Episode #667: Ask Allison Live

Summary

Abundant Practice Podcast - Episode #667: Ask Allison Live

Release Date: July 14, 2025
Host: Allison Puryear

In Episode #667 of the Abundant Practice Podcast, host Allison Puryear engages with listeners in a live "Ask Allison" session, addressing a range of questions from therapists striving to build, launch, and expand their private practices. This detailed summary captures the essence of the discussions, offering valuable insights and actionable advice for therapists navigating the challenges of private practice.

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1. Launching a Bare Bones Practice on a Tight Budget

Speaker: Elliot
Timestamp: [01:54] - [07:56]

Elliot, a first-time participant, shares her struggle to launch a private practice amidst financial constraints and family responsibilities. She seeks guidance on establishing a minimalistic practice setup.

Key Points:

• Virtual Practice: Allison emphasizes the importance of operating virtually to significantly reduce overhead costs, such as office rent.

  "I would say first, the most obvious is be virtual. Right. That's going to be a lot less than rent somewhere." [02:39]

• Defining a Niche: Elliot specializes in serving transracial adult adoptees dealing with identity and trauma. Allison advises deepening this niche by understanding where ideal clients seek help and the specific problems they aim to resolve.

• Networking with Medical Providers: Allison recommends leveraging relationships with primary care physicians (PCPs) as a primary referral source. She highlights that most referrals come from one's own medical providers rather than broader networks.

  "I think the most referrals I've gotten from any medical providers have been my own medical providers." [05:25]

• Public Speaking and Community Engagement: To increase visibility, Allison suggests participating in conferences for adoption professionals and conducting webinars for adoption groups. Engaging in public speaking can position Elliot as an expert in her niche.

• Local Resources: Given Elliot's location in Minnesota—a state heavily involved in adoption—Allison encourages connecting with local adoption agencies and educational programs to foster referrals and collaborations.

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2. Expanding into Group Practice and Leadership Challenges

Speaker: Carmen
Timestamp: [09:24] - [21:43]

Carmen, a somatic therapist specializing in burnout prevention for busy women professionals, seeks advice on transitioning to group work and enhancing visibility.

Key Points:

• Leadership in Group Practice: Allison underscores that managing a group practice requires strong leadership skills. She warns that without proper training, group practices can quickly become dysfunctional.

  "Leadership is the most important piece of group practice." [09:46]

• Setting Clear Expectations: Effective leadership involves setting clear expectations, maintaining accountability, and providing consistent follow-ups to prevent a toxic work environment.

• Financial Management: Understanding and managing the financial aspects is crucial. Allison points out that profit margins in group practices are often slimmer than anticipated, necessitating careful tracking of client numbers and expenses.

• Legal Considerations: Compliance with state-specific laws regarding employee benefits and taxes is essential. Allison advises group practice owners to be well-versed in these regulations to avoid legal pitfalls.

• Resources for Group Practice Owners: She recommends the Group Practice Exchange, a membership site offering contracts, leadership guidance, and support tailored for group practice owners.

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3. Balancing Marketing Efforts with a Growing Client Base

Speaker: Brand
Timestamp: [21:47] - [25:56]

Brand, a private practitioner nearing her weekly client goal, grapples with maintaining marketing activities without overwhelming her schedule.

Key Points:

• Selective Marketing Strategies: Allison advises focusing on the most effective marketing channels that yield the highest return with minimal effort. This approach prevents burnout and ensures sustained client acquisition.

  "It's finding like, what one recurring thing can you do that has worked best in the past that you, you don't have to do it every single, you know, you don't have to do it twice a week, maybe once a week and see how that works." [24:12]

• Leveraging Existing Relationships: Re-engaging with previous referral sources, such as a trusted doctor's office, can rekindle referrals without extensive new marketing efforts.

• Streamlining Marketing Efforts: Allison emphasizes reducing scattered marketing activities by concentrating on one or two proven strategies, making marketing more manageable and less time-consuming.

• Addressing Marketing Anxiety: Recognizing the anxiety associated with fluctuating referrals, Allison encourages therapists to identify low-effort, high-impact marketing tactics that align with their current client load and business goals.

