STP 26 | Tips for adding a Courses, Coaching, and Consulting Services
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James Marland: Welcome to the Scaling Therapy Practice. This is James Marlin with Dr. David Hall. Hello David. Hey James. Glad to see you this week. Uh, but our topic this week is gonna be adding a professional consulting service to scale your business.
James Marland: Uh, but first we're gonna talk about our tool. Tip or Tech of the Week? I'll go first. Um, I am gonna talk about Cajabi. Uh, Cajabi is a online platform that does all in one courses, websites, marketing, podcasting, and uh, they have a community service where you, that's like, not Facebook, but it's their own community.
James Marland: So they have a lot of things. Recently I, I bumped into something. They're always adding something new. And I bumped into this, uh, course outline generator. So you put in your topic and it will give you a curriculum, but they added to it recently where you can put in your topic and it will write an email for you.
James Marland: Or you can put in your topic and it will write a landing page for you. Or if you just want a focused lesson on one thing, you can put in your topic and it'll give you a lesson. So they added three things to this Cajabi AI creator tools. Uh, it's pretty neat because. Writing, writing content and like writing emails is one of the more difficult things I've found to do and I love having these ideas to shape and mold into my own words to bring it to, to people.
James Marland: But I don't have the, the white page to look at. So, yes. Yes, David, another online tool, another AI tool. Uh, but I'm in the course, I'm in the creator side, uh, creating courses and creating content and outlines all the time. So I love, I really love services like that, that, that really, uh, my, it, it, it makes one of my weaknesses not quite as much of a weakness.
James Marland: So it's really cool to find these
David Hall: things. What's the
James Marland: weakness? Uh, re-editing, re-editing. Um, I, I like to find the right word, so I'll go to like, lots of the sources and things, but, um, just, uh, being. Sometimes you either write too little or write too much. And so it can either fill in some of the gaps or I can tell AI to shorten, you know, I wrote this thing, shorten it for me, or make it concise.
James Marland: Mm-hmm. The other thing is, um, clickable titles like I, I really think there's a skill, uh, in writing titles and things that people actually wanna read. And AI will generate 10, 10 things for me to look at, and then I'll be like, oh, I like this and this, and put it together. So I think, uh, just the, the sheer amount of things you can create in a short amount of time and then pick the best is mm-hmm.
James Marland: It, it shortens the time of creation and that works for. I mean, it works for emails and courses and video posts and blogs for sure. You know, all the ideas for blogs mm-hmm. Has been very helpful. I even, I'm, I made a, a mini-course on, uh, nine Ways to use ai. If you go to my webpage mm-hmm. You can find that course.
James Marland: I'll put it in the show notes, but it's just does so much for you. And so this Cajabi tool was, was one more way to make. To take some of the pain out of the things that might be difficult, cuz the ideas are there. Mm-hmm. You know, a lot of people who are creating courses or blogs, they have the ideas, it's just the generation of mm-hmm.
James Marland: Some of the, the, the outline, like, oh, I need an outline for this, or what's, uh, what's an introduction for my, for my course or my blog on this. Oh, okay, great. I'll mis take that and use it so,
David Hall: I use a different one. I use Teachable, which as far as I know, they've, they've been rolling out different features this week and I'm beginning emails, but I don't know if they're quite, if they're doing that yet, where they're giving me a robot brain to work with, but, This is related though, to something that, that they do, and it's one of the, the main features I, there are lots of things I love about Teachable, but it, it, a lot of people, myself included host courses on it, and that's what it was initially designed to do.
David Hall: But a feature they rolled out in recent years that I think is a whole different dimension for people is, uh, they call it coaching, but basically it, it's a way to sell coaching slash consulting services. As a more premium add-on to your courses or, and this is where I think a lot of, I encourage people to do it before you, you have an idea for how some of your knowledge is valuable, but you haven't written a course yet or you may not even necessarily know what the course should be.
David Hall: You just know I have this knowledge and it's valuable to other people sell, selling that through a coaching package as they would say. So basically it allows you to sell your knowledge. And it gives you a platform to do that before you have a course. And that's where when I'm, uh, talking with people and they have an idea, I really encourage them to get a pro.
