STP #44 Marketing Your Mental Health Services by Serving a Niche
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[00:00:11] James Marland: Hello and welcome back to the Scaling Therapy Practice. This is James Marland, your host. This is the show where we help therapists take intentional steps towards sustainable growth. This week I am joined by regular guest host Steve Bisso and IRA Hayes as our uh, special guest that's gonna talk about niching and niches with us.
[00:00:32] James Marland: Welcome.
[00:00:33] Ira Hays, LCSW: Thanks.
[00:00:34] Steve Bisson: to be back.
[00:00:34] James Marland: And this week we're gonna start off running with our tool tip or Tech of the Week. And while we're talking about marketing for therapists and niching down, one of the best resources I found was this book by Mike Mitz called The Pumpkin Plan. The Pumpkin Plan by Mike Auts. In essence Is a book where he takes the illustration of growing a pumpkin and growing the biggest pumpkin and how they are de there are people dedicated to growing the biggest pumpkin and the things they do to
[00:01:07] James Marland: To make sure they have the best possible pumpkin out there. And then he relates that to your business. There are things you, you can do and should do to niche down and grow the best business or pumpkin that you can. So it's really entertaining and enlightening. One of the tips that he gives from that book is weeded out the losers and I, I find that tip Great, but also difficult to do because when you, when you put your energy into things, you care about things, it's really difficult to quote unquote weeded out the losers.
[00:01:42] James Marland: What do you guys think about that tip?
[00:01:45] Steve Bisson: My experience is that it's Once you're invested in it, it's one of those things like I'll invest till I am broke, so to speak. So it is hard and I get where you're coming from, but I've also kinda like learned to cut my losses with time, and I think that comes with experience. I think it's not something that I would've done in my first few years in practice, but nowadays, if it doesn't work out in the first few weeks or months, like cut your losses, move on to something new.
[00:02:15] Ira Hays, LCSW: Yeah, I think spending time on what feels good, right? And I think
[00:02:18] Ira Hays, LCSW: you're right when you're early on, I'm not sure I would've given myself the same advice that I have now, but a year or two in, once people are fully licensed and they're. They find what they're good at and then they find what they're not good at. That's probably equally as important. I.
[00:02:34] James Marland: Yeah. Another tip in the book is nurture the winners. You know, if you're gonna grow the biggest seed, you cut out some of the vines that aren't growing, and then you feed the ones that are, and just what you said, you You, you kind of find what you're good at and find what is producing the most, and then you, you hit it.
[00:02:51] James Marland: So we're gonna talk more about that. The, the topic this week is of course marketing, which is season two. We're talking all about marketing your therapy practice. I. And the, the topic of this week, this session is niching or niching down. And we brought, we have IRA on he has an interesting therapy practice, therapy niche.
[00:03:11] James Marland: Why don't you tell, can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about that Ira?
[00:03:15] Ira Hays, LCSW: Yeah, so, yep. Yeah. So my name is Ira Hayes. I'm a licensed clinical social worker in New Jersey. I'm currently the director of Center for Wellness, which is a P H P I O P program. And then I also own my own practice where that's where I niche down a little bit more. O the practice that I work at also kind of helps focus on that niche. And I think, you know, my specialty now has actually changed over the years. About 10 years ago I was working with mostly oppositional defiant youth. A lot of o d d diagnosed kids and residential programmings. And now I work mostly with school phobia and O C D. So I learned finding good what I was good at. I was kind of good when I was younger, like. Meshing well with the younger guys and kind of working with them and helping them develop skills. And then as I learned exposure response prevention and exposure treatment I kind of shifted my direction to school phobia. I was school-based at the time I was presented with a problem.
[00:04:06] Ira Hays, LCSW: We had a bunch of kids not coming to school. It was at a therapeutic school, and they were like, let's figure this out. So I spent about four or five years figuring it out, where I think a lot, a lot of people weren't doing the same thing as me. So that was, that became my niche. How do I get these kids to school that are.
[00:04:22] James Marland: Cool. That's very interesting that it's probably gonna relate to our last question of the day. Do you find your niche or does your niche find you so we'll, we'll get into that. So our topic, yeah. Our topic of the day is niching and finding the audience for your practice. I do talk to one of the big topics is, should I niche or.
[00:04:47] James Marland: There's a big fear, I guess, over narrowing yourself and telling, telling people what you stand for and what you don't. So the first question for the panel here is why are therapists afraid to niche down?
[00:05:00] Steve Bisson: Well, I think it's because you're going through a business,
[00:05:04] Steve Bisson: and I can tell you from experience for myself as well as a lot of people, you start a business, you're a mental health counselor, you're social worker, you're, you're like, oh my God, I need to attract the most clients possible.