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4. Overcoming Marketing and Writer's Block

Speaker: Rachel
Timestamp: [26:01] - [32:37]

Rachel, a therapist working with neurodivergent and LGBTQIA+ individuals, seeks solutions for writer's block hindering her marketing efforts.

Key Points:

• Brain Dumping Techniques: Allison suggests outward expression methods like brain dumping or audio recordings to bypass perfectionism and generate raw content that can later be refined.

  "If it's like more bottom up, then I would love you just to brain dump. Like, don't try to make it cohesive, just brain dump." [28:00]

• Utilizing Tools and Support: Leveraging AI tools like ChatGPT for editing or hiring copywriters can help organize and polish marketing content without stifling creativity.

• Collaborative Editing: Enlisting the help of friends or colleagues adept at editing can provide the necessary support to transform raw ideas into coherent marketing messages.

• Clarifying Niche and Messaging: Allison emphasizes the importance of clearly defining the niche and articulating the specific pain points and relief clients seek, which can streamline marketing content creation.

• Addressing Financial Concerns in Marketing: Rachel also touches on the temptation of loans for funding marketing efforts. Allison advises cautious consideration of loan terms and exploring community-based support options as alternatives to minimize financial risk.

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5. Additional Insights and Recommendations

Throughout the session, Allison offers overarching advice applicable to all participants:

• Niche Specificity: Clearly defining and understanding your niche allows for more targeted and effective marketing strategies.

• Thoughtful Marketing: Emphasizing quality over quantity in marketing efforts ensures that activities are sustainable and aligned with business objectives.

• Community Engagement: Building and nurturing relationships within relevant communities can lead to organic referrals and sustained practice growth.

• Resource Utilization: Taking advantage of membership programs, such as the Abundance Party and Group Practice Exchange, provides therapists with tools, training, and support essential for practice building and management.

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Conclusion

In this live "Ask Allison" episode, Allison Puryear provides insightful and practical advice to therapists at various stages of their private practice journey. From launching a cost-effective virtual practice and expanding into group practice management to balancing marketing efforts and overcoming creative blocks, Allison's guidance is tailored to empower therapists to build thriving, fulfilling private practices. Her emphasis on leadership, niche clarity, and strategic marketing serves as a valuable roadmap for listeners seeking to enhance their professional paths.

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Notable Quotes:

• "Leadership is the most important piece of group practice." – Allison [09:46]
• "It's finding like, what one recurring thing can you do that has worked best in the past that you, you don't have to do it every single, you know, you don't have to do it twice a week, maybe once a week and see how that works." – Allison [24:12]
• "If it's like more bottom up, then I would love you just to brain dump. Like, don't try to make it cohesive, just brain dump." – Allison [28:00]

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For more resources, visit www.abundancepracticebuilding.com to access free checklists, worksheets, and additional support to build your private practice.

Transcript

[Allison]

Foreign. Hey, our live Ask Allisons are an opportunity for you to get free live conversational support from me. You're hearing an excerpt from one we did recently. I'll give you details on how you can join our next live Ask Allison at the end of the episode. So, I've talked about therapynotes 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 therapynotes 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 keep an eye on how your clients 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 [e-mail] with the coupon code Abundant. Okay, I'll keep an eye on the other folks who will come in later. Welcome. Hi. Yeah, Elliot.

[Elliot]

Hello. It's my first time here. Can you hear me okay?

[Allison]

I can hear you. Great. Yeah.

[Elliot]

Oh, perfect. Awesome. Yeah. First time here. I have been probably trying to launch a practice for about four years now, but, you know, I'm two kids in, so stuff has happened. Yes. Yeah. And you know, money is also super tight, so I'm really looking at how can I just like bare bones get this going. I've had interest and so I feel like now I just got to do it. There's no more messing around. So really looking at how can I launch a bare bones practice with, you know, minimal financial resources.

[Allison]

Yeah. Yeah. So I would say first, the most obvious is be virtual. Right. That's going to be a lot less than rent somewhere.

