The 4 Strategies of Scaling Your Practice | STP 3
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James Marland: Welcome to the scaling therapy practice. And this episode, you will discover the four builder types. Starting is key. And growth is a marathon, not a sprint.
James Marland: This is James Marland with Dr. David Hall. We're gonna talk today about the strategies of scaling. I don't know if you remember from episode one, we started this conversation talking about the different ways people build their therapy office and.
There isn't just one way to build. There isn't just, you know, maybe it's a podcast, maybe it's a membership community. You see all these ideas and you're like, oh, how could I do that? That's not me. We're gonna talk today about the four buckets, the four systems, the four builders where you could find yourself, uh mm-hmm.
building your
David Hall: practicing. And for those who haven't checked out, it's in the intro and it's one of the things you'll find in the show notes. But one of the things that we highlight in this is our. Builder quiz of deciding what side of you. Growth building journey you're on. And so we have a quiz so you can find out which of these buckets, as James kind of said, kind of most describes you.
And some people are gonna be a mixture of the, of lots of them, right? Some people are gonna be clearly in them. But yeah, it goes back to the whole, oftentimes in the kind of hustle therapy spaces, I talk about it. One thing is kind of shown, this is what you gotta do. You gotta grow a group practice, or you gotta grow an online community, or you gotta build a course.
Yeah. You gotta build a course. Yeah, you gotta do, and I, and I've done several of those things and I can tell you that a lot of 'em are fun, a lot of 'em are impactful, but there, there isn't. I would encourage anyone listening to this to be highly suspicious of anyone that tells you, you know, this is the thing to do.
Like this is the, you know, the opportunities are not absolutely endless. They are multiple and we really think that the opportunities that make the most sense to explore, you know, in deciding what your builder style is, what your scaling style is is gonna be a lot of it. Personality driven, interest driven.
You might find yourself more in one, in one season of your life or career and gravitate towards the other. So for the sake of an organization and also kind of to help really seed the imagination in it. We've kind of developed this four. You know, systems or the, or these four categories. No builder types.
Yeah, yeah. Builder types. And
James Marland: so because the goal is to not just add more work, right? Yes. As we were talking about in previous episodes, we're not just here to like add more work to make your life harder. We are helping people create systems, create scaling systems to grow so that you can get a disproportionate amount of.
Income or impact out of your
David Hall: effort? Yes, and you know, and something that's going to be, you know, I just put out a new course on narcissism at the time of this recording and it's one that I've taught the subject matter for years. , but I wanted to create a more in depth course, but I needed help in building out the teaching material and the research to support it.
And so I connected with a one of my therapists that works in my practice recent graduate, who has a very, has a background in a lot of different sort of research, is very skilled in that. And I said, Hey, Matt, I, I think I'd like to do this course. , I'd like to build it out further if you'd be willing to, to build it in the research and build out the, the structure, the lecture structure.
We can co-teach it and I'll help you with aspects of, of the delivery. And so that's something we're doing. We, we we're splitting it in the revenue for that. And for me, you know, he was really, the research was much easier for him. . And I like research, but it's not a quick process for me. Mm-hmm.
what was harder for him is when we started to record it and we set up the, and for me that's an easier thing. and
James Marland: you've done it. You've done the technical side, you know the buttons to
David Hall: push. Yes. And, but also my personality sort like that's easier. Mm-hmm. , most therapists are encouraged to identify what your chore of choice is.
Mm-hmm. What are things that you don't mind doing that other people might mind to do? And part of it, as you may discover in taking our quiz about what's your builder style? . It also could help. I would encourage, as you have friends or coworkers, people you collaborate with, get them to take the quiz too, because here's why.
There is natural collaboration that happens across different builder styles, right? If you connect with somebody that's more inclined towards one style of work or one style of growth, that may be something that you can get a lot of good, like crossover and synergy. As it's different than yours. And so James, like, let's, let's start like, what are the four types?
What are the four types? And let's unpack
James Marland: them. All right, so the four types that we've identified are the system builders. These are the people who develop elegant design. We have team builders. They're the developer of people. We have community builders. They're the developer, the developer of connections.
And then the last one is opportunity builder. They develop products and other services. I thought we'd start.
David Hall: The first one. Yeah, the system builder. So this idea of, you know, elegant design you know, elegant is such a nice word, but like, you know, what does that mean to you as you're thinking through like,
Is it kind of a streamlined process, I guess?