David Hall: Basically just get a landing page up, get a sales page. Don't try to write this whole course, right? Because oftentimes people try to write a course before they've really tested the material. And I really want to encourage like people not to do that. And so how to, um, To really see what's gonna work and, and, but it gives you something to sell right away.
David Hall: So if, if somebody quits their, you know, their job this week, they found me. They want to come talk with me about what they can do. And, you know, there's something that's identifiable for them about their knowledge that could be valuable. And they, they have this idea, maybe I should do a course. I would say put it out as a, as a consulting slash coaching package first.
David Hall: Because you can monetize it more quickly and you can test material. And that's a good segue for what we're gonna talk about today. Um, Of professional consulting and we wanna delineate here between, cuz we initially were talking about this episode as coaching consulting, but you know, that will probably be a different episode in, cuz in the therapy space, oftentimes when coaching's talked about it's two clients, it's, it's a, it's another service, two clients, or it's in the life coaching sort of thing.
David Hall: And what we're gonna talk about today is specifically in the space of consulting for. Other professionals, uh, of it's, uh, sharing knowledge or skillset with other people as, as they're trying to build as professionals and, which is something, uh, I've done. And so we're gonna talk about that.
James Marland: All right, so let's move to our topic, adding a professional counsel consulting service to your practice.
James Marland: Uh, I see my, my introduction with this is people, Uh, come to me and they, they, they're talking about courses or things they know. And one of the things that they inevitably bring up is, I'm good at this one thing and people keep asking me how to do it. And I'm good at organizing my office. I'm good at hiring people or I'm good at, uh, maintaining people or filling, filling the, filling my therapist with clients.
James Marland: And people keep asking me, how do I do this? How do I do this? So that's one, one of my introduction with this. Uh, but you do, David, you do it, uh, for a profession or that's a service that you offer. You've added it to your services. Mm-hmm. So how did you get started with that
David Hall: and, and truth? I did it for free, I guess, for a lot of years.
David Hall: Mm. I, I, people would just ask me que they would see certain things I was doing. Um, early on it was things like creating CE events. Mm-hmm. And, um, growing a caseload, even before I was a group practice owner, um, I was, I knew about marketing and people would ask me about it and we would, sometimes it was just coworkers.
David Hall: They'd be like, Hey, can I. Get you a cup of coffee and we talk about X. Mm-hmm. And so it, it started that way. And then the realizing I had a knowledge base. I initially went to create trainings and courses. It was, I did live seminars and then eventually put things online. And paid consulting came later because I would have people that would reach out to me and say, I don't wanna buy a course, can I just pay you?
David Hall: And to. Downloaded this with me. I, I've, I've made some exceptions for it. I've, I've oftentimes, my, my issue with that was, is oftentimes people I would, I would charge too little. Mm-hmm. And I, I, I came to the conclusion that like, I definitely cannot make my one-on-one time cheaper or even the same price to the course I've already written.
David Hall: It's gotta be a, and I had somebody once who was, I don't, I don't wanna take another course, can I just, you know, What's an hour of your time? And I initially answered just what my therapy hour was and I regretted doing that. And then so, because it was too cheap, um, and then later it became, well, I've gotta really price myself above this.
David Hall: And I had somebody ask same thing. And I said, well, this, what is, she goes, oh, that's really expensive. I go, we'll, take the course. Uh, yes. And, and, and I've also become, um, If I have a course on something and people, you know, want to talk about it, I've gotten to the point now where I've gotten pretty restrictive of that.
David Hall: They have to take the course first because it, it's, it ends up being a waste of my time because they end up, I end up answering questions that I spend a whole course answering. And if you take the course and still have questions, awesome. Happy to talk about that. But it becomes, you know, a lot of parents will experience this, you know, that they'll, they'll.
David Hall: Tell their kids, you know, something, or they'll write it down for them and then the kid ask, well, what's, what time you get in home? Like, oh, if you read my text message, we wouldn't be having this conversation or whatever that is. And so, um, the other thing, so it's for people that have already done a training with me and they want to go deeper, I, I offer it or.
David Hall: And this was a more recent one, somebody who was looking at my, my course on how to put together online trainings, and she did a webinar with me. She looked at the course, she reached out, she said, you know, here's where I am in my journey. And basically a lot of what I taught in the course she was already doing.