[00:05:19] Steve Bisson: I. Therefore, I'm gonna take the two year old and I'm gonna take the 92 year old, and no matter what they present with, I'm just gonna do it.
[00:05:26] Steve Bisson: 'cause I gotta do it right? I gotta fill in those seats, so to speak.
[00:05:29] Steve Bisson: And I think that that's what happens in a naive way for many. Actually, I would say that I've done this training for starting your own private practice for six years now, and I would say that 90% of them, when I talk about niching, they're like, and you can hear the
[00:05:46] Steve Bisson: air getting sucked out of the room. Then two, three years down the road, oh, I'm specialized in O C D with left-handed Jewish people. And you're like, wow, that's pretty niched. And of course I wanna make everyone laugh, but the point is, is I think that we all end up niching. So the first message of niching is always like, and then after two years, like, yeah, I didn't wanna work with that two year old with O C D, so, It changes in time.
[00:06:11] Steve Bisson: I keep on bringing back time and I think when I think about niche, it's really about time and I think that'll be my, one of my go-to points for a whole lot of people is that it takes time.
[00:06:24] Ira Hays, LCSW: I, I would agree with everything you said, and I think people who are afraid of niching, I think either haven't found it yet or
[00:06:30] Ira Hays, LCSW: haven't accepted it yet. So maybe they're really good at something or they really enjoy something, but they haven't accepted yet that that's what they're good at. So maybe they got into therapy thinking they're gonna work with teenagers and find out that they're really good at, you know, relationship counseling or vice versa.
[00:06:45] Ira Hays, LCSW: So I think sometimes you know, people are nervous that maybe they're not good enough in that niche to kind of take a, of a presence in the niche and that they have to, like you said, fill the seed supplement as a business, like all those other spots. And generally speaking, I don't think that's as successful, but you know,
[00:07:03] James Marland: You, you brought up something really interesting is the comparison. Like, I'm not good enough, or I'm not like this person who, you know, could, can I even put institute in my name, you know, the institute or whatever, because I, I, I don't see people see or have an impression of themselves and they're like, oh, I'm just not like this other person.
[00:07:26] James Marland: Isn't comparison a big deterrent for ni niching or niching down?
[00:07:32] Steve Bisson: Well, I do believe so. I think that the comparison is a thi thief of joy, as I've said many times to my clients.
[00:07:39] Steve Bisson: And you know, like Ira has his specialty, James has his specialty, everyone has their specialty. I would even joke around that for me, I'm a child and family specialist. I went to get my master's and child and family specialist. How many kids and how many families do I see right now? Yes, the total is zero. I do not see anyone like that I was thrown in jail. Not because I was an inmate. Nothing wrong with that, but I wasn't the inmate.
[00:08:07] Steve Bisson: I was a mental health person and I really developed like a, like liking of working in the criminal justice system at that point in the community justice system 'cause it just was my people, I swear a lot. I'm kind of down to earth. I don't really do good with big words 'cause this is my second language and it
[00:08:24] Steve Bisson: turned out to be the perfect match for me, so to speak. And then it grew to parole, it grew to probation, it grew to. Jail diversion in the community. And nowadays I, while I still work with some of those individuals, I work with the other side and what I consider my niche, which is like evolve as you can hear it right now, to first responders themselves and medical staff who are on the other side of who I started with, but nonetheless a specialty that I've developed because of this niche. So I think that once, the comparison that I love right now is that I can turn around and say there's not a whole lot to compare with. That makes it a lot easier. But when I was younger, I was always, well, that guy does better or he's much calmer, or he's more agitated, he's gonna get more out of him. I think the comparison is some, one of those things where we feel like and if you have an answer to both of this and I, my meanness in the most respectful way, if you can help my imposter syndrome and cure it. I'm very interested, but I think when you talk about comparison, it's the imposter syndrome that kicks in for a whole lot of us when we're starting to niche ourselves. But that would be my 2 cents on that.
[00:09:33] Ira Hays, LCSW: Yeah, no, I think, I think comparison is is it's tough. It's tough if, if you don't have that confidence in your genre, like in your niche yet, or you're still building confidence as a new clinician. I think that's why it's hard. Even when I think about myself as a new clinician, early on, I. I'm not sure I had that confidence to compare myself to other people. It wasn't until I found that spot where I stood out, where I could say, like you said, like, I'm not sure, you know, like, all right, there's some other people doing something similar to me, but I have this unique perspective, or I have this unique skill that I could bring to the table that puts me, if not in the same caliber, in the same room. You know, like I, I'm in part of that conversation. And then as you develop, I feel like you develop, you know, insurmountable confidence in that area that, you know, the more you help 10 kids, you help 20 kids, you help a hundred kids, then by 3, 5, 600 kids, then you're like, okay, now I really have something that, you know, I can niche myself because I've been able to help all these kids.
