Linsey: Hi, Ajay. This is Linsey. Hi. I’m good. How are you? Can you hear me?

Speaker: Ajay?

Ajay: Yeah. Did she drop off?

Speaker: No, she’s here.

Ajay: Oh okay. She started talking and then dropped off. That’s what I’m saying. Oh, hi, Linsey. This is Ajay.

Linsey: Hi, Ajay. This is Linsey. Can you hear me?

Ajay: Yeah. I can hear you now loud and clear.

Linsey: Okay. Okay, good. How are you today?

Ajay: Good, good. And you?

Linsey: I’m doing very, very well. Thank you so much for allowing me to be a part of your podcast today. I really appreciate it.

Ajay: No. You’re most welcome. You know, we are always excited to get entrepreneurs on the podcast. Because all of our listeners are generally in the healthcare industry, that’s why we think that many of the questions that you have, they also have the same questions. So, it just helps to bring everything in one place. So, that’s our goal that we have. So, Linsey, just for my viewers, do you mind telling about your business, exactly what you’re doing? And then we can discuss your challenges.

Linsey: Yeah, sure. I’m happy to. A little bit of my background. I am a certified child life specialist. And I am a certified child life specialist primarily working in pediatric healthcare inside of a children’s hospital. And that’s where I worked for 22 years. I worked for 11 years in the emergency department and then as a clinical education coordinator for 11 years. And I recognized that the work that we do inside the children’s hospital would be very valuable outside of the hospital. So, inside the children’s hospital, we primarily provide education to kids about their diagnosis, treatment, or procedures that they might be experiences. We provide therapeutic play as a way for to them learn and as an outlet for them to express the feelings that they have about their diagnosis or their injury. And then we also provide a lot of psychosocial and emotional support to children and to their families, so their brothers, their sisters, and their parents, and extended family.

And I left the hospital to open a child life private practice. I’m located in Dallas Fort Worth. And my child life private practice is the only practice outside of a hospital setting anywhere in North Texas. My focus though is not primarily on pediatric patients. I actually focus on providing support to children of adult patients. And when I say children, I really do mean kids, teenagers, and young adults even. So, I might say kids as we’re talking, but just know I mean kind of those whole age groups. And I really wanted to be able to provide education and support to these kidos when they have a parent who’s diagnosed with a serious illness.

There is an organization in Austin that’s been providing this work for 20 years. And other than them, there’s just not a lot of support for kids who find themselves in a situation where they have a parent with a serious illness especially if the illness is going to be life limiting or life altering. Then, there’s a whole lot of additional stressors that come from that. And so, that’s the work that I’m doing now. I’ve had the practice for about a year and a half. So, we’re brand new, and that’s one of the reasons that I was really interested in talking with you today is because bringing this work outside of the children’s hospital means I’m kind of introducing it for the first time to a group of healthcare providers that previously haven’t needed the support of a child life specialist because their patients are adults. So, that’s a little bit about what we do.

Ajay: So, you are saying that right now what you are doing, no one else is handling other than this support group?

Linsey: Yeah. So, there are a few child life specialists that work inside of adult hospitals providing this support to children of adult patients. But they are primarily working with two populations inside that hospital. Often, they’re working in the NICU inside the adult hospital, or they might be working with the palliative care team in that hospital. And what I’m doing is now providing those services outside because if they’re working in the hospital, they really only have access to those kids. The kids can only receive the support if their parent is actively hospitalized.

Ajay: Perfect.

Linsey: And more and more we’re doing outpatient treatment. And so, we are now available in the community to provide that support to families, and nobody knows that we exist because it didn’t exist until I opened the practice.

Ajay: Good, good.

Linsey: So, we’re the only one in Dallas Fort Worth and really in North Texas.

Ajay: So, I guess my next question is that right now, how many patients you have had in a year and a half?

Linsey: So, we’ve only had –

Ajay: I’m not asking for exact number, just ballpark. Like you have 200 or [inaudible] [00:06:53] –

Linsey: No, no.

Ajay: Yeah, go ahead.

Linsey: No. We’ve really provided support to about 25 families. And some of those families have individual kids. And some of those families have multiple kids.

