Andrew Burdette 00:00:00  The grow a Group practice podcast is part of the practice of the Practice Network, a network of podcasts to help you grow, manage and promote your business and yourself. To hear the other podcasts like The Practice of the Practice Podcast, go to practice at the practice.com backslash network. You're listening to the grow a Group Practice podcast, a podcast focused on helping people start, grow, and scale a group practice. Each week you'll hear topics that are relevant to group practice owners. I'm Andrew Burdette, a practice owner, and I love to hear from people, their stories, and real life experiences. Let's get started. Hello and thanks again for tuning in to another episode of the Grove Group Practice Podcast. Today I'm here with Craig Allsop, who is the founder of Live Beyond Counseling in Texas and also marketing consultant to therapists. So welcome to the show.

Craig Alsup 00:00:59  Hey, I appreciate it man. I am excited to be here and excited to chat a little bit about annual and year end review stuff.

Andrew Burdette 00:01:08  Sounds good. So how did you.

Andrew Burdette 00:01:10  You own a group? you also do marketing. So how did you end up at this point in your career?

Craig Alsup 00:01:16  Yeah, very unexpected actually. I was a therapist working in private practice for a whole bunch of years before that was, working in a community mental health agency, doing crisis counseling, and, I stepped out of school into the crisis counseling world, as so many of us do. going from, you know, such an insulated place in school to the the toughest, clients sometimes and the toughest things to deal with. And, kind of got got over that and, stepped into the private practice world, for about ten years and, kind of cut my teeth on, seeing, kids, teenagers and stuff like that, and, then, 20, 15, I quit counseling, quit, seeing clients in person. I started, doing a little coaching. I started working for a non-profit organization helping kids around the world. And, about 2018, decided to launch our practice here in Texas. launched it as a group practice with no group, without me seeing clients.

Craig Alsup 00:02:35  But I hired one therapist, and then as soon as she got full, I hired another one. And, we built up now to ten therapists. we've got two admin assistants that are working, throughout the week, and then a team of marketing folks in the Philippines that help us out a little bit. I kind of work on the practice and not in the practice anymore. but, yeah, that's kind of how it how it started just wanting to help people in our community because we were helping people around the world. And then we kind of looked, looked around us and said, hey, we could we can make a difference here as well. so launched the practice beginning of 2018. and it has been growing since then, mostly growing, few few points where we've kind of leveled off, but, doing well. And then beyond that, started to just give therapists free information on a bunch of different Facebook groups and, answer questions when people had a marketing question or a systems question just started saying, hey, I can help.

Craig Alsup 00:03:43  What's up? and, before long, somebody asked me, hey, can you do the SEO on my website? And I said, well, yeah, I can. and I said, it's going to take me a little while. so I need to charge you. And she said, yeah, I was expecting to pay you. And I said, oh, oh, like, I can get paid for this. And, and so that started, me down the road of becoming a marketing consultant, helping with systems and SEO, Google business optimization, all those things. And, it was kind of by accident, really just helping some people out for free, and leaned into that a little bit and made a little side side business off of it. So that was about, 2019, I guess.

Andrew Burdette 00:04:31  Got it. So the I can relate to the doing what you're already going to do thing and then getting volunteered to get paid for it kind of thing. That's kind of how I ended up doing practice of the practice stuff as one of their community members.

Andrew Burdette 00:04:42  And then they were like, well, you're kind of an expert in these certain areas, and we have a change in our consulting staff. Would you like to come join our team? I was like, that sounds pretty cool. And here we are a couple years later. So there you go. it's cool how things work out. So you might be the first person I've talked to you that started a group without having even a therapist to work in the group, including yourself. And so, it's that very much the idea. If you build it, they will come. And clearly that worked out because you're still doing it five, six years later. So how did you. I'm guessing like you probably just created the business and the brand and then started actually filling in the back end about having stuff to staff the business. Does that sound right?

Craig Alsup 00:05:23  Yeah, exactly. Basically first step was creating the business from the government side of things. and then built a website. it, you know, the website has changed and grown a lot since then.

Craig Alsup 00:05:35  but, started out with those two things and then jumped on to Google and Google Maps and all that stuff. went out and leased a space, one office space in, like, a big building full of different suites and, then started interviewing therapists and, so it was it was a big it was a big risk. You know, it was a bit of a like, okay, we've we've got a space, we've got a website. I've put all this time into it. Now I actually need to get a therapist and start getting some clients. And yeah, thankfully it worked out well. Within the first few months we had hired another therapist. you know, within the first six months we had hired like 3 or 4 therapists. So. Yeah.

Andrew Burdette 00:06:20  Oh, cool. So as you've grown that one of the things that we're going to talk about as kind of urine review type things, how did you, you know, coming from, I guess, the nonprofit world and having previously been a therapist in other places, like how did that background translate into setting up metrics and knowing kind of where you want it to be and milestones and markers about business and knowing it's actually working in a functional way?

Craig Alsup 00:06:44  Yeah, honestly, in the first year or two, it was more sort of flying by the seat of my pants, kind of like, okay, let's see what happens.

Craig Alsup 00:06:52  And if it grows, it grows. And if not, okay. Right. Because I had another source of income. So it wasn't like I was counting on this as much. but so it was just testing things, right? and then after about two years, it was like, okay, we got to start actually setting some goals. We have to start really looking forward a little bit, really looking at office space and seeing like, how many offices do we really need? you know, in what areas can we grow? what stuff can we shift off to some admins? it really came about, you know, a little bit organically. as far as, like, when we needed to add things, we did. but, I have always been a fan of sort of looking back on goals and seeing what we've accomplished and then kind of moving forward. And, I just started to incorporate that into the practice more and more. after about two years in and really have, over time, just built out the different things I'm looking at.

Craig Alsup 00:08:00  you know, I'm looking at, expenses. I'm looking at, revenue. I'm looking at actual profit after after expenses. you know the basics, right? But then I'm looking at, which marketing things seemed to work the best. You know, what's the ROI on my different marketing things? What can I cut? What do I need to double down on? Maybe, if something's working, how much money and resources can I push towards it to see sort of where the top is of that thing? you know, what systems do I have? Which ones are needed? as we've grown, as a practice, we've had to build out sort of administrative systems where it's there are, there are things we say and things we don't say to clients. Right. There are ways that I want my admin assistance to answer the phone and respond to certain questions. and, you know, they've, they've, I'm sure made it their own over time. But, starting out with them, how do we get them trained up to where they can answer a question the same way I would, how how are we using, the metrics of our practice to actually influence what we're doing on a day to day basis? what information am I pushing to my therapist? You know, I mean, all those questions begin to come up, and over time, we've just, you know, sort of built out a way to answer a lot of that anyway.

Andrew Burdette 00:09:33  Yeah. I'm just thinking of, like, I'm in the process of going, let's see this here. I went from one other full time person and a quarter time person to now I've added two full time people. I have a third one I want to bring on the hurricane kind of disrupted things. This is like November of 2024 and I'm based in Asheville. So for listeners out there for context where like six, seven weeks post Helene and that's been a huge disruption for for lots of things here. So but, you know, goals wise, like I'm already ahead of where I really wanted to be. I just wanted to add two full time people. So the fact I have bonus people this year is really nice. but it comes with that consequence of like, now I'm having a kind of centralized systems and coming up with that. And so having to educate people on, hey, this is actually if I was answering the phone or dealing with this, this is what I would say. And we should kind of set a practice wide standard and just kind of codify things in those other types of things, like, you know, I'm sure some of what you have coached on people is like, here's rates and here's our policy around sliding scale.

Andrew Burdette 00:10:31  And you know what our intake flow looks like and what to expect.

Craig Alsup 00:10:35  Yeah.

Andrew Burdette 00:10:36  What are some other things that you've kind of coached into your team about how to respond?

Craig Alsup 00:10:41  Yeah, exactly. If you're not careful, in growing a practice, sometimes your, your rate of growth can get ahead of your systems. Right. You're and that I think happens to most of us probably if we're honest, you know, that we, we, you know, snatch up that therapist. That is just great. You know, that we we meet and we go, oh, man. Yeah, I need to hire them. Right? And then we're like, oh, what do we do with them? Like, do we have office space? You know, like what what what direction do we need to go with the practice now that I'm a little bit ahead of my wheels? Right. so the things that, you know, the things that I tend to coach people on and consult and work with, practice owners on, are, you know, marketing, you know, what types of different things can you do to grow your practice, whether it's Google business or search engine optimization? a lot of people ask me about blogging, which, you know, maybe, if it if it expands, the reach of your website if, if you begin to see some fruit in it and if you're going to do it frequently enough that, that it, it actually pays off.

Craig Alsup 00:11:57  social media stuff, you know, all the different business things that we are marketing, things that we do to sort of grow out, we, talk a lot about, systems. And when people do what you did and what I did, you know, when you sort of get ahead of yourself. then you have to back up and go, okay, I can't always be available to answer the phone, and so or emails even become, you know, difficult to respond to, at times. And so, you start to look at administrative systems and those, do's and don'ts and what you want somebody to say. And that can be a little bit overwhelming, for a practice owner, for somebody who probably never went into this thinking, I want to be a big business owner, right? most therapists don't. And, and then they get a little bit down the road and they go, oh, shoot. Yeah. Like I own a business now. and so walking people through, what are, you know, what are the things that you need to know to get to know your practice? You need to you need to know your average.

Craig Alsup 00:13:10  You know, your revenue per month. You need to, have an idea of what that looks like if you have year over year, you know, basis to, to be able to compare, what what does it look like this year compared to last year? And what's the, you know, what's the growth percentage? And then, you know, do you expect that to continue to grow? Do you expect it to flatten? I'm guessing yours has grown significantly since you've added this many new therapists. Right. but then, you know, if they're not full yet, what does it look like when they get full? Right. prophet, prophet tends to shrink as your practice grows. You know, as far as percentage wise. but, you know, because you take on additional expenses with offices and things like that, but then, like, what are your, you know, one therapist may cause you to have to get a, another office space. but that one therapist doesn't use the office space, you know, for all the hours that are possible during the week.