[00:10:27] James Marland: Yeah. You're, you're describing like cur you gotta have courage to start and confidence comes after you ke you don't start with confidence. Like that's just a, that's just part of starting something new.
[00:10:39] Ira Hays, LCSW: Yeah.
[00:10:40] James Marland: but you, you develop it as you said, as you have success over time.
[00:10:45] Ira Hays, LCSW: And I think you gotta put the reps in, you know, not to to go too sports related, but I feel like early on, and even now, you know, if I wanna keep getting better, I gotta keep reading books. I gotta keep looking at new theories. I. Stay up to date with everything that's going on. That's why I love, you know, teaching.
[00:10:58] Ira Hays, LCSW: I teach at Monmouth University as well. I adjunct there sometimes, and I'll take interns whenever I can because it keeps my growth process. Like they bring new stuff to me and then I'm like, oh wow, if I wanna keep up with them now I gotta read this. I gotta read that. So I think just having the confidence comes from working harder, you know?
[00:11:19] James Marland: So that's, that's some of the reasons why therapists don't niche. What, what would you guys, what would you say to people, or why should therapists niche down as, as much as they can? As a why should, why should we consider even, why shouldn't, why shouldn't we just be serving everybody? Why should we find a niche?
[00:11:39] Steve Bisson: because I think that what happens is that when you have someone who's niche, you could actually have. Have it, it's almost like increased confidence. One of the things that occurs with my first responder individuals, they're usually referred by either other first responders or people who work with first responders. And it brings almost and I wouldn't say automatic 'cause I think that's a bad word, but almost automatic like, oh, credibility. Okay. Johnny told me he would go see him. Sharon told me he was pretty good. And then by doing so, okay, he knows our language, he knows how we talk, he understands dark humor, he understands how we survive this stuff. And so from my perspective, I think that that's why, you know, we get to a point where we, the niche becomes our friend. But I think until you see it as a friend and you see it as you, you, you will always see it as an enemy. And it's really changing that thought process.
[00:12:39] Ira Hays, LCSW: Yeah, I agree with you and I think with niching when, when I'm thinking about niching, I'm always, as a therapist, I'm trying to always balance two things. Whether I'm running a program or it's my own business, it's always making money and then helping the most people. Having the most impact as I can, right?
[00:12:52] Ira Hays, LCSW: So I'm trying to obviously earn revenue and I do well for myself, but I'm also trying to help as many people as I can by saying, help as many people as I can. You would think, oh, think general, but that's not the case. There's probably a dozen people that can help all those general conditions that I can, but there's only a certain amount of people that can. Niche down and help the kids that are like school phobic or help with O C D there's a significantly less people. So by kind of niching down, I'm actually expanding and being able to help a further reach, like I, my reach is much further rather than just a couple people. I might have somebody that travels an hour to come see me because I'm able to help them at something that the generalist isn't probably able to help with.
[00:13:33] James Marland: Yeah, that's great. That's a great illustration and example. One of the ways it was described to me is you are taking people on a destination like you're trying to find the right people who wanna get on your bus to go to the destination that only you can take them. For example, if you're, if you're living in, like I used, I used to live in New York and you wanna go to a trip to Florida and you wanna find people to get on this bus, who wanna go to Florida, if they're going to Ohio or.
[00:14:04] James Marland: I don't know, Utah or something. And then Florida, that's not the trip you wanna take with them. You wanna get, you want to get the right people on the bus who are going with you, and then to niche, even down further. You say, well, we're going to Universal, or we're going to SeaWorld, or we're gonna get a ticket to Disneyland.
[00:14:22] James Marland: You're gonna take those people to the exact destination that you can and that helps them, you know, that is helping them get to where they want to go. And because you're the expert. In that area, you can take people over and over and over again down this trip, down down your niche, quicker, faster, better, and probably even cheaper than the other person who doesn't exactly know where they're going.
[00:14:49] James Marland: I think we're going to Florida. We might show up, you know, at SeaWorld, but maybe we're gonna do universal. No, you're gonna go down to the, the destination and the exact people are gonna get on. And you take, you take them there. And I just love the journey story of like talking about your dream client or your preferred client, or the person you can help the most by thinking about, I'm going somewhere, they want to go there and this is how I take them over and over and over again.
[00:15:22] James Marland: And you become that guy, you know, you become that person to do that. Have you ever heard about the, the niching down as a journey before?
[00:15:31] Steve Bisson: Can't say I have.
