(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. Hey, how are you doing? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. What would be most helpful today? Okay, so I am just starting out, like literally just starting out, and I'm really struggling like trying to figure out marketing here.
So like everybody here is kind of like all the centers are really possessive, we'll say, of their clients, so they're not open to referrals or anything like that. So I'm kind of really struggling in that area. Yeah, and I would say in most areas, the centers and the group practices are not looking to refer people out. It goes against their business model. So instead, it's looking at who else do your ideal clients find first? Many, many people aren't interested in going to a big clinic.
They would much rather go to like a small private office or virtual office, you know, but they're looking for one person, not a huge conglomerate. So tell me first about your ideal client, because that's going to shape all of it. So okay, so I did the niche course, and I kind of came out with like, my ideal client is a scatterbrained person who knows they can do better, but can't figure out like how to do better. Uh-huh. Got it. And how is their scatterbrainedness impacting their life?
They just, I guess, like self-deprecation, like at the end of the day, like knowing, gosh, if these things had been there, I could have done this, or I could have achieved better, or I could like excel in my job or family or stuff like that. And what's causing the scatterbrain? Are they, do they have ADHD? Are they just overcommitted? Are they anxious? What's happening? I would say more like overcommitted or like ADHD, over anxiety, like I've worked with some anxiety.
I kind of struggle to work with strictly people that just have anxiety or like panic disorder, but I have worked with them. So I would say like more on like the neurodivergent, kind of overcommitting, like more people -pleasing almost side. Awesome. And do they know they have ADHD? Most of them don't. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So your ideal clients, they're struggling with this. I think they're probably Googling. So SEO might be a really effective tool for you.
I think the private practitioner, like you said, testing psychologists, maybe your ideal client is just found out, like their doctor suggested. So like PCPs would be lower down on the rung of like who to contact because they're just hard to get in with. It takes a lot of work to get in with a doctor. They can fill your practice single-handedly, but it takes significantly more effort. So I would talk to testing psychologists and let them know, like they don't have to have an ADHD diagnosis.
Maybe they ruled out ADHD, but they are still having executive functioning issues because they're overcommitted because they're having a hard time. Yeah. I would look for the ARNPs in your area, the prescribers that are not associated with big groups because they're likely prescribing a fair amount of ADHD meds and thinking of all the people who already know necessarily your ideal client. I think the other therapists who are full, who work with, do you have a gender preference? No, not really.
Okay. Do you have an age that you really love? I enjoy most working with people in their late twenties to thirties. I have worked with children. I'm not a fan of working with children. I've worked with teens. Teens are fine. I'm okay with teens, but I would say ideally it would be like late twenties on up. Okay. Got it. So there's significantly more responsibilities at this age, right? They might be getting married. They might be having kids.
So they are taking what already probably felt overwhelming for them in terms of like their to-do list and the things on their plate. And it's, it's amping way up. Yeah. So you can speak to that. You can speak to the ways I'm thinking about your website right now. You can speak about the ways in which them dropping balls is impacting work, is impacting relationships, is impacting their relationship with themselves. You said like the self-deprecation is there.
And so I think there's a comparison that's often happening for your clients too, of why is it that everybody else can keep all these balls in the air or all these plates spinning? And I can't, am I just lazy? Am I just not good enough? Yeah. Because if they don't know that they're neurodivergent, and I mean, so many people in this age range are finding out like, oh, that explains everything. Like now I get it. I found out two years ago, so yeah, exactly. It's wild.
I mean, I think about all my therapist friends who I was in grad school 20 years ago. So ADHD was like tiny touched upon. It was not talked about in the way it is now. And it was talked about in relation to children. And so, so many of my peers are in their forties and realizing, yeah, so I'm glad you found out two years ago and I'm glad that it's such a conversation in the zeitgeist because otherwise a lot of people would go undiagnosed a hundred percent.
So I don't know that your ideal client hasn't considered that they might have ADHD though, just because it is a part of the zeitgeist. If they're on TikTok or Instagram or have friends, you know, like it gets talked about. So you could even say something like, you wonder if you have ADHD or if you're in some way neurodivergent, because it just seems so much easier for everyone else. I would talk to the others in your area that specialize in ADHD.
I promise you, there are some private practice folks who work with adults with ADHD. They're probably full just like you will be. And so they can, after conversations and understanding that like, you know what you're doing, then they'll refer people your way. Yeah. Are you in an area where neurodivergence is kind of like accepted and appreciated? So yes and no. I think yes, for the greater, we'll say like the greater population, no, in terms of like schooling and anything like that.
There aren't, like, honestly, like there really aren't resources. I ended up having to take my child out of school because she wasn't getting help. So it's like a yes and a no, like, I think it's a conversation, but a lot of people aren't necessarily open to that. Got it. Okay. And are you working virtually or in-person exclusively? Both. Awesome. So you've got the whole state. And what state are you in? I'm in South Carolina. Awesome. Yay. Hey, Carolina, buddy. Next door.
