← Abundant Practice Podcast
Abundant Practice Podcast
Episode #659: Making Meh Marketing Better
00:28:26
member Shannah and I dive into the challenges of feeling stuck in a niche and marketing rut. We explore her passion for supporting individuals—especially educators—experiencing burnout and anxiety, and how to refine her niche to highlight her...
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- [00:00]
Shanna
Foreign.
- [00:09]
Alison
Hi, welcome to the Abundant Practice Podcast. I'm Alison 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 practice building.com Links all right, onto the show.
- [00:38]
Client
So I've talked.
- [00:39]
Alison
About therapy notes on here for years. I could talk about the features and the benefits in my sleep. But there are a couple things I want you to know about Therapy notes that doesn't typically make it into an ad script. First is that they actually care if you like their platform. They don't only make themselves available on the phone to troubleshoot so you don't pull your hair out when you get stuck. They also take member suggestions and implement those that there's client demand for. Like Therapy Search, an included listing service that helps clients find you internal and external secure messaging Clinical outcome measures to.
- [01:09]
Client
Keep an eye on how your clients.
- [01:10]
Alison
Are progressing A super smooth super bill process Real time eligibility to check on your client's insurance. In my conversations with the employees there at all levels, they all really believe in their product and they want you to love it too. Second, they are proudly independently owned. Why should you care about that? Because as soon as venture capital becomes involved, the focus shifts from making customers happy to making investors happy. Prices go way up. Innovation plateaus. Making more money with as little output as possible becomes the number one focus. With over 100,000 therapists using their platform, they've been able to stay incredibly successful and they don't have to sacrifice your experience to stay there. You can try two months free@therapynotes.com with the coupon code Abundant.
- [01:59]
Client
Some of y'.
- [01:59]
Alison
All aren't sending HIPAA compliant email and it's a problem. Even if you're paying for a business Google Workspace account and have a signed BAA, your emails still aren't 100% compliant. That's where Palbox comes in. You can connect Palbox to your Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 email one time and you're completely covered. No one has to sign into portals. It sends and it shows up like any other email. Behind the scenes. Pow box software checks the security settings of the recipient and ensures that the email is sent properly so you're not violating HIPAA and the ways accidentally be. Now I know HIPAA isn't sexy, but we don't avoid compliance. In an abundant practice, we check the boxes we need to check. And this is the easiest way to do that with email. Check out my friends@powbox.com. that's P A U B O X. Use code abundant to get $250 off your first year of powbox. That makes it less than a hundred dollars for your first year. Again, that's P A u B O x dot com. Use code abundant.
- [03:01]
Client
Hey, Shanna. How you doing?
- [03:03]
Shanna
You?
- [03:03]
Client
I'm good. Yeah. What would be most helpful today?
- [03:07]
Shanna
Thanks for meeting with me. I was so excited to kind of get a time with you. I am about a year, not quite a year, more like 10 months into practice. Okay. And I've really latched onto your program. Right. When people are like, well, how did you do this? Or how did you figure out this? I'm like, it's all abundance practice building. Like, it's like, no original content. It's just all you. I appreciate that so much. Yay.
- [03:35]
Client
Thank you.
- [03:37]
Shanna
So I feel like a good place to spend time today would be this, like, marketing rut that I'm feeling.
- [03:47]
Alison
Okay.
- [03:47]
Shanna
And a little bit of, like, a niche rut as been licensed for 20 some years. I did some original, like, agency work and worked with victims of crime in an agency and then spent a lot of time in schools as a high school counselor for alternative kids. And then I ran a program for homeless students. So I did some admin stuff and then kind of, like, ready for a change, went into private practice. So I started off with this kind of niche that felt, I think, a little roomy.
- [04:25]
Client
Right.
