(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.
Go to abundancepracticebuilding.com slash links. All right, on to the show. So I've talked about therapy notes on here for years. I could talk about the features and the benefits in my sleep, but there are a couple of things I want you to know about therapy notes that doesn't typically make it into an ad script. First is that they actually care if you like their platform. They don't only make themselves available on the phone to troubleshoot so you don't pull your hair out when you get stuck.
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Well, I guess I'm kind of thinking through my niche a little bit more. I think I have an idea, but I just want to, I don't know, maybe I just kind of need to talk it out and flesh it out. And then also thinking about, you know, I would like to get in the social media world. How to kind of go about that and kind of bring that there. So yeah, I think that that's... Awesome. Yeah. Well, lay your niche on me so far. All right.
So as of right now, so I actually come from more of a generalistic training and background. And so it took me kind of a while to find my niche just because I can kind of work well with a lot of different folks. And what I've landed on or what feels more exciting for me and more in tune with kind of my specialty, my expertise is working with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders.
Amazing. So my website copy, I feel like speaks to kind of that, you know, overwhelmed kind of pregnancy and postpartum, but I feel like I'm also wanting to attract the women that maybe don't consider themselves like postpartum, but still have kind of similar struggles. So maybe the moms who are a couple years out, but still have like those itty bitties are still struggling with prioritizing themselves. And so I feel like my website copy kind of speaks more to like the baby or having the baby.
But I feel like the women who are a couple years out, they've gone through the newborn phase, maybe they're in a toddler phase or preschool phase, but now maybe they're seeing more of the effects in their relationships, like in the marriage, in their career, right? It's kind of different complexities. And so I feel like I'm just wondering how to kind of bind it or to articulate it in a way. Sometimes when I talk to people about it, I kind of ramble on. Like my elevator pitch, you know?
So I think you could kind of phrase it like, I help women who are going through what feels impossible sometimes with newborns all the way up to toddlers, better than that. But you know what I mean? Like, I think speaking more to how hard it is rather than a particular symptom of perinatal mood disorder or something like that. But like I work with new moms who are not having an easy time of it with their babies or toddlers.
And then in your website, you can get into the specifics of what that struggle looks like for them day to day. And I'm wondering too, if some of the toddler moms would have been ideal clients when their kids were babies, is that okay? Yeah. So it's like maybe some untreated, you know, postpartum anxiety or something like that, that really has festered in some ways. I mean, they kind of just power it through, right? I'm hoping that it would maybe get better and it kind of doesn't, right?
Cause kids need you in different ways, you know, when they're like older. Yeah. And you can speak to the specifics. So like for, for postpartum anxiety, for instance, we don't necessarily need to call it postpartum anxiety on the homepage.
I would have a perinatal mood disorders specialty page where you can go into those, but you can talk about, you know, checking on your baby 37 times in the night to make sure they're sleeping like the, um, and then you can, and you can say like, or for toddlers who are just so mobile and so active and so ready to bump their heads on everything.
You follow them around more than your friends follow their toddlers around just noticing kind of the panic and the behaviors that follow or, or alleviate the panic. So I would, I would speak to that, the intense difficulty of leaving your kids with other people. I would just talk through those, those really specific things to your ideal clients.
Like the first time, if you don't have any sort of perinatal mood disorder, the first, second, third time you leave your kid with somebody that you trust, you're like, I hope it goes okay. You know, but it abates over time in a way that it doesn't always for people who are struggling. I guess I want to be able to speak to maybe more of the like working moms too. Um, and I mean, the fact that having a balance is just not really possible. Like something's always gonna like give right.
Um, the guilt that comes with feeling like you're having to, to choose. Yeah. Um, you know, um, so then you kind of lose part of yourself in that. So I guess maybe the way I'm thinking about it website wise, right. So can kind of speak to all these, these are good ideas, kind of pinpoint, maybe not necessarily make it too specific to baby, but just kind of generalize it a little bit more.
Um, but also that like specialty page, maybe I guess is that where I would kind of go more into what it would be called, but just like, um, motherhood and cause I would definitely have one for the, you know, depression and anxiety, right. What that would look like. Um, I guess maybe that's where I'm stuck. Like how would I break that a little bit more?
Yeah. I mean, your homepage can, can say like, I work with moms of babies and toddlers trying to manage the impossible task of staying on top of things at work, trying to be a good partner, keeping a house that's not a disaster zone and being the kind of mom they want to be. That's going to speak to a broader audience than those who have potential perinatal mood disorder diagnoses. And I don't know if that's what you want.
