Episode #595: Getting Off Tech Platforms

Summary

Abundant Practice Podcast Episode #595: Getting Off Tech Platforms

Release Date: November 20, 2024
Host: Allison Puryear

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Introduction

In Episode #595 of the Abundant Practice Podcast, host Allison Puryear delves into the challenges and strategies associated with transitioning from relying on mental health tech platforms to building a sustainable, private pay practice. This episode features a candid conversation between Allison and Michelle, alongside insights from an unnamed therapist navigating this significant shift.

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Transitioning Away from Tech Platforms

The episode opens with an unnamed therapist sharing her recent decision to leave a mental health tech company that handled insurance and client acquisition. She explains, “I felt like it was making it worse for me with my private pay goal” (02:25). This move, albeit halfway to full independence, marks a crucial step towards achieving greater control over her practice and aligning it with her personal and professional aspirations.

Michelle congratulates her on this bold move, acknowledging the courage it takes to step away from a stable platform. “Congrats,” Michelle says warmly (03:25), setting a supportive tone for the ensuing discussion.

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Defining Niche and Specialization

A significant portion of the conversation centers on the therapist’s evolving niche. She specializes in working with young adults battling overthinking, perfectionism, OCD, and social anxiety. She notes, “I have a specialty page on social anxiety because I really love my socially anxious OCD clients” (04:17). However, she grapples with effectively marketing this dual focus.

Michelle advises honing in on the combined niche of social anxiety and OCD, emphasizing its potential for referrals. “The fact that you have the specialized training, I would reach out to all the people who are seeing clients that are OCD adjacent,” Michelle suggests (07:39). This targeted approach can help the therapist become the go-to expert within her local therapist community.

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Effective Marketing Strategies

The therapist has implemented several marketing strategies to build her private practice:

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Collaborating with Simplified SEO has enhanced her website’s visibility on Google. “I'm showing up on Google now, which I wasn't before” (05:28).

2. Blogging: She has initiated a blog series featuring fictional characters with various OCD subtypes, demonstrating how Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) therapy can be applied. “I've only published like three of them so far, and I look at one client who one of the posts spoke to him” (25:13).

3. Networking: The therapist is actively reaching out to psychiatrists and other therapists who specialize in related fields, aiming to establish referral pathways. Despite difficulties with cold emailing, she remains committed to expanding her network.

Michelle highlights the importance of networking, stating, “Form the relationships, nurture the relationships. And then whenever anybody brings up in a local therapist Facebook group, everybody will say your name” (13:27).

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Challenges with Google Ads and Competition

The discussion shifts to the effectiveness of Google Ads as a marketing tool. Michelle shares her experiences, cautioning the therapist about the low return on investment she has observed: “The vast majority of people that I work with who try Google Ads with an expert, I would never recommend doing it yourself” (16:26). She mentions that despite spending thousands, the ads often fail to yield desired results, especially when competing against large treatment centers willing to pay high costs per click.

Furthermore, the therapist faces stiff competition from major telehealth platforms like NoCD, which dominate search results. This saturation makes it challenging for independent therapists to gain visibility. “These telehealth platforms are killing me,” the therapist remarks (18:47).

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Leveraging Tools and Accountability

To streamline her networking efforts, the therapist considers using scheduling tools like Calendly. Michelle endorses the flexibility Calendly offers, allowing therapists to manage their availability efficiently. “What I love about Calendly is you can tell it exactly what times,” Michelle explains (23:26).

Additionally, Michelle emphasizes the importance of accountability in overcoming personal barriers such as social anxiety. She encourages the therapist to commit to specific actionable goals, such as emailing a set number of potential contacts each week. “By next Thursday, will you commit to emailing a certain number of people?” Michelle prompts (20:07).

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Content Creation and Expansion

Creating valuable content remains a pivotal strategy for attracting clients. The therapist is exploring podcasting as an extension of her blog efforts. Michelle advises reaching out to relevant podcasts, even larger ones, to feature her expertise. “It can't hurt, even if they're a big one. Just reach out. Do a pitch,” Michelle recommends (27:22).