[Elliot]

Yes.

[Allison]

Do you have a niche yet?

[Elliot]

I do. So, yeah. My niche is serving transracial adult adoptees who are dealing with identity challenges, their adoption experience, as well as, like, trauma from adoption. And then I also do lifebook work, which is related but somewhat separate, but all related to adoption and identity and adoption experiences.

[Allison]

Got it. Yeah. So I would say being virtual zoom, networking with people saves you the five bucks on the coffee. You've got your whole state, maybe more states if you're. If you're licensed elsewhere, but you've got an entire state. And I think tapping into, like, where does your ideal client go when they're looking for help? How do they know they need help? What's going on for them? That they're coming into therapy right now? That's a question I have for you, because we've got the demographic of who they are, but what's the problem they're wanting to work through.

[Elliot]

Yeah. And I'd say a lot of it falls on not feeling like they fit. I don't fit either in my family. I don't fit with, you know, my race or cultural background, but I also don't fit in dominant culture race. But, like, where do I fit? And those kinds of challenges. Yeah. So where do they go? Or where are they showing up? Yeah.

[Allison]

Are they showing up to their PCP for some antidepressants because of the way it's showing up? Are they, like, tapping into any sort of, like, cultural activities from one, you know, like something that matters to them, or they're exploring their cultural identity? Are they getting into advocacy in some way that's related to what they're going through?

[Elliot]

I think a lot of it's going to be probably family saying, you got to do something because this is a lot. And it's showing up in other ways, you know, behaviorally sometimes, or it looks like depression. So, yeah, I think the PCP is a good place to tap into. I. I think there's a lot of. I don't think they're quite at the tapping into cultural stuff because it. It feels so foreign and uncomfortable. So I don't think they're quite there yet. Yeah. But, yeah, pcp. So as far as, like. And I guess we were kind of just talking about this, but as far as, like, tapping into primary care. Yeah. Is that reaching out to the referral coordinator?

[Allison]

It can be. And I'll say, like, the most referrals I've gotten from any medical providers have been my own medical providers. So it's also like, while you're at the doctor, and they're like, well, how are things going? You can work in your practice there you can be like, things are going really well. I've been working on my private practice where I work with this population. Here's the way it often shows up. They often will come to doctors first for antidepressants. I think the hard part there is that PCPs may not know they're transracially adopted. Right, right. Unless their pediatrician parents are bringing them.

[Elliot]

Right, right. Yeah. And I'm really trying to move more towards adults because I see that as being a group who's just totally forgotten about, honestly. Yeah, yeah. And I think the other piece that's kind of going for me is connection to local adoption agency as well as a. Like a training education program that I. I do some facilitation and also case consult on. So I'm like, can I. Is there any way. Sounds maybe not the best choice of words, but to exploit that. Right. To tap into that a little bit more in addition to medical providers. Yeah, I can totally do. Yeah.

[Allison]

A good question came up in the chat. Where are you? Where do you live?

[Elliot]

I'm in Minnesota and we are a state that is hugely involved with adoption. So that's going for me. I'm in Minnesota.

[Allison]

So I wonder too, I don't know how you feel about public speaking, but I'm sure that there are conferences for adoption professionals. I wonder about speaking at those. Yeah, I don't know the data or anything about, like, if someone was adopted, are they more likely to adopt, in which case, you know, there might be something there in the adopting community.

[Elliot]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm fine with pub. Well, I don't like it, but I will do it for this population because I feel so passionate about it. I'm also an adoptee, a transracially adopted person. So, yeah, I can do more of that. I have done kind of like webinars here and there for like the adoption groups and things like that, so. Okay. Yeah. And I actually. I don't know the research on that either, so that would be interesting to find out.

[Allison]

One thing for public speaking, for anybody considering it, it's great to go up and speak and give a really great talk that people can take things home and learn from. What I would love for you to also make sure you do at the end is to pitch your practice in a really smooth, easy way because there are going to be people in that audience who really want more and if you don't tell them how to get it, they're not going to know. So the thing I usually like to Say is for some of you, this is exactly what you needed. And I love that you can take some things home and start applying them. Others of you may want to go deeper. You may need some support in going deeper and integrating this into your life. For those of you who are in that position, you have my information on this slide or you have my information in the email or whatever, please reach out and I would really love to support you.

