April 24, 2025 • 27 mins
Get your step by step guide to private practice. Because you are too important to lose to not knowing the rules, going broke, burning out, and giving up. #counselorsdontquit.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
hey, there, I'm dr kate walker and this is the
tuesday group coaching for allStep it Up members.
You guys get it first andeveryone else they can hear it
on the podcast.
Maybe eventually, I don't know,but this is a great topic.
I get lots of requests to talkabout this and it's also one
(00:40):
that I see when I'm stalking thesocial media threads, and it
has to do with Google, andusually it's a different thread
that has to do with social media.
So if you guys have heard metalk about this before, you know
how I feel about social media.
I mean, I love it, I'm kind ofaddicted to it, but at the same
(01:01):
time, therapists often think weneed a social media presence,
but we're not really sure how itserves our purposes.
So how are we using it inmarketing?
How are we identifying it inour consent forms for our
clients and potential clients?
So for this particular day ofGoogling and social media-ing, I
(01:25):
wanted to focus on a few things.
First of all, number one, therule of confidentiality, and
I'll talk about that.
The second thing I want to makesure I cover is how to get a
Google review the right way, andit's not from clients review
the right way and it's not fromclients, then how do you respond
(01:48):
to a bad Google review and thenhow to make it all work in your
marketing strategy?
So if you take out the word orphrase Google review and you
insert social media posts socialmedia posts, right, it's the
same thing.
Because you have this socialmedia presence, you don't often
(02:11):
have control over who is likingand commenting on your posts.
So let's start with thefoundation of what are the rules
of confidentiality.
So, long and short.
Client owns their information.
The client owns their PHI orsensitive information, right,
(02:32):
anything identifying thatbelongs to your client.
Now they entrust you with that,which means, if I hand you my
puppy for the weekend, you'regoing to have to assure me that
you're going to take care of mypuppy for the weekend.
You're gonna have to assure methat you're going to take care
of my puppy in certain ways.
Right, you know, don't let itout, make sure it gets fed, make
sure that you close that brokengate you have in your backyard.
(02:56):
So, as the keepers or thecustodians of the protected
health information, we followrules like HIPAA, like FERPA,
like our licensing rules, lpc,lmft, social work, et cetera.
So when we follow those rules,we are being good custodians of
(03:17):
the thing that doesn't belong tous, right, it's been entrusted
to us.
Now, if we take all of that andwe say, okay, well, how are we
going to communicate to ourclients that we are good
custodians, we can take goodcare of their information?
Well, it's in the consent form,right In the rules, in our
(03:39):
codes of ethics.
We have to put in the consentform that we are following the
rules, how we are following therules.
Now, implicit in that is oursteps we will take if something
goes south.
Right, if something goes wrong,how we will mitigate the damage
.
So I'm putting all of thatthere.
(04:02):
I'm not going to go deeply intothat.
I probably have anothertraining out there somewhere
that dives a lot deeper intoHIPAA and confidentiality.
But what I want you to hear mesay when I talk about this is
clients can do whatever theywant to with their information.
Okay, right, I mean, if I goback to my puppy metaphor, it's
(04:23):
their puppy.
They can do whatever they want.
That's what makes it tricky forus as the keepers of the
information, as the licensedkeepers of the information right
, I don't have anything againstcoaches, and they may have a
(04:45):
code of ethics that says thatthey protect health information,
phi and sensitive information,but there is no license that
tells them they have to right,they don't have a licensing
board.
I'm not really sure about wherethey stand with HIPAA.
They might have to follow HIPAA.
I don't know.
I'm not really sure about wherethey stand with HIPAA.
They might have to follow HIPAA.
(05:05):
I don't know, I'm not a coach.
I have a coach.
I have a business coach, lovemy business coach.
But you hear what I'm saying.
As a license holder, you mustfollow these rules.
So, yes, you will include it inthe consent form.
But now let's think about if weplan to use social media for
(05:25):
marketing purposes.
It's a great idea.
I mean, if you have gone andyou've done all the things like
I told you to do back in January, right, you took your goals,
you put it into Chat, chat, gpt,you put in where you see
yourself in five years and youcompare it to what you're
(05:48):
actually doing week to week toweek.
Hopefully you have a greatstrategy for social media and
marketing, or just marketing ingeneral.
And if you want to includesocial media in that, you
probably want to add that toyour informed consent.
Now, if you have not heard mytraining on what should be in
(06:10):
your informed consent.
You can go back and listen tothat.
I released that in January.
That was something that'sstepping up, I think we went
through and we actually did somescreen sharing and I showed you
how I place my social mediainformation into the client's
consent form.
And a couple of things that Ihighlight are social media is
(06:33):
not for communication and I'mnot going to respond to your
social media.
So, in other words, if you'regoing to say, hey, I can't come
to my appointment next week,that's communicating.