- [04:26]
Shanna
I really like to work with people and get them back into things that make them successful, part of their communities, doing what they need to do. And so my niche, I think, is with something like, I work with people who are having problems that are, like, getting in the way of school and work, which I know is not super formed. I'd never had it, like, really formed, but that's what I would kind of tell people. My caseload is, like, pretty diverse. I see about anywhere from, like, 18 to 22 people a week, which is kind of like, maybe I'd like to go, like, a little bit less.
- [05:02]
Client
Yeah.
- [05:03]
Shanna
But a lot of my clients do have stuff that's, like, they come in, like, my adults, feeling, like, burned out from work, which I love. I love working with educators and helping them kind of get excited about things again. Right.
- [05:16]
Client
Yeah.
- [05:17]
Shanna
And I also love getting kids back in school, so I end up with, like, this, like, a lot of anxiety and so now when people are like, what do you specialize in? I say, you know, I kind of restate my original niche and say, like, I end up like, with a lot of kids who have anxiety, end up with like a lot of kids who are afraid of throwing up. Right. This like OCD presentation and I'm like diving in, I'm learning all about it. But I do feel like without this like, strong niche then, like, I don't know where to go with marketing. I end up, I'm posting stuff about like mental health quotes in general.
- [05:54]
Client
Right.
- [05:55]
Alison
Mm.
- [05:56]
Client
Which is just wasting your time, really. Honestly.
- [05:59]
Shanna
Yeah. I think I have a full caseload because I'm like, pretty well connected.
- [06:06]
Client
Yeah. Because networking works. Yeah. Networking built a reputation.
- [06:10]
Shanna
Yes. I grew up around like 20 minutes from here. I went to college and grad school around here. Like all my internships and jobs have been around here. So like, I have a ton of different referral sources, but I'm kind of feeling like my marketing sucks.
- [06:25]
Client
Got it. Well, let's amp it up. I mean, like you said, the niche is going to be the very first piece to that. Because when you say like, you know, something's interfering with work or school, I'm like, well, yeah, that's the diagnostic criteria for literally everything in the dsm. Right.
- [06:41]
Shanna
I just like to get people like back doing what they like to do.
- [06:43]
Client
And like, well, you like the result. They were looking first for the pain. So let's figure out the pain specifically that leads to people not functioning in the way that they want and need to. The problem that lights you up the most. So you've talked about kids with anxiety, for instance, and your eyes just did a thing when I said that too. So.
- [07:06]
Shanna
Ton of it.
- [07:07]
Client
Yeah, ton of it. Do you love it or are you like, yeah, I can do it.
- [07:13]
Shanna
I think I love it. I don't think I would love working with exclusively with it, which I know and like you say like you won't work exclusively with it, but I even love these kind of rotten teenagers, right. That like, aren't doing everything they're supposed to be doing.
- [07:29]
Client
Yeah.
- [07:30]
Shanna
But I could not have a whole caseload of them because, like their sessions literally, like take all of my energy out of me. So yes, I think most of them have some sort of anxiety. So. Yes, anxiety. You see that? I'm feeling a little wishy washy about it.
- [07:48]
Client
Yeah. Like the so called rotten teenagers, right? They. I love that. Like, I picture Greece for some reason dating me a little bit.
- [07:58]
Shanna
But no, I can sing it all.
- [08:00]
Client
Yeah. I'M thinking about how they probably aren't identifying it as anxiety.
- [08:06]
Alison
Right.
- [08:06]
Client
Their parents are the ones looking for it because they're mis, they're misbehaving, they're not doing what's expected or wanted of them. But if kind of the through line between your anxious kids and your kids who are getting in trouble is that they're not attending school regularly, then that could be your niche.
- [08:24]
Shanna
Terrified of school anxiety and avoidance as a niche. And I've kind of played around with it. Like I just did a space training that was over a couple days over Easter. I just feel like it's so hard.
- [08:38]
Client
Okay, then let's not do that. We don't want hard, we want like joyful and.
- [08:43]
Shanna
Yeah. It's just a little bit like I worry that I don't have something that works.
- [08:50]
Client
Right. Because it's not a quick fix.