[00:15:33] James Marland: N not like that. Yeah, it, it's a, it's it helps me understand that there are people that I can help quicker and better, and there are people that there we're just not going on the same trip, and that helps me understand. That I need to spend time figuring out who those people are and how to help them.
[00:15:55] James Marland: And then all the things that you guys were talking about, like the referrals, the confidence, the credibility the distinction and then, and helping more people that comes when you get known for that. The type of, I'm putting this in quotes, trip that you're taking that they, they know to go to you and not to somebody else.
[00:16:15] Steve Bisson: Right.
[00:16:18] Ira Hays, LCSW: Yeah, I think that's probably the most, one of the, one of the most important things, you know, and, and on the business end of it, when you niche down, you do become, More notice for a particular skill so people know when to find you and for what. And then you could also market that easier too, right?
[00:16:36] Ira Hays, LCSW: If I just go in somewhere and say, call me for anything, it's kind of forgettable.
[00:16:40] Ira Hays, LCSW: But if I say, if I'm at a school and I say, Hey, if you have these school phobic kids, that's what I specialize in. I can help, you know, then you start getting calls for trainings and all kind and you know, it helps me, I. Do business to business marketing way better too. So I'm able to kind of go to other businesses and say, this is what I'm good at. You know, I don't do this. Like I, I'm not good. You know, when we talked about not knowing what we're not good at, I'm not good at, like you said, 12 and under is not my, my skillset in terms of my individual practice. And I would say that I don't work a lot with eating disorders. So I build relationships with people that are great at that so that we have this reciprocal relationship and referral service, you know, where we know what each other are good at.
[00:17:21] James Marland: That's a great little marketing tip. Right there.
[00:17:24] Steve Bisson: That's what I, I'm even writing it down
[00:17:26] Steve Bisson: myself.
[00:17:29] Ira Hays, LCSW: no, I mean in terms of. In terms of marketing for something, like knowing your sales funnel is so important, right? And if I know I'm niched down to a certain spot, it helps me narrow who I go to and who I market to. So I know, right? I'm not just marketing to everyone. I'm maybe marketing to, you know, schools and I o P programs and maybe potentially parents. But I, I'm not directly marketing to my consumer necessarily. I'm marketing to these other companies and other school districts and stuff that need that service.
[00:17:59] James Marland: Well, they have a problem. Yeah, they have
[00:18:02] James Marland: a problem they need to solve. So are they gonna call generalist person to solve that problem with
[00:18:08] James Marland: the anxious kid who won't come to school? Or are they gonna, they gonna call Ira who specializes in it and he's gotten results for his other people? It makes you, you've just hit on a really great point that when you niche down, it can make your marketing so much easier.
[00:18:25] Ira Hays, LCSW: So much easier. 'cause now I know, hey, all I have to do is post like, Hey guys, I'm doing a free school phobia training for anyone in New Jersey. Call me if you're ready. And I do that all the time. I offer it for free all the time. And I get school districts. This is my busy season right now. You know, they're having trouble getting kids
[00:18:40] Ira Hays, LCSW: back and they have me come in and it's great because, you know, I get to help them maybe help. Eight or 10 kids. And if they have a couple kids that they can't help, then they know who to call. And if I help them help all of them, that's great. It was an hour well spent. We helped a lot of people. But it definitely helps me to know exactly who to market to based on my niche. It doesn't require me to just send out email flyers and, you know, just like blast everyone because that's not. My 80%, you know, the 80 20 rule, it's,
[00:19:10] Ira Hays, LCSW: that's not where I'm getting 80% of my work. 80% of my work is coming from very specific sources. So it definitely helps with marketing.
[00:19:21] James Marland: Yeah, the, the mass market, if you're, if you're marketing to the masses, you're, you're pretty much just competing on like the lowest common price, which is difficult to run a business when you're, you're just trying to get a, a small fraction of. The large market, it's much easier to develop the to own, you know, your portion of the market and and market to those people, like a lot less energy that way.
[00:19:51] James Marland: It's not free, it's not free money people, but it is less work. . There's, it's it still takes work, everything. Marketing, I feel takes some thought and work, but.
[00:20:04] Ira Hays, LCSW: I think that work becomes more rewarding in itself because as I'm marketing for my niche and I'm passionate about my niche, then I'm connecting with more people that may need those services that I never would've met if I was doing general marketing, right? Like I wouldn't meet with some of these schools that are two hours away, but I'm able to help some of those kids, even if it's not directly.