James Marland: Well, there, there's some of their key attributes is they have a natural ability to see a process. Like they can see the beginning, middle, and end, and then they work on it to improve it. So just an example, like an intake system. You know, you have to figure out a way to get the calls, call people back, enter them into the system.
Put the distribute the, the appointments to the therapist, collect the money, charge the insurance company there and then reschedule. Like that's a whole system inside. Just the, the task of I gotta see people , right?
David Hall: Yes. And it streamlines the process to give you more capacity and. To see, and so this
James Marland: is, yeah, well, I was gonna say, when I, when I did scheduling, when I took over an office for scheduling the assisted psychiatric evaluations, there was no system of where the appointments go.
They just gave us a block of time. And said schedule appointments. And so because there were three people involved in the appointment, the resources were not always available for that, for each appointment. So one of the first things I did was streamlined where people are scheduled so that at every stage somebody could be available.
You, you. So, so that streamlined the system so that instead of somebody just scheduling an appointment at two 15, which destroyed the three 15 appointment and the, the 15 minutes before we just did it on, I, it sounds simple now, but we did it on the half hour. So you only scheduled on the half hour, and then you didn't destroy the two other appointments before and after.
David Hall: You know, and you're right, it does sound simple, but how many therapists may struggle with that? And how many, because again, so many people who listen to this may be thinking like, I don't want to go out and do anything different. Right. I, I just wanna figure out how to see clients without having to deal with all the extra kerfuffle as much.
And sometimes, so you
James Marland: need a system, you need an elegant
David Hall: system. Yes. And so it's figuring out how to. implement that. And so it's this. And so that would be kind of somebody who really gravitates towards this. And I'll, I'll give some examples of what it's looked like in my practice. I like systems. I'm, I'm trained in systems theory as an M F T, so I like this idea of the interconnection of things.
And I like trying to make things easier. And I'll, I'll, I'll give two examples of ways I figured it out in my in the world's inhabit. So I've been a continuing education provider. As I said, I've been doing that since 2000. And initially I needed, you know, there was a process of, I was doing in-person things, but one of the main things you needed to get for people was you needed to get feedback forms.
If you do any approved continuing education for most mental health. professions, you need a, you have to give people evaluation forms for them to offer to evaluate the program. And you have to collect those. And so initially it was, I would have printouts of them. I would've printouts and give them to people and they would have to, and then there'd be CE certificates and I would have to do those and sign those.
Mm-hmm. . And that was, you know, doing in-person events, like that was work and that was expense for printing. But you know, I. I, you know, it wasn't too bad. It got really hard when I started doing things online cause I was having, people would commit complete programs and I would have to email them, see you certificates.
And so I, I simply asked the question of like, there has to be an easier way to do this. And, you know, initially one of the things I did was I started doing paperless evaluation forms. I started using Survey Monkey. because I'm like, Hey, I can do eval forms this way and I don't have to spend the money to print off eval forms.
And this also allows them to be collective. Because initially what it was is my wife usually did this task if she would collect all the CE forms and she would have to create a spreadsheet and input all the data because we would have to give that. as part of audits for the continued education approval.
And that was so much work. Yeah. But once we started doing it, now I do it in Google forms, but the benefit of Google Forms now is it's already tabulated and I can put it in Excel spreadsheet by just hit, click, click. And I found something also using Google Forms that automatically sends out CE certificates now, which that was a life changer for me in CE businesses.
And so even for in-person event,
James Marland: and it can work for more than just the CEU
David Hall: C Sure. Yeah. There's a lot of auto senders. What's
James Marland: the name of the, do you know the name of the program? Oh, yeah,
David Hall: I do It put you on the spot. It's, it's called Certify Em. Certify 'em. Certify 'em. It's a, it's a, it's with an apostrophe in, in the middle.
And it's just a, it's a plugin for a Google. , it's a Google Workspace plugin and you know, for those who are interested you know, there's access under the Practice of Therapy podcast. There's a whole group Google Workspace course of figuring all these tools with Google. And I'm a big fan. I took that course and gained a lot from it.
And I learned how to find plugins and add-ons and there's amazing sort of stuff you can
James Marland: do. So, so instead of typing this all out and doing the time sensitive stuff, or time mm-hmm. time stuff. You have an automatic form mm-hmm. that create, creates the spreadsheet, and then you have an automatic plugin that sends out the certificate with their name in the course and the, all the data
David Hall: that, that frees up so much to Oh yeah.
