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Private Practice Startup Podcast
Episode 186: When Doing Therapy Just Isn't Enough: How to Develop Alternate Streams of Income
00:31:42
Marissa Lawton
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A
Welcome to the Private Practice Startup podcast where we help ambitious private practitioners across the globe to brand themselves and grow their dream practices. We chat with successful private practitioners, business coaches and marketing experts, bringing you tons of practice building Ninja tips. Visit privatepracticestartup.com for awesome resources, attorney approved private practice paperwork and our signature marketing E course. Here are your co hosts, Dr. Kate Campbell and Katie Lemieux.
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B
Hey.
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C
Hey startup. Hey, Patience. Welcome back to another episode of the Private Practice Startup podcast. We are excited that you guys are here and joining us today. We welcome back a previous guest who is Marissa Lawton. And last time she talked about three ways to use emotion in your content and why therapists make the best marketers. And we couldn't agree more. We'll add that episode also in our show notes. But today we're diving in and we're talking about topics specifically related to the time that we're in in our world today. And today's topic is going to be when doing therap just isn't enough. How to develop alternate streams of income. And for many of you during this times, you probably have or you've been thinking about, I need to do something else. So we're going to dive into that topic today. But before we do, just a little bit about Marissa. She's a licensed counselor who also happened to graduate from a top 20 business school. She is a corporate trained strategist and online marketing whisperer who lights up helping fellow clinicians repurpose and repackage their clinical training skills. And before we do dive into the topic today, if this is your first time with us, we wanted to welcome you with open virtual arms. I guess on the podcast we've been social distancing for a long time anyways, but we're giving you guys a virtual hug and welcome to the Startup Nation family. And of course, if you are a longtime loyal listener. What's going on, guys? Welcome back. We really hope that you guys enjoy this podcast. And for our new folks, we have a special gift for you. That's our A to Z cheat sheet, the essentials for building and growing your dream practice. Head over to privatepracticestartup.com look for the resources tab in there. You'll see it. And it comes with five days of practice building emails. And let's just take a quick moment to thank and appreciate our sponsor before we dive into the topic because this podcast is awesome with them, so we really appreciate their support. When you're in private practice, it can be tough to find the time to review your marketing efforts and make improvements where needed. Whether you're a seasoned clinician whose current website needs to be revamped or a new therapist building a website for the first time, Brighter Vision is here to help. By first understanding your practice and what makes it unique, Brighter Vision's team of developers will create you a custom website catered to your specific marketing goals. Better yet, they provide unlimited tech support to make sure it stays updated and professional search engine optimization to make sure you rank high in online searches, all at no additional cost. To get started for $100 off, head to brightervision.compps Again, that's brightervision.compps There are.
- [03:06]
D
So many ways to keep your practice organized, but TherapyNotes is by far the best. They're easy to use, secure platform, lets you not only do billing, scheduling and progress notes, but also create a client portal to share documents and request signatures. Plus they offer amazing unlimited phone support. So when you have a question, they're there so you can get help for fast. Get started with TherapyNotes today, trusted by over 60,000 professionals. Go to therapynotes.com and enter promo code PPS as in Private Practice Startup and you'll get two months for free. Also, you can listen to episode 54 where we interviewed Brad Pliner and took an in depth view into their ehr.
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C
Hey Marissa, welcome back.
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B
Hey. I'm so happy to be here. I wore makeup this time because last time I didn't realize you guys did video and I looked a hot mess. I was like I need to be prepared. I'm just really excited to be here again. I know last time I was talking about marketing your private practice and why I think therapists make amazing marketers. I put them up against anyone with a MBA any day. But I'm excited to talk about today. You know, what to do when maybe your practice isn't enough or in the times like now when therapy feels really heavy. Are there other alternatives to your therapy career?
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C
And I think one of the things too with people struggling with being at home and with their kids and wearing so many roles and not having their time like therapy is, you know, you're trading your time for money. Right. And it's easy maybe when there's a structure or you have a sitter or your spouse's home, but when you have like no time, you're trying to figure out how that's all working.
- [04:51]
B
Yeah. And also like if your kid busts in on your session or you know, your husband or your partner or somebody walks in and then you're worried about confidentiality. And you're worried about just so much stuff. There's just so much that comes with what we're going on, what's going on right now.