[Elliot]

Yeah. Yep. Awesome.

[Allison]

It's not salesy, it's not cheesy. It's just like an opportunity for the people for whom it fits.

[Elliot]

Absolutely. Thank you.

[Allison]

Yeah. Yeah. And it looks like you've gotten some good feedback in the. In the chat too, of different places to look. Yeah. Some good stuff.

[Elliot]

Yes. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, I'm. I do work with pac, Eileen, if you're familiar with that. So, yeah, totally familiar with case. Thank you. Thank you very much.

[Allison]

Yeah, absolutely. Who else? Let's see. Carmen, do you want to unmute yourself, Carmen? And we can. And ask your question and we can start there. Sure.

[Carmen]

We're thinking about expanding our practice and, you know, just trying to consider, you know, how do we advertise what. Well, I guess the things you really need to know when you're getting ready to expand your practice and setting that up, since it's just been the two of us so far.

[Allison]

So I love this question. And if you've heard me talk about group practice before, you've probably heard me say this, that if you're going to start a group practice, I want you to really love managing people because that's where you're going to end up spending most of your time is in, like, managing colleagues. So a lot of people end up going into group practice. And I don't know if this is you or not, Carmen, but a lot of people end up going to group practice because they continue to get referrals. And it just feels like the next logical step. And, you know, who doesn't want to make more money? Like, I assume most of us wouldn't turn that down if it felt ethical and good. So in order for it to be ethical and good and to prevent your folks that you hire from ending up in my programs to get out of a toxic agency, you have to be really good at leadership. And you have to. Like, the good at leadership part where we tend to fail as therapists is we're too accommodating and too nice and too lax. This is definitely where I have messed up as a leader in the past. So, like, if you don't Set really clear expectations and have clear accountability and follow up. If those expectations aren't met, then everybody's going to hate it. People are going to be crying in each other's offices. It's going to be like any agency job you ever worked at. So I would say before you start a practice, a group practice, I would encourage you to get leadership training. I don't know of any courses or anything like that. I feel kind of like, I feel like leadership training the way I feel about supervision. Like we can read about how to be a therapist, but that's really different from being a therapist and having stuff come up and needing somebody to talk to about that. So having like a one on one leadership coach is what I would recommend. So I'll say that, I'll say leadership is the most important piece of group practice. You also have to be really willing to look at numbers constantly. You gotta have a certain number of clients that your therapists need to see per week to even, just break even. Because how much profit you actually make as a group practice owner is actually pretty slim. The profit margins, that's the word or the phrase. The profit margins are a lot slimmer than most of us who have been employed by group practices assume by the time they're paying taxes, if they're, if you're a W2 or you're hiring W2s, which I strongly recommend over 1099, by the time you're paying taxes, if they're in person, you're paying offices, you're paying for, you know, so many different things. Hopefully you have some continuing ed credit in there for them. If you're being the kind of boss you want to be, the profit margins are slim. Even if you're being a shitty boss, honestly, the profit margins are slim. So making sure that you know the numbers that each person needs to hit and that you can provide those referrals I'm a strong advocate for. If you're a group practice owner, it's your job to get clients in for them. It is not your therapist's job to market. Why, why wouldn't they just be in their own practice? And then there's just like all the legal stuff. Depending on what state you're in, if somebody works a certain number of hours, then you have to give them benefits. It's really hard with your slim profit margins to provide health insurance. And so knowing exactly what that looks like for your state, what the laws are. I love the group practice Exchange. They have a membership site similar to the Abundance Party, but all about group Practice and they have the contracts that you can use. They have leadership guidance. They have a lot of really good support for group practice owners at all levels. So I would recommend looking at the group practice exchange so that you can be a great leader and have a really great group practice that people are glad they work at. Who else? Yeah, Kimberly. We'll go Kimberly, then Brand. Hi, everybody.