David Hall: And so she was trying to figure out something a bit more specific. And she, she said this, I feel like this course is for more of an intermediate or beginner person on this journey. It, it wasn't conceited at all, but she goes, I feel like I'm, I'm in a more advanced place. Sure can I do, but she was also very understanding for my rate.
David Hall: And so that's how I got into it. Was just was I, I, there were things I knew that realized people valued. And so I, this was a different way outside of courses to, um, monetize my knowledge.
James Marland: So, for somebody who's thinking about getting started, what, what is involved? Like what do you, what, what are the things that you do in the consulting, uh,
David Hall: session?
David Hall: Well, at first you gotta decide, I guess, what you're gonna consult about. Um, mm-hmm. I, when I've seen people put this out into the world, um, there are few issues I see come up. One is they're too bland in their pitch. It just kind of, it's too general and they're
James Marland: going for the masses. Like, come to me, I do consulting.
James Marland: Yeah. And it it, but that won't reach it. That won't reach your preferred client.
David Hall: Yeah. It, it's the what do you, what do you have credibility to talk about? What do people trust you in? I, I've got so many, you know, professional coaches, consultants that reach out to me on LinkedIn on a pretty regular basis, and I know I'm in an automatic funnel because of how they address it.
David Hall: And it's the, and it's like, Hey, I, I, I'm here to, it's all the buzz language. I'm here to help maximize your productivity. You know, 10 x your profitability. Mm-hmm. Whatever. And it just, what, and the question when I look at these people is like, well, what do you know that's gonna be helpful for me? And so you've gotta identify like, what is it that you know that will be helpful?
David Hall: And if you, and you may not know something, like I, I don't think everybody should be a consultant just because you like the idea of consulting, unless you have a knowledge base or skill base that is of specific value to people. Then you're probably not ready to do consulting. That, that may sound harsh, but I, I have talked to people that have, that they've sought consulting with me to be a consultant.
David Hall: But when I kind of look through their, you know, their skillset and their knowledge base, it, they don't really have a very compelling offer. Uh, this is what, uh, I can, so
James Marland: the first thing is to narrow down what you're doing Yeah. And what you're offering. What are you bringing to the table? Yeah. And it, it, it's probably not everything to every person.
James Marland: It's I bring this skillset, this, this shortcut, this talent stack to the table, and I can teach you how to do that or improve what you already have.
David Hall: Yeah. And so it's just a different mindset and you also gotta figure out, okay, if you identify that, who's your audience for that? Mm-hmm. How do you connect with them?
David Hall: And that's about kind of, and then how do they hear about you? Uh, and that also affects your price point, for example, one of things. Yeah. What do you mean by that? Well, there's several things I've traditionally consulted on, and one of the things that I will on occasion talk about is, uh, new therapist career development.
David Hall: It's, it's a passion topic of mine because for the most part, uh, grad school, Experiences for training therapists, even if it's a really rich grad school experience, doesn't teach you a lot about not just business, but like truly understanding your options career-wise. And so I have material I've put out on how to navigate kind of new therapists career things.
David Hall: I have a course on it, but my course on that is one of my least expensive courses. Because my core audience is new career therapists, and it's not, these aren't necessarily well established wealthy individuals. These are people who are in their first jobs out of grad school or trying to find their first jobs outta grad school, or don't even have jobs.
David Hall: They're still in grad school, so I can't charge my consulting rate that I charge for. Pretty established private practice professionals. That's just not realistic. Um, and so who's this for? If, if, if your target demographic is young therapist trying to develop new side hustles, they, they can pay something very different versus mid to later career therapists who are, you know, already in the entrepreneurial space and they're trying to grow something new.
David Hall: Mm-hmm.
James Marland: Uh, so, um, what are the, what are the pros, I guess, of starting a, a scaling service, this service to scale your business? And what are the cons? Like what, what are the, when, when somebody's thinking about adding this, you know, they, they write out the list. What are the pros of doing it? What are the cons? What, what would you say are the pros and cons?
David Hall: Um, we'll start with the pros. You can charge a lot depending on what your knowledge base is and who's it for, you can charge very differently. Um mm-hmm. I know, I know some people who, for their psychotherapy services charge quite a bit. Uh, I came across, I think the most expensive therapist fairly recently.