Yeah. Okay. And I will say with the schools, as a parent of a kid with multiple neurodivergent diagnoses, sometimes they appreciate it, but they don't have the resources for it. And sometimes they don't appreciate it and they don't allocate the resources to it. It's all over the place. But because you're wanting to work with adults, I think that there's a different tact you can take than you would need to if you were working with kids in the schools. How do you feel about public speaking?
I'm okay with it. Okay. I'm not opposed to it. I haven't done a lot beyond, you know, school requirements, but like, I'm not opposed to it. Yeah. I wonder if giving talks at schools and like, I know you're like, but I don't want kids giving talks at schools about attention issues and how, I mean, we know there's just such a huge correlation. I mean, it's, it's hereditary, it's genetic, like there's the parents have it too.
So you can talk about like, how as a parent, you can self-regulate when your kid is driving you crazy because they're not doing X, Y, or Z when you've told them to 35 times and how one of those self-regulation tools could be empathy. And how does this show up for you? And what we know is that many people are being late diagnosed with ADHD and here's how it shows up in adults.
If you were doing elementary school, some of the people might be older than your ideal clients, but there's still, you know, 20 and 30 year old there. Yeah. So you could kind of like pitch it as this thing, give them what they're looking for. Plus far more, they're going to want referrals for their kids. So have those ready and make sure at the end of any talk, you always sell from the stage.
Never just be like, thanks so much for your time and walk away to say like, for some of you, I mentioned late diagnosis, ADHD and what that looks like. And that might be kind of freaking you out a little bit. This is the population I work with. I work with adults with ADHD. If that's something you'd like support and you have my information, I'd love to, I'd love for you to reach out.
So don't be afraid to say that it's not cheesy or salesy or rude because the people sitting there are like, oh my gosh, do I have ADHD? And I haven't known all this time. And it explains so much. And what do I even do with that? The person sitting there needs to be told what to do next. Okay. So I think it's also like for me just kind of getting started, like how do you even get your foot in a door like that? Mm-hmm. Cool counselors.
Okay. So you probably have a relationship with a school counselor at the school your kid went to whether it's good or bad, I don't know, but like you have their email at least. Yeah. And so it could be reaching out to them and saying like, I know my kid wasn't a fit for the school. I have this talk that I've put together that I think will be really helpful for parents who have kids that struggle to concentrate or struggle to sit still. Is this something you would be interested in?
And most of the school counselors in a district kind of know one another and communicate. So it's kind of a talk and you'd give the same exact talk. You don't need to reconfigure it, but you could do the same talk at multiple schools. You could also reach out to the private schools in the area also to the school counselor. Okay. Or if you can find like the PTA or PTO president, they often are looking for speakers and sometimes the schools have them listed.
Okay. Yeah. So just getting started, because I have like the website, I have my psychology today and all that set up. So now I'm just trying to get people to contact me. Yeah. You need people to find your website in psychology today. Yeah. So networking is great for that, but it's not an immediate payoff.
I really think your people are probably starting to Google, like, why can't I get things done or time management or dummies, or, you know, like they're trying to find some hack when it's just that their brain works differently and they're the time management thing they find online is going to help for three days and then it's not going to help anymore. Right. And then they're going to feel shame about it when it's not their fault.
So I would write some blog posts and SEO those puppies, whether that's outsourcing it or that's DIY. There are lots of resources for SEO. The people we like and recommend, they have different tiers where they'll do it for you or they'll teach you how to do it, or it's a court, you know, so there are different things for that. And in the party, we have them SEOing blog posts so you can see how that's done. That's what I would suggest. Gotcha.
And the blog posts don't have to be like Pulitzer prize winning material. If you have a hard time writing, which I mean, I know a lot of my neurodivergent folks do, you know, it's not so fun to sit there with a blank page. You could talk to text it and then edit it. You could talk to text it, put it in chat, GPT, tell them to match the tone and to clean it up and to make it at least 800 words. There are all sorts of things you could do that can make it more doable.
Okay. What about social media and videos? Is that something worth like tapping into? It is. If you love social media and you have the time for it, that one takes the most time of pretty much all of the marketing strategies, because the thing that makes social media work is that it's social. And so you have to be on there. You have to reply to everything. You have to post often enough that you're able to both build an audience and stay on people's radar.
But I think it could be really powerful because there's so much education you can do around it. There's so much like, here's why you don't need to beat yourself up about this. Like whether or not they have ADHD or they just have executive functioning issues or they're just overwhelmed. We live in a culture of overwhelm. So even the folks who are neurotypical struggle, right. Don't be afraid to give away your best stuff. It is not the same as a therapy session.
So if there are techniques you use in therapy that are really effective for your people that can translate into social media without it being like therapy, then don't be afraid to share that with people. Okay. I like writing. So like I've thought of starting a blog several times and I just haven't pulled the trigger. Yeah. So I think that would probably be my easiest option right now. Awesome. And you can do two first. You could make so many reels off of a blog post.
You could just basically look at a paragraph you wrote, say it into your phone like a reel and it's like a twofer with the work that you did. So if you want to do social media, don't be afraid to reuse content because it's going to keep you from becoming a content machine and feeling overwhelmed. Right. We don't want you in the position your clients are in. Exactly. Yeah. Yes. So my other question would be, so I'm three months pregnant. Congratulations. Thank you.
