(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, welcome to the Abundant Practice Podcast. I'm Allison from Abundance Practice Building. I have a nearly diagnosable obsession with helping therapists build sustainable, joy-filled private practices, just like I've done for tens of thousands of therapists across the world. I'm excited to help you too. If you want to fill your practice with ideal clients, we have loads of free resources and paid support.
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The majority of Party Plus members fill their practice in three months. Check out Party Plus in the link in the show notes and join the interest list if you're ready to build what you've been dreaming of. Hello. Hi, Kelly. How are you doing? Good. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. What would be most helpful today? So, I just want to give you a heads up that sometimes on my computer, the service gets funky. So, I have my phone here if I need to switch, but just want to give you a heads up.
Perfect. Awesome. So, what I really wanted to talk to you about was how to switch niches in a way that makes sense. And I feel like I talk to people in the Abundance community, and they're like, well, Allison says this, and she says this. I'm like, I need to talk to Allison. Let's do it. Let's do it. Yeah. So, I started my practice about two and a half years ago, and my focus is eating disorders. Love it. So, individuals, for adults, and for teenage girls. So, the teenage girls kind of took off.
And right away, I got a lot of, you know, I had some good connections in the inpatient hospitals I had worked in and with other, you know, just programs I'd networked with and dietitians. So, I got referrals just right off the bat, which was great. After my son was born about two years ago, I sort of just like lost my spark. And I've maintained, but I couldn't get myself back into it. And I wasn't sure if it was burnout or if it was because, you know, I just wasn't inspired anymore.
And I have just really come to realize that even though I'm well-trained in eating disorders, it brings me no joy. Okay. What a great realization. I mean, so many people are like, well, I'm good at it. So, I guess this is just my thing. Doesn't have to be. Amazing. Okay. Do you know what your thing is? Yes. I know what my thing is. I just don't know how to get from one to the other. So, my real passion is my backgrounds in domestic violence.
And I don't feel like it's compatible with the type of practice I want to have to go into domestic violence work. But like, I'm really passionate about teaching, especially teens and adults, like what healthy boundaries look like, how to identify your boundaries, how to communicate it. And healthy relationships, but not within the couples therapy world. Very much in individual therapy, in groups, presentations, like that's a dream for sure.
But you know, so I've like slowly started moving my practice a little bit towards that. But I'm so scared to let go of the eating disorders. And I know it's scarcity mindset. Right. I don't know how to network with people or like market when it's not something as specialized as eating disorders. Right. Right. It's kind of set up nicely for those of us who work with eating disorders, right? It's like, it's an easy list of people to network with.
It's a specialty that a lot of people don't want to touch with a 10 foot pole. There are lots of great referral sources and they are treatment centers. And so, yeah, I get that. And I can tell you thousands and thousands of therapists I've helped who don't have that kind of niche builder practice. And you're in this great circumstance where you're going to continue to get eating disorder referrals probably until the day you die, you can always turn them away, refer them to other people.
When you get to a point where you no longer want to serve that population at all. And in the meantime, you can continue to work with them. That doesn't mean your website has to speak to them. It can speak to the new population. You'll continue to get these referrals because people trust you. Yeah. So the good news is you're not going to starve in this transition. Right. That's important. And pun, not intended, but it worked out.
So you told me like what you want for your new client population, what are they coming into therapy for? Like, how do they describe what's going on for them? So they describe it as, you know, definitely from like a feminist lens of, I wasn't allowed to have boundaries. Like, it's just making other people happy. I don't want to make anyone angry.
And they feel so disconnected of like, I don't like how I'm being treated, but I also don't know what I want or how to, you know, how to communicate with others and how to feel safe in communicating it. Got it. So two people pleasing. Definitely. So it sounds like you're taking a lot of the personality structure of our eating disorder clients and putting it into this new niche without the food and body discussions in the same way, but taking a lot of that personality structure.