David Hall: We're recording this in, in February, 2023, and it was, I, I was just online and ended up on somebody's practice. Well, anyway, there were $350 an hour. For their, their therapy. Yeah. That's significant. Now. Expensive. Part of the world. Expensive. But that is, uh, I am, I recently raised my counseling rate to, uh, 1 72 a session.
David Hall: Um, but I charge at the time of this recording if, if I agree to do consulting with somebody, it's, it's 2 75 an hour. Uh, I couldn't very easily get away with that for a therapy price. Mm-hmm. That would be in your area? In my area. That would, that would be quite something. And so did you build
James Marland: up to that rate?
James Marland: I mean, oh, you did tell us. No. Is it exclusionary?
David Hall: You started, what's that it for my consulting or my therapy consulting. No, that was an exclusionary rate. Uh, uh, I didn't build up, like initially I charged people the same of what my counseling rate was. Yeah. Yes. Therapy hour. Yeah. And, but then I realized that wasn't as exclusionary as I needed it to be.
David Hall: Mm-hmm. No, I was trying to price myself out. And it's amazing when you learn how people will, I, cuz it, it's, it's just this funny thing. I do consulting, but I don't, I'm not trying to do, I'm not trying to do that much consulting, but, um, but if you're trying to build up, you, you figure out. You just start guessing where to price it.
David Hall: Um, and the similar to in pricing for an some other learning experience, like a course, you think about what's the transformation I'm offering people through the consulting, and if I'm helping people understand how to fill up a caseload mm-hmm. What is that worth? And so you can figure out like, okay, if, if a person is running at about 60 to 70% capacity and they wanna be in a hundred percent capacity in their.
David Hall: Uh, their caseload. What is that worth? And that gives you a, and how much, how many hours do you need with this person to get them there? Hmm. And, and that's kind of a place to start in considering, how do I think about pricing?
James Marland: So you can charge more. That's a pro. Are there other pros?
David Hall: Um, it takes a different emotional energy for the most part.
David Hall: Like I, I'm, um, I, I'm pretty well rhythm as a therapist and being able to sit with my clients and not be too overwhelmed, but it is, you know, people are coming in for psychotherapy with me because they're distressed. And it's, it's not as, as emotional often to do consulting.
James Marland: Yeah. I once, uh, I once volunteered at a physical rehab center after working, you know, 15 years in mental health at the time or maybe a little more.
James Marland: And the waiting room was different. It, it was just a different feel, an emotional feel in the waiting room cuz where we were for therapy. You know, all these people come in and they were sort of solemn or not super, um, talkative. Mm-hmm. And you went to the, i I was just in the waiting room greeting people at the rehab center, and there was just a different friendly feel.
James Marland: There's just an different emotional energy, even though their bodies. Had something broken or wrong, or there was something wrong with a foot or back or some sort of physical pain. Mm-hmm. The, the pain was not emotional per se, and there was just a different feel of the office. Both people were like rehabbing things.
James Marland: One was rehabbing the emotions, one was rehabbing the body, but there is an emotional pain for, um, the mm-hmm. The, the work that a therapist does day in and day out.
David Hall: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um, Yeah, those, so it, it's can be less emotionally taxing. You can charge more for it. Um, it's a good, you know, if you're still doing psychotherapy, it's a good thing to kind of mix into it.
David Hall: Mm-hmm. Um, it can facilitate, you can often market it in a wider geographic area. You're not bound by it. Mm-hmm. State licensure. Mm-hmm. I can, I can consult with anybody anywhere. I can only do psychotherapy in states where I'm licensed. Um, telehealth or otherwise. Um, If you're doing consulting with organizations, um, that can also lead to other relationships that can, you can, you can build on consulting.
David Hall: Like if you, you, you have to be very careful what you're selling to your therapy clients. If you, if you're doing ethically, so if you're, if they're coming to you for therapy, you can't be upselling them all the time. Oh yeah. On, but if you're consulting with somebody and they like, what, you know, later you create a course, or later you create a membership, or later you, you know, they may be.
David Hall: Great for that. Mm-hmm. Um, and so it's just, it's just building a different business and it, it works different parts of you, emotionally, mentally, all that. Yeah. I had a, I had
James Marland: a friend who did business consulting and she, uh, they would call her back for different things or if they had a di a different, you know, a new group setting on, like, it was, it was not, it was a.