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Conclusion and Insights

Episode #595 underscores the complexities involved in moving away from tech platforms to establish a flourishing private practice. Key takeaways include the necessity of a well-defined niche, the efficacy of SEO and content marketing, the critical role of networking, and the challenges posed by competitive advertising environments. Michelle’s guidance provides actionable steps, while the therapist’s experiences highlight the perseverance required to succeed independently.

Notable Quotes:

• Michelle: “Form the relationships, nurture the relationships. And then whenever anybody brings up in a local therapist Facebook group, everybody will say your name.” (13:27)

• Therapist: “I felt like it was making it worse for me with my private pay goal.” (02:25)

• Michelle: “The vast majority of people that I work with who try Google Ads with an expert, I would never recommend doing it yourself.” (16:26)

• Therapist: “These telehealth platforms are killing me.” (18:47)

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For more resources and support in building your private practice, visit abundancepracticebuilding.com and join the Abundance Party membership program at abundanceparty.com.

Transcript

[Allison]

Hi, welcome to the Abundant Practice Podcast. I'm Allison from Abundance Practice Building. I have a nearly diagnosable obsession with helping therapists build sustainable, joy filled private practices, just like I've done for tens of thousands of therapists across the world. I'm excited to help you too. If you want to fill your practice with ideal clients, we have loads of free resources and paid support. Go to abundance practicebuilding.com links all right onto the show try Therapy Notes, the number one rated electronic health record system available today with live telephone support seven days a week. It's clear why TherapyNotes is rated 4.9 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot and has a 5 star rating on Google. TherapyNotes makes billing, scheduling, note taking and telehealth incredibly easy. And now for all you prescribers out there, TherapyNotes is proudly introducing E Prescribe. If you're coming from another EHR, TherapyNotes makes the transition incredibly easy, importing your demographic data free of charge so you can get going right away. Find out what more than 100,000 mental health professionals already know and try TherapyNotes for two months absolutely free. Just go to therapynotes.com and enter promo code Abundant at checkout. Try it today with no strings attached and see why everyone is switching to Therapy Notes now featuring E Prescribe.

[Michelle]

You really wish grad school had covered.

How to fill a private practice.

In grad school you had a professor you could ask questions, someone who could.

Tell you what you were doing wrong.

And how to fix it. You had classmates working towards the same goal. Think of Party plus like that grad school class you wish you had. You get individual consultation about your specific practice with clear feedback and guidance. You get group calls with other people building their practices who have your back. We cover everything from marketing to mindset and you have access to everything in the Abundance party. All the courses and trainings that have filled thousands of therapists practices. Thanks to the feedback, the support and the clear step by step, people in party get full faster. The majority of party members fill their practice in three months. Check out Party in the link in the show notes and join the interest list if you're ready to build what you've been dreaming of.

Hey Michelle.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Hi Allison. Good to see you. It's been a long time.

[Michelle]

It's good to see you too.

[Unnamed Therapist]

It has been a very long time.

[Michelle]

Yeah. What would be helpful today?

[Unnamed Therapist]

So I recently decided to make a transition from insurance to just fully private pay and working for the longest time with one of those like mental health tech companies taking insurance, getting clients and Trying to build my private practice on the side and I feel like it was getting too much. I wasn't really focusing on my private pay practice and the insurances that this company was getting partnered with. I felt like it was making it worse for me with my private pay goal. I decided to just leave it. Even though I'm not full at all yet. I'm about halfway full, I would say. So I left it. I left it last month.

[Michelle]

Congrats.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Thank you. I know it's like a good move in the right direction, but it's also very scary. I've got a supportive husband and we've sort of planned it out in terms of the finances. So I guess what I'm just needing right now is just maybe some help with a plan for the next few months to. I don't want to feel like I haven't given it a fair shot and then quickly jump back to insurance. My mind kind of goes that route. It feels safe, but at the same time I know that I can't turn back to safe if I want to make this thing happen.