[Carmen]

Hi, Allison.

[Allison]

It's so see you and be with you. Yay.

[Carmen]

Well, okay, I'm trying to synthesize my question because I have so many, but I'll just start with. I'm a somatic therapist, a licensed clinical social worker. I do somatic experiencing and ifs. I'm in Maryland. I have a virtual practice. I'm out of network. I specialize in burnout prevention and recovery. My niche is like busy women professionals who present with anxiety and struggle with perfectionism. They all have childhood trauma or came from very dysfunctional family of origin dynamics. I am going through a transition where I'm really feeling called to do group work. I've been playing with like low cost offerings or even free offerings. Somatic self care. And I think I might be. I might. I'm in a tweak phase and I'm. Yeah, and I'm. I think I may be kind of really interested in working with healers and therapists. And I'm transitioning not only to wanting to do group work, but sort of somatic coaching or I'm calling it somatic self care because I don't know what else to call it. But I'm actually going like a sequence through like embodiment into dancing and like creativity.

[Elliot]

So.

[Carmen]

Yeah, and I just trained training in sound healing and like vibrational just using like even Reiki. So energy work. And I'm gearing up to launch a safe and sound protocol. I'm thinking to combine se, ifs, safe and sound protocol. And I don't know what to do about like visibility. And I have noticed that referrals have have dried up and it does like sort of. I go through like that panic phase and then I'm like, wait a minute. But I'm actually not like. My current marketing is occasional coffee chats with people I actually really like friends with. It's like easy. It's like, oh, I haven't talked to.

[Allison]

Her in a while and I have.

[Carmen]

A therapy done directory.

[Allison]

That's it.

[Carmen]

And also trauma therapist network. I used to get a lot more referrals from therapy done, but I don't know if it changed since Jeff sold the director. I still get some. But like all my ideal clients come from, from that like copy that I wrote. But yeah, I guess my question is like, I don't know, burnout, recovery and self care just feels so individualistic and I'm really feeling called to like meeting the needs of the collective, like in service of collective liberation. But I'm not like a, you know, I don't, I don't have like a liberatory, focused practice. Although in a way that's what I feel like the individual work is leading to like capacity for collective healing. But I don't know. So my question is like, I'm worried about visibility. Like how am I going to fill these somatic ssp? I mean to go from how do I get someone to sign up for like it's like gonna be like 12 weeks, you know. So I'm trying to give these like low cost offerings so people can get a sense of my style before signing up for like we're gonna go on a journey with ssp. It's definitely attorney any thoughts in terms of like visibility, tweaking, marketing strategy. And I'm so sorry if that was like very rambly. I need like five hours with you. I need, I need your program. I need a lot of help.

[Allison]

But yeah, I've got it synthesized. I think it all comes down to your niche, right? Because I think we've got burned out women. We also have maybe healers, therapists, etc, who are also burned out. Like there are some people looking for safe and sound, but that's not the majority of people. Most people don't care how the sausage gets made. They just want to feel better. Right? So thinking about like if your ideal client is a burned out therapist, how do you market to that burned out therapist about their burnout? And therapists are going to know about safe and sound or, or not everybody's going to know, but like they're more likely to know than a layp person. So it's thinking through what is it that your ideal clients want, what are they currently struggling with that is making life significantly harder for them and speaking to that. And so we got to start there with the visibility conversation because otherwise we can get really caught up in how do we explain safe and sound or how do we convince somebody that 12 weeks is worth it? Because probably most of us have clients who stay with us for longer than 12 weeks. No problem. That's probably not been an issue. You've ever been like, man, no. Everybody drops off at week nine.

[Carmen]

I have clients that I've been working with. For years, like six years.

[Allison]

Yeah.

[Carmen]

You know, but that's also like anxiety provoking because they're getting, you know, they're at a place where they're ready to probably, you know, I. People aren't going to stay. The model isn't let's get people to stay. We want people to get better and move on. And with the way that the referral system is working, it's just not the same as it was.