Like if you want it to be, um, less acute, maybe you can be really specific about the working mom piece because there is, there are different layers, you know, not, not more just different with working moms versus stay at home moms. It's, there are some different struggles and some similar struggles. And particularly for those age groups also, like being a working mom to my eight and 11 year old is a very different, much easier experience than it was when they were one in four.
Yeah. So I feel like I want it all. Yeah. And you'll still get people on the outside, you know, you'll still get people outside your very specific niche, the people who are resonating with a lot of what you're saying. So it's not that you're excluding them. You're really calling in your very, very favorites and you'll get the others too. Okay. Okay. This is good. I'll think, I'll think, think about how to kind of flesh that out a little bit more, um, in thinking about like my marketing, right?
So right now it's my website. Um, I have a directory, uh, psychology today. I haven't started, but I'm going to start blogging. I already have some ideas. And, um, obviously I've been trying to kind of network, although that one's moving a little bit difficult because I have talk about working mom struggles, right? Like have very, very like limited and sometimes even like no kind of, um, uh, childcare.
So, you know, sometimes toddler does come along with me, but can't always come along with me, uh, every single networking, networking event. So that's been a little bit challenging. I would say. Um, and the other one that I wanted, I would like to do and, um, not put off by it, but I'm just not really sure what kind of where to start would be social media. Got it. So which social media you mentioned Instagram, right?
I think Instagram, I think Instagram feels Instagram and LinkedIn, but it, um, but I think Instagram feels more like me. Like I tend to do better, you know, I'm more of an introverted heart, or if I need to speak to a crowd, you know, I can, and that feels like kind of safe, like where I'm speaking to a crowd, but I don't necessarily see them. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. That feels a little bit safer for me. Um, and I like that.
Like, um, and that's how I, how I connect with a lot of my friends and family that I probably wouldn't necessarily connect with. Um, and so I, I like the idea of that, but I'm just not really sure how to start. Like I've had a page with just one picture there for a year, year and a half. I haven't done anything with it. Not sure if it's my own anxiety about it. Um, or if it's just, I really kind of just don't know where to start. Yeah. So what I'd recommend is reels first and foremost.
So getting comfortable on video, um, you, you have to have your niche really well honed and I would have three different content buckets, like three different things you talk about over and over and over and over. And you would think aren't people going to get sick of this, but they don't, they really don't because people are seeing themselves and they're gaining something new from most of what you put out, whether it's educational, whether it's funny.
And if you can do a blend of education and entertainment, like edutainment, then it really helps hook people. It makes people want to follow you. What I see some people doing is focusing more on building up a large following, which isn't necessary to have success in private practice through Instagram. So like, even if you end up with like a thousand followers, you can still have lots of clients. You don't need a hundred thousand followers for that.
So don't put a lot of pressure on yourself with it. I think the hardest thing about social media to prepare yourself for is at some point you will put something out there that people don't like and they will be really shitty about it. And so to just be able to hold onto yourself to know, like when that first one happens, like you made it, you did it. Look at you getting visibility. And you know, when, and if that happens, you just come to me and I will pep talk you, it's fine.
But there's a lot of, there's a lot of consistency necessary. And as your audience grows, there's going to be a lot more time and energy that you're going to need to invest in Instagram in order to maintain and continue to build. You do not need to have like long DM conversations with people. Don't do that. This is not therapy. This is Instagram, right? So go ahead and make sure that your information is all really clear in your bio of like, this is not therapy.
In the party, Kelly walks us through what helped her grow her Instagram really solidly. And she gets lots of clients and she helps people with that. So she's a really good resource. And that's in both the social media part portion of the party. And in the trainings, we put it in both because it's really good. You'll need to do a video. That's something everybody needs to get used to. If you want to have Instagram, we can't just post cute quotes and things like that.
I've actually been like practicing, obviously deleting the right way, but just like, I have to get used to like, because it's awkward, right? Yeah, it really is. I've been kind of practicing that. But I mean, I feel like I'm ready for it. And I think that could be a really good strategy for me, just knowing my personality and stuff. Yeah. And like, really, you just bet everything that you would post, like, would my ideal client giggle at this or learn from this or feel validated through this?
Because we really want to normalize for people that it's like, they're not the only ones. They're not broken. Like babies and toddlers are brutal. There's just like, there's so much that you can convey to them that will help them feel seen and known, even if they never come to see you.
And do not hesitate in every single caption to say, like, if you're in my state and you're looking for therapy, hit the link in my bio or set up a, an automatic replier and say like, DM me the word therapy and you'll get a link, like be really clear. You'll get a link. I'm not chatting with you. So it's planning it out ahead of time. Knowing what you're going to do, not just like on a whim. I think that's how a lot of therapists end up using social media is like, oh, this is funny.