- [05:07]
D
And then also with people's caseloads dipping with the pandemic and not having enough income coming in, being able to have multiple revenue streams and diversifying your income is a wonderful resource to have. So, yeah, there's a lot of reasons why this topic is going to be on point. So where do we get started?
- [05:26]
B
Yeah. So I think the biggest thing that therapists kind of need to know is that you don't need another degree, you don't need a coaching certificate, you don't need any more like trainings or anything to do something else. Our clinical skills are so valuable not only in session, but they translate to so many areas and so many avenues outside of session that we have all we need to do something in addition to therapy.
- [05:59]
C
Yeah, more on that.
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B
Yeah. I think our profession sets us up for this, right? Like, we have to get our hours and then we have to get our license. And then every two years for me, in my case, I have to take more education and prove that I'm still staying competent. And then if I want to learn a new modality, I need to go get certified in it. And I think that. I think it's great for the mental health arena, but that's one of the things that's nice about some of these other income streams, such as coaching, that isn't as regulated. Right. It kind of gets a bad rap that, oh, anybody can call themselves a coach, but at the same time, there's something freeing about that because we have so many regulations in one area of our business or in one area of our career that's kind of nice to go somewhere that's a little less regulated. So everything that we do to maintain and uphold those standards in mental health is plenty. To have a course or coaching or even like workshops or something on a small scale, and we can talk about what those might look like. But I just want everybody to know that you don't need more than what you already have. What you already have is plenty.
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C
Right. And really just being clear, like, the reality is, you know, I remember kind of coming into business and, you know, I had so many, like, wrong thoughts, right? Like, I would remember like, marketing something or sharing something. I'm like, oh, I'm not going to share that again because, you know, I don't want to bore people with it or they already saw it. And, like, the reality is, is like, like 3%, 5% of people actually see what you might be sharing. And so, you know, the idea of regurgitating or reusing or repurposing content consistently was kind of a hard shift to make. But now it's like such an easy, relaxed shift. Right. So if you're a couples counselor, you're a parent, you work with parents on parenting, like, all of that stuff that you already know and learn is you could just repack very differently. You know, I kind of think about, I don't know if you guys like the show, the profit, but I remember he decided to help a. So that's Marcus Lemonis. Great show. I love it. All about business. He decided to help a salon. And what they did is they took the shampoo and they repackaged it, Right. They put it in a different, you know, bottle, make it look different, increase the price. And so it didn't change. You're taking the stuff that you already know. And this is what you're saying, Marisa, is that you already all know these things. Like, now you can move to more of a teaching role or a coaching role or some type of different asp. Wearing a different hat. And I don't even want to say that you. That you normally don't do because you probably do that in session.
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B
Yes. Especially, like, think of those first few sessions when you're. You're heavy in psychoed. Right. This is what attachment is and this is why it matters. Right. We don't always go straight to process. A lot of times we are teaching in those first few sessions and just pointing out like, educational points. And then like when we're doing treatment planning where we're acting as a strategist. Right. So there's skills that we use that we probably don't even recognize that we're using.
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C
So I'm just curious, as your coaches and the therapists that you work with, like, what are some of the difficulties that you're hearing them talk about during this time? Business wise, business personal and like, where they're at mentally with. With our topic.
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B
Yeah. So as. As one of you guys already mentioned is that a lot of caseloads are dipping. And I am seeing that, that it's hard to sometimes convert people onto like telehealth that they. They're like, I know I'm good. I'll just wait till this is all over. But I'm also seeing the opposite. I'm seeing some people's caseloads explode because either returning clients or old clients are coming back or they might be getting new clients. So that's one thing. There's either a dip in income or like, they're seeing they're busier than they've ever been, but also that all of the topics are so heavy that it's Covid, Covid, Covid, Covid all of the time. And so that's what I think. Having another income stream or having something else that you're doing can kind of lighten that load. If your caseload is really heavy at that time. And even, like, people who see grief and trauma or complex cases, regardless of a crisis, they always have a heavy caseload. They're always having heavy conversations. So having something that's lighter, that feels almost like an escape or substitute whatever word you want, but something that feels fun and enjoyable that you're also kind of profiting from is a good idea.