I'm not going to communicatewith you on social media, right?
Or if you like my post, I'm notgoing to go find your profile
and like your post back.
(06:53):
So it gets complicated.
And we have to keep in mind too, if your social media is out
there.
You don't know if somebody isliking your post.
I mean, I know in TexasCounselors Creating Badass
Businesses.
We get requests all the timefrom people who want to join and
it's not their name, like it'snot even a name, right?
(07:13):
So we can't really identifyanybody solely by their social
media handle.
So when you have this consentform and you're putting things
in writing for the client toagree to before they agree to or
as they're agreeing to becomeyour client, then you want to
(07:33):
make sure you identify at leastthose two things right Social
media, google reviews.
They are not how we are going tocommunicate with one another.
So let's kind of shift for aminute to Google reviews Very
basic.
I'm going to tell you how tomake sure you're able to manage
(07:55):
your Google reviews.
You've got to go online, youhave to do Google my Business
and you have to claim yourbusiness.
I know, when I posted this orwhen I talked about this about a
year ago, those of you withvirtual businesses, I didn't.
I don't think there was a wayfor you to claim your business,
(08:15):
because Google loves Google Maps.
They want people to be able tofind you, and those of you
without a physical location, itwas going to be tough for you to
claim your business.
So here's how they do it rightyou go in, you kind of fill out
the information and theyactually mail you a postcard via
snail mail.
(08:35):
So you put in the address whereyou are, where your business is
, the business you're claiming,and they send you a postcard.
When you get that postcard inthe mail, it's going to have a
code on it.
You go back into your accountin Google my Business and you
enter that code and, boom, youhave now claimed your business
(08:57):
profile.
So I highly recommend you dothat.
I don't know what happens if youdon't claim your business.
I don't know if someone else cango in there and do that if they
don't have your address.
But if you claim it, hey, it'syours.
Then you can start usingpowerful Google reviews to help
(09:18):
you market your business.
I mean, that's one of thethings that when we go to
business coaches and smallbusiness development and
chambers of commerce and we'resitting with people and think
tanks and we're all trying tofigure out how to better our
businesses, they look at ussideways because we're saying to
them we don't solicit clientreviews.
They're like are you crazy?
(09:39):
I'm like no, we're ethical,right, we don't solicit client
reviews for Google.
But that doesn't mean it's notgoing to happen.
So when we start with thefoundation of claiming your
business via Google my Business,then at least you have a place
to start from as these reviewscome in.
(10:02):
And if they come in, remember,clients can do whatever they
want to with their information.
If they want to give you areview, there's nothing you can
do about that.
Well, let me get to that in asecond.
So let's just let's say thegood ones right, if it's a good
review, right.
So then you have your business.
You've claimed it, nobody elsehas it.
You go here and you're like butKate, what if somebody gives us
(10:26):
a bad Google review?
Now, I've attended lots ofwebinars on this with attorneys
Laura Clement, kenda, dalrymple.
I've heard from board members,I've heard all kinds of
information about this and I canfilter it down to one thing
Don't respond.
Don't respond to a Googlereview from your client.
(10:50):
You have an obligation toneither confirm nor deny that
that person is your client, andthe minute you start to defend
yourself in a bad Google review,you have confirmed that they
are your client.
Now, if that person was neveryour client, I would say so
(11:12):
right, I'm sorry.
According to our records, we'venever seen you before.
You've never been a client inour practice, right, I'm sorry?
According to our records, we'venever seen you before.
You've never been a client inour practice, right?
Saying something like that isfactual and it emphasizes this
is not a real review, it's afake review.
The other thing you can do andI'm actually going to turn here
to my left, because I do have myGoogle my Business up and when
(11:36):
you're logged in to your Googleand I know I mean this sounds
weird, but when you log in, so,for example, when you open your
browser and you see in the topright-hand corner Gmail, google
Drive, youtube, those are underyour Google account and if you
(11:56):
log in to a different Googleaccount it will take you to a
different set of information.
Again, not going to go downthat rabbit hole in this
training, but if you are loggedinto your Google account that
set up your claiming yourbusiness, then you will be able
to access your reviews andrespond to them.
(12:19):
So let me say that again.
Number one you have to claimyour business on Google my
Business.
Number two you log into yourbrowser with the same email
address you use to claim yourbusiness.
Then you are able to access notonly your reviews and respond
(12:40):
to them.
You can get the link to shareyour Google review for people
you do want to solicit, and Iwill talk about that in a second
.
So let's say you're logged in,you go to your business and the
way I do it is probably not theway you're supposed to do it.
But I put in Kate space, walkerspace, training space, because
(13:05):
I've googled myself a lot.
It would come upkatewalkertrainingcom.
And I don't want to go to myweb page, I want to, and you can
also open an incognito browser.