And you will probably slash may end up having a lot of recovered people who come to see you where some of this underlying stuff needs some more work, but they haven't engaged in any eating disorder behaviors for five years or something like that. And this, they recognize this as a trigger for them that needs addressing. So if they're coming to you feeling like, like they're people pleasing, their needs aren't being met. Do they know what their needs are? Have they lost track of those?
They've lost track of those. So a big part of it is like the IFS approach, like how to sort of ground into themselves, who they are today. And also take an act approach. So who do you, who do you want to be essentially? Right. And so a lot of identity exploration. Okay. Fun, fun. Good stuff. Okay. The tricky part with this kind of niche is that most therapists, if they have room in their caseload, we'll take them on, but you've been established in the community for a while.
You know, the other full therapists that you may know, mostly the full therapists within your niche, but I'm sure, you know, others who refer to you because they don't touch eating disorders with a dimple pole, but they've been full forever and we'll continue to get calls and we'll get some calls for these folks and you can let them know, instead of just referring me all the eating disorder folks, which thanks for all these referrals.
I'm looking at kind of the personality construct that often goes along with eating disorders and the relationship issues that they're having. So you can talk to your common referral sources, maybe not the treatment centers, but your other ones. Right. And they'll still continue to be good referrals for you. Not just with eating disorders, but also with your new niche. Yeah. I would make your website entirely about this person.
You'll still have the eating disorder people come because people trust you. And because the personality construct you describe is them also often. So that dynamic will be real. And it is okay to refer those folks out as you're talking to them. Yeah. I want to say that because there are not enough people who treat eating disorders and people clearly trust you. And so that doesn't mean you have to continue to see people with eating disorders.
Yeah. Do you think it's worth, because right now I just actually redid my website and I'm happy with it, but I, I did still include a page of eating disorders just to, I don't think it's the focus anymore. Like it's clear that's not my primary, but I still have that on there. But again, like I just, anytime I have anything with eating disorders, I'm just like, like, it's just, yeah, I'm over it. You know? Yeah. What if you hit it for now?
Does that feel like noncommittal enough to just hide it from like, it's not published or unpublished that one page. And that way, if you're, if you get into a place where you're like, I need clients and nobody's calling, you can just pop that baby up. Let your referral sources know. I'm not, I'm not really worried that that's going to happen, but I think just as an emotional safety net for you.
Yeah. So I would say hiding it for now or unpublishing that page, talking to your common referrals, people, it sounds like networking has been your primary. Are there other places that you've gotten clients? Psychology today, but primarily word of mouth, people send people to me, which is great. Yeah. But then I think about the work they do and you're so right. They would take something like that on, right? Because it's not as specialized per se. Yeah. But you've been established for a while.
So they probably have been too and are likely full. And if they're not full in August, they will be full in September, that kind of thing. You know, it's true. Yeah. I would talk to them. You may not need to do anything else, but if you want to make sure that you're doing all the things that you can, we can go through some of the other marketing strategies that are popular and effective, like SEO. SEO is going to require blogging. I don't know how you feel about writing. I love blogging.
Yeah. It was on my list. But again, without eating disorders, I'm like, I don't really quite know what to blog about. Oh, let's talk about it then. Let's get you a list. Okay. So we think about our people pleasers. We always want to have titles that pull people in. You could have one that's called, are you an asshole for saying no? Oh, that's a good one. Or a bitch, depending on like what your client says in their head, you know? Yeah, yeah.
So I would take whatever's in their head and make it a title. Yeah. So you could have that. You could have something about their anxiety when they set a boundary. I was just talking to a friend who's like magic at setting boundaries. And I was like, does it make you nervous? And she's like, I mean, I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, but not really. And I was like, how do you do this? I set the boundaries, but I'm like inside.
So maybe something like why are boundaries hard for you and not other people? Yeah, I like that. What's underlying all of this for them? Like what's the juicy, meaty stuff they don't realize they're coming into therapy for? You know, one thing that I've noticed, and I don't know if this is quite it, but it's just not being seen. Like they were put in a box a little bit by society, by family, by whoever. And they just learned to not take up too much space and stay in that box.