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D
Where do you recommend that people start when thinking about developing alternate streams of income?
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B
Yeah, I think it all starts with personal reflection, which feels kind of like, oh, you just told me to slow down, and you just told me to pump the brakes, because a lot of people just want to start tomorrow. And I'm a quick start. So I get that. But I think you need to answer a few questions first. Mainly like, do you want to do something on a big scale, or do you want to do something on a small scale? For instance, I have somebody who uses mindfulness in her practice all of the time. Mindfulness meditation, that kind of stuff. And she just decided, hey, pay me five bucks a week or five bucks a time and come in. I'm going to lead you in a guided meditation. Right. So it wasn't the therapy. It wasn't processing, like, what's going on? Why do we need to be mindful? What's it like if you're not mindful? Like, none of that stuff. It was just, hey, hop on. We're going to hop on zoom once a week for 30 minutes, and I'm going to just lead you through a guided meditation. And so that was nothing for her to do, but it was. And it wasn't something that was making, like, probably not going to pay her mortgage, probably not going to, like, make her a ton, a ton of money. But it was a way for her to quickly supplement a few of those clients who had dropped off without really ever having to do anything new. She just had to say, hey, want to come meditate with me? Pay me five bucks each time. She's getting 20, 20 people a each time to hop in, zoom with her. So it's a hundred Bucks close to the price of some people's sessions, right? So you can do something as simple as that, or you could say, no, I want to have like a full blown income stream or a full blown business out of this thing. I want to do coaching, I want to do a course that I sell passively or whatever. But until you really reflect on how big do you want this to be, how many people do you want this to help, how much money do you want to make from this? When you know those things, then you can start putting in the pieces of, is this a course? Is it something else? Is it just a quick experiential thing that I'm throwing together for Covid or whatever.
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C
Nice. And you know what's interesting? I think about this time, you know, I often think about Freud, right? So we will most often move from, you know, pain, then seek pleasure. And right now, this is a very painful time, whether it's for whatever reason. You know what I mean? And you know, I love. When we spoke to Carrie Nola, she talked about, like, where orange is just being, like, squeezed, right? So whatever's not working already really gets illuminated at this time. And it's really, you know, I think, to me, I always look at, you know, the crisis and the opportunity together is because, you know, we're looking at shedding the things that aren't working. And so maybe you've been thinking about creating something for a while and now you're under the pressure of, wow, this, if this happens again, this is not going to work, you know, and what do I need to do? And, you know, I know we keep talking about, like, crisis on these podcasts as the crisis now, but also our own personal crises, or I remember, I don't even know. But we live in, you know, hurricane zone. We're approaching hurricane season soon, which is crazy coming out of the pandemic, going to hurricane season. But Kate and I, you know, we were having a supervision course, so it was a live event and there was a hurricane coming, right? And so we had to refund all those people. And so it really gives you an opportunity to look at those things that are working that are not working. And maybe you tweak some of your systems or maybe, you know, you invite yourself and to begin to explore what these other income streams would be like. And, you know, I'm saying this really, really to myself, but I'm also saying this to you guys is, you know, I really want to invite you to look at these things not from a scarcity mindset, but more from Inspired action. Right. Something that really lights you up.
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B
Yeah.
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D
We're talking about this in terms of like the context of the crisis.
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C
Right.
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D
Because we're all knee deep in the crisis right now. And this goes way beyond that. Because if you think about the therapy business, it's a dollars per hour mentality, right. You're exchanging your time, your service to get paid for that.
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C
Right.
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D
And there's only a certain amount of time in the day. Now throw on the crisis on top of everything and it makes it so much more challenging. But on a regular non crisis time, you can only see a certain amount of clients. So your therapy business, your income is always capped, your time is always capped. There's always a limit to that. So to think about, okay, how can I offer a different kind of product or service so that it's not contingent or dependent upon me exchanging my time for money? And to be able to offer something passively like you were talking about, it's great to start thinking about this and to really look at ways of expanding your business, expanding your mindset, expanding your life. It really can help in a lot of different ways. Marissa, what were you going to say?