I put in Kate Walker trainingand if I don't put it in like
that, then Kate Middleton'sgoing to show up, or Kate the
romance writer there are lots ofKate Walkers out there, so I
(13:26):
put that in and then I'm able tosee my Google reviews.
So I've got 64 Google reviews.
I click on the highlighted link,the hot link, google reviews,
and I'm able to go through eachone of my reviews and respond to
them and report them.
(13:48):
So if I did get a review thatwas bad and first of all let me
just kind of do an aside here Ifyou get a bad review, that's
true, that's real right.
Don't respond to it, but youneed to take a look at your
business.
That's what we do here.
So I look at this and if I geta five-star review, yay, thank
(14:10):
you.
If I have and I have never I'mgoing to knock on wood real
quick.
So far I have not had to have areview reported, but I have
colleagues who have.
There is a exclamation pointicon and when I click that it
says why are you reporting thisreview?
Off topic, spam, conflict ofinterest, profanity, bullying or
(14:35):
harassment, discrimination orhate speech, personal
information and that containspersonal information such as
address or phone number.
So you can report a bad Googlereview to Google with any of
those criteria.
So that's as as a licensedprofessional if someone gives
(14:58):
you a bad review, that isunwarranted, it is spammy, they
were never your client.
First of all, report that.
Right, and in fact I would dothat.
I know I said about sevenminutes ago that you can respond
to someone who's a non-client,but that's just really walking a
pretty sticky line there.
(15:20):
So you can report that toGoogle.
The second thing I would do Idon't know if I'm up to two or
up to three is solicit Googlereviews from colleagues.
Now you can do this with socialmedia as well.
Ethically, I will stand on thisbox and on this hill.
(15:42):
I will fight for this.
I don't care what anybody saysout there.
We do not solicit reviews fromour clients.
Current past.
Just don't do it right.
It offsets, it upsets thebalance of the relationship.
It puts you in a position ofwanting something from your
(16:02):
client for your gain notnecessarily theirs.
But you can do two things.
You can solicit a review from acolleague and so, when
something appears in your Googlereviews that's negative, you
can reach out to colleagues whohave factually seen you teach
(16:25):
right.
They know maybe they had aclass with you and they know
that you always showed up ontime.
You were a great team player.
You were somebody that theycould count on to get your stuff
done right.
You were somebody that theycould count on to get your stuff
done right.
If they can attest to somethingabout your professionalism, then
I would absolutely ask them hey, would you here's the link to
(16:47):
my Google review Would you mindwriting a review?
Just something that you knowabout me, because you know me
personally.
Also, if you have ever taught aclass, if you have ever given a
presentation, a CE, or spokenat a conference or in front of a
PTA meeting, ask someone who isin attendance at that meeting
or who hired you say could youwrite this Google review?
(17:09):
I've got this bad review onhere and we're really trying to
make sure we offset that withsome factual information about
what you think of myprofessionalism, right?
So if they just say, hey, youknow they're a wonderful person
and they bake really goodcookies, that's probably not
going to offset a bad review,especially if it's something
that's actually happening inyour office that you're trying
(17:31):
to correct.
But you know, bad reviewshappen even in the best
restaurants.
You can't please everybody allthe time Reaching out to
colleagues and helping themconnect with your Google link
and write a review.
You can then go in and respondto those, right, because that's
not protected health information.
So you can go in and there's away.
(17:53):
Again, I'm looking to my lefthere, because if I click on my
Google reviews, the first thingthat comes up it's a window and
it has replied unreplied.
So I usually go in and clickunreplied and if I have a
fabulous review, I go in and Isay thank you, right, this is my
(18:14):
business account.
That is not client related,right?
So I'm not protecting anybody'sinformation here.
These are not from clients, andso if you got a review from a
client, remember what I said inthe first five minutes of this
presentation do not respond to aclient review, unsolicited
client review.
Remember we can't control whatthey do, and if they want to
(18:37):
give you a review, ignore it.
But if a colleague gives you areview someone who's not your
client, who has witnessed youpersonally be excellent
somewhere out in the communityabsolutely give them a thank you
, say thank you so much for thefive-star review.
I'm so glad you enjoyed my talk.
I'm so glad you enjoyed my talk.
(18:58):
I'm so glad you enjoyed mypresentation right Something so
that you're helping themunderstand.
Or the person who's just foundyou on Google yeah, I've got
people out here that know me andcan attest to my
professionalism, all right.
So we've got soliciting fromcolleagues.
I'm going to circle you back toyour existing clients.
(19:18):
Yes, I do remember telling youwe won't solicit reviews from
our clients, but you can gatherclient data with outcome surveys
.
So if you give your clients aHIPAA compliant survey something
that protects their informationthen you can ask them things
(19:40):
like did you enjoy yourexperience?
Do you feel like your goalswere met?