Ajay: Okay, okay, okay. So, 25 families you have and are you on your own right now? Do you have any –

Linsey: There’s another child life specialist who works with me. She works very p.r.n. And then, primarily, I’m doing all of the jobs, running the business and doing the clinical work too.

Ajay: And how do you provide your services? Is it mostly over the telephone, one-on-one, all of the above? Tell me how your patients get the support.

Linsey: So, we do in person sessions with kids and teens. We have two session rooms in your office that’s located in North Fort Worth. And so, we can work with multiple families at once, respecting privacy, and having different spaces for them. We do have the ability to do virtual programming. So, as a certified child life specialist, we’re not licensed by the state. Our certification actually is a national certification. So, I can provide this work, this support to kids who really live anywhere. I’m not limited by what state they’re in. and if we were to set up virtual programming, there’s a little planning that goes into it. But primarily, everything is very active, very hands on.

Just yesterday, I sat down with a 7-year-old who was learning about her dad’s glioma that he has, and we built a brain, and we made blood soup. We built a brain out of playdoh and made blood soup out of items just to help her learn a little bit about the body, and cells, and how those things work inside of our bodies so that way, she can feel a littl emore confident, and secure in understanding her dad’s diagnosis. And so, doing those things virtually just take a little bit of additional planning so that we can get supplies sent to families.

Ajay: Okay. Good, good. So, good. I understand. This is a badly needed service. And I’m glad that now you’re offering it outside of the hospital.

Linsey: Thank you.

Ajay: So, let’s go through your questions, what questions you may have for your practice.

Linsey: Okay. Thank you so much. My first question is the one that I think I’ve been stumbling over this whole time, which is how do I market the business that I have to adult healthcare when adult healthcare doesn’t really even understand the benefits of providing this support to kids? So, they don’t understand what I do. I feel that there’s a bit of an education problem, and I’m unsure of how to market that appropriately to them.

Ajay: So, this is definitely education that you have to do because this is something that is available. People need it, but they don’t know if they need it. So, if they don’t know if they need it, they’re not even looking for a solution. But you know, this is one of those cases where once they know the solution, they say okay. I definitely want it. So, fist thing is I’m assuming that with your experience, you alrady have a lot of training programs, right? When I say training, educational programs, what it is, and how it is helpful, and why for example, because you are flipping it, why it makes sense to do that. Do you have some of the educational program for people who don’t know exactly what you are doing because you already know that people don’t have attention span. So, it’s almost like until you give it to them, they may not even know. And most successful products was never there the first time phone was thought about it, and Apple is the best example.

Linsey: Thank you for that.

Ajay: So, what kind of education material that you have so that someone can know what it is and why?

Linsey: Yeah. So, currently, I’ve created some print marketing materials that I have distributed with a little goody basket, kind of like a little get to know me basket that I’ve delivered to several adult healthcare providers. I’m looking also a little bit beyond primary care. So, I’ve been looking at more specialties, specifically oncology and neurology, cardiology, because those are definitely specialties where those are the kids that are going to need support, right? And I’m very comfortable. Obviously, with my background in clinical education, I’m very comfortable teaching. And I do have a couple of, I hate to use the word presentations, but sort of educational things I’ve put together. Where I’m struggling, I think, is finding the right person in each of these offices to listen and then say, oh yes. Please come and teach my staff about that. Kind of finding the gatekeeper in each of those offices, I think that’s been really the trickiest part for me.

Ajay: Perfect. So, the first thing I would very strongly suggest that you have the training that you have alrady created. Convert that into a video. You are comfortable talking. Make like an educational video what you are doing. You have a fantastic background. When you told me, I was captured by what exactly you are saying. So, you have the credibility. So, I would say build a case. Don’t make it a very long one, maybe 2, 3 minutes, 3-to-5-minute video sort of thing so that becomes your intro, and that way you can reach out to, when you are saying gatekeeper, you can reach out to them through the email also. You don’t have to go there. And then, you can essentially send them a link because again, expecting them to come to you to go, and you give a presentation, that requires them to say I want it because now you are asking them to make commitments on your behalf. So, the best thing is to show them why their commitment is worth it. So, I would suggest that one thing that you would definitely want to do is have a video.