- [15:20]
B
Yeah, it was going to go right in line with what you just said. There's kind of two sides to this coin. Having multiple income streams can help you achieve kind of that lighter lifestyle. Maybe you're seeing 22 clients right now and you want to see 12. Right. So an online income stream or revenue from another source can help you cultivate that lighter lifestyle. But it also can add a sense of stability and security. Because the way that I kind of describe it is like faucets. Right? So your faucet, your practice is one faucet and you probably have that cranked pretty high now. But if you had another faucet, you could turn it to just a trickle and then you could kind of dial this one back a little bit, or you could turn this one to full blast and dial this all the way and you can just kind of turn and turn and turn until you find the flow that works for both of those. Right. And if this one gets turned off by a crisis or by an economic something, you have another faucet that's under your control that you can turn the dial on.
- [16:20]
C
I love that analogy. That's great.
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D
And I think also too, and I'm.
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C
Sure many people have done this, is really looking at like their own finances. I know we really talk about when coming in a private practice or launching a business is really assuring that you have like a Financial plan and being clear about that. But what I really love, Marissa, is that you just shared like a way to begin to shift and pivot and it not be like crazy because Kate and I often have this conversation. Like when we go into something, it's always we have this great idea and it's like, okay, it's going to take us this short amount of time and it's always more because we make it so fancy and complex. And it's interesting. We did a quick pivot and we're offering some free live masterclasses at like really low nominal cost. And it's been a lot of fun and it's really come out of inspired action rather than having to make it like appear and look a certain way. Right. Like, getting the content out there and engaging the people that you already have, that you're already working with is important. And you know, sometimes like when you talk about the mindful thing, like, maybe that's all they have time for. Maybe financially that's all they can do right now. But the cool thing is they're staying connected with you, you know, and so if they are a client, you know, and maybe they had a lot of financial crisis during this time is that they can, then they're staying connected with you. You're serving them in a different way and then they'll come back when they're ready.
- [17:35]
B
Mm. Another really cool way that one of my students is doing this is a book club. So she's not charging a ton of money for it. It's like 10 bucks a month. But you know, people have. Why would you charge for a book club? Right. This is something I do for free with my girlfriends. Well, it's books curated by an expert. Right. So you might be able to pick, say, say your clients are middle aged women. They're right on the verge of like empty nest or something like that. You can curate books that will be personal growth for that particular person. Right. And your knowledge of where they're at in the lifecycle, what they're going through at that time, maybe anxiety that's coming up. Right. Your knowledge of their experience can help you pick the right books. You also can lead a more in depth discussion than like, you know, Jamie down the street or whatever. When you're like your, your monthly book club with your friends. Right. So you can totally charge for that. Right. And I think that that's something like therapists would be like, what do you mean? Like I could monetize me picking a book. And you totally can. This is what I mean. By like, these are things that you might recommend books as resources in session all of the time. And that's valuable because you've had, you have the lens to examine that book that somebody else doesn't have.
- [18:56]
C
I love that. I love listening to these creative ideas and shifting and pivoting and, you know, I think also too with marketing is sometimes you just have to step in and do it or launching a new product or service, and you got to see if it's a fit and if it's not. I mean, even people who, I mean, like you, Marissa, you went to business school, right? And we are in the school of business because we business owners. But sometimes marketing is a crapshoot. Like Kate, myself, and our startup coach, Susan took a picture on one day this week because it took us 41 minutes for the three of us to come up with one webinar title. Now, it's just funny because, you know, we teach marketing and sometimes it's not always easy, right? So I think part of this is just doing it and experimenting with it. And if it goes great, awesome. And if it doesn't, that's okay. It's not a failure. It's just a chance for more information. I always look at, you know, whenever I put something out there in the world as feedback, right. And okay, what do I need to shift and change? But I really love these ideas that you're sharing. I'm curious to know if you have more like simple ideas that your coaches are giving.
