So you just never know exactly what's going to happen, but just be flexible in your expectations. And then I would always follow up afterwards. So one thing that I learned to do pretty quickly is get an email address, an email address from doctors, nurses, as well as the admin. Oftentimes, it was just an info@email address. But I would always follow up the next day. Thank you so much for having me. It was great meeting you. I'd love to collaborate in the future. Something short-Friendly. And friendly, something like that.

Uriah
Would you bring in business cards or flyers? What would you bring with you?

David
I would bring in business cards Then later, this was maybe five or six years into doing this, I created a one-page bio sheet with information about each therapist and their picture. I thought this was a really good way to make it known who each therapist is and what their specialty area is. Doctors would talk about, Oh, yeah, I've got your your sheet right here, and I'm referring so and so to this therapist. They really appreciated that, I think. That's great. I think that the unstated thing here is that you're solving a problem for primary care doctors. I've met so many doctors over the years who have said to me, This is great that you're here because I don't know who to refer to. I had one doctor years ago. He said, I just go down the Blue Cross list, and I'll just pull a name out of there. Oh, my goodness. Right. And send the patient to that person. He said, Now that I've met you, I'm happy to send patients your way. It's a good way of looking at it. You're solving a problem for them. Most of them don't know therapists. They know other primary care doctors. They know other specialists within health care. But in terms of the mental health world, I think very few of them know us. Again, this was really helpful for them because of that.

Uriah
Yeah, two things that are coming to mind. I mean, first of all, I love your approach of going in to listen and coming with the attitude of, How can I help? What are your needs? What are your patient's needs? And how can we maybe fill in the gap there a little bit? I like that. Versus, obviously, being a pharmaceutical rep that's coming in to sell and wine and dine and schmooze somebody. That's an approach that I think a lot of providers would guard It's balanced, right?

David
Exactly. I think most people think it's pretty distasteful, right? Absolutely. I never wanted to feel like I'm promoting myself or pushing myself. I'm here to educate and tell you that we're here as a resource, hopefully a helpful resource for you and your patients. That was the other thing, too, that I learned early on. You've got to call them patients. They're not clients. They may be clients to us.

Uriah
That's a good point.

David
They are patients to the doctors because that's how they refer to the people that they serve.

Uriah
Yeah, definitely. That's a good point. Also, I think things are changing, but some things stay the same. I still think that providers want to refer to other professionals that they know, like and trust as much as possible because it feels better. Because if I know you and I get a referral that's ideal for you, I'd love to be able to say, You should go talk to David. He's the best person for what you're needing, versus, I picked a name out of a hat, and good luck. I think we all still appreciate and feel good about making those, I would call it a warm referral or a warm handoff of some sort.

David
Yeah, it's someone you already know even just a little bit, and I think that always helps. Just in terms of flexibility, I can tell you another just quick story about that. I called a doctor's office years ago, and I said, I'm happy to come in, would love to meet for lunch. The front desk person said, The doctor works through lunch. I said, Well, can I bring breakfast? She said, Well, he starts at 07:00 AM. I said, Okay, well, you know what? Would it be okay if I came in at 06:30? She paused for a second. I think she was a little taken aback, and she said, Yeah, I guess that would be okay. I was there with coffee and bagels at 06:30, and I had a nice conversation with him. At seven o'clock, he said, I got to go. I got patients to see. He wound up being a really nice referral source for us. Again, flexibility in all kinds of ways, I think, is just really important here. I've networked with other, or I've done community marketing, I should say, with other professionals with a lot less success. I've also done community marketing with acupuncturists, massage therapists, nutritionists, psychiatric nurses, clergy. I've had a little bit of success with these professionals. Not much. I would say the number one referral source It's by far, head and shoulders, is primary care doctors. Isn't that interesting? Not even psychiatrists. Psychiatrists actually are a pretty distant number two, which is surprising to me. But in DC, at least, a fair number of the psychiatrists also provide therapy.

Uriah
Really?

David
Yeah. That's part of the reason for that.

Uriah
They're not referring out as much.

David
They're not referring out as much.

Uriah
I think it's definitely worth saying that, well, it's like with anything. With digital marketing, it's true as well. But you can do a lot of things, spend a lot of time, effort, and money with very little result if you're not smart and thoughtful about how you're networking. Because you could easily take bagels and cream cheese and coffee to 20 different places. But if you don't do it thoughtfully and strategically and also follow up, then you're just not going to get a very good return on your investment, so to speak.