Was your therapist on time?
Did they close on time?
Was it easy to schedule On ascale of one to five?
Would you recommend us to yourfamily and friends?
You get data from that, even ifyou have SurveyMonkey.
Surveymonkey gives you greataggregated data, collated
(20:04):
beautifully in tables and charts, and all kinds of things.
You can report that data onyour website.
You can report that, make anice you know visual of that in
your Canva and you can say youknow what four out of five
people say that they didn't haveto wait more than five minutes
in our waiting room.
You know what four out of fivepeople say that they would refer
(20:26):
us to their friends and family.
And you can report.
You know there are 500 peopleand I mean I would get really
nitty-gritty with the data.
I mean, everybody remembers thetoothpaste commercial.
Four out of five dentistssurveyed would recommend blah,
blah, blah.
That's what you're doing.
You're collecting data andyou're reporting the data.
(20:48):
You are not compromisinganybody's protected health
information.
You're still abiding by HIPAA,ferpa, your licensing rules, et.
Etc.
So you've got the ability toreport data in marketing copy.
Remember what copy is.
Copy is just a fancy word forwords.
The copy exists on your websitein the form of your about me,
(21:12):
your list of services, and itexists in your website on your
blogs, etc.
Now you can also use CanvaC-A-N-V-A.
It's super fun.
You can go.
Make a visual, a chart,something colorful and
eye-catching.
You can put that on yourwebsite.
You can post it on yourInstagram.
(21:33):
You can put it in your FacebookInstagram.
You can put it in your Facebookprofessional Facebook so people
can see.
You know what 98% of peoplereported that they would refer
my therapy practice to theirfamily and friends.
So let's kind of put a bow onthis.
Why use Google at all?
Well, number one if you don'tclaim your business, it's just
(21:57):
sitting there, there's apossibility I'm pretty sure
someone else could claim thatbusiness, right?
So that's one reason we want tokind of get involved with
Google.
Bing is actually the engine,the search engine, that powers
ChatGPT, right?
So it also has the ability foryou to go in and claim your
(22:18):
business so that you can haveaccurate information about
everything from your hours toyour services, to four out of
five people would recommend youto family and friends.
So you can't ignore thesesearch engines if you're
marketing using a web presentand why would you ignore them?
(22:38):
Right?
We don't want to stick ourheads in the sand.
We just want to make sure we'reutilizing these search engines
and marketing opportunitiesethically.
So that's how you dive intoGoogle, that's how you dive into
Bing.
You make sure you put in theinformed consent for your
clients who are signing on withyou.
(23:00):
Google, bing, those aren'tsocial media, those are not how
we will communicate and I willignore you.
If you like or comment, justput it out there up front and I
will ignore your Google review.
I won't solicit you, I will notrespond to you.
That doesn't mean that I don'tlike you and I look forward to
(23:20):
seeing you at a session everyweek.
I don't know you do you?
You tell them what you need to,but include that in your form
consent, the limitations of theGoogle review and the social
media post.
You're going to solicit fromcolleagues, not clients.
You are going to report data,not client verbatim testimonials
(23:41):
.
You're going to report the datayou get from clients and their
outcome surveys and if you get abad review, you're going to
report it, not respond to it.
And, in fact, the only Googlereview you will respond to is
something from a colleague,someone who is not entrusting
(24:01):
you with their protected healthinformation.
Now I'm going to put a cherry ontop of the bow.
Why are you using social media?
You got to answer that question.
So, google, like I said, I justthink if you're going to be a
good business owner, you need toanswer that question.
So, google, like I said.
I just think if you're going tobe a good business owner, you
need to claim that businessVirtual.
(24:22):
I'm not sure if you can, butdon't trust me on that.
Go in there.
Google, google, how to do that.
But social media I want you toput into chat GPT.
This is February, when we'rehaving this training session,
and I usually call this theshare the love month, because
we're learning how to refer toone another.
We want to make sure we'rehelping our colleagues out if
(24:45):
they ask us to give them a goodGoogle review.
So why, though I mean why doyou have social media at all?
So I want you to put that intochat GPT this month.
This month, say I'm trying todevelop a marketing strategy.
This is me typing.
You can't see me, but I'mtyping here.
Go my fingers.
I'm typing into chat GPT.
(25:06):
Help me develop a marketingstrategy.
Here are my ideal clients.
These are the people I'm tryingto reach.
This is what my community lookslike.
Now tell me the pros and consof incorporating social media
and y'all.
If the cons outweigh the pros,I would just eliminate social
(25:27):
media marketing from yourstrategic plan for 2025.
Focus on the Google machine,focus on the Bing machine and
pop some questions into the Stepit Up group and Texas
Counselors Creating BadassBusinesses.
Tag me with your questions.
Let's sort this out.