James Marland: A way to generate more business with the same person using either a different course or a different style. Mm-hmm. Um, mm-hmm. Uh, the, you know, I have a new course on their, the, you know, a team building course or, uh, a decision making course or, you know, different things for that, that she could pitch to the pitch to the business without the ethical, you know, violations of upselling or, yeah.
James Marland: Convincing them. Yeah. Convincing the, the client, you have a new problem. Let me give you my new course. That that doesn't
David Hall: sound ethical. Yeah, yeah. No, it is. And and it's not that you can't sell things to clients, but you have to really, there, there's, I have a mini course on this of thinking through what are the ethical limitations and, and how to keep those boundaries.
David Hall: Well, cool. So those are some of the big pros. Any cons? Oh yeah, of course. There's cons. There's cons to everything. Um, if. As we talk about scaling, you know, cause that's what this podcast is about. It doesn't scale like, you know, it, it scales in the sense if you're consulting with larger and larger groups and mm-hmm.
David Hall: But one-on-one consulting, it's very similar to therapy and like you're giving up time for money. You may be, you know, you, you're maybe scaling cuz you can get more money for your time. Mm-hmm. A lot of people are, are getting into. Are tuning into something like what we're offering James, because they're trying to work less.
David Hall: Mm-hmm. Work fewer hours. And consulting doesn't necessarily give you an opportunity to work fewer hours necessarily. I mean, it does in the sense of if you're charging twice your therapy rate, right. And then it becomes, but it, it's, you're still having to trade time. Um, you've gotta find people that, that want it.
David Hall: And that's the, depending on what you're. Um, talking with people about, so for me, for example, you know, the, the two things I've consulted the most on is people looking to create continuing education. Mm-hmm. Trainings and people looking to grow, group counseling, psychotherapy practices. And so I have, let's say I'm offering consulting services for those two topics.
David Hall: And I'm also offering, you know, my psychotherapy services that I do around anxiety and. Career counseling and relationships and the things I do, the amount of people, finding somebody who's wanting help in managing their anxiety or their relationship communication or things like that, that's a, that's a much broader audience.
David Hall: Mm-hmm. You know, looking for a therapist, wanting to create continuing education events. There aren't as many of those. Yeah. And I've, I've gotta, you know, figure out how am I going to connect with my potential customer. And oftentimes for consulting, that's a, that's a harder person to reach cuz they're fewer of them.
David Hall: Yeah. And so the question is, is if I, I have not, I've not taken on new counseling clients in quite some time. Uh, I still get asked, but I know that if I were to open up my schedule, if I were to open my schedule, if I were to mark myself on my website, like I'm taking new clients, I could, I could, within a few weeks, I could probably add another.
David Hall: You know, 15 to 20 people to my caseload. Uh, I would be hard pressed to get that many consulting clients that quickly. In a week or two. Yeah, in a week or two. And that's with, I have a pretty substantial email list. And that's, you know, I could, I could maybe get it, but if, if definitely if I didn't have my email list and I was just, you know, throwing things out to the world.
James Marland: Yeah. You just started a webpage. Yeah. Come to me.
David Hall: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that, that would be a much slower process cuz, and it's just, so finding your customers, you're still trading time for money. Um, yeah, it, it, those, those would be some of the biggest cons and, and you know, sometimes you're not a good fit. And I'll, I'll, I'll give an example for this.
David Hall: This is, uh, this isn't diminishing anybody or I don't mean it to be, and so I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll withhold names. So I had a. Friend, colleague of mine, who I knew from graduate school, reached out to me the other year, and she is a, uh, L P C in, I, I won't get into details, but she'll, she's, she's an L P C in, uh, the southeastern United States in a, in a, you know, in a, runs a pretty prominent group practice.
David Hall: And she was really struggling with aspects of her group practice because she was having issues with retention for her therapist. Mm-hmm. And so she was talking, she was asking me about some prominent people in the therapist consulting spaces that offered courses, or not just courses, but, but consulting, coaching.
David Hall: Sure. On group, group practice management. Well, I got into her practice and I realized that she had this incredible reimbursement rate from her main insurance providers and her fairly modest size practice was generating multiple millions of dollars a year. And I knew enough about the people that she was considering for, uh, coaching, consulting mm-hmm.