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B
Yeah. So the one thing that's always easy to do is a workshop. And some of you who are listening, you might have done in person workshops. And we can always bring those things online. We can bring them into Zoom or wherever. And you know, a workshop, you could charge $25 a seat. You could charge $50 a seat. I've seen workshops be $100 a seat, right? And so one point that Kate made was time for money, right? And so that is another reflection question that I would have people look at is do you want to have interaction with the people that you're selling to at all, or do you not? So some people might say, I get enough face to face or at least screen to screen right now with my clients that I would sell a course at 2 in the morning on a Tuesday. I don't need to know that student's name. They go through the curriculum, they get the information and I'm all good. Other people would say, no, I still need to have some sort of interaction. And at that point, we want to kind of have it be instead of one to one, at least in a one to many capacity. So a workshop or something. So you might still be doing time, exchanging your time, you might still be showing up, but you're not showing up one to one anymore. So it's still more bang for your buck. It's still quote unquote scalable because you're seeing more than one person at a time. Absolutely. That's something like a workshop, a training all of us have had to do, like in services or trainings, like think back to agency time, think back to all of that. Like, these are all things we've done a million times. We just don't. We don't assign value to the things that we do.
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D
You bring up such good points. And that was the other piece that I was thinking about earlier that flew out of my head. So I'm glad that you brought that up with the one to many. And the cool thing about online is that I find that it's so much easier to fill events online than it is to fill them in. Like a face to face workshop, traditional workshop, in person type scenario. And if you have 500, 800, 1,000 people on Zoom, you're not seeing them all. They're not all in front of you. And for someone, for myself, I get nervous when I'm speaking in front of like live big audiences. So it feels a lot easier and more effortless and more fun that way. It's not as. It's not as draining. So it's just kind of a. I know a lot of people are not loving the move to everything being online, but there's definitely some perks to it and. Yeah. So I just wanted to bring up that different perspective.
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B
Yeah, it's funny because I feel like I was social distancing before. Social distancing was cool because I would wake up in the morning, I would drive my kids to school, I'd come home, I'd work online, and then I would go pick my kids up from school and, you know, I'd see teachers along the way like, hey, how you doing? But we were definitely six feet apart. Right. So it's like this has been my life for a long time and some people thrive on that and some people don't. And so it's kind of like if you still want to have interaction with somebody, then something like a book club or whatever, where you're still meeting, where you're still having conversations, where you're still able to exchange a dialogue that might be more important to you. Yes, it's it's via a camera or it's via a screen. But you still can have really good connections with people. Like my students, they work with me for six months at a time. Some of them have had babies during that six months, some of them have had losses during that six months. And we, I mean, I know these people and when our, my program ends and they have to like, you know, we say bye for the last time. It's sad. And so you can still definitely develop the relationship.
- [23:40]
C
One of the things I just wanted to go back to what Kate was saying about like live events versus online. Like in order to market a live event, you need months and months and months. People have to consider, you know, hotel rooms, I mean if it's more than one, whatever. But like with like virtual stuff, you can have an idea on Monday and it be launched in a few days. Right. And I remember when I read the book Launch by Jeff Walker and he talked about the idea of creating money and I was like, you know, as I say that I get chills now. Like you have the opportunity to almost create money right. With your ideas. And I just think that's such a cool concept. So I love that you're sharing these.
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D
Things and it's more important now than ever, you know, looking at ways of getting creative to create that money.
- [24:23]
B
Yeah. And I'll be paying attention to statistics and things like that. You know, we won't know the total economic fallout of this for a year or so. But the gig economy, meaning freelancers and people who were working for themselves was going to be 30% by 2030. 30% of the workforce by 2030 was going to be self employed. And not only self employed, like having, you know, a tire shop or something like that, but like doing contractual jobs for other people, like I write copy for you or I write a website for you or whatever. And so these one off projects, this ability to create money that you're talking about, it was dramatically on the rise before COVID And I'm really curious to see what happens after this. I think people are going to really understand the value of having income coming from more than one place. I think they're really going to value and start to understand that. Monetizing their thoughts, monetizing their ideas. Like you just mentioned, it's the way of the future. It was already happening, happening. And I am going to bet that it makes it happens even more so.
- [25:38]
C
Now for sure, you know, and for those of you guys that might be thinking like, well, what can I, what should I create? What should I create. So my business coach a while back gave me exercise, and it was an exercise of 365 ways to make money. So what's just fun? And I just remember, like, driving down the road, like, oh, what can I create from a palm tree or railroads or whatever. So if you're just kind of stuck in trying to come up with an idea, just encourage you guys to just exercise your mind and make it as silly and ridiculous sometimes as you can. But I'm sure there's a ton of things that your ideal clients would absolutely love from you.