And that's kind of following them into adulthood. Yeah. Okay. Juicy. So you could talk about the fear of being seen. How does this person, what age are they? I love teenagers, but I also work with, you know, adults as well. Like my caseload for people who fit in this are anywhere from 20 to 75. Okay. So you can talk about this of like people pleasing across the lifespan. And your homepage, I want you to hit what this looks like across the lifespan. Like as a teenager, X, Y, and Z happens.
Yeah. And speak to the parents in that. Like you may see your daughter experiencing X, Y, like she's saying yes to things. You worry that she might be saying yes to things you don't know about that are not in her best interest. Speak to the parents' concerns there. Yeah. Because this teenager is probably getting good grades. She's probably a pleasure to have in class. All of these things, a good friend. Really, really impacted and affected when there's drama in the friend group.
So you can talk about that and how the parents see her mood being so volatile based on the people around her and her environment. And then you can talk about what that looks like in young adulthood when you're out on your own for the first time. So like maybe college or post-high school. And you're still speaking probably to the parents to some extent. I think so, yeah. Because they're the ones paying. True, very true.
So kind of making a hybrid of what that feels like for her and what the parents observe. Yeah. Not like their anxiety about it all. And then being a grown woman dating or an early marriage or something like that. And talking about how the people pleasing makes... They have a hard time finding a partner because they're not able to show up as themselves because they've kind of lost track of who that is. They're really good at reading the room and knowing what's expected of them on a date.
So for some of these folks, that means all the dates really like them because they're showing up as the mirror for what they want. And for some of these folks, they're not great at the portrayal of that person that they are trying to be. And so their dates don't go anywhere. Yeah. Like they don't get the second dates because people are like, I don't know, she just seemed kind of off or kind of desperate or kind of whatever. Talking about it as a mother and how that is such... That's so hard.
So just kind of like working your way and then the stages of motherhood, right? Like a mother with young kids versus a mother with teenagers where you're automatically stupid, you know? Everything you say is dumb to the people you love most in the world. And how you want to please them and you can't. You want to work... Like ideally you work on this stuff before you get to that phase because it just hurts so much. So there's lots of really good...
And then you can make a blog post out of every single one of those and link to it in the description. I love that. It's funny you talked about talking to the parents because I'd love to make a group for parents on how... Because first I was like, well, a guide on, you know, if you notice originally it was like, is your child starting to date and are you concerned, right? How do you teach your child healthy boundaries and relationships as they like get older? But I also like the people pleasing.
Are you the parent of a child who has to be perfect all the time and is like super critical? I thought about that. But I also, I have no idea how to market groups. I've run groups. I did family therapy, but I just don't know how to market for that as well. Yeah. Groups are tougher because it's more people at the same time. And that can be harder. We have in the party, a really great training by Katie K. May on how to start and fill a group. So that would be a good one to look at.
Yeah. And thinking through, she has you think through like, do you want this to be an ongoing group? Is this a closed group? An open group? Like, how's it working? Yeah. So, and based on that, you're going to do some different things. Ultimately you're so well connected already. You may end up getting a lot of eating disorder parents whose daughters fit this profile plus eating disorder. So you can fill your group with that.
If that, if the eating disorder piece, if you were clear with them, we're not talking specifically about eating disorders here. We're talking about some of the behaviors and presentations and how to support your daughter through. It's probably very difficult for them. Yeah. I'm thinking about how, like with OCD, how reassurance is like the worst possible thing you can do and how it's very similar with this dynamic as well, because that's the knee jerk reaction for any parent.
And reassuring your daughter that nobody's mad at her or what she did is fine or whatever. Like it doesn't, it doesn't help her. So you could do that with group. I would make the switch without groups first personally. Okay. Just to take some pressure off. Yeah. Start to get those clients in the door. And you may end up having some teenagers you're seeing where the parents you're getting the vibe that they would benefit from some support. In which case you could let them know.