David Hall: For group practice. And I told her, I said, I, I wouldn't talk to these people. I go, you're running a bigger practice than they've ever seen. Mm-hmm. For, for size and income and things like that. Like if, if they, if, if their practices were generating a fourth of the income years was in a, in a year, I'll eat my shoes.
David Hall: That's what I told her. Mm-hmm. And so I bring that up because you, you've gotta be willing, if, if I had somebody in that situation, she's, she had a practice of bringing far more money than I was. And so if she had reached out to me for consulting, I, I was talking with her just as a friend, but if she offered to pay me to consult, I would feel I would need to be disclosive to her, be like, here, I may be able to help you with some of these problems.
David Hall: But, but you need to know like, this is where I'm coming from and there is this aspect of a consultant. You can, you could do therapy. You know, I was a couple's therapist, a marriage therapist before I was, had been in a, in a committed relationship before I was married. Mm-hmm. Because I studied the science of relationships and I, I could, I felt I could speak to that.
David Hall: There's a credibility gap in consulting then, unless you've walked a walk. It's really hard to put yourself out there as a consultant. Mm-hmm. I think, um, some people may disagree with that, but it's, you know, um, I, I wouldn't pay for a consultant for somebody who had not done it. Mm-hmm. And it's, it's one of the things I find a turnoff about, uh, people that, you know, reach out on LinkedIn, you know, I help you.
David Hall: If you, the main way you make money is to tell other people how to make money, and you've not run a successful independent business outside of, you know, this, I, I don't trust you. Sure. You, you may have good knowledge, but I don't, I don't trust it.
James Marland: So that kind of speaks to who would make a good fit for this type, adding this service and who wouldn't.
James Marland: Do you have any sense of who would be a good fit
David Hall: for this? Yeah. It, it depends, again, it depends on what you're, what you are consulting about. And do you have credibility to talk about that? So an early career therapist can have very niche knowledge. You know, I was only licensed for a few years. I, I, I was licensed for a year when I started my continuing education business.
David Hall: And within just a few months of doing that, I already knew more than the average person about continuing education business. So even though I wasn't. As seasoned of a clinician, I still, my knowledge base and what I had to offer was still more than average. Mm-hmm. And I feel I could have, uh, with credibility offered consulting for that.
David Hall: Um, when I was newly licensed or even fresh outta school and I was learning about different career options, there were, there were things like if I was offering consulting for graduate students in. Navigating the job market. I could have done that pretty early in my career because I, I had just navigated that myself and learned things.
David Hall: But if you had asked me as a newly licensed therapist when I was still working for a group practice, how to start and manage and grow a group psychotherapy practice. The, the, I, I would not have it. I would've not have been a good consultant for that. Like, well, you, you
James Marland: had to take some lumps along the way Sure.
James Marland: To, to build up to the w place where you can be managing, you know, a dozen people or more.
David Hall: Um, yeah. So you have to, you have to figure out what's the credibility that I have to, to know. And, and to share. And, and so as far as who is, you know, is a good person is do you have, what is your knowledge base? And you've gotta decide, like if it's, if it's a reasonable enough knowledge base.
David Hall: I've, one of the things, you know, I talked about the issue of people being too broad. I also have seen people that are way too niche. Mm-hmm. That they're trying to speak to an audience that's too small for them to be able to connect with, or they're trying to, um, uh, you know, I. Um, I've had this issue come up with people offering continuing educa, or they wanna partner with me for a continu education event.
David Hall: Um, and they have a topic idea that they want to teach. I, I've, I've had to push back on people sometimes and be like, oh, that's too, I, I don't know how to sell that. Right. You know, you're, you're, you know, it's, it's a very, you want to teach on a very niche psychotherapy theory that speaks to a very niche group and two, and, and I'm, I'm, I believe in niches we've done No, I, we,
James Marland: we've talked about niches
David Hall: continuing already.
David Hall: Like, I, I absolutely believe in niches, but, and I, I believe in getting pretty focused in your niche. But there is such a thing as too focused. And, but
James Marland: that, that's probably where a little, one of the, one of the things that you have to do is a little bit of market research. You just can't go on. Well, I think, you know, I hope, I hope people will buy this.