If something's confusing you oryou're not sure what to do, all
(25:49):
right, I am going to hit pauseand open it up for questions.
hey, there, I'm dr kate walker and this is the
tuesday group coaching for allStep it Up members.
You guys get it first andeveryone else they can hear it
on the podcast.
Maybe eventually, I don't know,but this is a great topic.
I get lots of requests to talkabout this and it's also one
(00:40):
that I see when I'm stalking thesocial media threads, and it
has to do with Google, andusually it's a different thread
that has to do with social media.
So if you guys have heard metalk about this before, you know
how I feel about social media.
I mean, I love it, I'm kind ofaddicted to it, but at the same
(01:01):
time, therapists often think weneed a social media presence,
but we're not really sure how itserves our purposes.
So how are we using it inmarketing?
How are we identifying it inour consent forms for our
clients and potential clients?
So for this particular day ofGoogling and social media-ing, I
(01:25):
wanted to focus on a few things.
First of all, number one, therule of confidentiality, and
I'll talk about that.
The second thing I want to makesure I cover is how to get a
Google review the right way, andit's not from clients review
the right way and it's not fromclients, then how do you respond
(01:48):
to a bad Google review and thenhow to make it all work in your
marketing strategy?
So if you take out the word orphrase Google review and you
insert social media posts socialmedia posts, right, it's the
same thing.
Because you have this socialmedia presence, you don't often
(02:11):
have control over who is likingand commenting on your posts.
So let's start with thefoundation of what are the rules
of confidentiality.
So, long and short.
Client owns their information.
The client owns their PHI orsensitive information, right,
(02:32):
anything identifying thatbelongs to your client.
Now they entrust you with that,which means, if I hand you my
puppy for the weekend, you'regoing to have to assure me that
you're going to take care of mypuppy for the weekend.
You're gonna have to assure methat you're going to take care
of my puppy in certain ways.
Right, you know, don't let itout, make sure it gets fed, make
sure that you close that brokengate you have in your backyard.
(02:56):
So, as the keepers or thecustodians of the protected
health information, we followrules like HIPAA, like FERPA,
like our licensing rules, lpc,lmft, social work, et cetera.
So when we follow those rules,we are being good custodians of
(03:17):
the thing that doesn't belong tous, right, it's been entrusted
to us.
Now, if we take all of that andwe say, okay, well, how are we
going to communicate to ourclients that we are good
custodians, we can take goodcare of their information?
Well, it's in the consent form,right In the rules, in our
(03:39):
codes of ethics.
We have to put in the consentform that we are following the
rules, how we are following therules.
Now, implicit in that is oursteps we will take if something
goes south.
Right, if something goes wrong,how we will mitigate the damage
.
So I'm putting all of thatthere.
(04:02):
I'm not going to go deeply intothat.
I probably have anothertraining out there somewhere
that dives a lot deeper intoHIPAA and confidentiality.
But what I want you to hear mesay when I talk about this is
clients can do whatever theywant to with their information.
Okay, right, I mean, if I goback to my puppy metaphor, it's
(04:23):
their puppy.
They can do whatever they want.
That's what makes it tricky forus as the keepers of the
information, as the licensedkeepers of the information right
, I don't have anything againstcoaches, and they may have a
(04:45):
code of ethics that says thatthey protect health information,
phi and sensitive information,but there is no license that
tells them they have to right,they don't have a licensing
board.
I'm not really sure about wherethey stand with HIPAA.
They might have to follow HIPAA.
I don't know.
I'm not really sure about wherethey stand with HIPAA.
They might have to follow HIPAA.
(05:05):
I don't know, I'm not a coach.
I have a coach.
I have a business coach, lovemy business coach.
But you hear what I'm saying.
As a license holder, you mustfollow these rules.
So, yes, you will include it inthe consent form.
But now let's think about if weplan to use social media for
(05:25):
marketing purposes.
It's a great idea.
I mean, if you have gone andyou've done all the things like
I told you to do back in January, right, you took your goals,
you put it into Chat, chat, gpt,you put in where you see
yourself in five years and youcompare it to what you're
(05:48):
actually doing week to week toweek.
Hopefully you have a greatstrategy for social media and
marketing, or just marketing ingeneral.
And if you want to includesocial media in that, you
probably want to add that toyour informed consent.
Now, if you have not heard mytraining on what should be in
(06:10):
your informed consent.
You can go back and listen tothat.
I released that in January.
That was something that'sstepping up, I think we went
through and we actually did somescreen sharing and I showed you
how I place my social mediainformation into the client's
consent form.
And a couple of things that Ihighlight are social media is
(06:33):
not for communication and I'mnot going to respond to your
social media.
So, in other words, if you'regoing to say, hey, I can't come
to my appointment next week,that's communicating.
I'm not going to communicatewith you on social media, right?
