Alternative Growth Methods to Expanding into a Group Practice

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Growth Methods

Are you currently in private practice, but are not wanting to expand into a group practice? Q&A was part of Next Level Practice, the most supportive community for therapists starting a private practice. In this video, Joe answers the question based on alternative growth methods to expanding into a group practice.

Question: Alternative Growth Methods to Expanding into a Group Practice

Jennifer: I’m in month two of private practice and have ten clients. I’m realizing I might grow organically with my network, and I’m not wanting to be a group practice anytime soon. I’m still an LLPC and I’m just not currently passionate about being a group owner. I am, however, super curious about adding either a free or paid-for group of audio meditations to my website that people can listen to. I’d like very specific meditations geared to my niche, which is people who are trying to find peace with food and body.

Alternative Growth Methods Answer

Joe: So I think that’s a great question Jennifer, there’s a lot of folks that want to get into the growth phase, but they don’t want a group practice. So, let’s talk about alternatives to that where you can build up some passive income streams. We might want to start by asking, ‘What are some intro things?’ So, that might be a blog post or infographics that lead into some sort of eCourse. You might use Teachable, you might go onto other people’s podcasts and talk about what you’re doing and drive them back there. So, instead of just looking locally, you may look more nationally for products that are before or after counseling. You can offer these things on the front end or the back end.

Value-Added Products

So then, what are the things that people need to support them before they would ever come to counseling? We want to focus on those things and there’s always product options there. If people find out about you nationally and you’re not going to cross state lines with counseling, maybe you do an intensive, or a group intensive, where six people come in and they learn from you. And then, after counseling, what are the things they would need support in? That might be an intuitive eating Facebook group, or a membership community. So, maybe $17 a month and you do a couple of live coaching sessions, or a webinar. A similar model to Next Level Practice where then it creates some kind of automated income that’s more than your typical rate.

So, if you were doing two webinars a month, maybe you do a Q&A and you set up a Facebook group and send some emails, we’re looking at maybe five hours a month. And so, if we say, for five hours, you’re charging $125 per counseling session times five hours, that’s $625 a month we’d want to have come in for those five hours eventually. If we divide that by say $17 an hour, that means we need to have 37 people that are in that group. So, if you can start to get more of an audience that’s more national, where we go beyond just the counseling practice, then you can build some of those things. It could be weekend intensives that people fly in for, and then an ongoing community afterward. Or, it might be before they ever come, you’re giving them some support in a way that’s not therapeutic, but that’s also really helpful.

Growing an Audience

Then, we ask the question, ‘Well, how do we then grow an audience?’ Well, some really typical ways to grow an audience is to have a very clear email opt-in. So, you might have a nine-step email course on intuitive eating that people opt into for free. You build some trust, maybe have some videos in there, and it automatically goes to them once a week. Then, maybe you go on to some podcasts, and maybe you respond to some ‘Help a Reporter Out’ notifications so that your name is out there as an intuitive eating expert. Then, you have this free nine week email course that walks people through the basics of intuitive eating and you start to build an audience.

Maybe you have a hundred people or so that are on that and then you want to reach out and say, ‘What do you wish that I could offer?’ ‘Where are you stuck?’ They might say, ‘I wish we had a greater sense of community’, or ‘I wish there were some small groups that we could just talk in’, or ‘I wish we had recipes’. Then, it’s the audience that’s determining the product, rather than just saying, ‘I’m going to put meditations on my website’. We want to build an audience around that before we put a lot of effort into those meditations. Now, for those meditations, you may want to create those anyway. I would say that Gumroad is a great platform for that; you can have all sorts of audio handbooks, different things that you can sell on there. It’s on their marketplace and you can just link to that from your website. It’s really streamlined and then you can also offer discounts for free for your clients.

Joseph R. Sanok, MA, LLP, LPC, NCC

joe-sanok-private-practice-consultant-headshot-smaller-versionJoe Sanok is an ambitious results expert. He is a private practice business consultant and counselor that helps small businesses and counselors in private practice to increase revenue and have more fun! He helps owners with website design, vision, growth, and using their time to create income through being a private practice consultant. Joe was frustrated with his lack of business and marketing skills when he left graduate school. He loved helping people through counseling, but felt that often people couldn’t find him. Over the past few years he has grown his skills, income, and ability to lead others, while still maintaining an active private practice in Traverse City, MI. To link to Joe’s Google+ .