[Michelle]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Remind me of your niche and then what marketing strategies are you aiming for?

[Unnamed Therapist]

Yeah, so since I started working with you, my niche has sort of evolved a little bit. But right now I'm working with predominantly clients who are young adults who struggle with overthinking, perfectionism, OCD and anxiety. I specifically have like a specialty page on social anxiety because I really love my socially anxious OCD clients. Slash, perfectionistic clients who are like overly critical of themselves. Yes, Those are like my. My people. Those are the clients that I really, really enjoy working with and that I market to. And I've got a couple of modalities on my website too that are very specialized that clients are seeking. So in terms of marketing strategies, working this year with simplified SEO, they've been helping me with my SEO getting. You know, my website looks completely different than when I first started. There's more content. It looks way more fuller. And I am showing up on Google now, which I wasn't before.

[Michelle]

Awesome.

[Unnamed Therapist]

So I'm really working on trying to get myself further up in the Google search. So SEO is one thing. I've been doing blogging, which I guess is like part connected to SEO, because in order for SEO to continue to work, I need to keep feeding it content, Google content. So I've been doing some blogs I've networked here and there and I'm starting to kind of get more into that. So I'm. I've reached out to some Past contacts and trying to connect, reconnect with them. And I'm trying to come up with a listing of some new contacts. I want to reach out to psychiatrists who maybe specialize in these same populations who are also private pay. That's sort of the direction that I'm trying to take right now. I have not yet initiated that. That's like one of the hard parts for me is like sending out those emails, those cold emails and trying to wait for a response. So I'm still not there yet. I want to, by next week, send out some. I have a listing of a few people that I want to reach out to. So that's on my list. I've got two directories. I've got Psychology Today and one a specialized directory that's through the International OCD Foundation. The specialized directory, Honestly, I, in the like two years that I've been on it, haven't really gotten any client referrals, but I'm still on there. And Psychology Today, it kind of waxes and wanes in terms of referrals. So I've gotten a couple of referrals from my website, which is great because I added on my contact form, how did you find me? And I put Google as one of them. And so a few people have found me on Google. So.

[Michelle]

Awesome.

[Unnamed Therapist]

It's nice to know that at least I'm getting a little bit of a flow on that end. So that's kind of where I'm at. And those are the networking methods that I've been focusing. Those are the marketing methods that I'm working on. I'm not doing social. Socials at all.

[Michelle]

Yeah. Awesome. Okay, so here's the thing with your niche, because you love the socially anxious ocd, like that combo is so good for referrals because most of us, like, I'm going to refer out to ocd. Right. I work in eating disorders. I have a lot of people who have some OC features. But I am not capable, honestly, of treating OCD the way you can. So the fact that you have the specialized training, I would reach out to all the people who are seeing clients that are OCD adjacent. So the eating disorder therapists. And I don't want you to have eating disorders land in your lap also. But if there's somebody who's like solid in recovery from eating disorders and this happens a lot where, like, they're really managing their eating disorder symptoms really well, their OCD stuff ramps way up.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Yeah.

[Michelle]

Age wise, where are you? What's your favorite age?

[Unnamed Therapist]

I love working with 20s and 30s, sort of like that millennial. I've got a couple clients who are even early 40s. I, I really love that kind of millennial. I don't market to millennials, but honestly, I'm, I love the, like, the younger ones, but I also really love the, the older ones, the older millennials who also have kids and are parents and, you know, like moms. So I, and I have a little bit of that. So I do have like a bit of a wider range in terms of age. So I don't, I don't know if I, if I need to be a little bit more specific because I also am I. In my copy, my web copy. I don't really speak as much to the social anxiety piece. I speak a lot to the OCD piece and I speak a lot to like, the overthinking, to like the getting caught up in your mind, to like, the not being present, which could, could be almost anybody with ocd. So I'm. Maybe I need to like, hone in a little bit on some of those other more unique experiences with the clients who also have social anxiety. Yeah, I'm not sure how to, how to like, merge the two, I guess.