And so that's, that's one I do for my CE business. And here's one I do for my practice. Here's one of my recent things I implemented. So right now we use Google Forms for people to. if they wanna request a therapist that has a wait list, we use Google Forms for things like that. Otherwise people can just book.
But we, I don't have a receptionist. There isn't somebody answering the phones. Most people book online. We have a way for people to leave a voicemail for the practice and they'll get a call back. But we really try to funnel people towards the online booking system. But here's the problem. It was easier when we had fewer the.
but right now there's 17 of us with the practice and people would go to our page, they don't necessarily know who they wanna see, right? And they're going through these different profiles of therapists, oh, I really like this person. I really wanna see Brandy Brandy's not taking new people. And this is, and so I thought, well, how do, how do I make this easier for clients?
Because part of it was, is I would have to, people would be calling and be like, I need help, but I don't even know who has openings. So what I did, Was I thought about what's the easier way for me to do it. And so I created a color coding system on our website. You can see this, if you go to haven counseling center.com you'll go to our pro, our provider pages, and every provider profile picture has a ring around it with a color.
and we have a, a, a legend, a key for that at the very top of the page where if it's green, it means they're taking new clients. If it's yellow, it means they have some openings, but you gotta fill out a, a form to see if they can accommodate you. In red means not taking new clients. Mm-hmm. . And so you can just scroll through the page and see automatically.
who's open for new people right away, who's got some limited openings who's just not taking new people. And I've gotten so much positive feedback from clients cuz oftentimes we're not the only practice they're looking at. They're all in psychology today. They're trying to find a therapist. They're waiting for callbacks so they don't know who has openings or not.
Yeah, they call and hope. Yeah, they call and hope, hope somebody can flip and no one, I hope somebody gets back to me. and that's hard for a lot of therapists. And, but they, they can go to our website and know immediately who has openings. And it was an easy system for me to cha to change. Cause I'll have a therapist in my team will say like, Hey, I need to go to, I'm, I'm going back to green.
I have some more openings, or I need to move to red. And it's just a, I use Wick for my website builder and it's an easy one to go in and make changes for. And so for me it's just go on click. and I've saved myself so much time because, but since I don't have admin as the clinic director, I would be the one returning phone calls about trying to find people.
So yeah. Anyway, these are examples I can tell you in my practice that I've done, and these are things we wanna share with you guys of, you know, there is, it's about how to, how to make something more automated, smoother to give you more time back to be a, the.
James Marland: Yeah, you, you answered the main question for the system builders, like, how do I, how do I make the system better, cheaper, more profitable?
And the, the system builder grows by making processes that shorten the time it takes to get work done. They get more work done with the same system. and the same work makes you more money. They're all like, their strategy is like maximizing their systems to, to generate that income and impact and, and, and also to make it easier.
David Hall: No, and, and that highlights something too, like growth sometimes is just about growing inefficiency. You don't necessarily have to create more input. , right? You can have the same amount of volume you're doing right now in the sense of like gross revenue as a provider, but you can make it more profitable if you have better systems in place.
Yeah. You
James Marland: don't, you don't always have to do more.
David Hall: Yes. And yeah, and part of scaling too is just, it's not, it's, it's, it's be more efficient in kind of the press of, you're getting more juice out of the fruit. And, and so in some ways that's very eco. And how do you be eco and economic? . So this is, you know, and we, we want this to be the vision for people.
Again, you don't have to add more to your plate, but it's how to, how to move things through your system. All the more better the, yeah. More you wanna add about this type this.
James Marland: No, I think that's a good introduction.
David Hall: We can take the quiz and you like, even no matter where you fit on the quiz too, you'll hear about more about all the different types because a lot of people are gonna fit into different one.
And, and
James Marland: we'll have some introductory resources for you if you fit that type. So you'll, you'll have some next steps for Yeah. For that type. So let's go to the team builder. They're the developer of people. Mm. And some of their key attributes are people naturally follow them to achieve bigger goals.
They're a, they're a leader. They're able. Maximum effort from team members easily. And they naturally produce engaged team members. So these are the people who are building group practices adding staff. They're able to communicate their vision and mission, and people are like, oh, I like that. Let's, let's follow that person.
And that, that's a, a people
David Hall: builder. Yeah. And, and people are often interested in catching somebody else's. So you have a powerful vision. I, I wanna give some highlights for this and just my general experience as a clinician and also what it looks like in my own work. So one of my favorite practices to highlight, you can look them up online, Southeast psych.
