Scaling Your Therapy Practice with Continuing Education Courses | STP 28
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James Marland:
James Marland: Hello and welcome to the Scaling Therapy Practice. This is James Marland with Dr. David Hall. Hello David. Hey James. Uh, welcome back to the show. Uh, this is the show where we ask people to take small steps. That lead to big steps of growth.
James Marland: So this week we're gonna be talking about demystifying ces and why should you care about them. Uh, but first we're gonna talk about our, uh, tool tip or tech of the week. Uh, do you got, do you got a, a tip for us, David?
David Hall: Sure. Um, it's something that I keep on coming back to, but, um, And so it's, it's not new in my life, but I've, I've gotten better in the, more in the habit of it recently.
David Hall: But, um, people call them different things. I, I usually call it like a power 20 or, uh, but, but, um, and there might be a better phrase for it, and you may come to mind for you, James, but basically where I'll set a timer to, to do like this, this focus interval sort of thing, but I'll set a timer for 20 minutes mm-hmm.
David Hall: To really push into whatever task I'm getting through, because, I am, I, I struggle a lot with procrastination. I, I work all the time, but I also get frustrated with my lack of, my productivity is very uneven. I can have very productive moments. It's usually when I'm coming against deadlines and very, like, cuz I'll check email and I'll check, I'll, I'll refresh email and I've got multiple emails that I'm, I'm in.
David Hall: So there are multiple ones to be checking or I'll get on social media or I'll. Get on Wikipedia is a big rabbit hole for me and to kind of do this kind of power 20 is, or, or, or, you know, focus time or, or whatever it is. But I'll, I'll set on my phone typically 20 minutes and in that, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll articulate to myself, what am I going to do for this 20 minutes?
David Hall: And be like, okay, I'm going to write out these emails for that. I'm going to schedule, or I'm going to work on. Updating this page of my website, or I'm gonna work on getting my psychotherapy notes done or whatever it is, and I'll set the timer for 20 minutes and when the alarm goes off, then I'll take a five minute break and that could be get up and stretch or I'll do a quick walk or I'll, you know, then I'll, you know, read this Wikipedia article that I started on about goat yoga or whatever it is that my ADHD yoga.
David Hall: Whatever my a d h brain was, whatever direction it was taking me in. So yeah, that's, that's just, I mean, and I think sometimes it's hard to lean into a habit like that because it feels like such a small thing, but it does, and it, it improves my mood. I, I feel better mm-hmm. When I'm able to just set a, you know, just get something done
James Marland: and yeah, I've heard, I've definitely heard of that before and I used to put it on my calendar, things like that.
James Marland: Um, The, the, the person, the term I heard is sprints. Sprints is what it was called. Yeah. Yeah. Like you would sprint hard towards one direction, one main thing, whether it was like writing your email, your outlines, or, you know, uh, getting a video post out, or your social media work or doing your notes, whatever.
James Marland: It's like 20 minutes focused time to get stuff done. The other, the other one that came when I was doing the program, um, run like clockwork. They called it the Pomodoro Timer. Have you heard of that? It's a tomato timer. A Pomodoro, I guess is a tomato. But if you look up Pomodoro timer, On the internet, you'll find some timers that you can either add to your calendar mm-hmm.
James Marland: Or just put in your browser and start them. Mm-hmm. And I think, uh, I use a program, it's free, but you can upgrade it called, uh, clocky and Clock. I has a Pomodoro timer I think built in. I'd have to check that. But, uh, that is such a, that is such a great tip because. You get more done when you remove the distractions and focus on the, when you said getting caught in the rabbit hole of work, that's not work type of stuff.
James Marland: Mm-hmm. That is, that is me to a t.
David Hall: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So what's your
James Marland: tip? My, my tip is kinda low tech. Uh, it, if I was going to put a business spin on it, I would say take time. To take breaks, uh, and have some fun during your day. And my fun, uh, the, my fun for the last week has been, um, taking this Nerf rival gun.
James Marland: It's, it's a Nerf gun, but it shoots small bouncy bullets, like Nerf bullets and, uh, and shooting them near or shooting them. So the cat chases them basically. So I have a lot of fun watching the cat look at the ball, bounce back and forth. Mm-hmm. Um, I might be eating my sandwich for lunch, shooting the Nerf ball.
James Marland: Mm-hmm. Balls at the, the, the ceiling and watching it bounce up and down, up and down, up and down. And the cat going crazy. Mm-hmm. Trying to figure out where's the ball going next. Uh, it, it's been a lot of fun. I wanna sh shout out to my brother Brian, who is, uh, he's heavy into Nerf guns. So he modifies his Nerf guns, makes some shoot bigger, faster, like
David Hall: with, uh, stronger batteries that I've never, I dunno if I've ever heard anybody who, who modified Nerf guns.
David Hall: So this is a first. Yeah, I'm sure
James Marland: there's, I'm sure if you, if you wanted to go down the rabbit hole on YouTube of how to do it, I'm sure you can find people who do it. But, uh, yeah, it's, it's been way more fun than I had. Than I thought it would be. Mm-hmm. Just, just for the cats, but also. Uh, my son took it and shot me and he loved that.
James Marland: So we kind of piled around, but now I need more Nerf guns. Like you, I think you, you need multiple Nerf guns for this type of thing. So, um, I'll, I'll update you in a couple months on how that. How that went and how far down the rabbit hole I go with Nerf guns. But, uh, that's
David Hall: a, that's a big thing for my nephews is I, I was, I was one of the first generations of, in my childhood is when Nerf was new and there were a lot of Christmases where that was a big Oh yeah.
David Hall: Halls of that. And, um, Man, we, we, my brothers and I would really, that was big in, in our world, that super soakers. We were the first generation super soakers. Super for sure. Yeah.