[Michelle]

I think with the millennial population too. Have you read the Anxious Generation?

[Unnamed Therapist]

No.

[Michelle]

Oh, it's so good. And it talks about the impact of social media and smartphones on our collective wellbeing and individual mental health. And the millennials, you know, they came up with technology in a way that, like, I'm Gen X. Like, I didn't. And what they found in all these studies is that the exposure to like, a smartphone and social media, particularly for girls and gaming and porn for boys, impacts our mental health most intensely when we're looking at it during puberty. And like, that's a lot of millennials, right? Particularly the mid grade ones and younger. That's content you could talk about in blog posts. I highly recommend the book. It's really compelling. It's. I think it's really good for any parent to read too.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Like, that's what I'm thinking too, because it's gotten worse and not better.

[Michelle]

Yeah, we have a whole media plan at our house of what's allowed and what's not. And I'm more strict on it, having read the book than I would otherwise be.

[Unnamed Therapist]

No, I haven't read the book, but I've definitely heard of just like, the research. And I feel like my son, who's like 11 now, in sixth grade, that age where he's like, I'm the only One that doesn't have a phone. And I'm.

[Michelle]

Yeah, my sixth grade, 11 year old daughter.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Same.

[Michelle]

I mean, luckily actually the school that she's in really is intense about. You cannot have a phone at school or they will take it away until the next day at the end of the school day. So she's not exposed to it as much. But when we had a slumber party, like a bunch of girls came over and every single person bought either an iPad or a phone and they all just like went off into a corner basically, and it was so heartbreaking. So anyway, I digress. But it's an amazing book and very relatable to your clients and also to your clients kids. It's good to have in your toolbox.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Yeah. Thank you.

[Michelle]

Yeah. So I would lean heavier on the social, like that combo of the social anxiety and ocd. I would definitely talk to psychiatrists because, you know, like, meds can be so helpful with ocd. They're definitely like Frontline recommendation and they're not going to solve everything. So finding an OCD specialist is not an easy thing. And you are really doing those psychiatrists a favor by letting them know that you are there.

[Unnamed Therapist]

So. Yes, I like the idea of like some more adjacent therapists, like the eating disorders.

[Michelle]

I. Yeah, anxiety. I mean, how many anxiety therapists are there? So many. And that doesn't mean they're down for all the anxiety disorders.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Yeah.

[Michelle]

So I think about, I work with so many students who really love working with the population of like women who look like they have it all together on the outside, but inside things are not working out. Like they're overwhelmed, self reproach, all the things.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Yeah.

[Michelle]

And there is a subsection of those folks who have ocd and that's not who these other students want to treat.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Yeah. So those might also be some like, like trauma specialists too, that might be targeting some of these perfectionistic kind of like traits that underneath it all there's also a lot of other things like overthinking and possibly ocd.

[Michelle]

Yeah, yeah. So like, the beauty of working with a population that most therapists don't feel competent to work with is that like, you can very quickly become known amongst your local therapist community as the person to send people to, all you have to do is get out there and let them know.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Yeah, yeah.

[Michelle]

Form the relationships, nurture the relationships. And then whenever anybody brings up in a local therapist Facebook group, hey, I need somebody for ocd. Everybody will say your name.

[Unnamed Therapist]

That'd be awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I am on a lot of those Facebook groups. I feel like I know that what I'm trying to achieve is possible because I, you know, I'm part of, like, a couple of consultation groups where specifically, you know, the work is specific to ocd. And there are therapists there that are also private pay that are full, that have waiting lists. And I want to get to that point too. I'd love to be like, okay, I got a waiting list, and I just want to get there. And feels like I'm getting there, but I guess not quick enough. And I know I've got to be patient with it.