James Marland: Um, I, in, in my course, I have, uh, eight questions about. You, you, you ask people if they would do a little interview with you, and then you ask them these eight questions. And if you get over a certain amount of people at the end that say, yeah, I think I might wanna take this course, and that gives you a good indication of, um, that you're, you're on the right path.
James Marland: Uh, the, the book, the, the book that I got that from was, uh, ultimate Course Formula from a Man, a Guy. Uh, I really love that market. Knowing very little about market research, those eight questions really helped me be comfortable talking about the topic and then getting mm-hmm. Data back from people so then I could create what people are looking for, but also have a, a list of people who could give me more feedback.
James Marland: It's just, yeah, that market research piece is one of the missing. Pieces. I think when people wanna start a new, a new service or a new course, or a new offering, they just, they, they base it on hope and trial and error. Mm-hmm. Uh, finding what people want and then providing it for 'em is a key into a key, uh, step in any service.
David Hall: Offering. Well, it, it's, you've gotta think about what are the problems that our people Yeah. Actually have and are willing to spend resources to solve.
James Marland: So, yeah. And why would people wanna spend money on this? Like, what problem are you solving for them or what, what transformation are you giving for them?
David Hall: Yeah. Unless you're offering that, then it, it's just a vanity thing and you know, does anyone care? And now I'll give you an example and this can shift. So something I do less consulting on that I used to do more and I've had, I have a course on it, is on how to market and grow your therapy practice.
David Hall: Basically how to connect clients with you. Or people that work with you. I started doing this for me. This came out of a place of, I was in group therapy practice where I was responsible for my own caseload, more or less in the 2008, 2009 recession. And it was really hard to build up a therapy caseload and I had to really learn a lot and there weren't a lot of resources available.
David Hall: There was, uh, Uh, Casey Truo be a wealthy therapist, which had come out like a year or two before, and Lynn Kozinski, I think is her name, um, had written a book, A few, but there wasn't much out on, on that topic. And so I got what books were available. I did my own trial and error. I learned things. And then a few years later, around 2012, 2013, I began teaching a course on how to market and grow a practice.
David Hall: And that was a pretty successful course. I don't really sell it much now. And one of the reasons is, is that the time of recording, you know, 10 years on 2023 therapy is, I, I don't know, a lot of therapists that are really struggling to get clients. There's, there's a big demand for therapy. It's something that more people are willing to invest in, um, easier access with online, easier access.
David Hall: There's, yeah. And. I don't, it's not a problem that people are trying to solve in the same way. It's not that it's never a problem for anybody, but the biggest thing I use the course for now is it's part of my internal hr. When client, when I hire clinicians, I have this course recorded. Mm-hmm. And I, I give it to new clinicians, so, and help them develop a personalized marketing plan with it.
David Hall: But I'm not doing, people can still buy it, but I'm not doing a lot of outside selling for it. And I, I don't think I could do a lot of consulting on that right now cause it's not a pain point for a lot of people. I don't wanna say anybody, but compared to 10 years ago, it wasn't, it wasn't a pain point.
David Hall: It's not a pain point that people are gonna spend a lot of money to solve.
James Marland: Well, I think the pain point now is like, how do I build my website so people find me? Yeah.
David Hall: Um, yeah. And, and so you've gotta think like, unless you speak to a pain point, no one's gonna spend money.
James Marland: So that's, that's, uh, you know, how, how do people make money on this then?
James Marland: You know, you gotta have, you gotta solve their problem, right? Yeah. I mean, uh, solve a problem, give them a transformation. Give them a shortcut to something that is meaningful to them, that saves them time and money, or, There's a return on their investment. You know, just the how do, how do I fill up my caseload, the inve, the return on their investment.
James Marland: You know, it might take a couple hundred dollars for that, but it provides benefits for sure. Weeks and months and years down the line. So what, what could, to make money, you have to figure out what, what do people want that will solve the problem. And then charge. Charge something that is. Probably more than your regular rate.
David Hall: Sure. But it, it's the, you've gotta, and you ha and I think the same thing with putting together courses. You've gotta test stuff. Your first idea may not work. You may have all the reasons to think it will work, but it may not. And you know, sometimes you have to put some things out into the world a few times to, um, to figure that out.
David Hall: So.
James Marland: Um, do you wanna say, before we wrap up, do you wanna say anything about how to market and sell? Do you have a, a tip on marketing? Go on
David Hall: podcast. Uh, doing a podcast.