And start having more presence. What we are doing right, have your own podcast. Again, when you are doing your podcast about your services, don’t worry if you have millions of followers there because, again, that becomes part of your education process where you can point out to people, you can see my video, which now you can put it on YouTube, and then also you can listen to my podcast. And by the way, the reason also the video will help you because a lot of people are looking for solutions on YouTube or Google about something like this. On Google and all these platforms, whether it’s Google or whether it’s YouTube, which is by the way owned by Google, or suppose you put that video on Facebook, or advertise that video through Facebook, they let you limit the area. So, you can even target up to a zip code. So, you can just say all of Dallas, and that way you can start to get some people to also, the potential end user, to also go and listen to your videos because video marketing is a very strong, right now, channel to reach out to the right people, to reach out to your target audience. I would really encourage you to do that, do video marketing.

And education on your website, a lot of it should be about education. And on the website, emphasize the way. I always tell people why you are in business, and not everyone can have a non-self-severing why. If I say that I’m in business to help doctors generate more revenue. They’re like oh no. It becomes self-serving. So, I don’t say that. But your why is very clear cut, why you are doing it, because the hospital – So, share that. Focus on why also and then educate them. So, the people will see oh, this is what her expertise is. This is why you started your own practice, and by the way, there is the educational material. Here’s the things that you want to know.

So, that was my thinking, the best thing is to have education things even when you reach out to the [inaudible] [00:17:53], for example, and you oh, by the way, you can see my 3 minute video. Right here is the link. Anyone can now see it and watch it on the smartphone. And also, I have some, I’m not saying that you do podcasts, but if you have some other things that you are talking about, podcast, a simple thing, or anything else. But the idea is that let people know why this is so valuable. And obviously, you already have 25 families. So, you should have some very good testimonials. That always helps when you have testimonials so that they can see. So, it’s the education aspect right now and you have a good service. You are the right person. So, now, you just have to educate people why they need it.

And again, it’s not as difficult as it sounds. It’s never easy. As you know, nothing is easy in life. But it's not as difficult as it sounds. What you do is use your expertise and spend some time, and you have already written a lot of things. So, take a look at it. Come up with a 3- or 5-minute video, and maybe there are some other topics on which you can talk. These days, you can go on Shopify, not Shopify. I’m forgetting. There are many platforms. You can go on Apple, for example, and upload. There is no cost to it. But I would say, you should start talking about it, and do it so that you can reach out to more people rather than one on one.

Linsey: Yeah. Thank you for that.

Ajay: Yeah! Go ahead.

Linsey: I was just gonna say that really validates some of what I already think that I knew that I’d maybe been sort of pushing against or not making time for. I think a podcast is one of those things, the video. I think someone recommended that to me early on. And I was like well, I don’t really wanna be on a video. I’m at a different place now, of course, being a year and a half into the business. And I appreciate your solutions because I’ve come to learn that it’s difficult, I think, to read something about what we do and to really feel the value that comes from that. But when you hear me talk about it, there is a different connection that’s made.

Ajay: And also, there are different people who have a different way. So, personally, you asked me to listen to a 30-minute video, watch a 30 minute versus read, I will take read first because 2 minutes into the video, my brain may start wondering. So, very soon, I would realize that I don’t recall what is going on, what happened. So, for me, if I see a video and a transcript, I always go for a transcript. But I know the majority of the people like video instead of reading. But you have both. You already have that what you’re talking. So, just give people both options.

Linsey: Okay. Thank you for that. I think next, as a small business, I obviously have a very limited marketing budget. When you work with kids, there’s supplies that come along with that that are consumable products that I need to buy, new markers, or crayons, or papers, or whatever. So, when it comes to marketing dollars, I find myself maybe being a little stingy with them. And my question for you is since I have such a small marketing budget, how do you think I should invest those dollars in order to really reap the greatest benefit from them?

Ajay: Sure. So, on marketing, when you are starting, the best thing I have always seen when successful people do and even the corporations, I come from a corporate world before I started my own business, the best thing that you can think about is pick up a channel and dominate it. So, in other words, spreading some dollars here, some dollars there, we used to call it a spray and pray back in my corporate days. Say if you have a thousand dollars in marketing, and what you want to do whether it’s YouTube, or it’s Facebook, or you have direct mail campaign, just pick up one area. I have always said pick up one channel, and you want to saturate it.