[00:20:21] Ira Hays, LCSW: But I'm able to help the staff that are helping those kids. So I think it, it expands my reach and I'm not always worried, you know, a lot of those trainings, I'm not worried about am am I gonna make money on that hour? That's not really the case. The case is, am I gonna be able to help kids? And then if I do, are people gonna know me more for that and refer to me if I'm helpful, you know?
[00:20:39] James Marland: Awesome.
[00:20:43] James Marland: So our, our one of the last questions here is, do you, do you find your niche or does your niche find you? Like how do you, how do you develop this? We've talked a little bit about it. What, what has been, maybe this is a story time, like what's your experience here? We've, we've hit on it Both Steve and Ira have hit on their, their experience.
[00:21:03] James Marland: But how did you actually come up with your, your, your target market?
[00:21:10] Steve Bisson: I fell in it backwards.
[00:21:12] James Marland: It. Explain that
[00:21:14] Steve Bisson: so story time again, child and child and family specialist. But I worked on a crisis team when I had my bachelor's, triaging phone calls, taking on like that stuff. So police knew me a little bit. When the, when I went to my company at the time, I'm like, Hey, can I do outpatient?
[00:21:31] Steve Bisson: Can I do crisis work? We got nothing. The only thing we have full-time is working at a jail, being the mental health clinician. Alright, well, you know, I want a job. I wanna work like that's, I guess I'll go do that. I dunno how my child and family specialty is gonna really help out in a male jail. But hey, what the hell?
[00:21:51] Steve Bisson: Let's try it. So I go there, actually do okay overall. But at one point I'm, I'm gonna save the details, but essentially something happened at the jail. They blamed me for it. It had nothing to do with me. Had to do everything with my boss. My boss throws me under the bus, but luckily I signed my paperwork properly. But I go to my boss. I'm like, no way in hell I'm staying here. So I leave and he is like, what do you have? I, I'll work, I'll, I'll, I'll work fee for service outpatient, I'll work fee for service for the crisis. It's not like they don't, they don't need it on a social service agency. One day one of my bosses says, Hey, we just got a contract with Mass State parole. I'm like, that's great. Good for you guys. Bravo. I keep on going. No, no, no, we're talking to you. I'm like, no, you're not talking to me. Bye-bye. See you later. 'cause I don't wanna work with community mental health ever again at that point. They bribed me with extra money, which when you're a young 25 year old, or how old was I?
[00:22:48] Steve Bisson: 25, 26. I can't remember. And needed the money. Okay. What the hell? I'll try it. And now I fall in love with working in the, that world because it, it was crisis clinician. Some, when this happened was in 2006, 2007 when you know, reentry wasn't cool, but I was, you know, we were the Starting point of reentry for people coming outta jail and saying, Hey, maybe they need resources to succeed and not have a 66% recidivism rate. And so I start working on that. I get reinforced by parole, probation listens to me. I get involved with the police and the rest is history. 'cause even when I decided to leave the community Justice social service field, People recognize me like, Hey, you're the guy who works with cops. I'm like, I am. I mean, I am. And so that's how, again, the police fire I've worked with many other agencies that are in law enforcement. Started contacting me. I wasn't looking for them. And because my experience in jail, I got a lot of Department of Correction people too. So, so story time is I was a child and family specialist fell, asked backwards into the community criminal justice system and here we are today. So that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
[00:24:07] Ira Hays, LCSW: It's a good one. Good one. I, I think for me geez, I mean, I've worked throughout the continuum of care before. I kind of found, I had several niches. Like I said before, it's kind of developed over time as to what I was interested in, what I was good at. But I worked with S P M I population on a PAC team.
[00:24:25] Ira Hays, LCSW: I worked for Community Mental Health Center. I worked inpatient. I went to a school because I led out at three and I had weekends off and summers off, and I was like, that sounds really great. And it was a,
[00:24:35] Ira Hays, LCSW: it was a therapeutic school, so I thought I had the ability to kind of help more as a clinician at a therapeutic school than I would at a public school.
[00:24:42] Ira Hays, LCSW: It turned out it opens a lot of doors for me. I was able to consult with different school districts in, you know, in district schools, and it opened many, many doors to me. But they basically came to me with a problem saying, Hey, we have these kids that we can't get in, and I was able to kind of help them solve that problem, learn how to solve the problem, the problem over and over again, and then started trying to districts, so the question, you know, does your find you or do you find your niche? In most circumstances, my niche has found me, even when I worked with, you know, kids with O D D, it was, I was working in a residential program. I got trained in CAS and parent management training. I kind of stumbled into that, that kind of niche for a few, you know, probably 5, 6, 7 years before switching the school base.
[00:25:22] Ira Hays, LCSW: So I was lucky enough to kind of, my niche found me always. And then I just had the, I guess, the instinct to follow it, which I think is important for people that if they're doing something that they enjoy, they should follow it as.