Craig Alsup 00:14:15  And so the one therapist may really mess up your profit percentage for a minute. you know, a little bit, at least. but then when you hire the next therapist, it's like, oh, okay. Then boom, your profit percentage goes back up, right? Because you can they can split the office space, hopefully. you know, things like, how much do you want to work in your practice? How much do you want to work on your practice? I talk with tons of therapy practice owners who, you know, especially those that are just getting started. And, you know, I'm asking them questions like, how many clients do you see per week? Okay, how many clients do you want to see per week? Right. So they're like, well, I see, you know, eight clients per week currently I want to see 25 per week, right. and you know, maybe that's maybe that's a comfortable point for them. And maybe they get to 25 and then wish they were back at about 15.

Craig Alsup 00:15:13  but, you know, then I started asking them questions. Okay. Like, what are you doing with the extra, you know, 17 hours per week that you're currently not seeing clients? And most of them don't have a really good answer for that. most of them are like, well, Yeah. well, I do a little bit, you know, I post on social media and I update my website, you know, or something like that, and I'm like, okay, so what do you do with the other 16 hours, per week. Right? Right. and so helping, therapy practice owners look at actually what is your, what's the time you want to spend working in or on your practice? And then in the beginning, frontloading a whole bunch of that marketing stuff, getting out in the community, getting known those kind of things so that, you don't have to do as much of that, as you go along, as you get the ball rolling and get some referral sources and stuff like that.

Craig Alsup 00:16:13  but really using your time wisely because we, you know, we tend to time manage, only when we're forced to sometimes and, you know, so hopefully I can be a little bit of a wake up, to some people to say, okay, like, how are you really spending your time and what could you be doing to grow your practice so that you start to balance, you know, you start to be able to back off of the time working in your practice and instead work on your practice so that you see the kind of growth that you've seen and, and that I've seen in my practice.

Andrew Burdette 00:16:46  Yeah. This year. just an email thing. That was one of the things this year I was like, I feel like I'm drowning in email. So, downloaded classify, which is free. You can kind of break down all kinds of different tasks, assign it to different projects. So, I mean, I work with practice of the practice as well as run my own business. And so, you know, went through just kind of did some basic setup and was like starting to track for the summer.

Andrew Burdette 00:17:08  I was like, okay, yeah, six, seven hours a week of emails. Not something I'm willing to do. Like that's just not good. so how can we get rid of that? Like, what can I offload to somebody? What can I just automate? I will say it's been interesting trying to navigate like a calendar system for online booking because there's a couple things that seem really simple about it that make it really complicated. And to listeners out there, if you run a group, just get acuity, simplify your life, be done with it and set up a compliant. Just spend your 60 some bucks a month or whatever and be done. And that will cut out half your email because it's probably related to when can we meet up and talk about whatever. So, I'm a big systems person for automating things. So there's the system. So the actual here's your car, here's your bus, whatever. And then there's the process of driving it. And both of those are equally relevant. And if anything the process is more important.

Andrew Burdette 00:17:57  Because if you don't enjoy driving your car, you're not going to drive your car. And the stuff in your practice should feel good to drive. And if it's if it's really uncomfortable, you're still never going to get done what you need to get done.

Craig Alsup 00:18:10  Yeah, exactly. I actually had another, practice owner, here in Texas, actually, she's in Austin, I believe, Audrey Cho and, she recommended, some folks in the Philippines who had been working for her, who had been doing a bunch of admin tasks, a bunch of marketing type posts, postings and stuff like that for her 2 or 3 businesses that she runs and, and connected with them and was really immediately able to shift off. So much stuff off of my plate. I mean, they go. They go into my email and delete, you know, garbage, junk mail. They unsubscribe me from stupid stuff that, you know, I subscribe to because I want to read that blog article or I want to, you know, I want to get this free.

Craig Alsup 00:18:59  Whatever. Right. and so, they, they do a lot of that stuff. They, you know, they create, images and posts. They create little short videos and post for me, to social media, to Google business updates, things like that. yeah. Just they've, they've done a whole bunch of different little, like, tasks, like, okay, develop me a list of potential referral sources that I can reach out to in my community. You know, stuff that would just be like a mindless, like me sitting and googling all day. they've just knocked that out of the park, right? And just create me a little Excel sheet that says, hey, here's, here's all the people. so, yeah, they, they, they do a lot of that kind of stuff. My admin assistants, the other thing that has been cool is that when we hired admin assistants, we thought that, they would answer phones and answer client emails, right. and schedule people. And we were like, oh, that's cool.

Craig Alsup 00:20:04  Like, don't have to do that anymore. And then I started to realize that, you know, I mean, we're pretty busy practice, but we're not getting calls, you know, all day, you know, constantly. Right. And so those admin assistants at first were like, okay, what else can I do? You know, like they were asking because they were bored. And then it's like, okay, well, check paperwork in our EHR and make sure that all the clients do their paperwork on time and reach out to the client and say, hey, get your paperwork in. You know, if they've forgotten, make sure that all the sessions have been paid. You know, stuff where somebody just forgets to click a button to actually submit the payment. make sure that, you know, our offices, office schedules are lined out. my admin assistants go to the offices, every now and then. They work from home, mostly. but they go to the offices every now and then and clean up and make sure everything looks good.

Craig Alsup 00:20:59  And, you know, you know, stuff, that stuff that I was doing before. emails, text calls. I mean, they, they've helped to write some blogs for us. They've posted on social for us a little bit. they've gone to, like, meetings with churches and stuff to talk about our services, you know, and, and, you know, different groups, schools and stuff like that. So, really, you can use you can use admin assistants and, and people like that to really narrow down what you're doing so that it does become more enjoyable for you to just do the things that just you can do. that's been the that's been the coolest thing. in my practice, again, ten therapists, two admin assistants team in the Philippines, and I probably work 1 to 2 hours per week on or in the practice. and not bad.

Andrew Burdette 00:21:56  Yeah, it's not bad at all. one of the things you've talked about a bunch and this kind of ties into this process and system two.

Andrew Burdette 00:22:04  So our practice, we get very few phone calls. So we opted to kind of go with a CRM this year and kind of finally built out an automated thing to where people can go to our website, start filling out a form to work with us, pick a therapist, and then by the end of the form, once they submit it, they get a link to book on that person's calendar for a free consult. So there's literally there's no human interaction needed. And that was the goal. nice. Yeah. It's been really it's been really cool to watch at work because I'll get the occasional email. It's like, hey, new new thing book with so-and-so. And so up. My therapist has a new new client booking in and stuff like that. It's really cool. Works great. the I will say the calendar system in that system doesn't work well. So hence we ended up in acuity, which everybody said we were going to end up with in the first place. so, you know, one extra outside system, but worth it because it drives really well.

Andrew Burdette 00:22:55  since 2018, 2019. So the before times and some people have referred to it for pre-pandemic, like marketing seemed like it worked differently then, partly because most people were looking for in person. And then secondly, just how the world has changed with online presence and what's available. And you and I were even talking ahead of the show about practice names and, like, mine's mindful counseling, which was kind of deliberately picked over keywords as well as just being reflective of like, what I envisioned my practice kind of identity to be. But doing it in hindsight, I would probably pick a different name because five years later, those keywords and the business name aren't as is crucial for SEO ranking as they once were. And so what are some trends you've kind of noticed over the past 5 or 6 years that have really changed with marketing?

Craig Alsup 00:23:44  Yeah, yeah, things changed a lot. pre to post pandemic, right? we saw, even my practice we didn't have online option before. Like we had no video therapy option.

Craig Alsup 00:23:59  of course I'm in Texas. it's a little bit different than the rest of the world, really. It's kind of its own world, honestly, in a lot of ways. but, you know, we didn't even offer, telehealth. And then it was like, oh, man, we have to offer telehealth. So within about a week of the world shutting down, we had to figure out, okay, how do we how do we offer telehealth? Right. now, we've seen that grow and grow till about 30 to 40% of our sessions each week. Are telehealth sessions, even in Texas. you know, and, in Texas is, like I said, Texas is weird because within about a month of the of the world shutting down in 2020, we had people mad at us because we wouldn't see them in person yet. Right. So, and not long after that, we had some of our therapists. We're like, okay, I guess we'll go back to in-person. Right? And we we were doing all the distancing and all the cleaning, all the surfaces and the masks and the special, you know, filters and all this stuff.

Craig Alsup 00:25:06  And we're like, we don't know if any of this is actually working, but we'll do it all. we'll just do everything right. and so that's what we did. but, things changing in the marketing world has been, has been interesting because all of a sudden we're having a market for, all these telehealth terms. we're having to, try to reach those people that are just searching for online, which, before the pandemic, I only advertised to about a 6 to 8 mile radius from our from our office. that was that was the bread and butter. I was like, okay, I'm in Fort Worth. There's a million people around us will be fine, right? And then all of a sudden it was telehealth and we started getting people reach out from Houston and Amarillo and all over the state, and we're going, okay, I guess, yeah, we can see you. you know, but, that was sort of, you know, accidental, almost. But then we turned it into, okay, we got to create an online therapy page on the website.

Craig Alsup 00:26:09  we got to talk about online therapy and that option throughout the website. you've got to, again, have the systems in place to where we have a good telehealth, you know, method. Right. So we do it through simple practice. at first it was a little sketchy, but it's gotten better and better, and I think it works really well now. with simple practice, I think they figured out how to grow, along with the rest of us after the pandemic, started. And then, you know, marketing stuff beyond that, Google business. Right? yeah. There have been tons of changes with what all you can put into Google business. so now you can put all your list, all your services, you can describe all your services, you can add events, you can add, you know, so I'll do an event listing every time I hire a new therapist, like, hey, welcome to the team. You know, this is this is a new therapist. you can do updates.