James Marland: And um, What was I gonna say? Uh, Nerf. Nerf battles. Okay. Well, uh, it's been, it's been a lot of fun. So I recommend, my tip is just have some fun.
James Marland: If you need a Nerf gun to have fun, do it. Maybe buy some Nerf guns for your office. I don't know. Maybe not, but, uh,
David Hall: depends on how your office feels. It maybe,
James Marland: depending on the office, have some fun. Uh, I do have a, a church that they would, the youth pastor would, uh, He would hide Nerf guns around the church and, you know, have Nerf battles with people randomly in the big building.
James Marland: It was that, that sounds like fun. Oh, you're never gonna, boy, I do not feel like boys ever grow out of the, the toy, you know, the toy buying toys. Mm-hmm. They just get bigger. Like you just find bigger toys to buy.
David Hall: No, it is. I've, I've, um, I've been in conversations with some. Men in my life of peer age and we've been talking about cars and things like that, and it really does become, you know, big boy go-kart big boy toys.
David Hall: Yeah. Yeah. Big boy toys. And it, it is, it is interesting of just how you can, um, you can grow, you can grow, but not necessarily completely grow up. But that's okay. Um, because in this, you know, as we talk about, you know, this is generally a podcast where we talk about work and, and I. Generally enjoy work. I don't enjoy all of work.
David Hall: Mm. But you know, I, I know that I enjoy work because when I go on vacation, I think about mm-hmm. And not like in a a sometimes I, I will say sometimes I'm, I'm taking time off and the thoughts about work are pressured thoughts of stress. Um, more often than not, it's usually more dreamy. I'm dreaming about something to build or dreaming, um, of the creative process.
David Hall: And, and that's where I feel really, uh, blessed in what I get to do is a lot of my work allows me to be creative, which is something I really enjoy. And, um, it's not all that and there's a lot of rote, um, chores sorts of things in it, but. You know, I, I feel, and, and part of the scaling process is a creativity process of, um, either you, you scale because you're creative and you, you, you, your creative solutions endeavors or the things that allow you to scale or because you scale successfully and more efficiency or other things like that.
David Hall: You have more space in your life to be creative. Mm-hmm. And, um, But I guess that's a lead into what, you know, you wanted to talk about today. Because, because yeah. You, you had an idea to talk about something that has been a big scaling thing in my journey. Yeah, absolutely.
James Marland: So, uh, I've been, uh, just because of podcasting and some other things, I've been in connect contact with a lot of creative people, people making things, people going to conferences.
James Marland: And one of the, one of the things that always comes up is like, like, can we get CEEs outta this? Like, can we, can you offer CEEs? How do you offer CEEs? Why do you offer ces? Like all those things, can you make money doing it? And so, um, you know, one of the big reasons I connected with David, and he has, he had a course on this, and he has a, it is a story about how he has.
James Marland: Um, been able to have a school that offers ce. Anyways, I'll let him tell the story, but David, what's your, what's your story about, uh, earning CE accreditation?
David Hall: Yeah, and, and for those two in who, who, depending on who you are, where you are, you're wondering like, you know, what is a ce, are they, are they talking about like certified empanadas and uh, uh, continuing education, you know, for those who continuing education, continuing education, so, okay.
David Hall: If, if, if you are a licensed or, or, or credentialed therapist in most places in the world, and you know, talking specifically about the United States, usually part of your, if it's a license or uh, a certification or whatever it is, usually part of maintaining that is completing a certain number of continuing education hours in your renewal period.
David Hall: It's different for different licenses in different states. It's not universal. There are in the United States, there are a few exceptions for places where you have of earning continuing education, but it, it is nearly universal. So that's what it is we're, we're talking about. So I, um, I, my journey into this was the first time I, I, I guess I delivered CE content was pretty soon after beginning my career as a therapist.
David Hall: I had just graduated and I went to a conference with one of my professors who was a mentor of mine and I was working for him some. And uh, I'd actually collaborated on a recent book he had published and he was speaking at this counseling conference and it was, the topic was on the book and I co-presented with them.
David Hall: And this was, people attended this workshop and got continuing education, uh, credit for it. And that was my first time doing something like that. And I liked it. And I got a lot of pos positive feedback from people who were attending, people I knew, people I didn't know. Mm-hmm. And I, I had a background before I became a therapist, I had a background in performance sorts of things.
David Hall: I did theater, drama things when I was a kid and I was musician and so would do music performances. And so I, I had a certain background in, in performance sorts of things, and I think I kind of carried that over and being a presenter. And I, I liked it. Um, it energized me. I'm an extrovert and that's a, that was an energizing activity for me.
David Hall: And I thought, I thought, well, this is cool. And then pretty soon I began to develop a vision for, well, how can I do this as a, as a means of income? I, I enjoy therapy like being a therapist, but you know this, I, because I began meeting people that weren't making a living, doing workshops and presentations in, in these sorts of context, so, And so my initial plan was how do I put myself out there in such a way where I can be hired by these institutes or organizations?
David Hall: Um, you know, you'll, most therapists will be aware of pesi, which is a big, um, uh, national brand that does CE trainings, and they, they do them live and online. And, you know, when I was starting, there was another company too called Cross Country that, uh, Was bought by Pessie in the year since, and there were, there a few others.
David Hall: You may come across, you'll get mailers, and so I, I knew things existed. The problem was I was a really young therapist. I hadn't even finished my doctorate at this point. Not that you needed a doctorate to do this, but I was, I was lighter on credentials at that point. I hadn't published a book. I wasn't, I didn't have a lot of name recognition.
David Hall: I was not a really hireable commodity. I, I could get a little bit because I, I had some interesting topics and I was, I was engaging enough as a presenter, I think, but it was, I, I wasn't high on people's list when they were looking at like, how do we bring somebody in to do this conference? That, that wasn't me.