Or if you like my post, I'm notgoing to go find your profile
and like your post back.
(06:53):
So it gets complicated.
And we have to keep in mind too, if your social media is out
there.
You don't know if somebody isliking your post.
I mean, I know in TexasCounselors Creating Badass
Businesses.
We get requests all the timefrom people who want to join and
it's not their name, like it'snot even a name, right?
(07:13):
So we can't really identifyanybody solely by their social
media handle.
So when you have this consentform and you're putting things
in writing for the client toagree to before they agree to or
as they're agreeing to becomeyour client, then you want to
(07:33):
make sure you identify at leastthose two things right Social
media, google reviews.
They are not how we are going tocommunicate with one another.
So let's kind of shift for aminute to Google reviews Very
basic.
I'm going to tell you how tomake sure you're able to manage
(07:55):
your Google reviews.
You've got to go online, youhave to do Google my Business
and you have to claim yourbusiness.
I know, when I posted this orwhen I talked about this about a
year ago, those of you withvirtual businesses, I didn't.
I don't think there was a wayfor you to claim your business,
(08:15):
because Google loves Google Maps.
They want people to be able tofind you, and those of you
without a physical location, itwas going to be tough for you to
claim your business.
So here's how they do it rightyou go in, you kind of fill out
the information and theyactually mail you a postcard via
snail mail.
(08:35):
So you put in the address whereyou are, where your business is
, the business you're claiming,and they send you a postcard.
When you get that postcard inthe mail, it's going to have a
code on it.
You go back into your accountin Google my Business and you
enter that code and, boom, youhave now claimed your business
(08:57):
profile.
So I highly recommend you dothat.
I don't know what happens if youdon't claim your business.
I don't know if someone else cango in there and do that if they
don't have your address.
But if you claim it, hey, it'syours.
Then you can start usingpowerful Google reviews to help
(09:18):
you market your business.
I mean, that's one of thethings that when we go to
business coaches and smallbusiness development and
chambers of commerce and we'resitting with people and think
tanks and we're all trying tofigure out how to better our
businesses, they look at ussideways because we're saying to
them we don't solicit clientreviews.
They're like are you crazy?
(09:39):
I'm like no, we're ethical,right, we don't solicit client
reviews for Google.
But that doesn't mean it's notgoing to happen.
So when we start with thefoundation of claiming your
business via Google my Business,then at least you have a place
to start from as these reviewscome in.
(10:02):
And if they come in, remember,clients can do whatever they
want to with their information.
If they want to give you areview, there's nothing you can
do about that.
Well, let me get to that in asecond.
So let's just let's say thegood ones right, if it's a good
review, right.
So then you have your business.
You've claimed it, nobody elsehas it.
You go here and you're like butKate, what if somebody gives us
(10:26):
a bad Google review?
Now, I've attended lots ofwebinars on this with attorneys
Laura Clement, kenda, dalrymple.
I've heard from board members,I've heard all kinds of
information about this and I canfilter it down to one thing
Don't respond.
Don't respond to a Googlereview from your client.
(10:50):
You have an obligation toneither confirm nor deny that
that person is your client, andthe minute you start to defend
yourself in a bad Google review,you have confirmed that they
are your client.
Now, if that person was neveryour client, I would say so
(11:12):
right, I'm sorry.
According to our records, we'venever seen you before.
You've never been a client inour practice, right, I'm sorry?
According to our records, we'venever seen you before.
You've never been a client inour practice, right?
Saying something like that isfactual and it emphasizes this
is not a real review, it's afake review.
The other thing you can do andI'm actually going to turn here
to my left, because I do have myGoogle my Business up and when
(11:36):
you're logged in to your Googleand I know I mean this sounds
weird, but when you log in, so,for example, when you open your
browser and you see in the topright-hand corner Gmail, google
Drive, youtube, those are underyour Google account and if you
(11:56):
log in to a different Googleaccount it will take you to a
different set of information.
Again, not going to go downthat rabbit hole in this
training, but if you are loggedinto your Google account that
set up your claiming yourbusiness, then you will be able
to access your reviews andrespond to them.
(12:19):
So let me say that again.
Number one you have to claimyour business on Google my
Business.
Number two you log into yourbrowser with the same email
address you use to claim yourbusiness.
Then you are able to access notonly your reviews and respond
(12:40):
to them.
You can get the link to shareyour Google review for people
you do want to solicit, and Iwill talk about that in a second
.
So let's say you're logged in,you go to your business and the
way I do it is probably not theway you're supposed to do it.
But I put in Kate space, walkerspace, training space, because
(13:05):
I've googled myself a lot.
It would come upkatewalkertrainingcom.
And I don't want to go to myweb page, I want to, and you can
also open an incognito browser.