[Allison]

Right? It's definitely not the same as it was. And we have to do more to be found than we used to, which is not what anybody wants to hear. Like, I don't know, I don't know many therapists who are like, sign me up for more marketing. Sounds great, but here we are. And it's not necessarily more work, it's just more thoughtful marketing. Like, it's not more hours marketing, it's just more thoughtful. So you getting really clear on like, which niche you want? Is it more generalized to women? Is it more specific to therapists or healers? How do you speak about that burnout in a way that's not like everybody else is talking about burnout. An interesting thing I've been recognizing is that burned out women is like every woman. It's like literally every woman I know. But it sounds like a really specific niche, right? Like if one of us burned out women see somebody talking about the daily lived experience of a burned out woman, we're like, oh, you totally know me. So it's one of those niches that feels really narrow, but it's actually quite broad in a good way in terms of how many people fit into it. So burned out therapist has a specificity that narrows it further in a great way if that's who you want to work with. But when we're talking about working with therapists, we have to be, you know, therapists are more, more selective, more picky. We're going to. We really need to feel like you're the one for us. And, you know, some things that I am not implementing or don't know in order for you to help me heal or, or, you know, move through what I'm moving through. So typically, just like everybody else, that means explaining that daily lived experience better. And with therapists, you will talk more about how you work than you would a layperson niche. So I would think about, most of us probably use word of mouth when we're looking for our own therapists or our own care. You could also network with therapists who work with therapists. Say, like, here's a group that could be going on in the background of your work. Like, I'm not wanting individual clients right now. I'm wanting this group work. And so I'm not trying to steal your clients, but I can help support them in this way. And there are thankfully a number of therapist therapists out there who can help.

[Carmen]

Okay, thank you.

[Allison]

Did that get you what you needed?

[Carmen]

Yeah, yeah, I did. I think it's a. It's like, with anything, it's going back to the basics. Like, getting clear on the niche is what I feel like. I need to, like, get really clear on that pain point. This is what I'm walking away from. It's like, how do I describe what.

[Allison]

What.

[Carmen]

There's the relief that they're seeking, the underneath the pain.

[Allison]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Carmen]

I have a lot to chew on. Thank you so much.

[Allison]

Absolutely. Yeah. Brand, you were next.

[Brand]

Hi.

[Allison]

Hi.

[Brand]

Can I follow up on a previous one first and then ask my question? I put it in the chat, but could you define what a warm letter is?

[Allison]

Yeah. So this is something. In the Abundance party, we have a whole training on how to do warm letters, but they're essentially something that you send to people. You know, like, that's the warm part about what's going on in your practice, but not in a way that's salesy and cheesy. Okay. So it's like a way of updating people and essentially, like, asking for business without it feeling gross.

[Brand]

That's helpful to get a definition. Thank you.

[Allison]

Do it.

[Brand]

So my question is, I did the Abundance party. Let's see, spring of 2024. So I'm about a year and a half into private practice, and. And I'm close to, like, the numbers that I want to be doing weekly. So I have a goal to do about 22 a week. And I'm around, like, 18 or so, which is great. Right? And, you know, because the whole time that I was following your plan and doing all the marketing, I was thinking to myself, I just want to do therapy. I just want to be meeting with clients. I just, like, I don't like doing this constantly. And so now that I'm, you know, feel like I'm number that I want to be at, I'm finding less time to do marketing and more time to do therapy. And. And I'm finding myself even less wanting to do any marketing because I'm like, I'm okay. You know, I've got a good amount. But then you go a couple weeks without any referrals, and you get that sort of nervous feeling. So I guess what I'm. What I'm asking in a way is, is how do you balance that once you know, you're pretty close to full and then still finding time to continue marketing. And do I need to as much?

[Allison]

I mean, I think as long as you're okay where you're at, like, it sounds like you're not at your ideal number, but you're at your paying your bills, fine number. It depends on what you want. Maybe 18 is your number. Maybe it's not 22. Maybe 22 would suck. You'd have more money, but less time. And if 22 is your number, if you like really look at is 22, my actual number, is that what I want want? Then it's looking at what's the lowest hanging fruit in terms of your marketing. What has brought in the most people for the least amount of time and energy? And then you just pull that one lever and you just do that.