James Marland: Well, that's not a bad thing, David.
David Hall: Yeah, it is. It, it's the, um, so Jock Hopkins, someone we talk about. A lot, uh, online course every episode, but go ahead.
David Hall: Sure. Well, I, it's, he had a new episode drop this morning. I saw him way into work, and so I'm, I'm looking forward to listening to it, but, uh, hi. His suggestion is, and that, you know, and he would say this for growing an online course, but I would say the same thing, growing consulting, um, you build your credibility in an audience by, you know, finding a way to get out into the world and the mm-hmm.
David Hall: Three ways that he recommends. Which I would concur with. There may be some other things too, is blog, either either have a blog, have a podcast, um, or do a YouTube channel. Yep. And, or some combination of that. But, um, you know, James Clear, the author of, uh, atom Haitz. Atom Haitz, yep. Yeah. He, his way of developing an audience and, and getting his stuff in the world is he just started blogging and he committed to publishing something once a week.
David Hall: And did,
James Marland: I interviewed Daniel Fava, and that's kind of how he started with, uh, private Practice Elevation. He started out with blogging and giving tips and trying to get some freelance services, and it developed into courses and consulting and full service type stuff. I mean, that's how, that's how he got his audience.
James Marland: It, it's a pretty cool story. Yeah,
David Hall: yeah. Um, but yeah, so. What's your one thing for this episode? Okay, so I'm trying to think of what mine is.
James Marland: Uh, I'm, I'm gonna go to, uh, solve a Problem.
David Hall: You know, my Oh, that, that's a good one. Ah,
James Marland: yeah. It's always a, it's always a risk when you ask the other guy to go first.
James Marland: David's, that's true. You might take
David Hall: yours. That's true. That's true. I'll think of another one, but yeah. Okay. Solve a
James Marland: problem. Solve a problem. Solve a problem will be mine. Because people. As I've found, as I develop courses for people and make online content, people don't care how many videos you have or how long it is, or you know, is it in 4K or mm-hmm.
James Marland: Uh, they, they just don't care. They don't care how long it took you to make it. They don't care how much, how many books you read or your degrees or anything. They, they just don't care. Mm-hmm. They, they want a transformation. They want a shortcut. They want you to solve their problem, so focus on solving their problem.
James Marland: Focus on what you bring to the table and maximize, maximize that. So that's my one thing.
David Hall: That's a good one thing. My one thing is, my, one thing is if, and this is a kind of a personal sort of thing, is as I've kind of talked about, like, you know, even though I do consulting, I've been kind of poo-pooing it this episode.
David Hall: Cause I don't do a lot and it's, I, I try to keep myself out of it. I like doing a little, but it's not what I'm trying to do all the time. But if I was starting, um, My entrepreneurial journey mm-hmm. From scratch, I would not do a course first. Okay. I would offer consulting because if I, you know, I, I, you know, got into courses.
David Hall: I've been doing courses for over a decade at this point. And so for me, I, I was able to test things and do things differently in that way. But if I was starting today, I wouldn't do a course because if I was starting today without an audience, without um, a lot of teaching experience, I wouldn't necessarily know what is the thing I should be teaching on.
David Hall: Mm-hmm. And I could spend a lot of time developing products that no one cares about. And it's, and, and there's the launch time to get it filled together. But I could put together, if I was starting today, I would, you know, put up a teachable site, add some coaching packages in the, in that, uh, of things I thought that would be there and then start putting on the world in some way.
David Hall: Either starting a YouTube channel mm-hmm. Blogging, guest blogging with, you know, whatever it is. So, um, that's, that's my one thing is great if I would start there before. Of course.
James Marland: Okay. Well it's been a wonderful conversation. Thank you, David. Thank you James. This is James Marlon with Dr. David Hall. Thanks for listening to the Scaling Therapy Practice.
James Marland: We'll see you next time.
James Marland: Thank you for listening to the scaling therapy practice. I hope you enjoyed the show. I want to remind you that the content shared today is for general information and entertainment purposes only. Opinions given should not be considered as legal or tax advice. If you need a professional advice in those areas, please consult with a licensed attorney or accountant, but thank you so much for listening.
James Marland: The scaling therapy practice is part of the psych craft network.