Craig Alsup 00:27:14  You can, you can really target, areas around you by saying, hey, this is where all we work, right? Or the people that we serve. so a lot that you could do there, with the website again, it just becomes, it has seemed like, our area at least has just flooded with therapists. since since the pandemic began. it's. Man, they're coming out of the woodwork. And so, we have to work a little bit harder, right? or a little bit smarter, at least, to try to capture eyeballs than we did pre-pandemic, I think. we've got a the other thing that happened was, a lot of practices around here and around the country that I talk with, really had really had an influx of clients, that came sort of off of that sort of Covid boost that, that a lot of people saw. and then it was like, what do we do with them all? How do we hire fast enough? You know, do we have office space? Do we have everything lined out, all the systems.

Craig Alsup 00:28:23  So we had to sort of get up to speed quick. But, on the back end of that now A little bit distance off of, you know, when Covid, hit. and as it's sort of leveling back out, I think a lot of industries are having to look at where they were spending money before, how, you know, because in some ways you can get a little loose with it at that time is like, okay, let's get another office, let's hire more therapists, you know? And then all of a sudden it's like, okay, it's a little more difficult maybe to get, clients right now, than it has been. And so, it's really just starting to pay attention to all of the, different marketing things in a more sort of coordinated way. same thing with social, pre-pandemic, I was like, nah, social is not even a big deal. Like I'm not getting any clients off of social. Now, I talk to therapists and all their clients come off of social media posts and boosted posts and ads that they're doing on Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and, you know, and you go, okay, all right.

Craig Alsup 00:29:36  You know, I think, I think TikTok hit at exactly the right time, right. people were had a lot of time on their hands and then TikTok and it just exploded. Right. So there are therapists that I talk with that they're like, all I do is make TikTok videos, you know, and get all my clients. I'm like, wow, amazing that they like to be on video that much. to me.

Andrew Burdette 00:30:03  Yeah, I came from a production background or post-production background. So being in front of a microphone instead of the guy on the other end of the wire from the microphone is still a new thing for me. yeah. It's Ashley is a very saturated therapist area, like very, very, very saturated. And it's been I kind of like you like it seems like every week there's like 3 to 5 new therapists that's like, hey, I'm either returning to the work or new to the area, and that's great. There's just I mean, at some point everybody here is going to be a therapist or an acupuncturist or a massage therapist, and that's kind of how Ashland's going to go.

Andrew Burdette 00:30:39  and, and talking to different people around the country to like, different areas, have different marketing personalities. As far as what people respond to you to, I think, I've definitely seen the trend of, yeah, I mean, 2020, 2021, even 2022, if you had an online directory presence really on any platform, that was probably enough to keep you relatively full once you were kind of getting close to full. And, you know, last year all that seemed to like drop off. And here it seems like a lot of what works the best. And it's the old school, you know, like what kind of relationships do you have to other providers. That's really like the gold standard still, for finding, you know, other therapists or clients for their therapists and feeling caseloads and stuff. the online presence works well enough, but I don't know very few people here, at least locally, that are doing the online route. Even the group practices are primarily like fed by their relationships to like other local people in the community rather than I can't think of a group owner I know that's currently doing any kind of active paid ads or doing a whole lot social media wise for their practice.

Andrew Burdette 00:31:46  I know, I know, some of them are doing it like say as a coach, but not necessarily like to draw in clinical clients and stuff if.

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Andrew Burdette 00:32:49  For people out there kind of struggling with marketing or trying to evaluate what they need to do, and looking at this past year of like, hey, did this work or not? Any recommendations on how to like assess that data and then maybe come up with an alternative that you think might be something that would pay off?

Craig Alsup 00:33:07  Yeah.

Craig Alsup 00:33:08  I do want to mention, since you brought up, like, Psychology Today, what we found and what, several therapists that I've worked with have found is that, doing using Psychology Today to influence and inform your, local community outreach, is very interesting thing. so getting on Psychology Today and looking for those therapists who say that they are full, not currently accepting clients. And, you know, sometimes it's that person's like in the process of shutting down their practice. Right? And they're going to need to shift off a bunch of people, sometimes, you know, they're moving or whatever. Right? or retiring. sometimes it's that they're just full and they can't take any more calls, but they don't want to turn off their psychology today, because it's been the thing that fills them up for a long time. And so, we always sort of put a focus on how do we reach out to people strategically, who are showing full or showing not accepting new clients, who are in the same niche as us and, using that to our advantage.

Craig Alsup 00:34:15  Right. we know something about you, right? And then we can help you to offload some of these clients that are calling in and, you know, keeping you busy. so, those kind of things also looking at like, if you are a practice that sees couples and then you find all the practices that don't see couples in your area, right, that just see individuals and reach out to them. Or if you're a practice that sees, teenagers and you reach out to all the couples, right? And they may, you know, couples therapists and they may have, you know, teens that they don't see, but that they could shift off to you, that kind of thing. So as far as looking at, marketing, I always, you know, go back to, looking at your Google business. give some really good insights, especially for those practices that are focused on grabbing people locally. if you've got in-person services and you don't have a Google business optimized to the fullest, you really need to look at that, because it's probably the number one way to get clients outside of, you know, people, you know, referring a client to you.

Craig Alsup 00:35:31  it's probably the number one way to get new clients in a local community area. that's out there right now. and that's just a matter of, claiming your profile. making sure your business name, your phone number, your address, all that stuff matches up with what's on your website. that's adding services in describing those, adding updates every so often, adding a whole bunch of photos of your therapists, of yourself, of your, your office spaces, those kind of things and really just sort of keeping all of that updated. And, realistically, it's a thing that you can set it and forget it, and then it gives you good insights. It gives you, you know, how many people are calling directly through Google, how many people are doing directions to your business? One of the cool things that we started doing was, sending a text to clients that, has a Google Maps link, in it so that they can click, go to our Google business and follow it straight to us, which gives Google a signal that we are actually a real business and that we are a place that people come to.

Craig Alsup 00:36:41  And, so it helps us to, to get seen more. the other things that Google, will tell you is just, you know, a little bit about, like what, what keywords people are searching. You know, what, what things people are finding you for once you get into the insights of it. so that's really good. I really, Google Analytics, I have a love hate relationship with. It's a little bit analytical for me. and, but, you know, that's a good one to look at, just to kind of get an idea of where people are coming from, at least online. I like Google Search Console, and some of the insights there to be able to look at what people are searching for, where they're landing on my website, how long they're staying. some of that information, and then it's, you know, there's a manual aspect to it, right? Like, how many calls are you getting per week? how many clients are actually scheduling from the calls that you get are from the emails that you get.

Craig Alsup 00:37:44  I'm sure there's a way for you to tell, you know, maybe how many people, get into your form on the website and then back out. you know, maybe, how many people schedule and then never show up. you know, all of those numbers and some of that is stuff that your EHR will tell you. You know, it's like how many people know show or late cancel. and then you can go, okay, like, as a practice, we're heading in the right direction or we're heading in the wrong direction. And you can set some, some goals around like, okay, what can we do to better retain clients. What can we do to help make sure that people do not, that they don't know? Show a late cancel. One of the things that we've done is get our admin assistants to check paperwork, and if they check paperwork and follow up with somebody before the session, we've noticed that that helps the person to actually get there. it helps them to actually make it to that first session.

Craig Alsup 00:38:42  Right? and so little things like that, that cost a little bit of time, a little bit of money, but, can grow the practice a lot. we've noticed that if we set recurring, sessions for a client, then it automatically increases, magically increases our retention rate. turns out if you put it on somebody's schedule, they're more likely to follow through. and that's for their good, you know? right. If they're, if they're saying that they need therapy, then we should do everything we can to make sure that we keep them in therapy for as long as they need therapy to get what they want out of it. that's our duty. I talked to a lot of therapists. Who. This is a bandwagon thing for me. I talked to a lot of therapy practice owners who are really scared to, like, give people that nudge towards therapy. They don't want to, like, sell their services. They don't want to follow up with people that go to them. They don't want to send those, you know, you know, emails every so often to touch base.

Craig Alsup 00:39:52  They don't want to do all of those things. But then they're calling me saying, hey, I'm having trouble getting and keeping clients, right. it's a lot easier to keep a client than to get a new one. And so sending out emails every so often to touch base. just maybe it's a one line email that just says, hey, I just wanted to see I just, you know, wanted to check in and see how you were doing. right? something super basic. That's not like I'm begging you to come back and get therapy and give me some money. Instead, it's. Hey, I want to check in and see how you're doing because we've developed this, like, therapist client relationship. And it would be weird for you to not to reach out to them, you know, is how I see it. setting those recurring sessions, charging no show in late cancel fees, like having an actual process to do that. we looked at your before last, versus last year, and I had to sort of, like, get on to my therapist a little bit and say like, hey, let me point this out to you that, you know, in 2022, 65% of the time, we charged the no show in late cancel fees.

Craig Alsup 00:41:11  And in 2023, we only did that 50% of the time, and that equals $20,000 or something. I mean, it was like it was crazy, right? I don't know exactly the numbers, but it was like, for some reason, we just decided to let people slide a whole lot more. And, and, you know, and sometimes you just gotta like wake up to that. Right? So look at those kind of things and see how you're doing compared to how you've done. And then look at how do you want to do in making sure that you value your time so that no shows should almost always be, you know, charged if it's in your policies to charge them? And I would say it needs to be, you know, should almost always be charged because it's like you need to value your time. They need to value your time, like cancels. Maybe, you know, maybe you have a little more flexibility with that. but really, it's just a system of looking at like, how do we grow our client numbers? I mean, there's there's only so many ways that you grow a business.