David Hall: So, So, because I couldn't get hired very easily, I began exploring the process of like, well, how do I build this myself? So in 2011, I started my first continuing education project, and at this point I didn't know anything about how to go about the process. I, I really just began doing research of what were the different approval organizations that approved continuing education, you know, what was necessary and.
David Hall: Going through that and I just kind of fumbled through the process and I've been doing it now, as I said, since 2011, and learned a lot.
James Marland: Can I, can I ask a layperson question? Sure. There's multiple agencies to get credentialed with. Oh,
David Hall: yes.
James Marland: And they each have their own requirements. Yes. And do, does each discipline need different things
David Hall: for Yes, but it's different in different states.
David Hall: And if you're asking, I. Like there's overlap. Okay. And so here's the,
James Marland: so there's a, there's a process. Is there a preferred process of getting it, getting accredited?
David Hall: That depends. That's the answer for a lot of things, but, so I, I will, um, so it's a lead into kinda make this next question of like, what are the processes?
David Hall: Okay.
James Marland: Yeah. What are, what are the pro Yeah, that's where I was going because. You're, you're, you're saying things about like different agencies, different boards, different requirements, so that, yeah. What are the process? What's the process?
David Hall: It is multi-layered, multifaceted, and this is one of the, the things where, I've had to learn a lot and I know a lot on this probably, you know, if, if you're interested, um, in kind of knowing what it looks like in the United States, at least, if you go to the group I work with now, psych Maven, if you go to our website, psych maven.org and go under the continuing education tab, there's a free download that we have on there talking about the continuing education requirements for every discipline in every state in all 50 states.
David Hall: And every state has four main disciplines of mental health. This is even excluding addiction counselors cuz that's a different qualification. But just in mental health, every state has some equivalent of clinical social worker, psychologist, marriage and family therapist. Uh, professional counselor slash mental health counselor, like every state has something of that.
David Hall: And each of them have different CE requirements. And I've done consulting with groups where they'll say, we wanna do CEEs for therapists. I'm like, okay, what therapist groups between psychologists or social workers? They're like, all of them. I'm like, okay, what states do you want it in? All the states? And I tell people, I go, that is a ridiculous thing to do.
David Hall: I, I'm, I'm, I don't try to say it in a way that they're ridiculous, but that, that is a very, very hard thing to do. And not economically feasible for most organ organizations. Now, that doesn't mean in every state you have to get four things for every, like, it's not an endless list. And depending on who you are and where you start, like you can start pretty simply depending on who you are and where you're working.
David Hall: So I guess the biggest question would be is where, so if someone's saying like, I wanna begin the process, I would ask the first question, where are you? So, for example, James, you were in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania, yeah. So, um, Pennsylvania is a middling state in as far as how, how flexible, like certain states are more flexible mm-hmm.
David Hall: In their requirements for continuing education. And other ones are pretty strange question. Yeah.
James Marland: If I, if I get certified in Pennsylvania, does that mean I can only teach Pennsylvanians? Or what does
David Hall: that mean? Nope. It, it, it does not mean, it doesn't mean exclusivity because Pennsylvania doesn't have a state process.
David Hall: Oh. Other, again, James, this is complicated. This, this is why, that's why I'm asking you. Yeah. This, this is why. So I will give you the extremes of something too easy. Okay, so one of the simplest states to do continuing education is, is Colorado. You
James Marland: have to live in Colorado
David Hall: to get, you have to be licensed in Colorado.
David Hall: You have to be licensed. This is for a Colorado licensure. Okay? You're a Colorado licensed therapist. And most disciplines, uh, typically how they do it, they, they do, um, they call it continuing professional development, C C P T in there, and you keep a log. Okay. And, um, and so basically you're responsible as a license holder to maintain, and this is as of 2023.
David Hall: When we're recording this, things change, but this is what is currently, um, you don't have to have events you attend, don't have to have any particular approval or accreditation. They just have to be structured in ways to meet, um, that clearly this is a professional learning environment. Mm-hmm. And you have to keep a log of what you're learning and what the, the, the learning objectives were and things like that.
David Hall: And that goes through periodic audits. Um, but that means if, if I was a Colorado based therapist looking to do a continuing education training in Denver mm-hmm. Marketing to other. People in Colorado, I wouldn't necessarily have to go through the approval process of, of, you know, doing something. I would just have to structure my event in such a way that it, it's meeting, um, development standards in, you know, that this is a, a therapist learning environment.
David Hall: So that's one end of easy. We'll go to the other end. New York. Okay. New York each. Discipline in New York has their own licensing board. And to do an event for profession in New York, you have to get approval from each of the four disciplines to to market to that discipline. So if I'm doing something in New York and I wanna invite social workers, licensed clinical social workers, I have to go through an application process and get approval from the New York State Board of Social Work.
David Hall: And it's an expensive approval process and that allows me in New York to do, to give CES for social workers. But if I want to give them to professional coun, to mental health counselors, I have to go through the mental health, uh, counseling. Mm-hmm. And do that, like that is one of the New York's probably, if not the most, it probably is the most or near it most restrictive sort of thing.
David Hall: So, That is, those are the two extremes, James. But there's a lot in the middle. There's, yeah. So I'll give you something. And so the question, and people maybe are already thinking, this feels so overwhelming. This says, where do I begin? What do I do? Like, so I, what I would start is, who are you, where are you doing this?
David Hall: Um, Tennessee or, uh, Pennsylvania's kind of middling. I'll give Tennessee though. Tennessee is where I am and this is the most, so let's say I wanted to do an event. The first thing I did as an approval process, that's still my main approval, is the National Approval Body for Counselor Continued Education.
David Hall: It's the National Board for Certified Counselors in B C C and they have a whole approval process of of offering continuing education events or becoming a continuing education provider. I went through in my, the first event I did, I went through approval with them. Now, the laws in Tennessee meant that that approval allowed me to do CEEs for counselors, but also for marriage and family therapist and social workers.