[Michelle]

And you got to work on it. You know, like, I love what you said about, like, you stopped working on the private pay side of your practice because the tech company was giving you clients. Yes, I get that. Because when you're staying full or close to full, like, when you've got plenty of clients, it's easy to be like, I mean, it's fine. I really want to do X, Y or Z. Yes.

[Unnamed Therapist]

And I think like that for a very long time. And as you know, it's. It's really hard to try to build something when outside of earning an income for your family, you've got, like, kids and you're just tired all the time.

[Michelle]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I was just writing about this the other day of, like, good is the enemy of great. Like, you had a good practice with the tech company feeding you people. You had a good practice. It just wasn't great. And that's what you're for.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Yes, definitely. Do you have. I was curious to know what your experience is on, because I don't want to do this yet, but I think if I get a little bit desperate before some of, like, my plan B ideas going back to insurance might be trying Google Ads. And I don't know what your take is on. On that, and I'd love to know what your thoughts are on that. And again, this is, like, also, like, part of plan B. That's not ideal because I've worked so hard not to do it, but maybe adding some. Either, like a couple evening slots or a couple of, like, early weekend slots.

[Michelle]

Um, I would see, like, the calls coming in. If people are like, oh, I can't do that because I need early evening or I need the weekend. That would be the only thing. But if the problem is people aren't calling, then that's a marketing issue. Right. It's not an hours that you're offering, and it's not even a fee that you're asking for. That's Just marketing.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Yeah.

[Michelle]

Google Ads. I have hired three different companies to do Google Ads and not one has ever given me a return on my investment. However, I know a handful of people that have gone that route or that swear by Google Ads. At least one of them teaches Google Ads. So I don't know if that counts. But the vast majority of people that I work with who try Google Ads with an expert, I would never recommend doing it yourself. But the majority of folks who do Google Ads with an expert don't get a return on their investment. From my experience, like just amongst the students that I've talked to about it. That doesn't mean that there aren't people out there who haven't told me about a really great, you know, situation they were in. But if you decide to go that route, I would. You need to make sure they're giving you weekly or monthly, like spreadsheets of how it's going and how it's not going.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Yeah.

[Michelle]

Ask about any sort of. Do they have any sort of guarantee? If there's a guarantee, like, can't hurt, go for it. But overall, it's not the sure thing. Some people seem to talk about it as. And I know I spent thousands of dollars testing it out, not including paying the people that were running them for me.

[Unnamed Therapist]

How many months did you try it out for? What do you think is a good amount of time to try it out before you saying, no, this isn't working out?

[Michelle]

Well, the thing about Google Ads is they're supposed to be fast. So you should have a client, at least a client within a month. Yeah, I don't remember how many months I did it. It might have been two or three before I was like, this is ridiculous. Now I'm also up against the eating disorder treatment centers. So that's another reason that it was difficult is they're willing to pay a thousand dollars per click and I'm not.

[Unnamed Therapist]

So, yes, that's a piece I'm up against. I'm in a similar boat because there's so many big centers in my area. I mean, I'm virtual only, but there are some group practices or even just larger centers out in, you know, nearby cities like la. And also I'm competing a lot with no cd, which is the biggest telehealth platform out there that is like, oh, we showing up at the top of like a research.

[Michelle]

Yeah, yeah. Oh, these telehealth platforms are killing me.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Yeah.

[Michelle]

And a lot of people don't want to do telehealth with these big conglomerates like I think a lot of clients have their number and they want to see somebody that feels more like running their own shop, basically. So.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Yeah.

[Michelle]

Yes.

[Unnamed Therapist]

And those are the clients that I want because I. I do, you know, get some of those clients where. And you can tell because I work for no cd, so I know, like, that there are some clients out there who are like, no, I don't want to just go and just get matched up with whoever based on availability and just be hit or miss with my therap therapist.

[Michelle]

Right.

[Unnamed Therapist]

I want to know that there's a connection. Know, like my specific therapist's background, expertise, et cetera.