David
The other thing I've learned is that you don't need a really high number or large number of doctors who refer to you. We really have five solid referral sources, primary care doctors who refer to us. Because they refer regularly to us, again, we don't need a large number of them.

Uriah
Because they see a lot more patients than we see clients on a daily basis. Exactly.

David
That's right. Once you get a handful of primary care doctors who know you and like you and have started referring, and then the patient goes back to the doctor and the doctor says, How did it go with David? Oh, I really enjoy working with him, then it really starts to snowball.

Uriah
Absolutely. It just builds from there. That's so good. I remember the day that I got an email from a local pediatrician who had been referring. We've been cross-referring for years, and it was a fantastic relationship. I got the email that she was retiring, and I was so sad because, obviously, you get connected to folks that you cross-refer to, and as colleagues, but also it takes effort to build those relationships over time. It does. I realized I'm going to have to start, not start over, but I'm losing this one great referral source. But for us, pediatricians have been really good referral sources because we've always worked with kids and teens, primarily. Yeah.

David
Just to put things in numbers, which may help some of your listeners. Sure. Since 2012, when When I started the practice, community marketing has generated a little over $2 million in sales. In a typical year, about 20% of our clients come from community networking.

Uriah
Wow. That's amazing.

David
Yeah, mostly primary care doctors, but again, a few psychiatrist referrals and an acupuncturist or two, and a nutritionist who refers to us from time to time. I would say about About 80% come from primary care doctors. But $2 million in sales is not insignificant. Most people in our field, they do a lot of internet marketing. That's the area where there's a lot of focus. And yet the thing that I think really helped us the most over the years, yes, we do internet marketing and AdWords and all that. But I think because we've done community networking and we've got solid relationships with lots of doctors and other professionals in the community, it has helped us immensely. There's this idea of red ocean versus blue ocean that I only learned about, I don't know, a year or two ago. It really makes sense in light of this because so many of us in the mental health world focus so much on internet marketing, and that's the red ocean. That's where everyone's fighting over clients. This blue ocean over here is community marketing, where very few of us are engaging. Even colleagues I've told over the years about this and about how successful it's been, I'm not sure that they've taken me up on it. Anyway, I would encourage your listeners to really get involved in it because I think there's a huge It's a good opportunity.

Uriah
Yeah, that's a really good... I'm glad that you talked about the Red Ocean versus Blue Ocean. That was a good book. I really like that book. I read it a couple of years ago. It's such a good point. It's humorous to me that in 2024, the way to stand out is to do something very old. Almost timeless. I mean, not quite door-to-door salesman, but to do something that is, in a way, not scalable, and it takes more time and effort, but it's very powerful, and not a lot of people are doing it. I think that's great.

David
We're relational. We're in the relationship business. Why not build relationships with people in the community?

Uriah
Absolutely. I was just thinking about that. I'm in a business complex, and I've been working in offices in a business complex for some time. It tends to be like mortgage companies and CPAs and, retirement financial advisors. It's actually been great because I use the professionals in my building for CPA and for retirement and investment advisors and stuff like that. But if you find yourself in a location with complementary professionals, or it doesn't even have to be that. Everybody needs to refer to a chiropractor at some point or a painter or fill in the blank. Even just meeting your neighbors or walking around where your office is and making connections is really good.

David
Absolutely. Just three points about community marketing that I wanted to make here. Number one, the return on investment. The ROI on this has just been phenomenal. Since I started with community marketing, I've spent a little under $25,000, which has generated a little over $2 million in sales, which is just a phenomenal return on investment. I'll You have to take that every day. Right. Then number two, again, like I mentioned earlier, very few colleagues do community marketing. It's still a secret out there. Again, It's a way to have an advantage over what's becoming a very competitive, as I'm sure you know. It is. Very competitive field. Then lastly, the third point is I think when a client's primary care doctor refers to you, it has a very different feel. There's a lot of trust in there. The doctor has already vetted you in some ways. What I've noticed over the years is that when we get a client who's been referred by their primary care doctor, they're ready to go. They're ready to schedule an appointment. They're not asking a million and one questions or dragging their feet, which sometimes happens when we get a referral from our AdWords campaign, for example. Oftentimes, if they get referred by their primary care doctor, they're ready to schedule. It's done. It's a done deal.