David Hall: How did you know
James Marland: that law? Did you have to look at up? I had to look it up. You had to look up who? You had to look up. Can I do? And where
David Hall: do you find that? Well, that's the guide I have. If you go to site naven.org. And the CE tab. Can you educate? So you've done the work. I've done the work that was, that represents that.
David Hall: That
James Marland: guy. I've seen that sheet. It's
David Hall: amazing. Yeah. It represents well over a hundred hours of research of going to each state board. Because what it is, in a lot of states, the approval of one discipline will count for another. Mm-hmm. I'll go back to the New York thing too, even though that's a kind of a pain in the rear to get.
David Hall: One of the benefits of giving New York approval, say for social work is certain states will count the CEEs for other state boards. So say if I'm doing a CE event in Georgia, Georgia will count for social worker continuing education, the approval of another state so I can get approved in New York, and if I have that approval for that event, I'm delivering the training in Georgia that helps me market to Georgia social workers because they'll, they'll accept the approval of other states.
David Hall: Now, not all states have have their own approval process. Most don't. A few do. Um, California has a composite board, uh, uh, approval process. As I said, New York does for their different ones. Florida has one for their, both their psychology board, and then they have a combined board for their master's level ones.
David Hall: And the benefit I've recommended people like go through, like, get approved in Florida. They're like, well, I'm not in Florida. I'm like, well, it doesn't matter because you're, you're doing this in a state where the state will account the approval of another state board, and Florida has a pretty streamlined process of, of getting, becoming an approved provider under a lot of their boards.
David Hall: So the benefit of doing that isn't just so I can give CEEs in Florida. But I'm giving seasons and states that will approve other state boards.
James Marland: Cool. That's a hack. That is a, that's a, that's a shortcut right there. Yeah.
David Hall: So the first thing if, if people, if people's heads are already spinning again, psych aven.org, I'll have James, you know, I'll gotta, I'll put a link in the show.
David Hall: Put the link in for sure. It's, it's a, it's a download. I've just, it's, it's every link step. Now sometimes links get broken. I try to keep this, this document updated, but at the very least it'll give you kind of a basic guide of what's the requirement, um, what approvals will get me there. Um, now this is an easier thing to navigate.
David Hall: People might be asking like, okay, I can figure it out. If I'm doing an in-person event, what if I wanna do it online and I want a wider audience That may be cross state lines. How do I make decisions? That's a trickier one. You've gotta decide like what's, you know, because it's really hard to do something that's gonna cover everybody, but you could do stuff that will be pretty widely covering.
David Hall: Um,
James Marland: well, yeah, cause, cause a use a test case for me anyways, you know, I do a lot of online courses. So would, would you be able to, just, just listening to all the things that are involved, would you be able to offer a course online that would. That people from multiple states would be able to be, um, you know, to get the credits for, or would you have to clarify in your course this only fits for Georgia, Tennessee, Florida
David Hall: and New York?
David Hall: No. New York. No, I don't take the responsibility. I, I, I say what I do in any of my courses where I offer continuing education mm-hmm. Is we have a list of, these are the approval bodies for this course, and it is ultimately the responsibility of the person to like, will this. Count for me, and I give them a link to the guide.
David Hall: I go, if you want, if you're curious about your state, here's the guide, contact your board. Mm-hmm. Now people will email me and oftentimes I'll answer like, I'm a psychologist in this state. And I, you know, I've done a lot of this research, so I keep a lot of it in my head. So if you're a psychologist in, um, so if, if you do an event, let's say you get N B C C approval, so that's the counselor one.
David Hall: A lot of psychologists and states can count it. Either partially or whole. So if James, if you are a licensed psychologist in Tennessee and you do an online course that has N B C C approval, you can count a portion of your hours for renewal for that, not, not a portion of the class, but like in your renewal process, a certain amount of your hours can be from an accreditor like N B C C.
David Hall: So I could market to you and you could count. Now if you're at, you know, there you have to get a certain percentage. Your hours has to be APA approved, which is American Psychological Association. After you have a certain portion of that, the rest can be from other, uh, professional associations. So I can market to you.
James Marland: So I'm assuming most, most therapists eventually know which boards they can go to and they look for the symbol
David Hall: or the Yeah, they'll look for the symbol and they'll ask. And, but if you're a, a psychologist in New Hampshire, you could count all the hours. But if you're a psychologist in, uh, New York or Pennsylvania, You can't count any, and people will ask, and people will, people I'll get emails will be like, well, does this count for psychologists in Pennsylvania?
David Hall: And my response is, is pretty boxed. It'll be like, ultimately you've gotta, you know, determine for your own board. My understanding is mm-hmm. That no, it is not. And sometimes that will, that will m people. I'll give people, uh, one of a recent launch. Cause I don't have a, currently I don't have approval for, uh, psychology nationally.
David Hall: I don't have the national approval for that in my organization. I'd like to get it, but it's a big due. One of the reasons I haven't been super pressured to do it is a lot of psychologists can count it depending on what, uh, trainings offered, depending on what states they're in and things like that. But I had somebody who's in Minnesota, they're saying, you know, why don't you have a p a approval for this?
David Hall: Because I'd love to take this course, but I can't count it for CE credit. Mm-hmm. And I'm like, I'm, I'm genuinely very sorry. Um, cause I am, I want them to be able to take the course and count the credit. I go, we, we would like to get this approval in the future. It just hasn't been something we, we've done so far.
David Hall: Stay tuned. So I would start, if you're looking to do it, I would start with one thing and figuring out what's gonna get the most bang for buck, but, There are always gonna be some people that are gonna be excluded. Even for groups that do a lot of, um, a lot of the big national approval bodies, there's certain ones like New York State where the New York state will not count the approval of a national body.
