Interview: Peter Hannah, “Your Google Guy”

Peter Hannah is “Your Google Guy,” helping therapists grow their practices by marketing on the Internet. WTCI asked him about it.

What’s your background? What sort of work do you do now?
I had a career in high-tech for over a decade, including seven years at IBM. My work spanned data networking and network design before I finally became a webmaster for a national utility company in 1995. Throughout my twenties, I knew I wanted to do something else though. I finally figured it out and went back to grad school in 2000 to become a therapist.

After struggling in private practice in my first few years I latched on to web marketing, especially Google Adwords. Fellow therapists started asking me for help. I did it very informally at first. It is now probably half of my business (the other half being my private practice as a counselor in Seattle). I am known in therapy circles as “Your Google Guy.” It’s a great companion business to being a therapist. It balances out my skills, the use of parts of my brain, and also helps keep me confident about finances.

What sort of help do you offer as Your Google Guy? Have any free tips to dole out to WTCI readers?
As Your Google Guy, I help therapists get potential clients to their websites via Google Adwords and Search Engine Optimization. In the web marketing field, we say that putting up a website now is like putting up a billboard in the forest – no one sees it. That’s where I come in.

Free tips? Come to my website and read my blogs! There always new and free info there. I did a Facebook Advertising whitepaper for a conference and will be posting that soon.

How much do you generally recommend therapists spend each month on AdWords?
That is so dependent on the city they are in, the niche they are going at, and how many slots in their calendar they are trying to fill, it’s hard to say. The vast majority of my clients go between $6 and $12/day.

In your private practice, you market yourself as “working with nice guys.” Who shows up? Has that been an effective way to promote yourself?
My “Nice Guys” niche has been wonderful. People really can self-identify just from those two words. It’s my own “emotional lineage,” so I know the situation well. Seattle seems to be filled with Nice Guys! It also makes me stand out. Men who are dealing with this decide they want to see *me*, not just the cheapest therapist, or the one on their insurance panel. I think having a niche is great, though I tell people they have to wait for it to surface. For a long time, I tried to force a niche, by seeing what I thought the market wanted. It never worked. It finally came to me, and it’s been great.

What “forced niches” did you market to? What resulted?
I’m trying to remember! They went so badly I pushed them out of my own memory. Really, I would come up with something I thought people wanted. I’d advertise it, try to stir up interest, network around it. Nothing. OK, some weird phone calls might result. But paying clients? None.

Any final words of wisdom for people trying to build a private practice?
Find some positive people to be around. That might include a practice coach (Lynn Grodzki and Casey Truffo are my two favorites). That might include a group of peers (other therapists), but watch out – avoid the whiners who will tell you how bad it is. Focus on being with those who know it is possible and are trying to succeed. It might also involve a peer group of small business people, not necessarily therapists. Remember, you are an entrepreneur now! It can take a long time to build a practice, but it does not *have* to.

Find Peter Hannah on the web at yourgoogleguy.com and changingforgood.com.