Their main office is in Charlotte, North Carolina. And they also have an office in Nashville, Tennessee at the time of recording. They have, I came across them because I was, this was years ago. I was doing a live event in c. and I was doing some market research for the therapy practices in the area of who I could directly market to.
And I came across them and I was so impressed in their kind of branding and design. And they're kind of known as one of their themes is they have a lot of superhero themes. If you go to their website, they have, and you, you go to their provider page if you. Hover over the provider profile page, it will go from their normal profile picture to a kind of drawn out caricature of them as a superhero.
Cool. Offense, Marvel related, and that's kind of their theme. If you go to their office, they've got a YouTube channel with fun things in their office. They've got all this like movie and superhero memorabilia, and it's kind of their niche. It's kind of what they're, you know, they've mm-hmm. , they've made it fun.
But therapists I know that gravitate towards that practice. They love that vision. They love that fun. sort of thing. Mm-hmm. for collaboration is, you know, it's, it's one of the things I really enjoy about being a group practice owner. I love the relationship building. I love the opportunity to mentor. I'm a supervisor.
I supervise people in Tennessee for both licensure, for a mental health counseling and marriage and family therapy. And I really love that developmental sort of thing. And, and that's different than, . Sometimes I, I have some systems, aspects of me, but that's different than the developmental part of me.
It's one's much more kind of cold and technical and cold. Not necessarily being bad, but it's detached where this is very kind of high touch in the, the warm interactions with people. And it's a great way when people want to be with you and people catch your. , you know, they often wanna collaborate with you, and that could be, you know, that could be in growing a group practice.
But for me in Psych Maven, it's meant growing relationships and collaborations with other teachers. Because I, even though I've, I started Psych Maven, I'm not the only teacher in it. We've got lots of teachers in it, and the, and that's, I've developed that through relationships with people and profitably.
I've, I've made more money of courses. I don't. Proportionately it's been other people that have talents as a teacher. They may have built in audiences. I'm just providing the forum for them to get material out. Yeah. You, you've
James Marland: articul articulated the vision and led them to mm-hmm. . Contributing to the mission.
David Hall: Yeah. And some, when people are thinking about like, well, I wanna start a, a coaching program or online course or a membership, oftentimes they have the thought is it has to be me. I have to be the brand. Mm-hmm. . And you don't necessarily, if you're a people builder, if you're a team builder, , it could be about building the team and the team can be the implementer for so many things.
There's, there's so many people, and I talk about this for people in creating profitable trainings of people think like, I've gotta be the person up front teaching. And you don't necessarily, you can be, you can be the behind the scenes person that's the organizer, and you can bring in people that love to teach and are gifted at it, but they don't have the organizational skills to make it.
and you're just, you know, you're just attracting people and people make it happen. It's not you making it happen. Yeah.
James Marland: That, that's a good point. Often with when you, when you take the leap from individual contributor to manager owner, you are, you are not the person doing the work. . Mm-hmm. , you are the person.
Pro lay, setting the table, allowing people to do their best work. You're, you're creating the environment for their best work. Mm-hmm. . Some of the main questions that the people builder might have is, who can I find with the right qualities to join my team so we can accomplish our mission together?
Mm-hmm. , like, it's that team mindset. It's not the. I don't think we either of us would say like the, the dictator type, like, let's take the mountain on the bodies of the people that I use to get here, type of leadership. Mm-hmm. . It's more of the let's all take the mountain together and then hey, let's, there's another mountain over there.
Let's go tackle that mountain together too and make sure everybody comes alongside us, you know, comes with us.
David Hall: Absolutely. So the third one, the community builder. Then how would you describe that? .
James Marland: Well, the community builder naturally makes more connections between groups and they, they see the invisible connections between people, groups, systems, and how they all I intertwine and work together.
As you were talking about the people builder, like this is, this is an example of where your courses have sort of like you had the people in the leadership system, but you also had this network community builder aspect and it kind of, Co-mingled to create a, a great scaling opportunity for you. But the, the community builder sees these connections.
They know how to get people together. They have a, they have a mental list of helpful people, places, resources when they're, when they're meeting with people or they're in conferences or they're, they're just talking an email and somebody presents a problem. They're like, oh, I know somebody that can help you.