David Hall: You have to do it from the state associated the state board. And I think that's a financial thing. I don't, I think, but so what this means is, like for ces, for the approvals I have. Licensed people in New York cannot take my courses for CE credit, and that's not targeted. I feel bad. Mm-hmm. I, I've got my, my father grew up in New York State.
David Hall: I've, I, my, my people are from there. Um, I, I love a lot of aspects of the Empire State. I'm not trying to be exclusionary in that, but for what I do, it's the, it it's because it's very expensive to get New York approval and it's, um, and it, it's. Not as, it doesn't stretch as far mm-hmm. Compared to other things.
David Hall: And so you have to make decisions on strategic investment if you're trying to be in c offerings, if you're trying to be everything to everybody. That's hard.
James Marland: Mm-hmm. That sounds like good advice there. Yeah. Like, just realize you're gonna have, there's, you're gonna have a bandwidth. Really. Yeah. Like if you had unlimited resources, you could get.
James Marland: Credited in New York, but you could also, right now, you, you could spend those resources on some other thing that would give you 10 states
David Hall: or whatever instead of Yeah. And so it's, it's, it's figuring out what they are. Yeah. And there's some guidance to this in this free guide, but um, there are national organizations, there's state organizations, there's some state organizations that will count for other states.
David Hall: That's why it goes to the beginning of my answer. It depends. Ok. So where are you? Depends and who you're marketing to will depend what approvals you want to get. So I don't wanna get
James Marland: too far in the weeds, but after you do N N A B C C, what? What's next? N bcc whatever. Nb. So many letters. NCC Mental Health has lots of letters.
James Marland: Yeah. What is it? N B B
David Hall: C C, ccc National Board for Certified Counselors. Justs.
James Marland: Too many letters. So, okay. So what do you do next? I mean, we don't, we're, I know we're not gonna teach the course here, but after you get that, what, what do you think is the next step?
David Hall: Um, it's, there's marketing and there there's, um, gosh, there's a, there's a lot.
David Hall: I mean, it's, it's, yeah. I know we listed out questions before we
James Marland: start recording. Yeah. Well, what do you do with it? Is sort of like the next question, like Yeah. Once you get accredited, what, what can you do with it?
David Hall: Yeah. The, depending on the approval body, there are different flexibility. Some of, a lot of approval bodies will say, we're proving you to do live events.
David Hall: Okay. And other ones. And, and that excludes you doing asynchronous or prerecorded things. And so N B C C, for example, has different approvals for live events versus, uh, home study events is what they call. So psych Maven who I work with is approved to do both. So that allows me to do both. But depending on what approval you have, you decide differently.
David Hall: But let's say, how long is it?
James Marland: How long does it last? Sorry. You have approval, but for
David Hall: how long? I have to do an audit every three years. Okay. Uh, I have to pay them every year. Uh, but
James Marland: Oh, okay. Well, that, that was gonna be one of my further questions. What does it cost? So what do
David Hall: you have to pay? I think it's $200.
David Hall: Typically, it, it's different for different things like New York, if last I checked, I think it was like $800 a year per body, which is another reason why I haven't done New York, because Wow. Yeah. Um, and, and people ask, is it worth it? It just depends. It just depends. Like if, if I was a New York based continuing education provider doing a lot of events for a New York based therapist, of course I would do that approval.
David Hall: Mm-hmm. But,
James Marland: well, I worked for a, I worked for a freestanding psych hospital and they, they had a nice conference room and they had things down there weekly. It seemed like they had a person employed to get people in to, for speaking engagements so people could get their CEUs. Um, and, and they, they, it was Pennsylvania, but I'm sure they paid because it was part of the, the structure of the business, the support for the community, the support for their own employees.
James Marland: It made sense for them to get that because it, it just of what the return they got on it. But if you're, if you're, you know, a, a group practice owner that that's not part of your main business, I'm not sure you'd get quite the return.
David Hall: You're a solopreneur or whatever it is. It's, it's just, you know, you could, if it's a large enough organization, it could just be part of your marketing cost.
David Hall: But, um, so once you do it, you decide, like, you know, if you wanna do something live, you know, I, I teach this in my course of how to find space to present. You know, you can do anything from a small thing in a conference room. Uh, PE things don't have to be big. To, you know, you rent out, you know, church, uh, fellowship hall space, that's a, that's a good money saver one for people.
David Hall: Um, traditionally before I knew better, I did it a lot in hotels. Um, I probably charged more money. Yes. And that was the, was I say before I knew better because it was expensive to do it like that. Mm-hmm. But I would travel cuz I, this was a, you know, in 2014, 2015 era, I traveled a lot to teach. I would, but I'm self sponsored, so I would go to other cities and rent out space and market and have people come and I would typically do in hotel conference room ballroom spaces, which, you know, were kind of standard in the industry.
David Hall: I just discovered it wasn't a good, um, cost-wise, cost benefit ratio wasn't great. And so I've, I've moved away from that for live sorts of things and I'm, I'm, I like thinking more outside the box of. You know, you can, you can rent out any number of, you know, there's, uh, um, uh, community centers to, you know, I've seen people do elk lodges.
David Hall: There's, there are a lot of different sorts of, of spaces that
James Marland: you can, you're not just locked into the most expensive Yeah. Option
David Hall: available. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and you know, it's a. Having CE people will, A mistake I see people make is they go through the CE approval process. They're like, okay, I'm gonna do this event.
David Hall: And it has CE credit that people can get with it, and that's just gonna, they'll be busting down the door. Mm-hmm. And the answer's no, not in my experience. Um, however, the other side is if you wanna do a professional training geared towards other therapists, It's oftentimes hard to sell it if you don't have CE approval.
David Hall: I've done them before. When I first started, I did the first things I did as events, but as before, I had finished the approval process and it was a learning experience, but people ask, well, can I get CEEs for this? I'm like, well, and that affected the sell through. Got a question
James Marland: for you? Sure. Can you go to somebody else's conference and the, the conference isn't approved for CU and your, but your speech is.