Yeah. And I love that point about how it very well could be parents whose child has an eating disorder because I could fill that very quickly. I think just with the parents I work with and not work with specifically, but with their teens and, you know, so yeah. So no, that's really helpful. I actually didn't even make the connection between how much this profile is similar to eating disorders. So that definitely feels a little bit less scary.
Yeah. And you know, your ideal client so well, you've been working with her for years. She just had this other way of dealing with it. Yeah. And so it's thinking about how without the food stuff, how is this ideal client dealing with it? Is she crying in her room? Is she scrolling on social media? Is she thinking through how all of that going on inside is manifesting outside? And the food piece is going to be there, but you know. Right, it's America. Right. Right.
Yeah. But it's just the idea of losing the dieticians, right? Because I get so many from dieticians. Goal for their programs is eating disorder support. So yeah. So that part makes me a little nervous. And do you know how successful people are if they market to schools? Like there's some private schools in the area that are, you know, I thought might be a good idea, but I'm not sure how successful people are with that.
Yeah. I mean, if you get an in, like with a counselor, if they're willing to meet with you, it's public schools are harder to get an in with. Yeah. The private schools are not quite as hard. You can usually just kind of send an email or call the front desk and ask to be transferred and chat. Okay. So I would get in touch with the counselor there, see if you can bring food, you know, like, I know your day is super busy. Can I bring lunch? And I just love to network and chat.
And if they're like, oh, I'm too busy to do that, then I would have like kind of a little script written out. Yeah. That you're succinct because we can be very wordy and just talk about who you work with because they're working with this, you know, they've got the kids, they just can't do the same level of support that you can just because of the nature of their role.
Yeah. My practice gets tons of referrals from private schools because we specialize in teenagers with anxiety and teenagers with eating disorders. Yeah. We get a lot. So I think the private schools and my kids go to a private school. So I'm not trying to dog on private school parents, but I think that some private school parents that I've encountered have a lot of Ivy league dreams for their kids.
And they really are messaging things very young and intensely in ways that they don't realize they're doing. They don't realize the pressure they're putting on. Yeah. So yeah, kids often absorb that and internalize it. Yeah. Now that's a good, that'd be helpful to bring up in any sort of parenting group. I do.
Yeah. You know, the other thing that when I think of like, what's my dream is building curriculums for these types of groups or presentations, even if I'm not the one that is, you know, doing it. And I've done this for a nonprofit and I just found out one that I wrote a few years ago had gotten a grant and it's been running successfully for a few years. I love that. Congrats. Thank you. Yeah, that was exciting. So I know I have the skills.
I just don't know what, if that's really a common thing for therapists to do. I don't know that it's a common thing, but I don't know that that needs to stop you. Yeah. Like if you enjoy the process of creating curriculum and they get something, it's an opportunity for you to really get your message out. Then again, I would get your practice where you want it first, just because divided energy is divided energy. Yeah. You'll get fuller with your ideal clients faster if you focus there first.
Okay. And then think about it because, I mean, there's such an emphasis on like social emotional learning. And I feel like people are really starting to value the psychological health of anybody. Yeah. In ways that they haven't, there's a lot less stigma around even talking about it. So I think it could be really beneficial and you could do it for different age groups too. Yeah. Or different like, like would this be good in a corporate setting?
What's the corporate setting version of this or things like that? You could do all sorts of interesting things with it. Yeah. Yeah. No, I do think that's sort of the, I wouldn't say the end goal, but that's one that gets me excited. Cause I, if I'm not excited about what I'm doing, I'm just like dragging my feet. It is hard to get back engaged. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. Yeah. And I love that you took the time to be honest with yourself because it's really scary to say like, ah, this thing that I, like it's my golden ticket. I don't think I want it. Right. And that's sort of the, you know, everybody's on the one hand, people are like, we'll do what feels best. But the other one, it's like, well, eating disorders, you know, cause there definitely is that scarcity mindset everywhere.
You know, everybody's opening a private practice and there's not enough clients. And I don't necessarily think that's true, but definitely when I talk to people, I get mixed messages, you know, mixed response. Yeah. Yeah. And I'll say there are still way more clients out there than there are therapists. I mean, you know, you get more referrals than you can handle.