I have a webpage, I have a link. I have this P D f I've been saving in a file mm-hmm. for a while. I know how to get you that. And they solve problems by introducing people to the solution and then getting out of the way. Mm-hmm. , they're, they're catalysts in that aspect.
David Hall: No, I think that's good. And that's a good describer.
I mean, you might, some people might be thinking, well, what's the difference between this and a people builder or team builder? And it's, I think, and again, they can have tons of overlap, but a team builder is putting themselves, they're, they're kind of the bus driver. Mm-hmm. in, in what's going on, that they're and other people are on the bus.
And so that looks like a practice owner, director, somebody who is kind of. and leading the charge in so many ways. Whereas the community builder, everyone's in their own bus, but you're leading a caravan. Mm-hmm. , these are people that, they're not necessarily in that leadership position, but they're often kind of in an advisory position for other people.
And there's a lot of appeal for this as somebody who leads teams. And as much as I enjoy that it, there's a weight of responsibility that comes within your leading a. that people, and oftentimes people want to have that relational outlet. They wanna grow, but they don't wanna have the same responsibility for, you know, I've gotta make other people's payroll or make sure that these things are done.
And so this is where if you're looking for like somebody in mental health practice, a team builder is kind of more. that practice. Community builders more kind of outside. They're, they're the ones that build great referral connections with other, other people. They and for the stuff I do as a continue education provider, as a course builder, oftentimes they're the people that participate in my courses and, you know, they, these are people that you know, so much of my growth.
I've been so fortunate to have is just people tell people about courses I put out, right? And I often ask them to, like, well, particularly I'll put out, I try to put out a decent amount of free content. And whenever I do and someone signs up, I often I'll have an ask like, Hey, you find this helpful? Help other people find it.
I, I love kind of growing through that natural word of mouth thing, and that's how a lot of people do. . And, you know, for people like this I think a great example for someone like this is, is our friend and the, the principal, the head person of our podcasting network that we're a part of Gordon Brewer.
Yeah. Like Gordon's a great connector and he's a great community builder, and that's really with a podcast network. It was. So everyone has their own podcast. It isn't, he's, it's not all his podcast. Right. But he's kind of creating this interconnection and building community in.
James Marland: and, and it, it helps. So the podcast network helps everyone in the network.
And it also is growing his reach, impact and income. Yes. Like, it's like he's growing through helping other people, connecting them to a resource that really helps them and, and just being part of the network. I love talking to the other podcast hosts. It's really cool hearing their ideas. and, and talking about growth and how can we grow together.
Mm. And that wouldn't have happened without somebody who's like a community builder. Yes.
David Hall: Like Gordons. Absolutely. And so it could happen, you know, this might be you wanna lead a community for someone like this, you know, you want to, but maybe an online community, it could be that you create a, you know, a network in your local community that connects different therapists.
And I am. There's, oh gosh, this, you're gonna need to edit this, James. Cause I'm trying to think of the name of the network. They, I did an interview with them.
James Marland: Mm. You, you had an interview with a network
David Hall: a local network. It was a therapist network.
James Marland: So let me, while you're looking that up, their growth strategy or their main question for the the community builder is who or what do I know that can help this person or group grow?
Like they are focused on growing the group and growing the person by providing them resources. And one of the strategies that they would have is this, this person grows by making affiliate connections between groups. and then their, their, their solution also grows to their core customers. Mm-hmm. . So they're just adding more people and helping people along the journey of growth.
Mm-hmm.
David Hall: It is it is on the tip of my tongue, , and this is going to it. It's okay. It is founded. It is sage. Frame. So there's a group I connected with called the Frame Community and they're a love frame community. Yeah, the Frame community. They are based in Southern California and growing nationally and their a website is try frame.com.
And this, it was started by an L C S W and her business partner. And they've just been created just a, a social space. So this isn't people that are employed by them, but they've created this paid community as a resource for therapist and it's a great asset. And, and to what James was also saying before of
you know, affiliate marketing. This is super powerful because there could be a lot of pressure of like, I've gotta create tons of products, I've gotta do things right. And yeah, there's, there's so many, I mean, this is part of how James and I connected was he was thinking like, I've gotta create a course on how to create courses.
And I said, well, I've got a course on that. You wanna just affiliate for it. And he is like, oh, that's. and it always is easier . And there are other people I love affiliate for the courses. I've, I've got Kim Tolson, a traveling therapist. I've done some affiliate connections with her and she's got a course on therapists doing their own insurance billing and how to figure that out.