I put in Kate Walker trainingand if I don't put it in like
that, then Kate Middleton'sgoing to show up, or Kate the
romance writer there are lots ofKate Walkers out there, so I
(13:26):
put that in and then I'm able tosee my Google reviews.
So I've got 64 Google reviews.
I click on the highlighted link,the hot link, google reviews,
and I'm able to go through eachone of my reviews and respond to
them and report them.
(13:48):
So if I did get a review thatwas bad and first of all let me
just kind of do an aside here Ifyou get a bad review, that's
true, that's real right.
Don't respond to it, but youneed to take a look at your
business.
That's what we do here.
So I look at this and if I geta five-star review, yay, thank
(14:10):
you.
If I have and I have never I'mgoing to knock on wood real
quick.
So far I have not had to have areview reported, but I have
colleagues who have.
There is a exclamation pointicon and when I click that it
says why are you reporting thisreview?
Off topic, spam, conflict ofinterest, profanity, bullying or
(14:35):
harassment, discrimination orhate speech, personal
information and that containspersonal information such as
address or phone number.
So you can report a bad Googlereview to Google with any of
those criteria.
So that's as as a licensedprofessional if someone gives
(14:58):
you a bad review, that isunwarranted, it is spammy, they
were never your client.
First of all, report that.
Right, and in fact I would dothat.
I know I said about sevenminutes ago that you can respond
to someone who's a non-client,but that's just really walking a
pretty sticky line there.
(15:20):
So you can report that toGoogle.
The second thing I would do Idon't know if I'm up to two or
up to three is solicit Googlereviews from colleagues.
Now you can do this with socialmedia as well.
Ethically, I will stand on thisbox and on this hill.
(15:42):
I will fight for this.
I don't care what anybody saysout there.
We do not solicit reviews fromour clients.
Current past.
Just don't do it right.
It offsets, it upsets thebalance of the relationship.
It puts you in a position ofwanting something from your
(16:02):
client for your gain notnecessarily theirs.
But you can do two things.
You can solicit a review from acolleague and so, when
something appears in your Googlereviews that's negative, you
can reach out to colleagues whohave factually seen you teach
(16:25):
right.
They know maybe they had aclass with you and they know
that you always showed up ontime.
You were a great team player.
You were somebody that theycould count on to get your stuff
done right.
You were somebody that theycould count on to get your stuff
done right.
If they can attest to somethingabout your professionalism, then
I would absolutely ask them hey, would you here's the link to
(16:47):
my Google review Would you mindwriting a review?
Just something that you knowabout me, because you know me
personally.
Also, if you have ever taught aclass, if you have ever given a
presentation, a CE, or spokenat a conference or in front of a
PTA meeting, ask someone who isin attendance at that meeting
or who hired you say could youwrite this Google review?
(17:09):
I've got this bad review onhere and we're really trying to
make sure we offset that withsome factual information about
what you think of myprofessionalism, right?
So if they just say, hey, youknow they're a wonderful person
and they bake really goodcookies, that's probably not
going to offset a bad review,especially if it's something
that's actually happening inyour office that you're trying
(17:31):
to correct.
But you know, bad reviewshappen even in the best
restaurants.
You can't please everybody allthe time Reaching out to
colleagues and helping themconnect with your Google link
and write a review.
You can then go in and respondto those, right, because that's
not protected health information.
So you can go in and there's away.
(17:53):
Again, I'm looking to my lefthere, because if I click on my
Google reviews, the first thingthat comes up it's a window and
it has replied unreplied.
So I usually go in and clickunreplied and if I have a
fabulous review, I go in and Isay thank you, right, this is my
(18:14):
business account.
That is not client related,right?
So I'm not protecting anybody'sinformation here.
These are not from clients, andso if you got a review from a
client, remember what I said inthe first five minutes of this
presentation do not respond to aclient review, unsolicited
client review.
Remember we can't control whatthey do, and if they want to
(18:37):
give you a review, ignore it.
But if a colleague gives you areview someone who's not your
client, who has witnessed youpersonally be excellent
somewhere out in the communityabsolutely give them a thank you
, say thank you so much for thefive-star review.
I'm so glad you enjoyed my talk.
I'm so glad you enjoyed my talk.
(18:58):
I'm so glad you enjoyed mypresentation right Something so
that you're helping themunderstand.
Or the person who's just foundyou on Google yeah, I've got
people out here that know me andcan attest to my
professionalism, all right.
So we've got soliciting fromcolleagues.
I'm going to circle you back toyour existing clients.
(19:18):
Yes, I do remember telling youwe won't solicit reviews from
our clients, but you can gatherclient data with outcome surveys
.
So if you give your clients aHIPAA compliant survey something
that protects their informationthen you can ask them things
(19:40):
like did you enjoy yourexperience?
Do you feel like your goalswere met?
Was your therapist on time?
Did they close on time?
Was it easy to schedule On ascale of one to five?