Craig Alsup 00:42:14  you grow a business by increasing the number of clients that you have, you grow a business by increasing the retention rate. you grow business by decreasing the expenses, because, you know, you grow your profit at least, you grow business by increasing the transaction size. So if you can, one of the things that we do is we have, longer sessions that we offer, people for marriage counseling. so you can do 45, 50 minutes, or you can do an hour, an hour and a half, or we have a marriage counseling intensive that you can do over the course of 2 or 3 days. That is a significant amount more expensive, on an hourly rate, because it takes a lot out of the therapist to do it. and then you can increase purchase frequency. And that's kind of that retention thing. It's like, how do you, you know, get people in the number of times they need to be in and it being our duty to do that, is a thing that a lot of therapists, I think struggle with, is, that duty to provide the person exactly what you say you'll provide them.

Craig Alsup 00:43:29  and sometimes it helps to nudge them along and, like, encourage them into that, not encouraging them to do sessions beyond what they need, but encouraging them to do exactly the amount of sessions they need.

Andrew Burdette 00:43:42  I think just to add to that last point, setting expectations around, you're probably not going to get over your childhood trauma in three sessions and setting some reasonable expectations about. It's a process. This isn't just an off the box, off the shelf like box of tissues or whatever. It's not a product. It's a service and a process. And trying to educate potential clients on this is an investment. This is you know, it's exactly think of me like your personal trainer at the gym. If you just hire me, you're never going to see any results. You have to put some effort in things in on your own and show up.

Andrew Burdette 00:44:17  So yeah.

Craig Alsup 00:44:18  I really, yeah, I love that that that talking point. because it, it is, so important to set those expectations for clients. And so we try to do that in multiple areas.

Craig Alsup 00:44:30  on the website. Right. We're trying to set the expectation that, hey, most of our clients need to come see us at least 8 to 10 times, and then some need more than that. you know, we set those expectations right up front on the website, you know, on, you know, each page of the website. then our admins are told to set those expectations. Our therapists are setting those expectations and really just having something measurable, like having, the client, you know, check in, each time and give you some sort of measurable number that you can say, hey, well, last time you said you were a three and now you're a five, that's, you know, must have been a better week. How's that going? Gives the client some sense of hope and some sense of that. There is a process to this whole thing. You're not just coming in and chatting for a little while and then going on your business.

Andrew Burdette 00:45:23  So for listeners out there, what are your key takeaways for thinking about one year into the next, or even maybe like one quarter into the next in terms of looking at metrics and then deciding what to do about them?

Craig Alsup 00:45:34  Yeah.

Craig Alsup 00:45:35  First of all, look at them. you know, we can all sort of stick our head in the sand and just sort of get busy working and forget to sort of take a step back and look. Right? So look at some of those finer details. Look at, you know, what's your revenue, what's your profit? How much time are you working in or on the business? What are your expenses? what marketing seems to be working and what seems to be not working? What should you put your, you know, focus towards? double down on the things that are working until you find a point that they like. Level off. Right. if you're spending $500 a month in Google ads and it's going great. Double it and see what happens and then back it down from there if necessary. if you're, you know, getting out in the community and talking to people and that seems to be working great. Maybe pick up an extra meeting or two and see what happens. or get somebody else to go do some of that for you.

Craig Alsup 00:46:33  yeah. Just so looking at, what are your goals, what are the different areas of your practice? And really just making sure that you actually review that stuff? on a, you know, probably a quarterly basis. to really keep, keep sort of your, your thumb on what's going on, keep your finger on the pulse. and then, being willing to change and adapt things. even if it's your baby, you know, even if it's the thing that, like. Oh, but I love doing social media, but then you never see any clients come off of that? Well, you know, don't waste your time back out of it, you know, go, go shift to the thing that's working. so, yeah, I mean, that's the biggest thing is just for people to remember to do it, to take a step back fairly often. Look at how your practice is doing, set some goals for the next, you know, for the next quarter, set some goals for the next year or the next three years and then, see, you know, see what you can do as far as leaning into the things that are working and backing out of the things that are not working.

Craig Alsup 00:47:49  yeah. I mean, I think that's those are the biggest things. What systems could you put in place to make your life easier? I, I listen to a lot of marketing, podcasts. And Joe Polish, he's a marketing consultant. Genius kind of guy. he runs this group called Genius Network, and, he always talks about, elf businesses. Easy, lucrative and fun and, and so that's kind of how I try to run my practice is like, okay, everything that comes up that we could do, right? Because there's a lot of shiny objects. is it easy? Is it fairly simple for us to implement? You know, can we do it? is it lucrative? Like, is it going to actually bring in money to this practice? is it actually something that is going to bring, value to our clients, to the practice, to our therapist? to me, what's it look like? and then is it fun? is it something that we're going to enjoy doing? And, you know, some things, you know, you you just need to back out of because it's like a thing that you're just struggling through and it's, you know, sometimes it's just not worth it.

Craig Alsup 00:49:00  So easy, lucrative and fun. Elf marketing, is kind of how I look at my practice is like, what can we do? What can we do that's easy, lucrative and fun?

Andrew Burdette 00:49:11  Yeah. Is it is it a hobby or is it part of the business? Yeah. Or you know.

Craig Alsup 00:49:16  And it's okay if it's a hobby, right? It's okay if you really love doing TikTok videos, man. Keep doing them. Even if they don't get you clients. Maybe, you know, maybe you're helping somebody out there, right? Just through that. But don't count it as time working in or on your business if it's a hobby.

Andrew Burdette 00:49:33  Yeah, exactly. So if people want to work with you, how can they find you? And we'll have all this link in the show description as well.

Craig Alsup 00:49:40  Yeah, definitely. If anybody wants to work on systems, if anybody wants to work on marketing stuff, wants to talk through, where they're at in their business and where they're going and, you know, pick my brain.

Craig Alsup 00:49:53  And what I've done, I'm pretty much an open book. you can go to, live beyond practice coaching.com. that's the website. you can buy services through that. You can reach out to me through that. you can also just email me at Craig at Live Beyond Counseling. Com so Craig at Live Beyond Counseling. Com or live beyond practice coaching.com and yeah we'd love to. We'd love to talk. We'd love to dig into it with you. This is kind of fun for me. it's it's it's the thing that I just added on to everything else I was doing because I enjoyed doing it. And so, let me let me help you grow your practice.

Andrew Burdette 00:50:37  That's great, because I think for a lot of us other therapists, business owners, this is not a fun area to spend time on. So it's it's always really refreshing to hear somebody that this is your passion and also somebody that understands what it what the therapist world works like because it is kind of weird.

Craig Alsup 00:50:53  Yeah, yeah. You know, there's a lot of people that are outside of the therapist world that do marketing that will tell you to do things that are unethical, that are, you know, not okay.

Craig Alsup 00:51:04  Right. And the therapist world. And then also, yeah, just knowing some of the ins and outs of how clients speak and what clients are asking for and looking for and stuff like that comes from years of experience of working with clients. So yeah.

Andrew Burdette 00:51:19  Well, cool. Well, thanks so much for coming on. This was a lot of really good information, and I hope the listeners out there enjoyed this as much as I did.

Andrew Burdette 00:51:25  So awesome.

Andrew Burdette 00:51:27  Thanks.

Craig Alsup 00:51:27  Appreciate it.

Andrew Burdette 00:51:34  If you love this podcast, please be sure to rate and review. This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher or the guest are rendering legal, accounting, clinical or any other professional information. If you want professional, you should find one.