David Hall: And you did? I've never tried to do that. Um, hypothetically I could because I'm okay, because I, I have approval in my organization. You're independently
James Marland: approved
David Hall: for this? Yeah. Um, it would, I wouldn't do that. Um, just because unless there was money involved, like it would be, uh, like, well, let's
James Marland: talk about the money then.
James Marland: Yeah. Uh, what can you do, like, as part of what can you do with it? What is. Somebody, what should somebody expect with like, earning potential for offerings? The, the cu
David Hall: cu Well, what do you think? I'm gonna answer to that, James. It depends on where you are. Exactly. Exactly. But I, I'll, I'll finish the thing I was answering before.
David Hall: Oh, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because this idea of like, we'll, CE sell themselves No, not in my experience. No, no, they don't. My metaphor for seas is it's like icing on a cake. It makes the cake more appealing. And you have, if you have an uniced cake, that cake is not very appealing. However, most people don't, aren't that interested in eating a jar of icing.
David Hall: Yes. Yeah. And if the only appeal is this has CE credit. That's not a, and, and people, if, if you wanna go online, try to find CCE for therapists cheap, you can. Mm-hmm. There are companies that specialize like CCE for Less or, and, but people that do that, and, and that's will be, this goes into your question of can you make money off this?
David Hall: Cause a skepticism that people will have when they, um, Or talking to me about it is, how can I make money off this? Cause I saw online that this, this group is charging a dollar per hour. Like, how can I yeah, get money if that's the case? And my retort to that is I do not trust a $5 bottle of wine. It being cheap does not increase its appeal.
David Hall: In fact, it de decreases its appeal. Now that $5 bottle of wine may be good. But it's pricing makes me suspicious. And there's a factor that comes in when you're doing professional trainings that offer CEEs to it, and there's a range. I teach this in my course of, there's a, there's a financial range of like, this is kind of where things land like.
David Hall: And it's usually per hour, like above this rate. It's, it's, you know, it's really hard to charge above this rate per hour, but if you go below this rate, people will get really suspicious. It's not that people don't go below this rate, but it's, and so I have a, and, but that's, that's in the course if I talk about like how to think through pricing, but can you make money off this?
David Hall: Absolutely. I, you know, I, I make a significant part of my income off of things I do related to continuing education and have for years. Um, when I would do live events and I started doing live events, you know, in the early 2000 teens, uh, I would usually make a few thousand dollars of profit per event. And at the time where I was in my career and things like that was great, and I would go to some place like Atlanta or Charlotte or Dallas or Tampa.
David Hall: Mm. Check out the restaurants there probably. Yeah. And it was also a way like, you know, my wife would travel with me. Yeah. And we, and, and so that was profit and so that would cover the event expense, the travel expense and things like that, and would be able to do a weekend away and make some money and mm-hmm.
David Hall: Um, it also on the scaling bit, they also built on themselves. When I would do an event and someone would come to it and for the first time, Oftentimes that person would stay connected and be interested in things in the future. So yes, absolutely. Like I've, you know, um, it, it's a, it's a significant income, um, to, to make the two,
James Marland: two points on that, uh, the scaling point and, um, the dollars, the dollar ces, uh, the, the person offering the dollar CCEs is probably not your competition.
James Marland: Like they're, they're, they're offering to the mass market and they only want the icing. You know, they don't want the, it, it feels like, to me, they don't want the, the, the information or the work you've put into your, your courses and the, the, the rich benefit that they're gonna getting out of it, the production value, all the, all the things, the templates, all the things that you put into your courses.
James Marland: So I. For somebody, for somebody thinking about, you know, how can I compete with the dollar? Those dollar people, they're not your, they're, you're not competing
David Hall: against them. Yeah. It's, you know, Walmart and Target serve different demographics. Mm-hmm. And, uh, you, so there's a, there's a branding that kind of comes along with things, but to James's point is absolutely true.
David Hall: The, the people that are usually looking for that, are the people scrambling in the last minute or. And that does affect, like I keep, most of my continuing education offerings are not evergreen. Like I, I do a lot of stuff online, but you can't buy them whenever they're, they're open in certain times with a few exceptions.
David Hall: And some of the stuff I keep available is a lot of people in their c renewals have to have certain topics covered. So like one of the most common is people have to do a certain number of their continuing education has to be in ethics. Mm-hmm. So I have ethics courses that I keep up just all year round because I catch people, they're at their renewal.
David Hall: I've gotta get my ethics done, knock it out, and I still wanna, I still charge accordingly within my brand. I try to make it high value. If someone's just wanting to get hours for hours' sake, I'm not, what I'm offering isn't, that's not my market as, as James' point. And, you know, someone's making a living at that.
David Hall: And I don't wanna knock that. It's just not what I'm trying to get into. Yeah.
James Marland: Um, and then, and then the, the, one of the, one of the things you said is it, it scales like mm-hmm. I think if you're start, if you're expecting, uh, this, this sounds like something to me that has to scale, right? Like, if you're gonna make money on it, you, you start out at a certain point, but then you, you do things that.
James Marland: Increase the value of your current content and your future content. Can you talk about how it's helped you scale or the, the, a little bit
David Hall: of Well, what's great is you could scale in multiple directions in it. Okay. So the very first thing I did had 12 people come to it and people will say like, oh, so you want more people?
David Hall: Maybe depends what you're offering. Um, you can do a 10 person thing or five person thing. And it'd be profitable. It just depends what your costs are and what you're charging for. If you're doing like a high touch, high transformation thing with a limited number of spots, that can be very mm-hmm. Um, you know, for example, this someone I, I talked with, she was doing in-person retreats, teaching people about the Enneagram, and that was a cap number of individuals, but it was, uh, it was like a three day thing.