Would you recommend us to yourfamily and friends?
You get data from that, even ifyou have SurveyMonkey.
Surveymonkey gives you greataggregated data, collated
(20:04):
beautifully in tables and charts, and all kinds of things.
You can report that data onyour website.
You can report that, make anice you know visual of that in
your Canva and you can say youknow what four out of five
people say that they didn't haveto wait more than five minutes
in our waiting room.
You know what four out of fivepeople say that they would refer
(20:26):
us to their friends and family.
And you can report.
You know there are 500 peopleand I mean I would get really
nitty-gritty with the data.
I mean, everybody remembers thetoothpaste commercial.
Four out of five dentistssurveyed would recommend blah,
blah, blah.
That's what you're doing.
You're collecting data andyou're reporting the data.
(20:48):
You are not compromisinganybody's protected health
information.
You're still abiding by HIPAA,ferpa, your licensing rules, et.
Etc.
So you've got the ability toreport data in marketing copy.
Remember what copy is.
Copy is just a fancy word forwords.
The copy exists on your websitein the form of your about me,
(21:12):
your list of services, and itexists in your website on your
blogs, etc.
Now you can also use CanvaC-A-N-V-A.
It's super fun.
You can go.
Make a visual, a chart,something colorful and
eye-catching.
You can put that on yourwebsite.
You can post it on yourInstagram.
(21:33):
You can put it in your FacebookInstagram.
You can put it in your Facebookprofessional Facebook so people
can see.
You know what 98% of peoplereported that they would refer
my therapy practice to theirfamily and friends.
So let's kind of put a bow onthis.
Why use Google at all?
Well, number one if you don'tclaim your business, it's just
(21:57):
sitting there, there's apossibility I'm pretty sure
someone else could claim thatbusiness, right?
So that's one reason we want tokind of get involved with
Google.
Bing is actually the engine,the search engine, that powers
ChatGPT, right?
So it also has the ability foryou to go in and claim your
(22:18):
business so that you can haveaccurate information about
everything from your hours toyour services, to four out of
five people would recommend youto family and friends.
So you can't ignore thesesearch engines if you're
marketing using a web presentand why would you ignore them?
(22:38):
Right?
We don't want to stick ourheads in the sand.
We just want to make sure we'reutilizing these search engines
and marketing opportunitiesethically.
So that's how you dive intoGoogle, that's how you dive into
Bing.
You make sure you put in theinformed consent for your
clients who are signing on withyou.
(23:00):
Google, bing, those aren'tsocial media, those are not how
we will communicate and I willignore you.
If you like or comment, justput it out there up front and I
will ignore your Google review.
I won't solicit you, I will notrespond to you.
That doesn't mean that I don'tlike you and I look forward to
(23:20):
seeing you at a session everyweek.
I don't know you do you?
You tell them what you need to,but include that in your form
consent, the limitations of theGoogle review and the social
media post.
You're going to solicit fromcolleagues, not clients.
You are going to report data,not client verbatim testimonials
(23:41):
.
You're going to report the datayou get from clients and their
outcome surveys and if you get abad review, you're going to
report it, not respond to it.
And, in fact, the only Googlereview you will respond to is
something from a colleague,someone who is not entrusting
(24:01):
you with their protected healthinformation.
Now I'm going to put a cherry ontop of the bow.
Why are you using social media?
You got to answer that question.
So, google, like I said, I justthink if you're going to be a
good business owner, you need toanswer that question.
So, google, like I said.
I just think if you're going tobe a good business owner, you
need to claim that businessVirtual.
(24:22):
I'm not sure if you can, butdon't trust me on that.
Go in there.
Google, google, how to do that.
But social media I want you toput into chat GPT.
This is February, when we'rehaving this training session,
and I usually call this theshare the love month, because
we're learning how to refer toone another.
We want to make sure we'rehelping our colleagues out if
(24:45):
they ask us to give them a goodGoogle review.
So why, though I mean why doyou have social media at all?
So I want you to put that intochat GPT this month.
This month, say I'm trying todevelop a marketing strategy.
This is me typing.
You can't see me, but I'mtyping here.
Go my fingers.
I'm typing into chat GPT.
(25:06):
Help me develop a marketingstrategy.
Here are my ideal clients.
These are the people I'm tryingto reach.
This is what my community lookslike.
Now tell me the pros and consof incorporating social media
and y'all.
If the cons outweigh the pros,I would just eliminate social
(25:27):
media marketing from yourstrategic plan for 2025.
Focus on the Google machine,focus on the Bing machine and
pop some questions into the Stepit Up group and Texas
Counselors Creating BadassBusinesses.
Tag me with your questions.
Let's sort this out.
If something's confusing you oryou're not sure what to do, all
(25:49):
right, I am going to hit pauseand open it up for questions.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com