Stephanie Farmer 00:01:11 Yeah. Stephanie Farmer 00:01:12 Thanks so much for having me. So my journey into the counseling field wasn't traditional. I went to undergrad at Meredith College, so I'm a native North Carolinian, and majored in business with a concentration in marketing. So, when I graduated from college, I actually headed to Nashville and worked in the music business for a little bit, and then pursued marketing and other avenues for about six years, before I decided to become a counselor. And, you know, through my own personal journey and life happening as it does to a lot of us when we least expect it. Sometimes you shift. And, I'd always loved being with people. I'd always loved working with people, helping people. So moving into the counseling space really felt like a natural fit for me. So, after spending six years in the business world, I went back to graduate school. I went to, Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem and got my master's in counseling and always knew that I wanted to be in private practice and had the hope that one day I'd have a group practice, but knew that I would have to take a lot of steps to get there first. Stephanie Farmer 00:02:22 So, started my career working mainly with eating disorders, worked in the eating disorder field for about five and a half six years, worked at residential facilities, worked in private practice, and during Covid, the acuity level of eating disorders got really significant and became something that, almost led to burnout. And I will will very much own that. that's a real thing. I think enough people in our profession don't talk about, and it became a really significant challenge for me to say, okay, how can I be the best for myself and my clients? And at that time, I was also becoming a mom. Many of my clients were becoming moms, and many of my friends were becoming moms. And this was also right around the time when perinatal mental health became something that people were talking about. The Lynsey Clancy story had just broken. There were several other high profile perinatal mood and anxiety disorder cases that came out, and I was shifting as well. And one of the things that I noticed is a lot of my friends that were pregnant were saying, we can't find help, we can't find resources. Stephanie Farmer 00:03:35 We're really, really struggling. And the few practices in town that do this work have six and eight month waitlists. And I feel really unstable and I feel really unsteady right now. And so I kept noticing all of these trends in this really significant need for perinatal care. And those were the clients that I also was really, really enjoying my work with because I was also a parent. And so it it made things very new for me very quickly. but I feel like it gave me this, this ability to really understand why moms feel so overwhelmed and why they need so much support, because that change was also happening in my life. And so in 2022, I made the decision to to step out of the eating disorder space and into the perinatal space. went through the postpartum support international trainings, which are wonderful. obtained my PMC certification through them and really completely and totally shifted the focus of my practice. I was a solo practitioner at the time. I had been a solo practitioner for five years up until that point and really spent that year just learning, training, cultivating relationships, shifting the the dynamic and the focus of my practice. Stephanie Farmer 00:04:59 And, as I was doing that, I continued to notice the need was growing and growing and growing. And the calls did not stop coming. And it was at that point where I realized, this feels like the time when I can take that step into group practice ownership. I have clients to be able to sustain a group practice. I have consistent referrals. So in January of last year, I hired my first clinician. In March of last year, I hired my second clinician and actually have my third clinician who's going to be starting with us next week. So the expansion to the group practice was very slow and it was very intentional. but once we made that shift, it it very much took off, in a way that was was both exciting and and validating in that this felt like a need, and we were able to step in and are able to continue filling that need and providing space for these women to be seen and not have to sit on wait lists. Andrew Burdette 00:06:05 That's really cool. I'll just also add, like if someone else that left the entertainment world, like there's probably some interesting stories about how that didn't work out well as well. Andrew Burdette 00:06:15 I mean, I did. I'm for people that have listened to me or talk to me or work with me like I'm a tech guy because I used to do tech stuff, but yeah, similar just it just kind of felt flat and empty and I wanted something a little more fulfilling, like as a person and felt more uplifting than just, hey, let's promote another entertainer or whatever it is, and it's fine for a while, but it as a, as an adult adult, like, it was nice to to shift out of something or shift out of that into something more interesting. and it's cool to, as someone else, that I deliberately grew my group slowly and this year have added three people and have a fourth early on. AD. I'm just trying to navigate how to do that with another new hire that started literally the weekend the hurricane rolled through here. So, you know, just trying to do that, pacing for marketing and other things like that and referral networks and make sure they have enough support to bring them in and make sure that people that have already come in are supported, too. Andrew Burdette 00:07:07 So I appreciate the the deliberate intentionality of taking things slow and making sure it's the right fit. that definitely shows up. I think I, I hear from a number of group owners that have maybe hired faster than they've really been able to vet people, and so some of the intentionality in that slow pace thing is worth it, because you really do end up with the right people at the right time rather than, hey, you seem like you could be a fit and and it maybe doesn't work out. Stephanie Farmer 00:07:36 Yes. And I will definitely echo that. You know, for me, culture and fit and consistency is really important. And so for me, it's more important to me that I find the right fit than how quickly I empty my waitlist. And so that's been something that we have been really intentional about, is making sure whoever's coming on board not only fits with the team that's in place, but also is a really good fit clinically and professionally for the type of clients that we serve. And I think for me, building it slowly and deliberately has taken a lot of that stress and that pressure away. Stephanie Farmer 00:08:13 We all feel it and I still feel it at times, but at least in that area, it's taken away the stress and the pressure, because I know that the people that I have in the places that I have them are the right fit for us and for our clients. Andrew Burdette 00:08:27 So with that, how has your background in business and marketing translated over and influenced your therapy practice? Stephanie Farmer 00:08:36 It's translated a lot. I think at the beginning a lot of people, myself included, kind of wondered how those two parts of myself could coexist and go together, because in a lot of ways they're so polar opposite in terms of what your focus is and how you work and what your end goal is. You know, when I was working at a record label or an ad agency or a bank, you know, it was very profit driven. It was very numbers driven. And when you're a therapist, you know, it is all about your clients and those relationships and how they're feeling, and you're really pouring into real people's lives. Stephanie Farmer 00:09:12 And so for me, it took me a little while to kind of reconcile those two parts of myself and let them coexist together in a way that worked. But I think for me, one of the biggest things about my business background that influences my work as a therapist and a group practice owner is the way that I approach marketing and the way that I approach kind of the business functions of the practice. I'm very fortunate in that the business functions of my practice don't intimidate me because I have worked in that space. I approach it from a place of, of Confidence of of tempered confidence, but of confidence. but really it comes into play when it comes to marketing the most. and for me, that's really basing my marketing strategy and my marketing plans on relationships. I am a people person to my core and, really using kind of what I know and understand about business to develop relationships with the right people that will then help not only fill my practice, but also help me know from a referral perspective who I can trust in the community to refer my clients to that are going to be non-judgmental, non-racist, non-biased. Stephanie Farmer 00:10:30 They're going to be open, they're going to be accepting, and I'm going to feel safe sending my clients there to them. So for me, that that business background has really informed a lot of how I manage my marketing strategy when it comes to relationships. Andrew Burdette 00:10:46 So you had mentioned Allison per year as we were talking ahead of this, and she's another Asheville local up here. I don't know if it's still, I remember watching a video when I was still in the next level, practicing as a client and in consumer through practice, the practice as a community member. She had a video talking about basically about ten different categories of marketing. And she's like, pick three, you know, because one that's about all the time you have energy for anyway. And then two, a lot of those are just not going to really resonate. And you mentioned networking is kind of your primary thing. That's usually my primary thing too. friends that have known me for years kind of describe me as that connector. And I'm usually that guy that's like, hey, I hear somebody talking about this, and I'm like, I know, I know a person that can do that and then get them in touch. Andrew Burdette 00:11:31 And that's just it. Like, that's the end. And if I get thanked, great, I don't really care. But similar kind of thing with that. whereas like social media I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't want to go anywhere near it, right? Like, so her thing was trying to trying to emphasize the importance of picking the couple areas that feel like they are authentic to you as a person and then putting your energy into that. And so, outside of networking, how do you. Do you do anything else like, I mean, do you have the standard Psychology Today profiles? Do you do socials? What else do you do? Stephanie Farmer 00:12:04 Yeah. So I would say kind of the second area of focus networking being one the second area of focus. And I think this is also where my marketing and my business background came into play, was I really heavily invested in my branding and my digital presence on my website, to the point that I hired a wonderful brand consultant. went through a six month branding process with her where she got to know me. Stephanie Farmer 00:12:31 She learned about me as a person, me as a practice owner, our clients, kind of all of those different nuances and had her create, a custom brand for me. So I have some custom logos that are very personal to me. I grew up down near the coast and the beach, and the anchor means so much to me for a number of reasons. And, I love pink and she incorporated pink into my branding, and so she was able to do a really good job of, of putting together this very relatable, very uniform, very recognizable and identifiable brand that I think speaks really strongly about us and sets us apart. and in that branding process, she also created a website. And our website is definitely an area of focus. that's where a lot of our clients come from. We have a contact form on our website, and we get several submissions from that a week. and I feel like the way it was designed was very user friendly. It was very open. But what I also really love about our website, as you can really see my personality as, as a therapist and a group practice owner. Stephanie Farmer 00:13:41 And I still carry a full caseload, so I'm still working with clients too. But the therapists that are on our team, you know, and everyone's bios written a little bit differently because it's who they are. And I like that. It really showcases our team and the differences between us, so that clients can really feel like they've connected with someone. And one of the biggest compliments I've ever received from a client, actually, is she said, you are exactly who I thought you would be. When I looked at your website and I looked at your Instagram, there is nothing inconsistent or different. And I think really investing in that authenticity, in branding and in that digital presence in our website and, writing a blog and being a real person and talking about making friends as a mom, or how do you how do you cope with stress as a mom? Let's debunk mom guilt and talk about it in the blog from a really open really hey, I'm a person to perspective has been really helpful for us. Stephanie Farmer 00:14:42 So I would say that second bucket for us has really been branding and a strong website and a very genuine, very authentic presence so that our clients know when you call us, this is exactly what you're going to get. And that's exactly what they get. And then the third bucket we we do do social media. I'm also one that, ironically used to work in social media and doesn't love having to continue to do that. but we do social media, we will do Instagram, we'll post reels. a lot of times I try to make them very relatable, very funny, humorous content, you know, a lot of moms are up at 3 a.m. and they just want to see something that feels supportive and lighten their mood, and that is encouraging. So we'll do that. But, I'd say that's the third bucket. We don't do paid ads or anything like that. You know, our Instagram is very much an organic approach. So I would say those three areas for us are definitely networking and relationships, branding and digital presence and some social media. Andrew Burdette 00:15:51 yeah, I have accounts to