David Hall: It was a high dollar amount. And so scaling can go to you increase number of participants. Mm-hmm. It could be you increase the pricing. No, there is, like I said, there is a cap based on how long the training is and what you can charge for it. The most expensive continued education training I'm a part of right now is a, what's about to be a 50 hour course.
James Marland: What? Wait. Yeah. Did you say 50? Is that 50
David Hall: ces? Yes. Which is a huge amount. Do you need 50 ces? Not usually. Not that. It's usually overkill for a lot of people, but it also, it's also a certification course. Um, it's for people wanting to learn hypnotherapy. Okay. And, and that's priced around the, like 800, $900 mark.
David Hall: Mm-hmm. And it's, it's an online course. If it was in person, you could charge more, but there's a, there's a kind of a natural limit because to say like, I'm doing this and this has a hundred Cs, no one needs that many per renewal. And so there, there's, and that's why, you know, again, go to the guide because it will show you like, what's a typical renewal amount.
David Hall: Like 40 hours per two year renewal is a typical amount for people. Often, sometimes they'll need more, but, um, but not usually. And so that's the, that's the thought process. And so it's, it's a lot of hours, but, um, so. And so there is a limit, like, like you couldn't charge if you, if you had a three CE hour course charging $900 for it would be a hard stretch.
David Hall: Mm-hmm. You would have to be very special and very in demand. But scaling does become like doing larger offerings and like, and so I don't do a lot of short courses anymore. And that's one of the ways that I've, I've scaled, I do a few because I like having some variety for people. And if it's a specialty topic like suicide prevention or ethics or multiculturalism, oftentimes those have certain common hour denominators that people are looking for.
David Hall: And so I, I try to create things for that. The other way I scale is, um, I, I, I coordinate a lot of courses. I don't teach so, So that hypnosis course, I don't teach that course. That's one that's taught by my friend Bill o Hanlin. And it's his material. I'm just the organizer for it. I'm the producer. And so you can, you can go through CE approval process and do that.
David Hall: And you don't have to teach at all. Cuz one of the things I, I pitched to people is like, if you're terrified of teaching to others, you can still make money off cece's.
James Marland: So do you have to be a therapist to do that? To get the approval.
David Hall: Um, it depends on the, so I'll take, I'm not surprised about
James Marland: that answer.
David Hall: Sure. Uh, you, you need different qualifications. Yes. So, but I'll give the example for N B C C in, in two levels of it. To get the approval for N B C C, somebody has to be stated on there that has a master's degree in a mental health discipline. Okay.
James Marland: Somebody
David Hall: on the application. Somebody on the application, yeah.
David Hall: But it doesn't have to be the primary applicant. Okay. But basically they, they want evidence that somebody is qualified to be in this, to do this, but
James Marland: the, the person on the application doesn't have to teach it.
David Hall: Yes. So, for example, James, you.
James Marland: Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, yeah, maybe I was thinking about myself, but maybe you
David Hall: were.
David Hall: Maybe, but let's, let's just assume that you were, let's assu like, and so if you wanted to apply for approval process with N B C and different organizations require different things. If you're applying for apa, which is American Psychological Association, if you're applying for their approval, you have to have specifically a psychologist in the mix.
David Hall: Mm-hmm. It doesn't, that they don't have to be the main applicant, but you need a psychologist who's part of the review process. Whereas N B C C doesn't say it has to be a counselor, it just has to be somebody with a master's degree in a mental health discipline. Okay. Social work, marriage and family therapy, psychology.
David Hall: But somebody who's qualified. Um, but let's say in your brand, James course Creator studio, you're like, Hey, I want to go through the process of getting N B C C approval. Mm-hmm. You could do that. You could make an application as long as you had a therapist. Who was a stated person who was managing the content, but it didn't have to be you.
David Hall: Okay. In that and in teaching, um, there has to be at least a, there has to be a therapist part of the teaching content that you could have other people teaching parts of it. So for example, Um, a ho a course that I've hosted, uh, on the group I work with, psych Maven has had, uh, co-taught by Whitney and James Owens.
David Hall: Uh, it's on the Enneagram. Mm-hmm. Now, Whitney's a licensed therapist, and James has a master's degree in Leadership in Divinity. So he meets because he has a master's degree in a different discipline. He meets qualifications as a teacher, but he couldn't solo teach the course. It had to be a therapist.
David Hall: Mm-hmm. And him together doing that. Um, and so, but, but he could be a stated teacher on it because he was qualified in, in different ways to teach on the material, and he was being taught with a mental health provider. Mm-hmm. But different diff different disciplines require different things. That's why it depends.
David Hall: Okay. Well,
James Marland: that's very, very interesting. Uh, I'm sure we could talk a little bit more, but is there anything before we wrap up this subject, do we go to the one last thing, anything that you think is important that we missed or did we cover enough to get, uh, to get people started? Or how would people get started maybe is
David Hall: the.
David Hall: The wrap up question. The biggest thing I recommend people, if you, if you really wanna do a deep dive on this, I've got a full course that covers this along with non CE trainings for like non-professionals. Mm-hmm. So it's, it's one of my main courses that I host on Psych Maven. It's called Profitable Mental Health Trainings.
David Hall: And, uh, uh, James will have a link for that in the, the show notes. Yeah. And I, you know, I, that course started, the initial title of that course was, uh, uh, Uh, profitable CE trainer, I think, or something like that. I, I can't even remember now. Um, or profitable CE starter kit. Um, And it's gone through different iterations cuz the first, you know, the, the first version of the course was just teaching people how to create continuing education.
David Hall: And then I had a lot of people take the course that were wanting to put things together for lay audiences of how do I do like an experiential thing for like a course for, and so I added to the course and teaches both now. But a lot of people that still take the course are doing it cuz they wanna learn how to do CCEs, uh, for other therapists.