And that's not something I was really qualified to teach on. I've never been an in-network provider. I've not dealt with that. She has the skillset and experience has created a great offering for that. And I wanna connect with that. And this, this is, you know, it's so. Powerful. And as, as a way to kind of grow your connections, your, and, and oftentimes in growing, you get the opportunity to grow more.
Every person you make a connection with that gives you opportunity to connect with new people. And for someone who's the natural community builder builder, that excites them. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Somebody who's more introverted, who'd be more inclined to the system side of things. They're not looking to meet new people necessarily in that way.
They, they wanna simplify and streamline. The, the building process for the community builders, they, they love, they feed off those new relationships they can make and those new connections. So let's go to our
James Marland: last builder. It's the opportunity builder. These are the people who develop, they're the developer of products and services.
Some of their key attributes is they see a problem and the path to creating a product or service that solves that problem. They're able to market and sell their ideas and product. . And for them, when they see a problem, they also see profits.
David Hall: Mm-hmm. . Whereas comparing it to the systems person, again, there could be a lot of overlap, but the systems person is, it's more an internally focused efficiency and, and it's maybe happenstance that they're thinking about.
like, oh, I solved this problem for myself. I streamlined it for myself. Mm-hmm. . And then afterwards they may think of like, oh, the, it may become a product they share for somebody else. The opportunity builder is actively looking for problems to solve. They're not just responding to problems. They're, they're looking for them.
And this was a great example of, of, for those who listened to episode two is James and I kind of talked about our stories and what led us to connect with each other of James. And I's connection came from, he, it wasn't a problem he was facing cuz he wasn't a, the. But he was asking, he, he, the, the question of, Hey, I could see this problem for therapists of that they're wanting to create scalable ways to create income, but they're having a hard time implementing and yeah.
Why
James Marland: aren't more people creating courses? You have the knowledge. You teach it. Mm-hmm. , you teach it every day. people, you're good at it. You get like, why, why aren't there more courses out there? Like you were doing David? Yeah. Like
David Hall: and, and like in the pr and that was, it was a question that led to a problem, which for the problem was a lot of therapists struggle with the implementation of knowing the steps of not getting discouraged, of not getting distracted.
Mm-hmm. . And so in that sense, you know, you as an operator and an opportunity builder really kind of came up it. , I I could, I actively sought out problems to help other people solve. Mm-hmm. . And so this is courses, this is memberships, this is digital products. This is, you know, and, and going back, you know, courses get talked about a, a lot and I've talked to a lot of people that get really intimidated by the idea of creating a course cuz they're like, I don't like presenting even, like, I particularly, I don't like being on camera.
But it doesn't have to look like that. You can create any number of products that don't involve kind of presentation stuff. You, you might have a great treatment manual that you've created or you might, you know, have written a book. One of the first products I came up with years ago was an ebook. I did a course with a, a friend of mine, bill O'Hanlan, who on how to write a book and get it published.
And, you know, at the time, currently Bill's written and published over 40 books and he was at 30 something back then. . But one of the things he encouraged in the course is you may not wanna go a traditional publisher route, because if you work with a publisher, a huge portion of the book fees going to pay them and pay cost of of books, and, and so in the end, I went through the process and decided that I wanted to create an ebook, then that's what made more sense and that I wasn't gonna have the same distribution, but it was much higher profit.
And I thought, well, I'll do that. And I self-published. I, I created, I created some printout versions of it too, but it was basically a e-book that was a therapist manual on this method of therapy that I did. And I, I created that as a digital product and people bought it. Which amazed me. Yeah. You see,
James Marland: you see a lot of that.
I, I, I, I finish your thought, then I'll finish
David Hall: that. Sure. But it's just, but it wasn't, this wasn't teaching. This wasn't a teaching product. This was
James Marland: Oh, right. Yeah. It wasn't a course with a video. It wasn't a queer audio. It was a, yeah, I was download. I was gonna give an example, like there's a lot of people who have like paperwork.
Products. Yes. Yeah. Paperwork paddocks. It's how do I set up my office? How do I onboard my assistant? How do I onboard my new therapist? How do I, we talked about this in episode one or two. Like, do you have a checklist for exiting therapists? You know? Yes. All those types of services for people or even, you know, workbooks for other.
For other therapists, you know, on certain, certain subjects, they're, they're all type of intake scripts was another one I've seen. Mm-hmm. , you know, buy my email intake script.