do socials for my business and we've talked about it. We just haven't. That's a lower priority than some of these other things. And then obviously like recently it's just been navigating like how do you get services restored after a hurricane kind of breaks everything. And so that's that's been its own focus in and of itself. And I'm super thankful to have an admin that's navigated some of these digital channels before to just be like, hey, here's a message landing page, whatever. so I want to spend a little ask a little bit about the branding process because, yeah, a lot of times, like hiring someone to walk you through a branding process is pricey. And for many therapists, that's out of out of reach. So if you're going to DIY your branding, any recommendations? And for listeners out there, like when I got started back five years ago with solo practice and came up with mindful counseling, at the time, part of it was thinking about the website because at the time, like how you how your SEO worked weighed more heavily on keywords and say your domain name as a double digit percentage of how that would rank. Andrew Burdette 00:16:58 And now it's negligible. Like it kind of doesn't matter. so in hindsight, like I'm still happy with what I did, but I would probably pick something maybe a little more, a little less generic, because there's lots of mindful counseling therapy practices across the whole country. And there's a law firm, I think it's in Arizona. I got a fax by them for mistake. But, so just from a branding standpoint, it's like I'm good with it, but it's also, if I were to do it over again, I'd probably do something differently. And I'm not 100% sure what it would be differently. But yeah, I can for the listeners out there that are planning to do this themselves, just from the cost of a branding thing and listeners out there hiring a branding company to walk you through a 3 to 6 month process is probably going to run you like 6 to $10,000. Yeah, and they're worth it if you have a good company. But still 6 to $10,000. That's a lot, right? Yeah. Stephanie Farmer 00:17:45 It's yes, it's it's definitely an investment. And it was something that I very strategically and intentionally planned for. It wasn't something that I said, I'm going to do this and did tomorrow. So it was certainly something that that was in my business plan as kind of a I would love to do this. So I'm going to spend the next two years getting myself into a position where I can, but for someone who's doing their own branding, because I had initially done that as well, when I launched my practice, I designed my own logo, did all the branding. would like to think I'm better at Photoshop than I am. so definitely have the the the DIY experience. I think for me, one of the things that I would encourage people to think about, is who are they? What speaks to them? Where did they grow up? Or their symbols or their words or their phrases or their things that they really resonate with, that they really connect to? Because to me, one of the most important things as a group practice owner and just as a as a person to me, one of my my top value is authenticity as a person. Stephanie Farmer 00:18:52 And I want people coming to our practice to feel that it is authentic and real and we are genuine people. And so when you can incorporate something into your branding that is real and genuine and authentic into who you are, that communicates to the client, I didn't just find a clipart image and throw it in a logo and move on. This is part of who I am, and I think it kind of can showcase that investment a little bit more into, the business and the practice when it really does speak to who who you are. And then I would also say, you know, think about who your ideal client is, you know, what population are you working with? Are you working with substance abuse or are you working with men, or are you working with moms? Or are you working with kids and teens families? Who are you working with and what might resonate with that population? That also feels really true and really genuine and really consistent to you. So for us, another thing, that I talked with my branding consultant a lot about was we are a practice that works with with women and moms. Stephanie Farmer 00:19:58 And so we were very comfortable making our branding more feminine pinks, blues, more feminine colors. I wore very feminine clothing in my brand photos. But if you're working with a wide variety, if you're working with a lot of different types of people, really also making sure and understanding, could my branding potentially exclude part of my target population because of the way that it's developed and positioned? so those are kind of some really key things that I would encourage people to think about as they're doing their own branding. And I have worked in branding myself. to, to really make sure that, that they are being authentic and genuine because for me, what I have found is, is my branding became such a guiding force in a way I didn't really know it would be. And it's instantly recognizable. People know who we are. People say, oh, you're the rope with the anchor in the pink. Yep. That's us. Oh, you wear lily shirts in your pictures? Yeah. That's me. And so I think it it's twofold. Stephanie Farmer 00:21:07 Make sure you're encompassing yourself and who you are and your values, and making sure that you're thinking about your ideal client and positioning yourself in a way that they would find it appealing, that they would find safety and solace and security. You know, I think for me, I chose my name many years ago when I started my practice, relatively out of graduate school. because for me, I grew up at the beach and I love being on the boat and anchored is I think a lot of people want to feel anchored in their lives. People want to feel anchored. People want to feel secure. And so I would just encourage people to to really kind of think about what resonates and, and what sounds appealing to you, but also who you're going to work with and not exclude people by the way, that you're branding, if that's a subset of people you work. Andrew Burdette 00:22:03 I like the qualifier there because you're talking about client fit, and there's a lot of things in which you've just shared that I'm like wanting to like, talk about and pick apart a little bit more like first, like when I'm talking to people about groups and identity and things like I think, I think it's equally important for groups to have an identity like an individual counselor is going to have. Andrew Burdette 00:22:25 And also similar to like, here's our ideal client. Like I have friends at run groups. They're even the ones that are more generalist. I'll say that maybe have 20 or 30 clinicians locally. There's still kind of an angle about you can still, if you spend a little bit of time with your their website, you can still tell like, oh, okay, this is a very LGBTQIA and allyship aligned practice, right? Or this one's a very Bipoc heavy practice or that's kind of where they started, even if they've kind of grown and have a wider range of people that can they can see and accommodate. so I think group identity really matters. one of the questions that comes up a lot with people I work with is, how important do you think it is to have like, say, counseling or therapists in the branding name? Like, does it matter? Does it not matter? I often point out that people like Xerox and Starbucks don't say anything about what either of those companies do. I don't know how many. Andrew Burdette 00:23:24 is here. I don't even know if zero is still around actually, now thinking about it. But you know, point is like it doesn't really. It's not like toys R us. It says, hey, we sell toys. It's kind of in the name. Like, do you have a thought on our opinion about having counseling or something mental health related in the name? Stephanie Farmer 00:23:40 I don't know that I necessarily have a strong feeling one way or the other. I mean, mine is anchored counseling services. part of that too, was wanting to name my practice something that other people hadn't named it because as you can imagine, anchor is pretty popular. so part of that was was for me to be able to do that. But, you know, one of the things that I think is, you know, in today's day and age, it's it's so wonderful in a lot of ways, people are very open about wanting to seek counseling, talking to people, asking for recommendations, googling. So I don't know that counseling necessarily, or mental health or therapy or whatever has to be in the in the name of the practice. Stephanie Farmer 00:24:26 I would say it would probably be more applicable in SEO measures, making sure that those names are prevalent in your digital content, your websites, your blogs, because those are going to get pulled in those digital Google searches where you don't necessarily have to have counseling in the name of the practice or mental health or therapy. But if you I certainly believe that those words need to definitely be heavily present on websites and in digital content so that those things get pulled. Andrew Burdette 00:24:56 No, I agree, I was talking about algorithm. I think it's primarily Google's algorithm earlier this kind of really no algorithm, the algorithm nowadays, sadly. but yeah, the balance of of weight for different types of things as of the start of this year was probably about 25 ish percent. Do you have keywords throughout your website that you want to be found for, like anxiety therapist near me, right. Like that needs to be laid out in prominent on your website throughout its content. And then the other big kind of two areas I remember, if I'm remembering right, were ongoing content. Andrew Burdette 00:25:33 So blogging is actually more of a thing now than it's really ever been. Because just because you have good content today doesn't mean it's going to be relevant a year from now, and the algorithm is going to identify that. So if you have really stale content that doesn't get updated, you're not going to be found as well in organic searches. And then like you said, as you're adding content in, if you're focusing on perinatal care, that should be something that shows up regularly in all your blog posts, even if it's not the title of the post or the main focus of it, it should still be there. Stephanie Farmer 00:26:06 Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, if someone wants to include counseling, therapy, mental health by all means it it's a distinguishing marker. People certainly know what you are the minute they hear your name. But that SEO piece I really learned and come to understand is so critical, because one of the things, sometimes I'll do some one off consulting and one thing I noticed, one person that I was working with did was they had counseling in their name, but they didn't have it in their website very consistently. Stephanie Farmer 00:26:41 And so we kind of had a conversation about how, while the name very clearly articulates what they're doing, a user looking at that on Google isn't going to see them because counseling and therapy, I think, was maybe listed 1 or 2 times on their website. And so the algorithm wasn't going to pull it. And so I always encourage people when I'm kind of talking with them, and people are working with me on building practices and kind of marketing in particular things is really investing in that, that SEO component. Andrew Burdette 00:27:13 There are a lot of really affordable tools out there, too. one of the ones I use is called Bright Local. I've used them for years there, like a local SEO type thing. And one of the things is really nice about that service. And it's, it's a I think they do an annual subscription now versus monthly, but it's a couple, it's like under $500 a year. And they will also help you get citations on different other sites and kind of maintain them, which is also another nice thing. Andrew Burdette 00:27:38 don't take it too far down a rabbit hole, but one of the things that they have is part of their regular package is they will give you can put in keywords, I think it's up to 25 or 30, and they will kind of show you how you stack up against other people. And to your point about, hey, counseling is in the name, but it's not across the website. So Mindful Counseling PLC is the name of my practice. Like we rank really, where I outrank pretty much everybody in Asheville consistently without doing any work, just because mindful counseling shows up enough on my website that displaces them. And that's very different than, say, like anxiety therapy. And until really being conscientious about those other keywords that I want to think of keywords like how you want to be found. If somebody is like shopping and you sell popcorn, are you letting the world know that you sell popcorn? Because if they don't know you sell popcorn, no one's going to know that you no one's going to find you. Andrew Burdette 00:28:30 Right. And so having like anxiety therapy like added that in wrote a landing page about anxiety therapy and that that was a huge boost overall. And it's kind of faded because we haven't really done anything in about six months. So that kind of fresh new info is kind of worn off a bit the buzz, but just having a couple landing pages for like say, anxiety therapy or depression therapy and these other things like huge, huge, huge boost across other search terms for the website, which then collectively has a cumulative aggregated effect. So yeah. Stephanie Farmer 00:29:02 And we have those as well. So you know, while we specialize in working with moms and that really is our key focus, we do work with college students. We work with young adult women who are in transition. We work with women who are menopausal or have kids flying the nest. So we have distinguished on our website, we have a page for individual therapy, and then we have a landing page that is purely titled therapy for moms. So we do differentiate that as well too, so that people who are coming to our website also know if they're a young woman struggling with career stress, they know very clearly where to go versus if this is a new mom struggling with postpartum anxiety. Stephanie Farmer 00:29:44 She also very clearly knows where to go to read about our qualifications