[00:25:35] Steve Bisson: And I think that you make a great point there when you think about enjoying it. I think that when we talk about niche, what one of the things that I kind of remind people is that you need to like it. And one of the reasons why, and I'm gonna share this and maybe I'll turn it to you guys, but for me, when I worked with children and family, I loved working with the kids. I love working with the teenagers. I did not like to work with the parents. I'm trying to keep it as kid friendly as I can here. But my turnoff with that was with, oh, that's why the kids screwed up. And I could never get over that because I wanted to deal with like, talk to the parents, fix them and do that. And obviously you can't always do that in a, like with the parents. So my niche felt that it was too overwhelming for me. While you're work with them. So I changed because of that. So sometimes it's also about passion. I still have passion working with kids. I just can't do it on a professional level. So I coach soccer now to kind of like co overcompensate my stuff. But I don't know about you, IRA, if this has happened to you or not.
[00:26:44] Ira Hays, LCSW: I think it, it's happened to me in a different way when I was working with more oppositional. You know, I was ended up finding myself in places that were more There was therapeutic holds and stuff involved, and I eventually, I, I didn't really enjoy that kind of, that kind of setting as much. I then started working with some other stuff in my private practice that worked out well. But I would say the journey was pretty natural for me. Like I, I, I just kind of followed the path, the path kind of like laid, not to sound too cliche or anything, but the path kind of laid itself out. I, I got this job at a school, then they came and said, how do you solve this problem? The, the problems I was solving, you know, I, I started part, like, essentially a, a closed group on at the school and then started working with the school field of kids and we were able to just help a lot of kids.
[00:27:27] Ira Hays, LCSW: So I fell right into it. I, I got lucky.
[00:27:30] Steve Bisson: And I think that that's a little bit of the messages that we need to kind of like pass on for the, for everyone that we work with. If we fall back on something that we don't, we don't know, and then we fall on it and we love it, I think it's sometimes it's a discovery. And I think that if you work in social services for a while, what I've always recommended to find your niche.
[00:27:52] Steve Bisson: Work on a crisis team, work in outpatient work in a large population where you're gonna see the two to 92. And I realized that working with young kids wasn't my thing 'cause I just couldn't do it. And then the 92 year olds, anyone over 65, I don't know why my therapist might need to work on that. But I, they, they're all my grandparents and I wanna take 'em home. And when you wanna take 'em home, That's not a healthy thing. So I'm like, oh,
[00:28:17] Steve Bisson: well, no, I can't work with seniors. So one of the other thing about niching, I
[00:28:21] Steve Bisson: say, work with a general larger population, whether it's the crisis team, whether it's
[00:28:25] Steve Bisson: outpatient in a community
[00:28:26] Steve Bisson: service
[00:28:28] Steve Bisson: community programs. And I don't know if you have
[00:28:31] Steve Bisson: any advice
[00:28:32] Steve Bisson: as to how to find our niche.
[00:28:33] Steve Bisson: 'cause
[00:28:33] Steve Bisson: we felt, I told you, I fell asked backwards on it you kind of discovered it as you went along, but I don't know if you have any other advice
[00:28:42] Steve Bisson: in regards to that.
[00:28:44] Ira Hays, LCSW: Yeah. The advice I
[00:28:45] Ira Hays, LCSW: usually give like my staff and my interns and stuff is just
[00:28:49] Ira Hays, LCSW: keep developing. Don't, and, and early on in career, don't look for, I would say the first couple years, especially if you're, you know, in each state, I know it's a little bit different, but you, if You have your regular license and you don't have your clinical license yet and you don't have the autonomy to go on your own.
[00:29:02] James Marland: the autonomy to go
[00:29:03] Ira Hays, LCSW: Work inpatient work in a partial, work with different, you know, larger agencies where you can find mentors
[00:29:09] Ira Hays, LCSW: that you can follow. Because that mentorship, I think, is so important to developing. And it should be, the first couple years should be about
[00:29:16] James Marland: couple of years should be about,
[00:29:17] Ira Hays, LCSW: what do I want to develop?
[00:29:18] James Marland: why do I want to develop?
[00:29:19] Ira Hays, LCSW: Not necessarily how much money can I make.
[00:29:21] Ira Hays, LCSW: It's like develop a baseline skillset, five or six different theories that you're great at, and then the niche will come, I think, very easily after that.
[00:29:32] Steve Bisson: I, I think what we're talking,
[00:29:33] Steve Bisson: you know, James, I, I I think that what I I feel is so important that Ira mentioned is that when you're trying to find your niche, like, I didn't even think about inpatient, but that's another great place to learn what you don't like and what you'll do like. But I don't know, James, if you
[00:29:48] Steve Bisson: have any advice as to how to discover your niche.