- [08:52]
Shanna
No.
- [08:53]
Client
Yeah.
- [08:53]
Shanna
And I've worked with a couple kids and we've gotten them back in school and it's like, been really great. But I worry that like, I haven't totally figured it out. And so it's hard for me to like, yeah, market and something that I feel like, oh, this is a solution. And I can really help with this because I'm afraid that sometimes I can't.
- [09:09]
Client
Yeah. I want you confident at work. We all have moments of imposter syndrome. Even if we've been treating the same problem for 20 years, we'll have a moment of it. But I, I don't want it to be like a daily situation.
- [09:20]
Shanna
So I think there's a difference between like what I see, like the little kids or like teenagers that are kind of like avoiding some things. And like that school avoidance. Avoidance. Right, like that, Like I can't, I can't get my foot in the door.
- [09:36]
Client
Right. Like I've got a tummy ache. That's based on anxiety. And then the parents are like, well, off to school you go. Sorry about that. You know, versus refusing.
- [09:44]
Shanna
Right. Yeah.
- [09:46]
Client
Okay, so what about. I'm thinking about like parents are the ones looking for the therapist. So what if it's more based on the parents experience of their kids? Whether it's like they don't, like they feel like they don't know how to help their kid. And then you can break that down into a few different presentations. So like your kid is anxious all the time. They don't always know they're anxious and it took you a minute to figure out that they're anxious, but now, you know, you realize that so much of their behavior is Based on anxiety or your kid's getting into trouble and you don't feel like you have the supports to get them back on track, or if there's another one, you know, like if you enjoy parent coaching or you enjoy the grown up version of either of those things, then you could also talk about that. But I think that was one thing.
- [10:38]
Shanna
I really latched onto. I think early on in watching your content was this idea of like. And maybe because I like the idea that it made my niche a little like roomier, but this idea of this problem and how it looks throughout the lifespan. Yeah, right. This like anxiety that shows up in childhood could sometimes be this negative self talk and adulthood. Right. Like that gets people from kind of where they want to be.
- [11:11]
Client
Yeah. So I mean, what if we framed it as anxiety? You could. So like there's the obvious kid anxiety. Like once the parents like, oh, this is anxiety. I need to get therapy for my kid. That one's more obvious. You can frame the rotten teenagers as anxiety as well because so often it is of like, teenagers are under pressures we were never under, like social media, all these kinds of things. It's a different world for them. And sometimes the way they manage that different world is to act in ways that we hate, you know, and like to list some of what you like to work with with those kids so that those parents can see their kids in it. And then adults with anxiety where the anxiety is getting in the way of their confidence at work, their confidence in relationships. But I think you gotta be really specific about the daily lived experience of the parent of anxious kids, the parent of rotten teenagers, and the daily lived experience of the adult. Like, I imagine like your website having three columns, basically. Like you have your hero image at the very top. You have your tagline, essentially, and then three different columns or photos with some words that they can link to the specialty page.
- [12:28]
Shanna
Yeah. So right now I have like an adults with anxiety like page. And then like children and teens. Mm.
- [12:38]
Client
I'd split up the children and teens if their presentation is so different.
- [12:42]
Shanna
Yeah. And even this. And I, I don't mean to like make it more complicated, but even like the teens presentation is so different too, because sometimes they are not doing what they're supposed to do, or sometimes they're doing everything they're supposed to do.
- [12:59]
Client
Yep.
- [13:00]
Shanna
Right. And they're driving themselves into this, like, anxious.
- [13:04]
Client
What if you frame that as like teenagers off the rails because they're going too far one side and the other.
- [13:10]
Shanna
Yeah.
- [13:10]
Client
And you can talk about how like on the Surface. The kid who is stressing out about getting all A's feels like a much nicer problem to have than the experience that other parents are having. But that the lived experience of that kind of compulsion and stress can be just as difficult as a parent.
- [13:31]
Shanna
Okay, and so you're okay with it? Are you just going along with it? That I have, like three different populations here.