and the way we work with her differently than the way we work with our college students. If. Joe Sanok 00:29:58 You're someone with a vision for your practice, for your side hustle, and for your personal journey, but when it comes to establishing your path and how to get to where you want to be with your practice, things get a little messy. You're also someone who would prefer to go in person instead of have groups and listening to everyone else's story. To me, it sounds like you could benefit from one on one consulting with our experienced practice of the practice consultants from 595 a month and up. You can work with a consultant that will give you more direction and practical, tried and tested tips matched to you and your goals. For more information, visit practice of the practice. Com forward slash apply. Again, that's practice of the practice. Com forward slash apply. Andrew Burdette 00:30:49 One other thing. And this is this gets into like some personal bias and pet peeves I have about user interface on websites and things. Andrew Burdette 00:30:58 I know a practice owner who had a really excellent person redo their website, but because the emphasis was so SEO friendly like it re, his website feels like it's meant to only please the algorithm and humans are second or third. Right. And to listeners out there, whether you hire somebody to do your website and these other things or whatnot, I think it's worth maybe taking a little bit of a hit about not having like the literal keyword spelled out the algorithm way to have it humanized so it doesn't read like I or computer to computer. I think that's super important. And yeah, I. Stephanie Farmer 00:31:36 Completely agree with that. And I will say I definitely had a very heavy hand in the copywriting and the content writing for my website, and there were absolutely times that there were things I took out because I said, this doesn't feel like me, and this isn't something I would say if one of my clients read this, they would know it wasn't me. If one of my friends read this, they would know it wasn't me. Stephanie Farmer 00:32:02 And so that's another just tip I would give people, whether you're working with someone or not. Back to that authenticity and that genuine piece that that I always come back to is. Yes, there are great ways to incorporate SEO and be found, but that genuine and that authentic presentation, whether it be in a one on one conversation with somebody, your social media, any type of marketing, you do that one on one, relationship and that authenticity that's going to speak volumes and that's going to be more beneficial in the long run, because you're going to develop a reputation for being consistent and genuine. People aren't going to read your website and say, this was written for Google. They're going to read it and say, this was written for me, and then they're going to call me. Yeah. Andrew Burdette 00:32:47 And and to that end, to you as somebody that really doesn't enjoy copywriting at all, leverage your AI tools is starting points really truthfully, like you can if you kind of learn a little bit about how to work with like a ChatGPT algorithm, for example, like, so for me, like stuff I don't enjoy writing or like the generic, like, say a generic but the, you know, the anxiety therapy page, which helps with SEO and you're kind of really knowingly put it up there for mainly that like and every therapist website nowadays there's thousands of anxiety therapy pages. Andrew Burdette 00:33:21 So how how unique can I really do it. And you know, having a good starting point, let's say with like ChatGPT. And then how I kind of then use that was literally just would kind of rewrite the whole thing in my own voice and tweak it a bit. And so you can still humanize it and bring your own self into that content, even if it's just what feels like an intro to counseling paper on what anxiety is, right? You can still find a balance. It's okay. Yeah. Stephanie Farmer 00:33:48 Absolutely. Absolutely. Again, it's it's all about what works for you and what feels consistent with with who you're working with and and who you're hoping to bring into your practice. Andrew Burdette 00:33:59 Yeah. My blog, whenever I get around to blog posting, if I ever do, you know, writing about what an existential crisis feels like is way more appealing to me than anxiety therapy, which we all do to to some degree because every therapist does anxiety at some point. But yeah, that that would be something I have passion to write, something from scratch from versus just here's a landing page because my website should have one. Andrew Burdette 00:34:21 And and again, for listeners out there like it's okay to hire a company to do this, there's plenty of companies that do it. Just. Are you are you like a DIY person like me for some things, or are you just don't want to deal with it at all, like social media and just want someone else to make it work and I never have to touch it, right? Like. Stephanie Farmer 00:34:41 Well, and I think that's, you know, as a group practice owner, I mean, those are the decisions that we're constantly making is, you know, what what part of running this practice do I want to take ownership of? What part of, running this practice do I outsource? Where where do I get help and and where do I step in myself? And it's that constant balancing act. But I always talk to people and and just encourage them. Don't be intimidated to be inquisitive, you know, asking questions, starting the process doesn't mean you're committing to anything. You know, it doesn't hurt to be inquisitive, and it's it can be overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be. Andrew Burdette 00:35:20 I was encouraged people. I'm like, identify your least favorite thing to do and then get someone else to do it for you as soon as possible. Stephanie Farmer 00:35:27 Yes, absolutely. And for me, that's accounting and bookkeeping. I do not enjoy that. I also do not enjoy dealing with insurance. And I have a wonderful billing coordinator that that does all that. And that takes so much stress and pressure off of me. And, and I genuinely love being with my clients, and I genuinely love networking and forming relationships. And so those are the two things that when I really sat down and said, what do I want to keep? Were most important to me, was to continue to do client work and to continue to sit with with the the women that I work with every day and then to continue to be, you know, using those business skills and incorporating that part of myself that has kind of been reinvigorated by the relationship piece and the branding piece and, really just making sure that I have the time to do both of those things by offloading some of those other things. Andrew Burdette 00:36:22 So I want to ask a little bit, make sure we talk about networking in particular, but just marketing in general. And both of these are terms that you mentioned, to therapists. And you can just see the like the soul leave the body because it's just like, oh, I gotta do what? Like, so my practice, I really encourage people to spend a couple hours a month, like meeting other people in the field or just people that build those relationships. Right. And I think everyone in my practice, I've had to kind of coach a little bit on marketing is a salesy thing, because the goal is to have that deal closure and actually have the conversion to a client. Networking is just talking to people. one of the best things I learned when I worked in Hollywood film and television where like as a gig worker or project worker, you're always needing to know people and they need to know your available to do certain kinds of work. And so having a degree of consistent interaction with people was really necessary most of the time. Andrew Burdette 00:37:20 And what I learned was networking. The only real goal should be making the connection like the human to human connection. If there's any other agenda, like people pick up on that and then we'll kind of you lose the human connection part, because they can sense that you're kind of looking for a sale or looking for a job or whatever it is. And networking to me, as I kind of coach my people, is just focus on getting to know the person. And is that kind of your approach to things as well, and if so, how do you how do you help coach people on that? Stephanie Farmer 00:37:54 Yeah, absolutely. I, I am definitely a relationship person. I have been that my whole life and I grew up as an athlete and now am a coach and coach teenagers. So you know that that definitely is. My approach is, is how do you engage with people in very meaningful ways to form relationships and understanding? so for me, you know, when I meet with someone, I really spend a lot of time thinking about who are the people that my clients come in contact with every single day, who are the professionals, who are the people in their life that they come in contact with every single day? Because one, those are people I'm going to need to refer my clients to my clients or new moms. Stephanie Farmer 00:38:42 So a lot of times it's lactation consultants, it's pelvic floor physical therapists, it's Pts, it's OTS, it's OB GYNs. So I think a lot about the people that my clients are going to come into contact with that are going to ask me, hey, Stephanie, do you know a new a good ob gyn? I didn't have a great experience and I'd like a new one. Or hey, I'm really struggling postpartum. Can you refer me to a pelvic PT? So I really spend a lot of time intentionally thinking about who are the people that my clients are going to come in contact with, because I need to have relationships with them so that I know I can trust them to refer to them that they are going to be safe providers for my clients, so that I can confidently say, I've met with this person, they're going to be a great fit. And so that's really where I start. And then I spend a lot of time getting to know them, learning more about their practices, learning more about their professional roles, who they serve, how they work, how do they approach things, so that I'm gaining a good understanding. Stephanie Farmer 00:39:50 And oftentimes in those conversations, it's tell me then about what you do. And so then I'm just able to really, authentically and genuinely share who we are and what we do. And there comes to be this mutual understanding through the conversation of we are both safe for each other's clients, and it creates that relationship where there's very little sales or push or icky feeling, for lack of a better word, that comes with it, because we both are genuinely seeking to understand what the other does and understanding how we can support each other's clients holistically and create a better experience for the client. So I'm very much about relationships, connections, going to coffee, having lunch, setting up a zoom meeting, you know, really making sure that I know who I'm talking to so that when I send my clients to them, I'm confident and making sure that they understand who they're talking to. So when they send their clients to us, they're just as confident. Andrew Burdette 00:41:01 Yeah, I somebody during the pandemic had suggested like virtual coffee dates to like stay in contact with other people. Andrew Burdette 00:41:07 And it's great. I mean, meeting up over zoom for is so easy to do. I mean, we all do. We're all super comfortable after 4 or 5 years of doing it now anyway. And it's really easy. And again, like you said, just I'm much more comfortable referring to people that have at least taken the time to like, say hello and just humanize themselves versus just here's a picture on a website of this person I've never talked to. And, you know, I may not, after 15 minutes, get the like full level of safety of like I would trust this person like, you know, ride or die, but like, it's at least something, right? If you're not really to me, like, it's important to have other people that are willing to just take that little bit of time to be human to one another. And it makes a big difference. for people that maybe work in other areas of mental health that isn't as working in perinatal and it's really specific. So, you know, it's really easy to say, here's the kind of providers on my clients are definitely going to see for, for maybe somebody that works a little more general mental health, that's maybe not as substance use specific or eating disorders specific to any recommendations on how to think about who to talk to, to network with. Stephanie Farmer 00:42:18 Yeah, I mean, one of the things that I remember doing a lot when I was just getting into the field and, and wasn't perinatal specific and just kind of trying to build my client base, was really asking myself, who does what I know I can't do? So I, I have never specialized in OCD. but there were times I would get calls for OCD clients and I would need to refer out. So I would meet with those people and have conversations and say, hey, sometimes I get these referrals. I'd love to know more about what you do and how you work so that I can refer to you. And oftentimes they would say, well, tell me about what you do. You don't do OCD, what do you do? Because oftentimes, especially when I was in the eating disorder field, they would refer those eating disorder clients to me. So one of the things I always encourage people to think about is who does what you don't do. Because if you get those phone calls you need people to refer to, but you may also do something that they don't do that they can then also have a conversation with you about, and you can become a referral source for them. Stephanie Farmer 00:43:22 So that's one thing I always encourage people to kind of think about is who does what you don't do. So when you get a phone call and you say, I'm sorry, this isn't in my specialty. However, here's a great referral. You have that for your own needs, and they can potentially refer to you if they're in the same situation. Another thing I always encourage people to think about is if their ideal client is, you know, an anxious teenager. Let's say their ideal client is an anxious 16 year old school counselors. Those are wonderful relationships to develop, because school counselors are so limited on what they can do in the school setting, they're