Uriah
I'm so impressed that you tracked all those numbers, by the way. That's fantastic that you know that.

David
Yeah, we did a pretty good job of tracking.

Uriah
That's excellent. I We have a couple of curiosity questions. The first one is, this is taking a step back, but I think it's helpful to talk about this. Why do you think more therapists don't do community marketing? What holds them back?

David
I have a couple of theories. I think number one is that we're largely a group of introverts. I think it's It's scary for a lot of us to put ourselves out there. And yet, I can tell you, I'm an introvert myself. But I also learned the value of doing this, and I also enjoyed meeting new people. So literally, anyone can do this. Just because I've had some success with this doesn't mean I'm the only one. I feel like anyone can do this as long as they're willing to put themselves out there and, again, deal with a good amount of rejection. I can't overstate that because that does happen quite a bit. I think sometimes therapists associate any of promotional work as sleazy, and this is far from it, as I was talking about earlier. I think that there's a little bit of a connotation with, well, if you're Promoting your practice, talking about it, then there's a a used car salesman feel to it. That's certainly not the case. As I mentioned earlier, most of us in this field are introverts, or a lot of us are. I think there's a little bit of a fear of going out there and talking to people. That makes sense. Because of those things, I think that tends to keep people from doing it. But again, I would really say, try it, put yourself out there, do it a few times. It's not as scary as you may think it is. The offices that I've gone into, they've been welcoming, they've been accepting, they've enjoyed me coming in there and talking to them, or I should say listening to them because who else is doing this?

Uriah
I think that's unique. Those points make a lot of sense. I identify as an introvert as well and have found success with community marketing. Two things that I think have helped me quite a bit is doing it one-on-one. I would say I've probably done less of what you described and more connecting with local professionals and meeting with them one-on-one, just like myself and the provider. That's worked well for me. Then also I think this is probably pretty common that we don't like selling ourselves or talking about ourselves as much. For me, and I'm guessing for you, too, having a group practice and being able to promote and highlight other clinicians with specialties, we are a group, it just feels a bit better instead of, You should send your patients to me. It's just easier for me, personally.

David
Yes. I'm much quicker to promote other staff than myself Well, certainly. But yeah, lots of listening, lots of questions that I would bring in for the office staff. I think that, again, I don't have a business background. Again, I'm an introvert, and so I really feel like lots of people can do this. It's just taking that first step. The first step is contacting primary care doctors, contacting psychiatrists. Then what we've done over time is we have on our intake sheet In intake form, one of the questions is, who is your primary care doctor or psychiatrist? Can we get a release of information? Then we've started contacting those providers. Then it went from just cold calling these primary care doctors or psychiatrists to a much warmer call of, We have this mutual patient, and I want to just check in with you after the first session, and that's how this has transitioned to some degree over the years, is let me just give you a one-minute synopsis of this patient and the treatment plan going forward. Then at around the 12th session in the 15th session, a second check-in.

Uriah
What you just described there is a vastly underutilized approach. I don't want to call it a strategy or a technique. I don't think it hardly anybody does that. But it's so useful to that busy doctor seeing a ton of patients to get an update from the behavior health provider, whoever that might be, that is useful information for them that doesn't cause them to have to do a lot of work. How many of those do they get from the therapist of their patients? Probably little to none. They're like, I like this David Sternberg guy. He's really helpful to me in my work and my patients.

David
Again, solving problems for them. To your point, I had one primary care doctor years ago. At the end of one of these calls, he said, This is amazing because in the past, I would send a patient to a therapist, and I would never hear anything again. So thank you for this. I appreciate the information. We would collaborate on the phone. I would want to get their take on the patient, too. I was also very mindful of their time. I I never wanted to take up. I always thought two minutes, three minutes tops. I do not want to take up. I know they're very busy people. That's something to keep in mind as well.

Uriah
That's great. I was reminding myself. I was recollecting about a referral relationship that I built years ago. It was actually with a local psychologist who worked with teens and substance abuse. We met, I went to his office, and we had a good talk. Then within a couple of days, I wrote a handwritten card, and I mailed it to him. He talked about that afterwards, and we became friends after that, too. He said, Nobody does this. Nobody sends a thank you card for just connecting. That's something people can also do with the follow-up. I think you mentioned an email, but you could follow up in any number of ways. But a thoughtful card, it goes a long way. It really does.