I haven't told any of my clients. How do you start that conversation? Yeah. I was in private practice for both my kids. I waited until I was solidly out of the questionable area. So solidly out of the first trimester. I showed with both of them really early and having like my clients all have eating disorders, so they notice body changes. So I kind of had to talk about it earlier than I may have otherwise.
But I think as soon as you start showing in a way that your clients in person would see, whenever that time is, I would do this for your virtual people too, just so everybody's on the same page at the same time and you don't like forget to tell every single person, then I would let them know. We have scripts for that in the party. Okay. I just had a conversation with somebody the other day about this. She had gone on maternity leave and basically had to rebuild her entire practice after.
Whereas with both my maternity leaves, I was full within two weeks of returning because most of my people came back and the difference as we sussed it out, the difference was she left with a, I don't know how long my maternity leave is going to be. That could be six months. That could be a year. I totally understand. I would go find another therapist or use the referral provided.
Whereas I said, I am planning on with my first, I said, I am planning on three months that could be extended, but that's the, that's the plan. And so, because that was kind of like in everybody's head when indeed three months later, I was able to come back. It was no problem. And I'd given everybody referrals cause I didn't want anybody left hanging, but this was a long time ago, like 11 years ago. So if anybody took them, they still came back to me, basically.
It was like an interim therapist with my second kid, I was gone for two months and everybody came back. So it was a lot smoother and easier, I think, because they knew what to expect. And I still left wiggle room for like, I mean, you never know what's going to happen. Right. And I had postpartum depression with my first and it had resolved by the end of that third month or else I would have had to extend it.
But I left enough wiggle room that if anything happened to me medically or emotionally that required it to go longer, I had given myself an out there. Okay. Yeah. That's what my husband and I've been discussing in like about three months probably would be enough. Assuming everything is good and healthy. Yeah. Yeah. And all our international people right now, we're like three months, that's it. Right.
But y'all here in the U.S. I have friends who went back to work two weeks later because they didn't have any TTO saved up and that was the position they were in. So yeah, you can still be in a diaper yourself, but at work, you're in a good old US of A. So I would do all the math too with finances and making sure it's all, y 'all are going to be fine so that you're not stressing about money while you're stressing about having new life that you're responsible for and all of that.
Yeah. It's such a, is this your first? This is my second. Second. Okay, cool. But a decade later, so. Oh wow. Oh my gosh. There's a huge gap. The stuff they have now, like the pumps are wild, like all the cool stuff. I was looking at that. I was like, wow, me at 21 didn't have this. Yeah. I was talking to one of my associates that works in my clinical practice and I was like, what is that sound? We're just standing there in the kitchen. I was like, what's that sound? She's like, it's my pump.
She's just standing there pumping. You couldn't even see anything. It was amazing. That's crazy. Yeah. So those are my two like really pressing concerns. Yeah. Well, and it's an interesting thing. Like you're starting out and ramping up and you're also pregnant and going to need to shift down. Right.
And so that's kind of a delicate balance because you don't want to bring in so many people who have, you know, you don't want to bring anybody probably within six weeks of when you're supposed to give birth. Yeah. And depending on the type of therapy you do too. Like if you do solutions focused, brief therapy, for instance, you could keep taking folks can take a box. But if you do longer term work, yeah. It's being clear with the people who call at, I'd say about six months pregnant.
I'd probably let the people calling no clients tend to underestimate the amount of time they're going to be in therapy. So a lot of people will be like, that's fine because you can say like, I can meet with you for three ish months, depending on when this baby comes, but, and we can pick up three months later and some people will bite and some people will say no, thank you. So yeah. Yeah. So I do like, I would say I like I've, I've done both.
I use a lot of EMDR. So sometimes that escalates the process and sometimes there's just a lot of stuff you got to sort out. So that's kind of a toss up I found. Yeah. Yeah. EMDR is pretty magic about that. Yeah. So quick. Yeah. And if you know the average number of sessions that people see you, like if it's eight sessions, then you can let people know like on average, and this is going to depend on what you're coming in with.
When on average, I see my clients for eight sessions or two months or six months or whatever and just let them know. And I would, I would only maybe share that because I don't want them comparing themselves to your average, you know, but I might share that only in the context of you being out for maternity leave. Okay. All right. Awesome. Thanks. Sounds good. Yay. Congratulations.
We have a really long blog post, really long from my second, when I was pregnant with my second that if you just search maternity leave and abundance practice building, you'll find it. Okay. Cool. I will do that. Awesome. Yay. Yay. All right. And in the party, we also have all the consents I used because there's all this paperwork, you know, that you need to let them know.
Like I may just not show up one day basically, like, um, or I may have this other person call you to let you know that there's some consents that you might want them to sign. So CYA, you know? Yeah. I'll look that up. I hadn't even thought of that actually. Yeah. We got you covered. Yeah. All right. Keep us updated in the Facebook community. Absolutely. And congratulations. Thank you. Thank you so much. Sure. Take care. All right.
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