I'll repost it. Or I made this, I have something to say, but they don't work an actual strategy. They don't put forethought into it. And that's what's necessary. Creating like a calendar of on these days, this is what I'll post. Yeah, exactly. I think we saw some time. I guess my other thing in thinking about like marketing and like I said, networking has been challenging, although in January should be better, more childcare, reliable childcare, but in thinking about like who to reach out to.
So right now on my list is, you know, obviously other like colleagues or people in practice, psychiatrists. I am reaching out, having a little difficulty, but reaching out to OBGYN, lactation consultant, Lindsay, a recommended pelvic floor therapist. And I had the idea the other day about like mom groups. I wasn't sure if there's anything else maybe that I may be missing or that maybe thinking outside the box that could be a good person or, you know, kind of group tip to network with.
Yeah. I mean, it's inside the box, but like postpartum doulas, because they're, they're seeing a lot. Night nurses. Night nurses. Okay. I didn't think about them. I love the lactation consultant and midwives. Midwives and my lactation consultant were how I found a perinatal mood disorder therapist when I needed one. We did cranial sacral therapy with my daughter when she was an infant, cause she had latch issues. This was in Seattle. We go a little woo.
And I'd been given the card from my midwife. The lactation consultant had recommended this cranial sacral therapist. And the cranial sacral therapist was like, you need help girl. She was very much like, I'm much less concerned about your baby than I am about you. And it was her saying that that actually got me to call to make the call. So anybody who like specializes in infants and toddlers, so you could also do talks for parents at daycares.
I know that that's, I don't know if that feels good to you or if that's too much of an audience, but if it's like you're teaching something. They tend to be smaller groups. Yeah. Yeah. I can do talks with parents, not like a grand round. Right, right. There we go. Yeah. So offering talks at daycares and I might play off some things that are really popular right now. Like gentle parenting is something everybody has heard of probably in like the millennial and younger generations.
And some of my gen Xers, but I wonder about if you did a talk called something like a gentle parenting with a backbone because gentle parenting inherently has a backbone, but people don't expect that from the name. If, if gentle parenting is your thing, I don't know, but that could be like a gateway in the moms groups you mentioned. That's a really great idea.
We had in Seattle, we had very organized moms groups where like by zip code and the month that you gave birth to your body, you were your body, your baby, you were put into a group together. And so we had both our birthing group that we went through all our prenatal stuff. And then we had this other group of people who had babies born the same month in our same zip code. And both of those would have been great places to learn more. And sometimes they're looking for speakers.
So. Yeah. Well, I'm here in the Houston area, so there's definitely a lot of like moms groups here. It's much more specialized to kind of, cause it's so big, like to like where you're, where you're at. Yeah. But yeah. Okay. I mean, it sounds like there, I mean, there's a lot of people. Yeah. I feel like your niche has the most people to reach out to, honestly, which is beautiful. It's because there's a team of a huge team of people here to help and support this process. Right.
And that's wonderful. And it can be overwhelming. So I would also take a time with it, especially without childcare yourself right now, all this can wait until January and maybe spend the next month or so just reaching back out to people that you'd already met with and just be like, Hey, I'm just thinking about you. I hope that you're going to get some rest of this holiday season or whatever. Just like letting them know that they're on your mind situation.
Yeah. That's a good suggestion to kind of still reach out. Yeah. I planned on using this time much worth like blogging and trying to get some of that set up so that I can kind of full speed, you know, go full speed ahead in January meeting up with people, which is what I like when I network, like I like, I like that. And so, okay. Well, this is good. This is helpful. This is really helpful. Good. Good. And let us know in group or in the Facebook group, any support you need. All right. Thank you.
I may, once I kind of think a little bit more, probably my, um, I think I have my about page pretty good. And my specialty page for the most part is pretty good. Um, I am noticing that like people go to like my website from psych today and then they're not clicking. So I don't know if it's my website or if it's, I don't know. Yeah. Um, so I'm not sure. I'm imagining it's probably my website. So I may have to reach out to the group to get some people. Yeah, absolutely. Throw it up there.
That'd be really good. Yeah. Great. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Take good care. Okay. Bye. Bye. If you're ready for a much easier practice, therapy notes is the way to go. Go to therapy notes.com and use the promo code abundant for two months free. Make sure your email is actually HIPAA compliant with pow box. Use code abundant to get pow box for less than a hundred dollars. Your first year at P a U B O X.com let's stay compliant.
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