[Brand]

Kind of limiting, picking from some of the ways that I've been marketing and finding the ones that have worked the best and focusing more on that. Yeah, yeah. I think it's also a little bit of like, fear of like, yeah, I'm at 18 now, but, you know, one or two weeks in a row with a couple cancels or, you know, not any referrals, and all of a sudden 16 and then Canada just start backsliding. Right. There's a little bit of that as well. And so that desire and just sort of the knowledge that I probably need to keep marketing, it's just not my favorite thing to do.

[Allison]

Yeah. And if it's, if you can get that clarity that it's just this one type of marketing you have to do because you've got your website already, if have an online listing, you've got that already. You don't have to like, keep messing with that. It's finding like, what one recurring thing can you do that has worked best in the past that you, you don't have to do it every single, you know, you don't have to do it twice a week, maybe once a week and see how that works. And it sometimes is really just tapping into one referral source you've had in the past. Like, if there was a doctor's office that sent you a lot of people and you haven't gotten anything from them, just be like, hey, just checking in. How are things going? And that referral coordinator is like, oh, yeah, brand is top of mind again. Let me get you to that. 22. So, yeah, yeah, that's helpful.

[Brand]

To not feel like I have to do everything that I was doing every week like I was at the beginning. It's helpful to think about what are one or two things that I can really lean into. Maybe I'm a little scattered of thinking I need to still do all the things and I'm doing all of them not very well.

[Allison]

Right.

[Brand]

Versus yeah.

[Allison]

Because you're busy now.

[Brand]

Yeah.

[Allison]

Okay. Yeah, yeah. So let it be easy. You're at the stage where you can let the marketing be easy by just focusing on one.

[Brand]

Maybe that's really helpful. Thank you.

[Allison]

Let's see. Rachel. Hi. Hi.

[Rachel]

So I. This is my first ask, Allison. I'm still relatively new, maybe about two months into the abundance party, and I am stuck in marketing fundamentals 1.

[Allison]

Okay.

[Rachel]

And feeling like I, I've. I've reviewed the like, omg writer's block. And I still have writer's block.

[Allison]

Okay.

[Rachel]

And I think, you know, part of it is probably my own perfectionism driving it and stopping me before I really get started and looking at the little bit I've written and being like, that's crap.

[Allison]

Got it.

[Rachel]

And, and I still feel this like block, the stuckness, this frozenness around it was just curious if you have tips, maybe even I know, you know, your, your stuff is not specialized to neurodivergent folks, but I'm also adhd. That's part of the picture here too.

[Allison]

Yeah. So I think like when there are executive functioning issues in general, we need to find like the clearest, easiest path. But first I want to kind of like filter out. Do you feel great about your niche? Because sometimes that'll slow us up. If we're not excited about our niche, we don't really want to write about it. Yeah.

[Rachel]

Yeah, I do feel excited about my niche. I think like a lot of my writing, I worry that it's not cohesive, coherent enough because I. Wonderfully associative, bottom up processing brain.

[Allison]

Uh huh.

[Rachel]

So you know, I, what I have is I work with neurodivergent and LGBTQIA plus individuals, couples and polycules to heal from trauma, accommodate and accept themselves, and create accessible, pleasurable and joy filled relationships.

[Allison]

Yeah, that sounds great.

[Elliot]

Okay.

[Allison]