- [13:38]
Client
I mean, it's all anxiety. So it's like, as long as the presenting concern is really solid and you talk about the experience of anxiety and, you know, if there's a particular kind of anxiety you like best that is across the lifespan, then I would definitely talk about that because I generally feel less attached to the demographic than I do the problem when it comes to niche. But you can't have an across the lifespan niche without an actual niche. A problem problem. And anxiety, it's got its own heading in the dsm.
- [14:16]
Shanna
It works a little bit more like a diagnosis. Right. So is the problem, then the presenting problem, like, can't manage? They aren't, you know, the anxiety that's getting in the way of success or happiness? Not happiness, but something like that?
- [14:35]
Client
Yeah. You could frame it as, like, anxiety is getting in the way of success and sometimes just functioning. So I think about those little kids who are just now realizing, like, those families who are just realizing that's anxiety, or the person who stays plateaued in their career because they don't feel confident enough to do the presentations they need to do to move up those kinds of things.
- [15:00]
Shanna
I feel like I can work with this.
- [15:01]
Client
Yeah. And that means the specialty pages, like, you really need to go hard on the lived experience. So talk about when you have your kids with anxiety, all the different ways that that shows up for them, how that shows up for them socially, how it shows up for them physically, how it shows up for their dynamic with their parent. And remember, you're talking to the parents in all of this, so you can come from that perspective of how do these worried parents describe what's happening at home when they first call you? And then same for the teenager. Like, teenagers off the rails. You can say, like, your first paragraph can say, like, I end up treating teenagers on both sides of off the rails, basically. And then go deeper into each and the parent experience of each with empathy for the kid interspersed throughout. And then the adult get really clear on that ideal adult, really clear. Is it a parent? Is it like the mom trying to keep everything together in the family while also being the breadwinner? While maybe dealing with a teenager who is off the rails in one way. Who was once that kid with anxiety and never got help for it. And this is how it's manifested as they age and go through life experiences.
- [16:22]
Shanna
Can I incorporate work in there a little bit?
- [16:25]
Client
For sure.
- [16:26]
Shanna
What I have. Right. Burned out.
- [16:31]
Client
And like what do you do when you're burned out but like you can't stop doing your job? You know, like you're so anxious and so exhausted and you have to keep going. There's no out for you feeling.
- [16:44]
Shanna
I can play around with it a little bit. I think I have some of it already on the website, but I think this will help to like really clear it up and get very specific. And I think some of my marketing stuff I really like to. This sounds a little bit like self serving, I think a little bit. Okay. Like, I really like to be like, seen as an expert in something. Right. Like I am insurance based. I take three insurances. I have like a threshold. Like I won't take an insurance underneath, like like 105, I think is the lowest insurance reimbursement in Akron. I'm in Akron, Ohio. So there's. There are a lot of private pay therapists, but I'm not one of them. I have like probably about 20% private pay because I don't take insurance and they decide to pay anyway.
- [17:41]
Client
Yeah.
- [17:42]
Shanna
I think eventually it's probably like a direction for me maybe.
- [17:46]
Client
Okay.
- [17:48]
Shanna
More important than that, I just want to be like an expert. Right.
- [17:53]
Client
Well. And I made the assumption that you were taking insurance because you don't have a niche in your full. So I think if you want to get off insurance, you do have to pick a more specific niche. Like you would need to choose one of the three we've talked about and go hard on it. That doesn't mean you won't get the other ones, you know, but the majority of your niche will be whatever or the majority of your caseload will be that niche that positions you as the expert. What do you. When you say you want to be an expert, what do you want to be an expert on?
- [18:25]
Shanna
How do you like helping parents with kids? Right. Like, I like seeing the kids, but I like helping parents with kids. I feel a lot less capable maybe of being an expert in like the adult world. So I can decide. I'm also going to. I had a really hard time getting into that like OCD foundation training, the BTTI one. So I'm going to Houston for that next. Next month. I'm going to kind of play around with that, like OCD with kids. And like all the different ways that presents and so that potentially is something I could really niche down.