[Michelle]

Yeah, you just need to be found.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Yes.

[Michelle]

I think it would be worth a month of Google Ads if it's something you're kind of aching to try. But I would make sure, like, your Google, your business is up and running before you go spending money.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Yeah. And I can't do Google my business because I'm virtual only.

[Michelle]

And so.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Yeah, I don't know. Yeah.

[Michelle]

So, yeah. I think you're networking, though. If you really, like, go hard on networking, I think that's going to yield a lot.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Yes, I need to do that. That's like one of the hardest ones for me to do.

[Michelle]

Why is it hardest?

[Unnamed Therapist]

Because it involves other people and it involves me reaching out to others.

[Michelle]

Is it your own social anxiety that comes up?

[Unnamed Therapist]

Yeah.

[Michelle]

Okay.

[Unnamed Therapist]

But I also know that I've done enough of it. Again, logically, I know that I've done enough of it that, like, once I get going, I'll be fine.

[Michelle]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Therapist]

It's just getting initial. Getting through that initial barrier. And I feel like I. And I know that I sabotage myself. I know that sometimes I'm like, all right, I just got to make this list a little longer, and then next week I'll send it out to a bunch of people. Whereas I could just be sending out to. Sending emails out to whoever's on my list. Got it right now.

[Michelle]

Yeah, you could. Okay, so. So I want to build some accountability around that. Today's Thursday. By next Thursday, will you commit to emailing a certain number of people?

[Unnamed Therapist]

Yes.

[Michelle]

And what number is that?

[Unnamed Therapist]

Well, I can email whoever's on my list right now. Hold on, let me see.

[Michelle]

I've got more than 5 to 10. Simply because if all of them get back to you, which rarely happens, but if all of them, like, yeah, I'd love to grab coffee or I'd love to do a zoom, you're going to be like, oh, my gosh. Yeah.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Yeah. Well, lucky for me, I Only got eight on my list right now.

[Michelle]

There we go. There we go. And so keep adding to your list too. So maybe reach out to five. Like, let's take the pressure up. You don't have to hit all of them. Reach out to five and keep adding to your list. Look for those anxiety therapists. Look for those therapists where, you know, everything looks okay on the outside, but it's not inside. The eating disorder therapist, potentially, we just need to be really clear with them that, like, if their eating disorder hops to OCD, but their eating disorder is well managed, then that would be a good fit. I'm trying to think of the other places that people go.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Yeah, those would be good ideas. Yeah, I'd love to get more because I feel like those are. Those are ideas that I had and if I could expand from that too, that would be great. I can keep working on that.

[Michelle]

Yeah. So by next Thursday, I want you to have emailed five people and I want you to tell us about it in the Facebook community.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Okay. I hate that too, but yeah, you.

[Michelle]

Can blame it on me. You can be like, in my one on one with Allison, she made me commit to this and I hate her for it, but I did it.

[Unnamed Therapist]

All right, I will do that. Cool. So I had the psychiatrist email me and share a little, like, you know, blurb about him and then send over a calendly link in his email. And I think he got a ton of responses from different therapists because he's trying to grow his practice. Do you think that doing it like, that kind of part of me was like, I love to have control over my schedule. So calendly sometimes feels like, oh, I don't know if I want to do that. But it also. I think it could also be an easier way for psychiatrists who maybe might not get back to me, kind of just be able to schedule something.

[Michelle]

100. Yeah. So what I love about calendly is you can tell it exactly what times. So.

[Allison]

Yeah.

[Michelle]

And you can also limit. Like, I don't want to do more than two of these in a day. Or I only make available one a day. And I don't know if they have a capability of like, I can only do two of these a week. I'm not sure. I can't remember that. I know they have it in a day.