[00:29:51] James Marland: if the advice is to how to discover you. Well, just some of the stuff that you've been talking about is it's okay to dabble, you know, it's okay to, to, to spread your wings a little bit and figure out, I'm going to try this, you know, you mentioned inpatient, you mentioned IOP and day hospital, you mentioned different types of treatment.
[00:30:11] James Marland: It's okay to say, I'm going to try this for a period of time. And also know you might not do it for the rest of your life. I think I, part of my mindset, I don't know if it's my gender, my, my generation or my thought, like don't waste anything, you know, if you're going to do it, do it, finish your plate, you know, that type of stuff.
[00:30:32] James Marland: And I don't know if that serves you very well when you're trying to discover. Your niche is just doing one thing and sticking with it forever. Even if you enjoy something else more, or it's not fulfilling. Another, another tip, I guess, though on the other side of that is once you've found your niche.
[00:30:50] James Marland: Like keep the main thing, the main thing. There's so many opportunities out there, you know, you go into the school and you probably could help, you know, many of those students, but that would detract you from the thing that, as you were talking about how, how fulfilling it is, you know, like, oh, I get, I get to help these kids and I can do a good job and it's so fulfilling to me and it helps their life.
[00:31:14] James Marland: Like if you get distracted by, by different things, That could prevent you from keeping your main thing, the main thing. So when you're early you, you mentioned all this stuff about time, like you fell into it or it took five years to develop this niche. I think we gotta be patient with ourselves and get out, give ourselves time to develop into the niche and develop into what, what who our dream client is and their dream destination that we can take them.
[00:31:45] James Marland: And then, and then once that's been. then it's time to move into, now I am the Institute of OCD school children or something like that. So, yeah, that that's my advice right now is the, the pressure, some of that pressure to, to choose right away as soon as you get out of school is probably self, you know, a little bit of your own self.
[00:32:10] James Marland: and also other people like expectations. So that's some of my advice. Be patient with yourself, but once you find it, you know, embrace it.
[00:32:21] Steve Bisson: I really like that.
[00:32:22] Ira Hays, LCSW: I was just gonna say, I think in terms of the niche, one of the things like if you like it, keep going at it. And I also think for me too, it's been really important, you know, There's so much stuff on social media and therapist groups and stuff about burnout, and I've always found that when, and
[00:32:38] Ira Hays, LCSW: I think, you know, to me, finding a new problem to solve has always prevented that for me. Oftentimes that new problem goes to a new niche, right? So when I was working with oppositional youth, you know, I started to get a little bit burnt out. So I found a new problem to solve. And I think that also as a therapist, we have so many opportunities that like we can niche down and then we can, you know, somebody who's new and they're
[00:33:03] Ira Hays, LCSW: not sure if they do it for five years and they're like, you know what?
[00:33:05] Ira Hays, LCSW: I wanna change. There's nothing wrong with that either. You know, you,
[00:33:08] Ira Hays, LCSW: I'm in my forties now. By the time I'm in my sixties, I might have something completely different than I'm You never know.
[00:33:13] Ira Hays, LCSW: But I'll just follow that road. But I think it is important that like it's okay to like change and it's
[00:33:20] Ira Hays, LCSW: okay to keep that niche for as long as that niche feels like the most important thing to you. As soon as it doesn't, it's probably okay to find a new problem to.
[00:33:28] Steve Bisson: And I just wanna mention one thing, James, 'cause I wanna observe that the first thing I observed when we were
[00:33:32] Steve Bisson: first all, all three of us.
[00:33:34] James Marland: first all out,
[00:33:35] Steve Bisson: We all have some sort of goatee
[00:33:37] Steve Bisson: or beard, and we all have glasses, but none of us, none of
[00:33:41] Steve Bisson: us, specialize in,
[00:33:42] Steve Bisson: males with glasses and a beard. And yet At
[00:33:45] Steve Bisson: the same time, we have three
[00:33:47] Steve Bisson: unique perspectives from three different unique people who came from three unique backgrounds and everything else. So I think that what I would also
[00:33:55] Steve Bisson: mention before we go on is respect where you came from. I think that that's the important part too. You know, like for me, I'm an underdog. I'm a big fan of the underdog. Maybe it's my immigration from Montreal to here that probably got me to be an underground underdog mentality, and I never forget about that because a police officer who goes and reach outs for mental health right now is a minority underdog, and we need to
[00:34:22] Steve Bisson: treasure that.