David Hall: Mm-hmm. and it doesn't have to be a high, their product. Yeah. And it doesn't have to be a high cost thing. Correct. Because it can be very profitable because it may be fairly low cost because of that, it's high volume.
Right. And people are interested in it. And there's so many different ways and places to, to create and sell digital products. And again, courses may be part of. , but it doesn't have to be. I think people get hung up on that. Like I, for me to be out in the world, it has to look a certain way. I have to present in a certain way, or I have to be willing to get on camera or to record audio or, and maybe that is you, and maybe if you feel some hesitancy, it's a good thing to challenge yourself in, but it doesn't have to be.
And to have that freedom and flexibility think is really, I. . Cool.
James Marland: So the, the main question for the, or we've covered the main question, what product or service can I solve, create to solve this problem? Their growth strategy then is creating solutions to problems with products or services. And they grow product lines or expand their offerings to more people.
So it's a, it's creating something that other people can. To solve their problem. Mm-hmm. . So those are the four. Yeah, those are the four
David Hall: types of builders. And if you, if you're interested, like, you might be interested in a lot of these, but take our quiz. Take our quiz. You'll be able to see like what ones you score the highest on, but even, you know, and you'll kind of get the main one.
The main one is where we encourage people to start. This isn't a personality typing quiz. Ultimately we think so many people. Who are interested in scaling and growing will be interested in certain aspects of all of these, right? But part of taking the quiz is, is understanding like, where's the place to start?
Like where am I most interested? Where am I most inclined? Cause I've gotta start somewhere. And I think that's where so many therapists get stuck as they think about growth, is they have all these ideas and they feel they, I've gotta do it all, or I've gotta do it all at once. And. You know, the simplicity is your friend in so many of these things.
It's how do you start with one thing? How do you start with one thing and build and go from there? And that's where we hope the quiz can help you. And in that too, you'll get ideas of, of so many different things that could help you along your journey and that so, so excited to share what that could look like for you.
Anything else to. . So what is to you to, as we've been ending episodes, , what's the one thing, James, you know, what's your one thing for this episode that you want people to take away?
James Marland: I think the one thing is don't be a perfection in the perfectionist in this. You gotta start somewhere. There's a lot of trial and error, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't get started.
As I'm helping people develop courses and things, and they were, they were, they're, they're talking about all their. , they're, they're hangups. Like, it's not gonna be good, or, I won't like the way I look. You're not gonna get to your perfection, your perfect class or your perfect system or style without starting.
Mm-hmm. . Like, you gotta start somewhere. So my, my my one thing is find something that you wanna get started in and make, make a move, take an action. Don't just do think about it. Put something in. Put something in practice. Take an action. Call an experiment and see what happens. Mm-hmm. , I think you'll be, you'll be pleased with the results.
David Hall: I don't know if I have a better one thing than that, because Absolutely. Start and, yeah. One of the best things to start is, is why we put together this quiz. Take the quiz. Because in taking that quiz, not only will you be able to get some ideas of what makes sense of the place for you to start, we have tons of resources.
We'll be able to share with you how to implement that along the way. It is like pick one thing. So if it's adding, you know, for, for James, it's the idea of like, start something. And my thing is keep it simple. Yeah. Pick a thing. You know, it could simply be how do I streamline my office process? Because you may take the quiz and the one that comes up that sticks out to you the most is the systems builder.
and I j just how to improve, even if it's in small sort of ways where you, where you can free up half hour here an hour here. Anytime you can make it easier and less time intensive for you, you're giving yourself more margin. And even if that's not your end goal, as you can create margins by doing one thing, by starting somewhere, that can give space for creativity for, for actually building something.
Because I've talked with people too. That they're like, I have this great idea for an online course, but I don't have any time to do it because I'm constantly during client phone calls or dealing with scheduling and plus seeing clients for someone like that, they're one thing I don't think will be, oh, we just, you just need to start on the course.
It's like you need to streamline your process to free up a few hours in your week so you can actually begin doing it. Mm-hmm. , so, you know, but starting somewhere, so as, as James is saying, so if James' thing is. And is this was make it simple. Yeah. Pick something, make it simple. Pick something. Keep, yeah.
And and so, so Juan kind of encouraging that. James is always great talking and look forward to, to what we have to share when we go in next time around.
James Marland: Yeah. David, we'll talk to you next
David Hall: time.