- [26:16]
B
And I love that you said exercise your mind, because here's another way that something that you can monetize is people will often ask you to pick your brain, and they expect to do that for free. And this also, I think, is kind of ingrained in us from the therapy industry. Like, oh, can I jump on with a quick case consult with you? I just have to ask about this one tricky client or something like that. And we do that for free all of the time. But you can charge for that. You can charge for your ideas. Earlier this morning, I had somebody who was like, just a consult call. They're like, I have 25 questions. Could I just ask them to you? And I said, absolutely. Here's my hourly rate, right? And so this one's a little harder to draw the line, because if somebody has one or two questions for me, of course I'm going to answer them. But if they're like, I really need an hour of your time to get through all these questions, then I'm going to charge for that. And that can be practice related. Maybe you do something in your practice. You have a really cool script or you have a really cool way that you've managed to do something. You could have people who want to ask you about those things, but don't negate, like, things you do in your life. Like, I use this facetious example all the time, but, like, you might be a really awesome rose gardener, and everybody's at home right now, and they want to make their yards really pretty and they want to know how to grow pretty roses, right? We're talking a lot about repackaging what you do in session, but don't negate, like, the other talents and other skills and other things that you have that you can totally monetize.
- [27:49]
C
I love that you say that because, like, my bucket list is to have a garden. I am not going to create it. I'm going to hire someone to create it and give me the basics on how to not Kill it. But, yeah, I don't want to go learn all that stuff. I really don't. So there's so much great stuff there. So, Marissa, what do you want to assure that stardomation takes away from your message today?
- [28:11]
B
Yeah. So my message is never to take anyone out of mental health. Right. Mental health is a growing need. It's a growing field. And we do. We have such an expertise that no one else has. But I also think that we can do both and. Right. And whatever that and is for you. It could be something small, it could be something big. But I really want everybody to be able to kind of take their income into their own hands and not have to start. You don't need another degree. You don't need another certificate. You have everything that you need, and you can really have a booming career that feels more in your control.
- [28:53]
D
Nice.
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C
And I also know that you actually have a gift for starvation as well. What is that?
- [28:57]
B
Yeah. So I have a really cool quiz. It's 10 questions, so it takes like three minutes, but it helps you look at some of these reflective things that we talked about. Like, is this more about cash for you? Is this more about coming up with something that's fun and easy, like, what are you wanting to do to do with your online income stream? And then after these 10 questions, it tells you, oh, you're a good fit for coaching. You're a good fit for a course or a membership site. So you can kind of start to take steps of. All right, what do I want to offer? Well, this quiz can help you think of the path to start down.
- [29:32]
C
Awesome. And we are going to put that on our Show Notes page. And if you guys want to grab it, it's marissalotman.com quiz. But we'll put that on the Show Notes. And I forgot to tell you guys before we started, our last podcast was the Miracle Morning with Hal Elrod, who is actually the author. So if you guys have read the Miracle Morning, Marissa was mouthing, he's awesome and amazing. He has truly some really remarkable stories. And we talked about the Miracle Morning, and if you guys haven't listened to it or read the book, it really talks about setting you guys up for success and how even during a crisis, it's so important to have these success habits. And next week, we invited Jane Carter back, and Jan talked about helping businesses survive and thrive. Crisis. The light in the middle of the tunnel. So not the end of the tunnel. We're in the middle. So we talk about that really fun metaphor with her. So Stark Nation. Thanks for stopping by. We hope that you guys join us next time. And we always love when you guys.
- [30:32]
D
Yes, we always love when we hear from you guys when you shoot us an email and just say hey, I loved this episode on whatever the topic was that inspires us to keep providing valuable content for you. If there is a topic that you're really wanting to hear and it hasn't been on the podcast yet, please let us know. And if you're really loving the content that we're providing, definitely share with your friends, your colleagues and we would love to invite you to subscribe, rate and review our show. And we look forward to continuing to inspire you from Startup to Mastery. We'll see you on our next episode. Thanks for joining us on the Private practice startup. Visit theprivatepracticestartup.com for awesome resources, free trainings, attorney approved private practice paperwork, and so much more.
- [31:29]
B
SA.