[00:34:23] Steve Bisson: Same thing for my fire guys, same thing for my correctional staff, my paramedics, my sheriffs, and so on and so forth. And I think that one of the things that if you're going to niche, you talk about how to avoid burnout, remember what your initial passion was. And for me, like that's something that I always keep in mind.
[00:34:41] James Marland: Yeah, you, you talked about something that I think is really important is knowing who your tribe is knowing who are the people that energize you because the people you're going back to the story thing. You're spending a bunch of time with these people and you're only going to allow it, it depends on you.
[00:35:00] James Marland: It depends on you, the bus driver, the part of the destination generator. Like you're going to take people on this journey that you want to spend time with. That you. Identify with that. They get you that you could have dinner with and not be like, Oh man, I just wish they would leave me alone. You know, I can't wait for Oh, I got a phone call.
[00:35:23] James Marland: I gotta go. Those aren't the type of people that. Will fulfill you the most and you talked about burnout if you're serving those type of people who take and they're not You know, even though you're you're cert you have a service and you're you're doing, you know, you're charging money But the the the people that they can't pay you enough to to have another session.
[00:35:45] James Marland: Those are the people you don't want to Be your ideal client, you know, they somebody else will they'll fit with somebody else So, that's also another important reason for niching down is realize it's not just about, you know, who's going to buy my product. It's who can I help? Like, who do I want to help?
[00:36:06] James Marland: Who do I want to serve and they won't burn me down. Bring me out to the ground.
[00:36:13] Steve Bisson: I agree.
[00:36:15] James Marland: All right. So, let's, let's move into our takeaway. We'll start with Ira, then go to Steve and I'll wrap up. What's one takeaway you want the audience to know from this episode? One thing, if they could only remember one thing. What's a takeaway for you?
[00:36:31] Ira Hays, LCSW: I mean, it sounds like we all are in the same I mindset of like, don't be afraid to niche down. Find what you're, you wanna niche down with and don't be afraid to. Follow that passion. It'll probably take you pretty far. That's the, the main thing that I'm taking away. I'm glad I did. It sounds like other people are glad they did it.
[00:36:52] James Marland: How about you, Steve?
[00:36:54] Steve Bisson: I think there's so many takeaways. I have a full page actually here. Really like this conversation, but I guess the, the, the most important one is when IRA you mentioned about being, you know, remembered due to your specialty. And I think that that's something to keep in mind when you think about niching.
[00:37:12] Steve Bisson: People are like, oh, well that's gonna be too specific. Well, no, that's the Advantage, you know, like it's in, in my area that I work in on Metro West Boston. You know, I'm one of the first names that come up no matter what about, oh look, this, he works with first responders, he works for medical staff. He send it to like, I, I'm not saying I'm unique in that way, but there's not many people like that.
[00:37:36] Steve Bisson: So therefore I get a lot of phone calls from that. So your niche is actually
[00:37:40] Steve Bisson: what will make you most re memorable. So that's what I get from this podcast.
[00:37:48] James Marland: Awesome. And I kind of like that you know, both of you took time and to discover your niche, or maybe it discovered you. Like you, you said yes to an opportunity, or you saw a need, and you fill, you you filled it, and then it turned into something you know like and enjoy, and people you're helping a lot of people.
[00:38:09] James Marland: So I guess my, my takeaway is let it develop. It's going to take some time and you're probably going to discover it more than just say, this is what I'm going to do forever for the rest of my life. Does that sound good? All right. Well, before, oh, before we wrap up, Ira, thank you so much for being a guest on our show.
[00:38:31] James Marland: Where can people find you? Where can people find you and you offer any services to help others?
[00:38:37] Ira Hays, LCSW: Yeah, so, they could find me at center for wellness nj.com for the partial care and I o P program and Hayes Health and Wellness, that's h a y s, Hayes Health and Wellness dot com for any of the stuff that I do in my private practice in terms of training, marketing, whatever they need, I can be helpful hopefully.
[00:38:57] James Marland: What was that last one again? I'll put it in the show notes, but
[00:39:00] Ira Hays, LCSW: It's Hayes, h a y s, health and wellness.com.
[00:39:06] James Marland: and wellness. Okay. And you do trainings, marketing, and some other things for therapists.
[00:39:11] Ira Hays, LCSW: yeah. Clinical consulting for school districts, just about everything so they can check it out. And certainly if anyone, I know we were talking before the show with Steve, but like they could find me on LinkedIn. I'm very active on LinkedIn and, and love connecting with people too.
[00:39:25] James Marland: Hmm. Another great tip there. LinkedIn. Find, find lots of great people. All right. Well, this is the scaling therapy practice encouraging you to take intentional steps towards sustainable growth. Thanks to Steve and Ira. We will see you guys next time.
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