If you see that Facebook is an effective channel, which it should be, for example, for your particular business, Facebook has a lot of these support groups already that you can target. So, if you say Facebook, I don’t even bother doing YouTube marketing until you say okay, I’m spending $1,000.00 on Facebook, and I’m getting $3,000.00 consistently return, but I cannot make that thousand to three thousand. So, generally, in marketing you want to come up with it’s almost like a formula where you want to reach a point where you know that by spending X dollars, you are getting X plus, and whatever that X plus is. If you have figured out that okay, spending 500 is giving me 2,000, it’s not necessarily means that if you spend 5,000, you’ll get 20,000 because there is a saturation point. Beyond that, it doesn’t make sense. Only then, you should go after the next channel. So, if you said okay, I’m spending 2,000 on Facebook. I’m happy with the return, and I cannot spend anymore here. So, now, let’s focus on YouTube. So, with the limited budget, just do one thing, but do that one thing right and make sure that you are dominating that particular channel.

Linsey: Okay and this kind of ties into that a little bit. My business does have a Facebook account and an Instagram account, and I have a LinkedIn account. But I will tell you that I really don’t use LinkedIn at all for my business. I primarily am sharing on Facebook and Instagram. And I’m wondering for marketing and practice growth, knowing that there might be, if we’re looking specifically at healthcare, are they using LinkedIn like that. Do I really need to look at that referral source and put more effort into establishing myself on LinkedIn as well. Is that necessary?

Ajay: You know, I would say you should always have a profile on LinkedIn. You may not need to have a million followers. But when you create a good LinkedIn account, it will let you link to your Facebook, and invite all the people. So, you are not just standing there with zero friends or zero followers. So, you should always have that. And the reason I’m saying it, is it is almost like a new trend that I am seeing is when someone wants to find out about you, they just go to LinkedIn because 1.) It’s public. Facebook you can just set it this is just for me or just for this group. Here, it is public. So, that’s a thing already that is helpful. And then, my point always is that having there people when they check your LinkedIn, it lets you explain. Create your profile. It lets you post even the video that you have or link that people can see why you are doing it. Think of it as [inaudible] [00:26:51] billboard.

Linsey: Okay.

Ajay: So, LinkedIn, I would definitely have your account and in your marketing channel, when you are marketing to people, yeah, tell them, here’s my LinkedIn and links that you go and see. Find out more about me. So, that’s one thing. Now, in terms of marketing people on LinkedIn, your target audience, I will tell you if you are targeting doctors, it’s probably not the best platform, the LinkedIn. But if you are let’s say targeting the practice managers, that would be ideal. Anyone who’s an employee, LinkedIn is very important for them. That’s how it has become the place where all the recruiters even go too when they are looking to recruit for any position.

Linsey: Okay.

Ajay: So, definitely create a LinkedIn account. In terms of marketing, I don’t know, depending on who you are targeting. But the good thing here is, you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to find out if works or not. You should be able to have a budget. But then, have a plan. I always suggest that you are good at counseling, so find someone who is also good at marketing to do that, and it should not be very expensive. Again, it doesn’t mean that good marketing people will cost you a fortune. But I would say at least find something from maybe some of the kids that you know. You would surprised how much they know. But again, make sure that you are not trying to learn everything. It’s very difficult to become very good at three professions at the same time. And so, in order to be very successful on marketing, you will have to spend a lot of time to do that. And even at best, you will become average on doing it. But I would say pick up one thing at a time.

You should have your profile everywhere, by the way. There is no reason why don’t have a good LinkedIn profile. There is no reason why you don’t thave your company or you have something on YouTube where you have some videos. So, those are the foundational things that you want to do. So, that’s why you can direct people you can go and watch this video. You can go and see my profile there. And then, many people like I said –

Linsey: Do you think –

Ajay: – will go to LinkedIn and try to find you there. And if they don’t find you, then there’s a question mark in a lot of people’s minds. I noticed that my LinkedIn is checked, and I have no idea because I’m not doing a lot of marketing on LinkedIn myself, and I’m not that active. But still, I see it’s typically every months over 2,000 people view my profile. So, it does become a go to platform to check someone out. You just want to make sure that you are there.

Linsey: So, as far as LinkedIn goes, should I be focusing on developing Linsey Hammon’s LinkedIn profile, or should I be focused on developing the business’ LinkedIn profile?