I'm sure with eating disorders because there aren't other people to send them to or more realistically, you don't know the people to send them to because those folks aren't marketing themselves. Yeah. Like you're somebody's dream referral source and they don't know how to, they're not getting in touch with you about it. Yeah. Yeah. No. So I think what I'm going to do is try to just keep my eating disorders part more like word of mouth.
So if I have like a network or like someone I network with that I'm close with and they're like, can you please take this person? That's fine. But maybe just not broadcast it. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's the smoothest possible way to do it. Yeah. It'll tamp down any scarcity that pops up and you'll be able to build over time the clientele that you want and maintain income.
And as the people with eating disorders graduate from therapy or move or whatever, they'll create space for the other population. Yeah. Okay. So even though it's not a super clear reach out to the hospitals, it's not like there's nowhere to network or market this. Yeah. Plenty of places, plenty of places. Thinking about like, where do they go? Are they trying to funnel all their anxiety into yoga? In which case, can you do this talk at a yoga studio?
Are they, do they have tummy troubles because they're so anxious and they can't seem to be good enough for themselves? If so, GI docs could be great or PCPs or OBs. Sometimes there's that like, I don't know if this is a gynecological thing or a tummy thing. Yeah. I'll just go to a mom and try to figure it out. I feel like a lot of my clients have like ping ponged back and forth when it's hardcore anxiety. Yeah. No, definitely. I've definitely seen that.
Yeah. I wish there was a way to like have an ad on Tinder. It's like, is this not working for you? Because you may need therapy. Right. That'd be amazing. Yeah. Have like a really hot guy profile for the straight women. Yeah. There we go. And then all the details are just like, don't you want somebody better? Yeah. Are you tired of getting in the same relationships not being seen?
I wonder if that would be an interesting group of like, not finding the one, like, you know, kind of just what that's like. Yeah. Because it's something so many, particularly like young women in their twenties struggle with. Yeah. And it's almost like this funny thing that you tell your girlfriends about and they tell you about their weird dates and things like that. And it becomes this thing that's normalized.
Yeah. When actually you can show up as yourself and just be like, oh, this isn't a fit. Like I remember it was my late twenties when I finally figured out, oh, I'm morphing. And I don't want to do that anymore. And I'm just going to show up and I would just be like, like 20 minutes in and be like, I don't think this is working. I think I'm going to head out. Yeah. It was so empowering to just be like, I'm going to be fully myself. And if it's weird or awkward, I don't have to stay.
I don't owe that to anybody. And that word is, that word is sort of what keeps coming up in my website and stuff like empowerment, you know, but I just, I need to make sure that I, I do keep it from like how people pleasing is impacting relationships. Cause it's the relationship and healthy relationships piece that I'm like, yes, this is where I want to be. Yeah. Cause there's that sense that nobody knows you.
Like you're saying, like nobody really sees you and then you grow resentful of all that you're holding or saying or doing for someone when that's on you ultimately. Yeah. And yeah. You just continue to like be a doormat and then get upset about it. I mean, that's the less empathetic version. No, it is what it is though. Yeah. That's sort of my approach. Yeah. This is so exciting. I like, I have ideas again and I'm not like, you know, lunch, lunch and talk, you know? Yeah. Good. I'm glad.
I see the spark in you. So that makes me happy. I'm really excited. Thank you so much for the blog ideas. Cause I was just sitting there. I'm like, I just want to do like a boring, like here's some signs that maybe, so this is much more personality. Yeah. Yeah. You could do like a same guy, different head blog where it's like you keep going on dates with essentially the same Brad. Same bullshit, different guy. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So fun. Cool. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. This is going to be fun to see this morph. So definitely like keep us updated in the Facebook group. Yeah, we'll do. Awesome. Thank you again. Absolutely. Take care. You too. Bye. Bye. If you're ready for a much easier practice, Therapy Notes is the way to go. Go to therapynotes.com and use the promo code for two months free.