[Unnamed Therapist]

I think you can customize it. I think. I think I was trying to figure it out a little bit because I'm not too familiar with it. I even linked my Google Calendar to it because it can if You've got something already on your schedule, and it won't show up on your calendly availability. I think what I was nervous about was that maybe some of the times wouldn't work, and that would maybe. I guess I can put that in my email. If a time doesn't work, please like, reach out to me.

[Michelle]

Absolutely.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Because I am willing to, you know, but I don't want to, like, show so much flexibility, and I'm on my calendly. I want to be flexible if the calendly times don't work. Yeah, well, I guess I can say that in my email, right?

[Michelle]

Absolutely. Absolutely.

[Unnamed Therapist]

All right. I'll have to revisit that. All right. So that's something I'm going to have to. To do as well, because it will line it a little bit and make it maybe a little easier for people to schedule.

[Michelle]

Yeah, you got it. Really, like, you just got to get out there. Your niche is so needed and so underserved that I'm not worried about you at all, as long as you get yourself out there.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Question about, like, blog posts. What do you think? Because I know you're in an adjacent niche. What do you think might be some good ideas that you maybe have, like, off the top of your head?

[Michelle]

Yeah, you could do one on, like, the social anxiety spiral of how, like, you get anxious so you don't go out, and then that increases your anxiety, and so you end up not getting invited to things because you never show up and that kind of thing. So you could talk about that. You could talk about on the OCD side. You could talk about, like, how reassurance is your kryptonite, or maybe if there's a better analogy of, like, something you really want but always makes things worse. And I would just listen in on your sessions this week, keep a little pad next to you where you just jot down the things that you keep hearing that are. You're like, yeah, all my clients feel that way, or most of my clients feel that way.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Thanks. I started this little, like, blog series. It's these, like, fictional characters that have, like, ocd, and I'm trying to kind of target a different subtype of OCD and just showing how ERP therapy would look like with a specific subtype. What I'm aiming at in each of these blogs is, like, showing different kinds of obsessions that show up, different kinds of compulsions that show up within that story. And what the character does, you know, that's in line with ERP therapy, that they've Learned that's cool. So that it's not like one of those, you know, what is Rocd kind of pose, because there's so many out there. But it's more of like, this is what rocd looks like or what it could look like in this story. And it's allowed me to also put in locations because these characters live somewhere locations and other keywords. So I'm trying to. And it's also allowed me to be more creative because I like more of that creative part of writing. So hopefully that will help. I've only published, like, three of them so far, and I look at one client who one of the posts spoke to him, so hoping that that might bring in some more. Yeah, we'll see.

[Michelle]

And I would consider podcasts, too. Like, if there are any podcasts that your ideal clients listen to.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Yeah, reach out.

[Michelle]

It can't hurt, even if they're a big one. Just reach out. Do a pitch.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Do you have anything on, like, doing pitches for podcasts? You know what?

[Michelle]

I'll do something on that on social this week. How about that? Or next week, actually, because this week's already done. But next week, if on Instagram, I'll do something on that.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Okay. That would be great. Because I thought about podcasting again. Like, part of me is like, no, But I've also, like, mentally prepared myself to sit, to, like, kind of do something like that. So that would be something I would be open to if I knew how to even.

[Michelle]

Yeah. Where to start with it?

[Unnamed Therapist]

Hey, like, what to say if I reach out to someone?

[Michelle]

Yeah, awesome. Sounds good. Well, thanks so much, Michelle. It was good to see you. Thank you all.

[Unnamed Therapist]

I really appreciate your help. Thank you so much. It was great seeing you again.

[Michelle]

You too. Take care.

[Unnamed Therapist]

Take care. Bye.

[Allison]

If you're ready for a much easier practice, TherapyNotes is the way to go. Go to therapynotes.com and use the Pro promo code abundant for two months. Free. If you're listening, you probably need some support building your practice. If you're a super newbie, grab our free checklist using the link in the show notes. I'd love for you to follow rate.

[Michelle]

And review, but I really want you.

[Allison]

To share this episode with a therapist friend. Let's help all our colleagues build what they want.