often referring to the community. So, you know, if your ideal client is an anxious 16 year old, their school counselor is a touchpoint for them that could refer to you. So school counseling, you know, youth sports organizations, some children, teenagers will open up to their coaches. Their coaches can be referral sources. you know, thinking about dance teachers, you know, dance studios where, you know, maybe an anxious 14 year old girl is telling her her dance coach, I feel really insecure in my body and I'm overwhelmed in the dance. Stephanie Farmer 00:44:36 Coach can be. I met this really great counselor in town the other day, and you know what? She might be a great fit. So thinking about where that ideal client is, who they're going to interact with, and who's potentially going to be influential so that they can say, you know what? Like I just met with this great counselor. Here you go. So really thinking about where that ideal client works, plays, lives, and who has their ear. Is it a faith community if you're working with grief and loss? Is it a hospice? is it the hospital system? Are they funeral homes? Who who is coming in contact with that ideal person? And how can you develop those relationships? Andrew Burdette 00:45:25 Doctors practices and psychiatry oriented practices too. the I role, I relate to that to you because they're so hard to get Ahold of. Any any thoughts on how to, like, reach those particular practices? Because again, they may not be as consistent for volume as, you know, if you're like your OBGYN for perinatal stuff would be probably a more a higher level of referrals like on a regular basis. Andrew Burdette 00:45:51 But this primary care is like a lot of people move in to Asheville, have no relationship to anybody, and then they're like, hey, I don't have a doctor or the psychiatrist that gave me my Lexapro or whatever, you know, as some random person on Teladoc, it'd be nice to see somebody in person. So any any insight or wisdom on how to, like, reach those other provider types. Stephanie Farmer 00:46:12 So one of the things that I remember, learning in Allison's Abundance Party when I was first starting the practice, is one of the key things that stuck out to me that Allison always says is do not ever send a letter or business cards or a mass email to practices, because all it will do is end up in the in the trash. and and that's still to this day replays in my head. so when when I think about kind of reaching out to these larger practices in these people, that is where that personal connection is so important. And so for me, you know, I've, I've connected with OB practices through individual physicians on Instagram. Stephanie Farmer 00:46:52 I've used Instagram to develop relationships, and then we've we've chatted and then decided to schedule a zoom meeting and spent an hour speaking with each other and a follow up. And we maintain those relationships. Other ideas are to offer to do a lunch and learn an inservice, at, you know, a physician's office. If you're an eating disorder clinician, you know, maybe you offer at a pediatrician's office to do a eating disorders 101, you know, questions to ask clients, how to tell, how to refer, how to screen, you know, kind of offering that service and that expertise because you have it and you're worthy of being able to bring that to the table. So offering things like workshops where, lunch and learns or things that can be beneficial for them, where they can get to know you and hear your clinical experience, your expertise. Because if you send a cold email or you send a letter in the mail. They don't have any idea if you're a skilled therapist, if you're an ethical therapist, if you even actually know anything about what you're claiming to know about. Stephanie Farmer 00:47:58 But those lunch and learn type presentations really help you solidify. I am skilled in this space, I am knowledgeable, I am a person. So when you send your 13 year old that you've just noticed has anorexia to me, you know exactly who who you're sending them to and you know that I know how to help. So offering things like in services has has been very helpful for us in terms of getting in the door. You know, again, if there are individual providers on Instagram, don't be afraid to reach out. I have cultivated so many relationships. Some of our strongest referral relationships started through direct messaging on Instagram. but another thing that I've really realized and learned and understood. And it's kind of to your point earlier about marketing is sales based, but you don't want it to feel that way or sound that way. And and one of the things that I've really learned is when you reach out to people, be just as inquisitive about what they do as you are, as eager to tell them about what you do. Andrew Burdette 00:49:07 Yeah, if anything, just ask them questions. They'll eventually ask you questions, and if they don't ask you questions, maybe you don't want to work with them either. It's, you know, as group owners too, like with the hiring process, it's odd to not have you get the occasional applicant that doesn't ask questions and doesn't have anything. And I'm like, there has to be something, right? Like there's there's no never not a question, maybe not at this moment, but, you know, similar kind of thing. Like people people want to talk about themselves. Stephanie Farmer 00:49:34 Yeah. And it's just giving them the opportunity to share because again, it's also a learning experience for you. I mean, I, I have recently met with several wonderful providers that I refer so many of our clients to. because of just those conversations, tell me about you. Tell me about your practice. And we formed wonderful relationships and my clients that see them rave about them. And it's all about, again, just kind of being inquisitive and not being overly pushy. Andrew Burdette 00:50:09 Also, I will confirm that the front desk is going to throw whatever you send them in the trash. I, I've had my main office has been like in the adjoining suite to a primary care office, and I'm really good friends with the front desk people. They're super cool, and whatever. And asked like six months ago, I was like, hey, so I have this stuff. Is there any way to get you to pay attention? And she just pulled the blue recycling bin out from under her desk and said, I don't know what I could tell you to do that because if you send me this, no matter what it looks like, it's going to just we'll give it a single glance and off it goes. And, one one suggestion that came from a friend of mine about how to read psychiatric providers or probably Primary Care two is she will get permission from a client that she's got rapport with to get a release of information and then send a letter over to the doctor's office to say, can we coordinate care about patient X? And the added thing with that is when the doctors, if the doctor's office calls and says, hey, I'm free at 1:00 on a Tuesday, you show up the end like you move whatever you need to do to do that. Andrew Burdette 00:51:13 But, whatever time they give you, if they give you a time, that's when you show up and then that's your kind of foot in the door entry point. Stephanie Farmer 00:51:21 Absolutely, absolutely. We we do a lot of coordination of care, obviously with with a line of work that we're in, in the client base that we see. and, you know, if our clients are comfortable, at intake, we ask, you know, what other providers are you seeing? Would it be helpful for us to have conversations with them to coordinate your care. And are you comfortable signing a release of information for us to do that? And some clients are, and we have them sign the release and some of them are working with folks we already know. Sometimes they're working with folks we don't know if they are working with folks we don't know. We always do reach out once we get that release of information. And if their clients that aren't comfortable signing the release of information, we we don't reach out. But that that certainly has been an avenue for us as well. Stephanie Farmer 00:52:11 because while we get a lot of clients from the same folks, occasionally we'll get them from someone new. And, we're very intentional to track where our referrals come from as as all group owners are. So we do pay attention to those so that if there is a new name and we notice there is a release on file, then I very much make it a priority to reach out. Andrew Burdette 00:52:33 for listeners out there, are there any key takeaways from this conversation? You want to make sure they know. Stephanie Farmer 00:52:38 It sounds really silly, but don't be afraid of marketing. Marketing can be something that can be very genuine and it can be very authentic. And the great thing about marketing is when you're doing it in a genuine and authentic way, it doesn't feel like selling. It feels very natural and it feels very organic. And I always tell people when I consult and when I work with folks, don't start with the biggest, scariest thing as your first foray into marketing. If social media is something that doesn't feel good, or if you want to network and you have a high priority person on your list that feels make it or break it, don't have your first meeting with that primary care practice. Stephanie Farmer 00:53:21 Don't have your first meeting with that psychiatrist that really could refer a lot of folks to you. Start where you're comfortable and build forward. Start small and work your way up. Because again, when you can have one good networking meeting and that boosts your confidence, that's going to help just continue generating more and more. So working it from the angle that that feels comfortable to you in the sense of you challenge yourself some and you don't just throw your hands up and say, I can't do it, but you also don't swing for the fence the first attempt. Give yourself a chance to build confidence. But what I've always learned and what I've always known, and in the many years in pure marketing, and then as a therapist who does marketing is people connect with people. People want authenticity. People want what's real, people want what's genuine. And if you show up in those ways, that's how you're going to be successful, because that's exactly what our clients want. Andrew Burdette 00:54:22 If you a good reframe and I communicate this to my clinicians to when they're thinking about this is this is about building community that's really fundamentally what it is. Andrew Burdette 00:54:33 And share referrals are going to be a part of that. But it's because you're a known community member. Kind of like, hey, I need a mechanic. And and thinking of that same thing or a dentist or. Where is it? Good place. I could go take a yoga class. Like, same kind of community. And you're just introducing yourself to say, hey, I'm a therapist. I like to work with ABC. Stephanie Farmer 00:54:53 Right? Absolutely. And that community is so helpful. I mean, I think about some of our referral sources that have become, you know, great professional colleagues that I'm able to consult with and I'm able to to learn from and enhance my own skills and my own practice because I'm part of this community of professionals and there's a real camaraderie in it. And so I also encourage people not to look at it from a scarcity perspective. There's so many of us out there, but the need is so great. And and looking at relationship building as like you said, community, not competition is another thing that I encourage any and everybody I talk to marketing about because again, this need is never going to end regardless of who we work with, how we serve people, what therapeutic approach we work from, the need is always going to exist. Stephanie Farmer 00:55:47 But having that community makes working in this space so rewarding and in a different way, and having that community is so important. I'm very grateful for for the community that we have, because we collaborate, we we don't look at each other as a threat. We look at each other as as partners, and it ultimately benefits our clients. Andrew Burdette 00:56:11 And that's what we're here, I guess one little final note on that point, but as we're wrapping up, is if you're out there and struggling to build a caseload, it's probably because people don't know what you have to offer, and that just hasn't been communicated to the right audience yet. It's not that there's a lack of clients out there to be had, it's just if you're a specialist in OCD and no one knows that, then how does anybody know that you're available to do that? It's really all it is. Yeah, absolutely. Well, if people want to work with you, how can they find you? And we'll have all this link in the show notes, too. Andrew Burdette 00:56:43 So, but yeah, how if someone wants to reach out and work with you either as a clinical client or as a, you know, hiring you for consulting or whatever, how would somebody find you? Stephanie Farmer 00:56:52 Yeah. So, they can reach out to us in a couple of ways. our website is anchored. Counseling edu comm. So as in Raleigh Durham? they can also reach out to me. My email address is Stephanie at Anchored counseling.com. And then we are on Instagram as at Anchored counseling.com. a lot of that content is very mom specific and mom related. So if listeners are moms and want to laugh or want to want to feel seen and heard, they can they can follow us on Instagram. Cool. Andrew Burdette 00:57:27 Well, thanks so much for being on the show. This has been a really, really cool topic to talk about and just I appreciate your lens coming from that strictly marketing background of to add how human or how to humanize that for what we do. Because again, if just sales sounds icky and makes most of us therapists just kind of cringe at the thought of it, and I really appreciate you demystifying and kind of defying things. Andrew Burdette 00:57:50 So yeah. Stephanie Farmer 00:57:52 Well, I appreciated being on the show. Thank you so much for having me. Andrew Burdette 00:58:02 If you love this podcast, please be sure to rate and review. This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher or the guest are rendering legal, accounting, clinical or any other professional information. If you want professional, you should find one.