As long as it excites you, it sounds great to me. It needs to sound great to you that that's who you want to spend, you know, day in and day out, working with and Amazing. Okay. So we've got that filter handled. The perfectionism thing. I would love to be able to just wipe off the face of the earth, but I am I'm there with you sometimes. Like, I'll get caught up in it with the way that your brain works. If it's like, more bottom up, then I would love you just to brain dump. Like, don't try to make it cohesive, just brain dump. And that could be audio, too, if it's easier for you just to talk. And depending on how you feel about AI, it is something you could put into ChatGPT and say, can you make this flow better? If you're not into AI, Then it might be asking a friend who's really great at editing to help you kind of put it into a better way of saying it. I feel like they were like. I think it's basically like, use tools. Use whatever help feels right for you, whether it's a friend or whether it's online somehow. Because I don't want you kind of circling the same drain because you're being asked to do a thing that your brain is having a really hard time doing. So if you're brain dumping, it doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to be clean. You could also just, like, hire somebody from Fiverr or, you know, like a copywriter and be like, hey, can you magic this? So I think there are. There are different ways that we can use the brilliant way that your brain does work to get things across, because you're going to be able to describe their daily lived experience, their hopes and dreams, their struggles, better than some copywriter off Fiverr. But the copywriter on Fiverr might be able to, like, organize your thoughts in a way that feels more cohesive and alluring for somebody landing on your site.

[Rachel]

Thank you. That's all really helpful, I think, you know, I really relate to the, like, bootstrapping, you know, that's been talked about. I've tried to do that for a very long time, and I think I'm at this point where I'm seeing the limits of it. So, like, I. I really. The funding conversation, too, that Jeanette brought up, I was like, oh, yeah, that is something that's been on my mind. Stripe every time I log in is like, you could qualify for, you know, like, a $10,000 loan.

[Allison]

How much?

[Rachel]

And I'm like, that's very tempting. And the debt is also a little scary.

[Allison]

Yeah, yeah. And I would say, like, if y' all are needing some money, I would. I mean, look at the terms, right? And you can also go to creditcards.com and you can filter by 0% APR credit cards, and some of them are 0% APR for a while. But here's the thing, you have to really be on top of paying them off. And so that might mean you schedule the payments so that they happen no matter what. It might mean a number of things, but it's just a lower cost. Like then you're not paying for borrowing the money in the way that stripe is definitely going to make you pay for borrowing the money. But I think if it's a friend and maybe you're great at like deep cleaning a kitchen or something, and you could be like, hey, can I deep clean your kitchen while you make this make sense, then it's a way to be a part of your community in a way that I think we probably used to do a lot more of in the past of like really helping each other out. That could potentially feel really good and benefit both of you.

[Rachel]

Yeah, that's a really great idea. I think I'm also another thing I've kind of decided that I will do instead of just being like, I work with all of these different groups, right. These are all of my specializations. On the front page is creating like them into service pages, which is also just like, okay, that's so much writing.

[Allison]

Yeah, it's a lot of writing and you have a lot to say about it because these are your people, you know, like, they're the people you love working with. So I think if you're just brain dumping, like, here's the daily lived experience, here are the daily frustrations, how they show up. If you're just talking about what it's like for them in each of your specialties, then all of a sudden it feels really like, oh, I could talk about this for three days. Like, this could be like a 100 page book. And so I would just pretend like you are talking to someone who's like, wait, who do you work with? Somebody who's like genuinely interested and wants to understand.

[Rachel]

That all makes a lot of sense to me. Can I ask a separate question?

[Carmen]

I kind of wanted to follow up.

[Rachel]

On the idea of like giving talks to counseling centers. Can I ask? You know, usually when I. And I don't get it very often because marketing myself, being neurodivergent doesn't happen all that often, but I sometimes give paid talks. I imagine if we're doing this for the purpose of networking and making connections and possible referral sources, that's probably not what we're doing. We're not charging them.

[Allison]

It depends on where it is. A college counseling center, I probably wouldn't charge because at least the one that I worked for and some that my friends work for. Like, there's not an honorarium. Like, that's just not something they typically pay for. It depends on the venue for college counseling centers, I definitely wouldn't. And I would also make it, like, I wouldn't have it be like, how to support your neurodivergent students, because a lot of them are like, we know how to do that. Find that overlap of your niche that differentiates you from their staff members and pitch that. Okay. Yeah. All right, y', all, I have to run. Thank you all for being here and your great questions, and hopefully we'll do this again soon. I'll talk to you later. Bye. Thanks for listening in on a live Ask Allison sponsored by our friends at Therapy Notes. If you'd like to join us for the next one, send an email to helpundancepracticebuilding.com and we'll send you the link. 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, 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.