- [19:07]
Client
Oh yeah. And I mean, no matter where you are, there are not enough OCD for the kids. Therapists, like one of my closest friends daughter has ocd and it has been hell trying to find truly niched care people who really know what they're doing with OCD and not just anxiety.
- [19:23]
Shanna
I have had a couple, but I feel like I'm, I'm learning on the fly. Right?
- [19:27]
Client
Yeah.
- [19:28]
Shanna
I've probably like five or six, but I'm open like I'm reading the book over the weekend to be like, okay, what am I doing next session? What is this like? Because I was on wait lists and stuff to get into these things and so I'm really as part of this like first year for me it's been like I just really want to figure out how to give good clinical care.
- [19:46]
Client
Yeah. Perfect.
- [19:48]
Shanna
So, you know, I'm not a new counselor, but I'm like new to private practice and I just want to be really good at what I'm doing. Like I want to help.
- [19:55]
Client
Yeah, absolutely.
- [19:58]
Shanna
So as far as like kind of marketing at this stage where I'm like going to be a little more niche but not like moving into like the next level of your program yet, which I forget what it's called. Limitless.
- [20:12]
Client
Yeah. And that'd be great when you want to switch to OCD if you decide that's what you want to do and like get to the private pay world.
- [20:20]
Shanna
So scary.
- [20:21]
Client
Yeah.
- [20:23]
Shanna
So this level of marketing, I. I was really good on blogs for like probably eight months. Right. I think my SEO is like pretty good. People can google me, find me now. Right. My referral basis give any like social media content ideas. I'm like feeling like I'm in a total rut.
- [20:45]
Client
Yeah.
- [20:45]
Shanna
And I'll tell you one thing I don't do is videos.
- [20:48]
Client
Okay, so then it's not worth it to do social media if you're not going to do videos because you're not going to get any leverage.
- [20:56]
Shanna
Don't like myself in videos.
- [20:58]
Client
I know I'm the same way. Or I was the same way. I got over it with a lot of exposure.
- [21:03]
Shanna
I don't understand how you're skin is so great. And then.
- [21:07]
Client
Well, thank you. I'm really just using drugstore stuff.
- [21:11]
Shanna
But I mean, same. But this is. That's all I see. And like the shadows on my face and I can't get lighting. Right. And.
- [21:20]
Client
Oh, it's all lighting. I mean really like If I. This is a desktop, so I can't pick it up. But if I brought it over here, you'd be like, oh, but I'm just in front of a south facing window. That's all it is. So for you, probably getting the right ring lights if you don't have a south facing window could make a world of difference. Because from here your skin looks great, there are shadows because you don't have the lighting. But if it's just about self judgment, I promise you, with enough practice, it goes away or it gets quieter, I should say. And then it's like what you're doing matters more to you than what you're beating yourself up with as that quiets.
- [21:59]
Shanna
Yeah, I do feel like I get a lot of referrals from social media, but they're like people I know.
- [22:05]
Client
Right.
- [22:06]
Shanna
They're not. And which is a bit like, it's a big chunk of my referrals. It's like somebody I went to high school with sees like something that I posted and you know, they tell a friend and you know, they're recommending me in mom chat groups and things like that, which is so nice.
- [22:24]
Client
Yeah.
- [22:25]
Shanna
So I do think I get referrals, but they're not. It's not coming from like a wider community of people I don't know.
- [22:33]
Client
So I might try. You can try faceless reels while you're working on building up your courage to be on video. Because being on video is going to make people connect to you 10,000 times more than just something you post.
- [22:49]
Shanna
But also, I don't know what to say to people.
- [22:52]
Client
Oh, I got you covered with that. Don't worry about that. Let me find this faceless account real quick. So my friend Julia started on Instagram. The handle is the flow brain, all one word. And like sometimes there are some pictures of her or videos of her in the background, but you can't really see her face at all because words are on top of it. And she grew that thing to 28,000 followers, almost 29,000 followers, without ever talking directly to the camera, I think. Yeah, there's one where she interviewed somebody.