David Hall: And, um, that's not exclusively what we teach in the course, but it's a, it's a big part of it and. I've, I've got a lot. I've never had anybody. We offer a 30 day money back guarantee for the course, and so if you're looking at it, you're checking out, here's the thing, you can buy the course and test it if you don't like it, or it doesn't feel like it's meeting your needs, as long as you request a refund within 30 days, you get a full refund at this point.
David Hall: I've never had anyone request a refund because they didn't like the course. I've had people request refunds because they said, I bought this, and I realized I have no time to get to it. Mm-hmm. Or I overspent my, my course budget. But those are the only refunds I've, I've gotten requests for people like, yo, this is, I'm overwhelmed with all the other things I'm doing right now.
David Hall: You know, I realize that this, I needed to not spend this money on this. That's the only reason. I've never had anyone go through the course say, this wasn't good enough for what I was looking for. Now I expect the law of statistics means somebody sometime will probably say, yeah, this was crap. But it hasn't been my feedback so far.
David Hall: So I feel very confident about the course. Right. And if you wanna learn it, that's a, you know, it's, I call it a soup to nuts course. Uh, or or, or nut to, yeah, soup to nuts. That's it. So like, One into the, the, the, the other of figuring it out. So if you wanna learn more about it, that's what I have to offer.
David Hall: Um, occasionally if you, if you're on site, may have an email list, occasionally we'll do a webinar with some little tidbits in it. But, um, but the course is available to buy at any point. It's a great course. Yeah. Uh, I've
James Marland: take, I've taken it and I, I, I really, I was impressed by how much work you put into it, so it was really
David Hall: good.
David Hall: Yeah. Um, If you wanna learn more, that's it. But another bit to start too, if you want the go to the free guide on this that we, I mentioned a few times, that will give you an idea of like, if, if I'm wanting to do something in Pennsylvania and what's a good like, approval for me to look at, to start with. Um, N B C C is, is one of the more flexible ones.
David Hall: National Board certified counselors, there's, they're national ones for psychologists and social workers and different state associations. Depending on where you are, it may make sense to do different things, but. Um, but that guides a good starting place to, to think through. Cool.
James Marland: All right, well, let's, let's move to the one thing we want you to know.
James Marland: Um, and the one thing I want you to know is, uh, I love the icing and cake analogy. Uh, your, your, the cake is great and that's, And the icing is great, but what makes them great is them together. Like yeah, the good content, the, the transformation, the the growth that they're gonna get from the, from the course or the ce and then the.
James Marland: The, the icing that just puts it all together is the, the accredit, the, uh, the course content that you can, uh, have a, a, a continued education unit for whatever it's called, like that, that analogy was really great. So if you're planning on doing something like this, it's not just, it's not just the content, it's not just the ceo.
James Marland: It's them together. So, that's my one thing. How about you, David? Do you have a one thing you want people to remember from the episode?
David Hall: Yes. It. People often are hesitant to this cuz they feel it's going to be too hard and it's not. Um, I did this as a novice. I didn't do it very efficiently when I started and it's one of the reasons I created the course is to help people do it more efficiently.
David Hall: Mm-hmm. It's very achievable. I wouldn't go so far to say it's easy cuz it's not necessarily easy. There is a lot of like, you have to be willing to fill out some paperwork and to follow up. On applications and because a lot of these organizations aren't very good at processing your paperwork quickly and you've gotta be a squeaky wheel.
David Hall: Mm-hmm. But you don't have to be brilliant or you, you just have to be persistent. Mm. And if you're willing to be persistent in, this is very doable for people at all, different levels of skill and all that. And people have come up to me over the years. When I'm doing a live event, a selfs sponsored live event, people are like, how are you doing this?
David Hall: I'm like, I just am, and I'm, I know, I don't mean this to be like a humble brag sort of thing. It's, it didn't come from necessarily any particular brilliance I had. I don't think it was just, I just was willing to stick with it and show up. And it's ex, you know, I, I, a friend of mine who went through the approval process, Wasn't quite as successful because he, he got really frustrated and it was hard for him to stick with it.
David Hall: Mm-hmm. And he is like, you know, they're, they're being ridiculous about this and what they're asking for. I'm like, yeah, they are. As, as they tend to do. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and he goes, how, how are you getting this done? I go, I'm just willing to put up with it. Like he, like for him, he had a strong sense of injustice of what they were asking him for.
David Hall: And I'm like, I'm not, I'm not looking for justice in this, in these, I don't look for justice in bureaucracy. I just expect that I've, it's like going to the dmv. Mm-hmm. Uh, I just gotta get it done. You gotta do it. Yeah. And, but if you're willing to do that, this is very achievable. And so for those interested, do check out the course.
David Hall: Scoop Profitable Mental Health. Yeah. Training course. Link in the show notes. And. It, you know, with the 30 day money back guarantee. I never want this. What I tell people is I never want this to be a bait and switch. I never wanna be, you spend this money and like, haha, you know, you're trapped. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
David Hall: I wanna give people plenty of window if to, to buy it, to look at it, to, you know, to kick the tires, take out for a test drive. If, you know, if it feels like it, it can transform you, then I, I think you'll be happy with it. Cool. And if it's not, then I'm Okay. Um, well, great.
James Marland: Uh, man, this has been a great conversation, something that I've been interested in for a while and people I've been talking to have been interested in it.
James Marland: And so, uh, David, thanks for giving us your wisdom on this. Um, and thanks for Yeah, thanks for doing that.
David Hall: Yeah. Well, James, awesome.
James Marland: So this is, uh, James with, uh, Dr. David Hall for the Scaling therapy practice. Thanks for joining us on the episode. Really do appreciate everyone who comes to the show and spends their time with us and who, uh, who learns with us.
James Marland: Uh, remember to take small steps every day that leads to big growth. We'll see you next time. I know you gotta go. Sorry.
David Hall: That's okay. I was, I was the one, yeah.
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.