David
Yeah, it does. It sends the message that I'm spending time and energy thinking about you. It's also very relational. It is. I think that doesn't happen that often anymore. I think when it does, it really stands out.

Uriah
I have two more questions for you that I really want to hear your answer to. The first one, because we're both group practice owners, and then a lot of folks listening to this likely are, and some are solo. But have you gotten your clinicians involved in community networking and marketing? And if so, how has that experience been?

David
I tried to get a few of them to do this early on. This was years and years ago. It did not go well. Okay. I could tell both times that, I think we only did it twice, that the therapist felt very uncomfortable, did not want to be there. This was not something that they enjoyed. Not a good fit. Not a good fit. I talked about it both times with them afterwards, and they said, Yeah, this is just not my thing, and I'd rather not do it again. I said, Totally understandable. I get it. I dropped it after that. After those two experiences, I thought, I don't need them to do this, and clearly, they're not comfortable doing it. At that point, I was comfortable with it, and so I just took it upon myself to go each and every time by myself.

Uriah
Definitely, yeah. I think it's a good idea not to try to push those boulders up the hill, because unless somebody in your practice comes to you and says, I love networking, how can I help? Then yes, find that person up.

David
Exactly. If that had happened, then sure, I would have.

Uriah
But I've- It doesn't.

David
No, it does not.

Uriah
I've had the same experience with wanting to promote the clinicians in my practice by having them and helping them write blog posts for our website. That's worked out reasonably well. But if you're not a writer and if you don't have a strong desire to share a message, you shouldn't do that. Somebody else should do it. It's not worth the time and effort because it's not good alignment, I guess.

David
Now, I tell therapists when I hire them, your job is is in many ways just very simple: provide exceptional therapy, come to the meetings that we have, do your notes on time, and that's it. I don't have any other expectations or responsibilities for you.

Uriah
I have one last question for you. Actually, this is the second and last one. If you were to move from DC to a completely new state, completely new area, and you were starting a brand new practice in 2024, would you do anything different, or what would you do in terms of community networking or marketing?

David
I would do a lot of the same things that I have done. I think one thing that I would do is I would start contacting primary care doctors and psychiatrists ahead of time and saying, I'm going to be moving to such and such city in a few months time. Would love to set something up when I get there so that I'm hitting the ground running when I get there versus going there and then having to start going through that process. I think I would do a lot of the same. I think now that I have this 15-second speech that I do with office staff, I've bumbled my way through for a little while there, but I perfected something. That's the other thing, too, that I forgot to mention earlier, is you've got to be super nice to be front desk staff. They deal with a lot of difficult stuff, difficult patients. They're oftentimes overworked, underpaid. I feel like you've got to make friends with the office staff. Again, they are the gatekeepers to a lot of the other people you want to meet and talk to. So be incredibly nice and patient with them. But, yeah, back to your question. I think in terms of starting over somewhere else, I would do a lot of the same things that I've done. Really, again, the focus being on primary care doctors. I've had some success with some other professionals. I may not even attempt in the beginning to reach out to psychiatrists, which is interesting. It seems counterintuitive.

Uriah
Right. Yeah, that's good. I think, based on what you shared, I think that would… Doing the same things in a new place would probably get you very similar results to what you've achieved in your current practice. That's good. I love that because, again, it's like timeless, making connections with people, solving problems, making friends, and being helpful. That's really what marketing should be. I mean, obviously, it's turned into this whole other thing of trying to grab people's attention and all of this. It's gotten very, very noisy. But human connections bring a different quality of feeling and value. I'm really glad that we had this conversation. If folks want to know more about your practice or anywhere you want to point them, Sure.

David
Our practice is www.dctalktherapy.com. Then I also have a side business that I started three years ago, maybe a little over three years ago, where I help other therapists from all over the country with their writing needs and community marketing needs. I have a writing background. I love writing, I love editing. I do a lot of writing editing for other therapists with regard to their website, their psychology today profile, things like that. That's fantastic. The name of that business is Pen & Practice, P-E-N-andpractice. Com.

Uriah
I think you have a thing with names. I like that one, too. Thank you very much. That's penandpractice. Com? Yes, exactly. Perfect. I'll put those links in the shoutout so people can find those. What a great collection of skills and abilities you've developed, and thank you for sharing them with people, too, especially here on the podcast. I appreciate it.

David
Thank you so much. This was a lot of fun.

Uriah
Absolutely. Take care.

David
You, too.