- [23:29]
Alison
Where both their faces are on there.
- [23:30]
Client
But for the most part she's not doing what most people do. But the content on the reels are really valuable. So look at her. See if you can model some of that. You can use Canva for the backgrounds.
- [23:45]
Shanna
But those are videos, but they're not.
- [23:48]
Client
Like, they're not of you. Yeah. So put a trending sound behind it. Write some really like, helpful, truly Helpful, truly niched content on top of the photo and let it go for, like, a few seconds. I don't know how long hers are. Looks like about three seconds. So then they get a lot of views because people are reading the words, and it takes them, like, you know, 30 seconds to read the word. So that's 10 views right there with one person.
- [24:19]
Shanna
So I didn't know that's how that worked. Yeah, the one person's like, 10 views. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I can look into that. I can try that. So truly helpful, truly niched. Am I doing, like, what I do in therapy? Mm.
- [24:38]
Client
Well, you're not talking about, like, in therapy, but you're like, think about the things you say a lot in therapy. What's something you're always saying to anxious kids?
- [24:48]
Shanna
Usually first session, we do this, like, fire alarm analogy, right? Like, anxiety. Is your fire alarm going off Sometimes there's no smoke, no fire.
- [24:58]
Client
Yeah. So you could be like, try this colon. In my first sessions with clients with kids, I talk about how anxiety is their fire alarm, that it's just alerting them that something is going on that they need to pay attention to. Try saying it like this and then put an arrow down and say, like, check the caption. And then you can kind of walk a parent through how you explain the fire alarm. That's an actionable thing that they can take away. Don't be afraid to, like, give away the great things you say in therapy. That's not going to prevent someone from coming to see you. That's going to make them more likely to see you. Because if you're going to give that away on Instagram or Facebook, what are you going to do in session? You know, so when you think about your anxious adults, when you think about the teenagers, your ideal parents probably have some empathy for these misbehaving teens, Right? Like, they're pissed off at them and they want them to act right, but they still love their kid. And so tapping into that empathy and talking about why kids behave in that way sometimes and why that's so hard for parents and how they've done everything they knew to do up to this point, and they feel like they're failing. Like, you can tap into that truth for parents thinking about your anxious adults. And I mean, like, if your people struggle with perfectionism, for instance, your adults, you can talk about how it's freezing them at work, how if they just were willing to do a shitty first draft of something, it would allow them to make some real progress, because it doesn't have to be great right out of the gate. You can edit it and make it what you need, that kind of thing.
- [26:46]
Shanna
And that you're thinking, like, could be like, there's an introduction to it, but the actual, like, content is in the comments.
- [26:57]
Client
I would put it on the reel for the most part. But to go a little deeper in the comments sometimes, and sometimes you could just be like, you know, what are your thoughts on this question mark? Are you. Is empathy with your misbehaving teens something you struggle with? You're totally human. If so, you know, so I would keep a little notepad next to you for sessions and just write down the themes or the phrases. You're like, oh, yeah, I definitely say that more than once a week and you'll end up building up content ideas really quickly. It looks like we're up on time, so hopefully that's a good running start for you.
- [27:34]
Shanna
Yeah, I think that would be helpful. Thank you.
- [27:36]
Client
Absolutely. Yeah, I will talk to you soon.
- [27:39]
Shanna
Okay, thanks. Bye.
- [27:40]
Client
Bye.
- [27:43]
Alison
If you're ready for a much easier practice, Therapy Notes is the way to go. Go to therapynotes.com and use the promo code abundant for two months free. Make sure your email is actually hipaa compliant with PowBox. Use code abundant to get Palbox for less than dollars your first year@paubox.com 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 and review, but I really want you to share this episode with a therapist friend. Let's help all our colleagues build what they want.