Ajay: You want to create your profile. In terms of your business, you can only have what they call a page. I don’t think they would even let you create a profile. So, it’s your own profile that you want to create on LinkedIn and like I said, when you start to create a profile, you will see that it gives you a chance to really talk about who you are and why you are doing what you are doing, which is very important.

Linsey: Yeah. Okay. Thank you for that. That convicts me because I have not invested nearly enough time or attention into LinkedIn. I was hoping that would say oh, no. Don’t worry about LinkedIn at all.

Ajay: Sorry.

Linsey: No. That’s okay. That’s okay. I came to you –

Ajay: Sorry to disappoint you.

Linsey: No. I came to you for the truth, and for your honest opinion, and your expertise. So, that’s fine. I will take that, and I will do better at LinkedIn.

Ajay: Okay, good.

Linsey: I’m thinking also then about the mission and vision statements for the business. I have those, and we hold them pretty much internally. And I’m just curious how much are or how critical are those to the identity and the branding of my business? Is that something that I should really be pushing out there? This is our mission, and this is our vision or are they usually just better guiding principles for me?

Ajay: Not right now. So, you know, your reason of why, your statement of why you are in business, that is your mission anyway. And I wouldn’t worry about mission and vision. Those are like the business school kind of deal. I don’t think that those are that critical.

Linsey: Okay. Okay. That’s helpful. And then, the last question I had prepared for you is one that I’ve been kind of wrestling with for a while. Early on, when I founded the business, I became a member of our local chamber of commerce. And we have a very active chamber in my area. And I have regularly attended networking events, participated in some larger, like a whole quarterly event that’s happened, but I really haven’t seen much business growth from that, or referrals from that. People have a tendency, I think, sometimes to care what I do. I mean listen, people can hear what I do, and they can recognize how important that is, but nobody wants to need what I have to offer. Because if they need what I have to offer then that means that someone is sick or hurt, and that’s not what they want.

So, I don’t know how much people are really holding on to there’s a business that can help this family that lives down the street from me, or this person who I attend church with, or this family at my child’s school. And I guess I’m just wondering is that a valuable investment both time and resource wise to continue to be a part of a local organization like that? And if so, then, how do I really capitalize on my involvement there?

Ajay: So, the first thing, I have never seen anyone get business from chamber of commerce unless you are selling to businesses itself. So, it’s one thing to support. When you are there, you are supporting the local businesses. And really, it’s more for business to business. For example, when I first started my own business, I was marketing to the smaller companies that you come to me for marketing services. It was perfect sense. I was there. I would give you a talk, and then everyone listening to the talk would be a potential customer for me. What you are doing, even if you go and give a talk, if you want the support, that’s great. But I don’t want you to spend a lot of your time, time is the most important piece, on trying to get business from the chamber of commerce. In terms of return on investment, that would be the worst.

Linsey: Okay. I want to tell you that that is helpful. I think I’ve used this word before. It does validate something that I was kind of starting to recognize in my gut. And I think I was gravitating towards them because they’re easy. They’re easy for me to go and feel like I did important networking today. But there’s really not been a return on it. And so, is that really the best use of that hour, hour and a half, two hours of my time, and I do really appreciate your point of view on that for sure.

Ajay: Perfect.

Linsey: I feel like you’ve helped me so much today. And you’ve given me a lot of really good direction. Anchoring myself to my why I think is probably one of the most important things. And then, before the weekend is over, I am going to record a video that –

Ajay: [Inaudible] [00:35:54].

Linsey: – at least as a first run to make sure that it’s one that will work.

Ajay: Great, great. It was great talking to you.

Linsey: Well, thank you so much for your time.

Ajay: Yeah. Thank you so much, and good luck with your venture.

Linsey: Thank you for letting me a part of this today. The name of my business is Lighthouse Counsel Center, and we’re located in Keller, Texas, which is a suburb of Dallas Fort Worth. Our website is lighthousecounselcenter.com, and you can also find us on Instagram, and Facebook. Our handle is @lighthousecounselcenter there as well. So, thank you so much for letting me take a part in what you guys are doing. I appreciate it very much.

Speaker: Thank you for listening to this episode of the Founder’s Corner Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to rate and follow us on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, and Sam Cloud. If you interested in being a guest, be sure to visit our main page at .