(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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I am about a year, not quite a year, more like 10 months into practice. Okay. And it really latched onto your program, right? When people are like, well, how did you do this? Or how did you figure out this? I'm like, it's all abundance practice building. Like it's like no original content. It's just all you. I appreciate that so much. Yay. Thank you. So I feel like a good place to spend time today would be this like marketing rut that I'm feeling. Okay. A little bit of like a niche rut.
Because I've been licensed for 20 some years. I did some original like agency work and worked with victims of crime in an agency. And then spent a lot of time in schools. I was a high school counselor for alternative kids. And then I ran a program for homeless students. So I did some admin stuff and then kind of like ready for a change, went into private practice. So I started off with this kind of niche that felt, I think, a little roomy, right?
I really like to work with people and get them back into things that make them successful. Part of their community is doing what they need to do. And so my niche, I think, was something like I work with people who are having problems that are like getting in the way of school and work. Which I know is not super formed. I'd never had it like really formed. But that's what I would kind of tell people. My caseload is like pretty diverse.
I see about anywhere from like 18 to 22 people a week, which is kind of like, maybe I'd like to go like a little bit less. Yeah. But a lot of my clients do have stuff that's like they come in like my adults feeling like burned out from work, which I love. I love working with educators and helping them kind of get excited about things again. Right. Yeah. And I also love getting kids back in school. So I end up with like this, like a lot of anxiety.
And so now when people are like, what do you specialize in? I say, you know, I kind of restate my original mission and say, like, I end up like with a lot of kids who have anxiety, end up with like a lot of kids who are afraid of throwing up. Right. This like OCD presentation. And I'm like diving in. I'm learning all about it. But I do feel like without this like strong niche, then like I don't know where to go with marketing.
I end up like I'm posting stuff about like mental health quotes in general. Right. Which is just wasting your time, really. Honestly. Yeah. I think I have a full caseload because I'm like pretty well connected. Yeah. Because networking works. Yeah. Networking builds a reputation. Yes. I grew up around like 20 minutes from here. I went to college and grad school around here. Like all my internships and jobs have been around here.
So like I have a ton of different referral sources, but I'm kind of feeling like my marketing sucks. Got it. Well, let's amp it up. I mean, like you said, the niche is going to be the very first piece to that. Because when you say like, you know, something's interfering with work or school, I'm like, well, yeah, that's the diagnostic criteria for literally everything in the DSM. Right. It's like to get people like back doing what they like to do. Yeah. Well, you like the result.
They're looking first for the pain. So let's figure out the pain specifically that leads to people not functioning in the way that they want and need to the problem that lights you up the most. So you've talked about kids with anxiety, for instance, and your eyes just did a thing when I said that too. So a ton of it. Yeah. A ton of it. Do you love it or are you like, yeah, I can do it. I think I love it. I don't think I would love working with exclusively with that, which I know.
And like you say, like, you won't work exclusively with it. But I even love these kind of rotten teenagers. Right. That aren't doing everything they're supposed to be doing. Yeah. But I could not have a whole caseload of them because their sessions literally take all of my energy out of me. So, yes, I think most of them have some sort of anxiety. So, yes, anxiety. You see that I'm feeling a little wishy washy about it. Yeah. Like the so-called rotten teenagers. Right. They I love that.
I picture Greece for some reason dating me a little bit. But no, I can sing it off. Yeah. I'm thinking about how they probably aren't identifying it as anxiety. Right. Their parents are the ones looking for it because they're misbehaving. They're not doing what's expected or wanted of them. But if kind of the through line between your anxious kids and your kids who are getting in trouble is that they're not attending school regularly, then that could be your niche.
Terrified of school, of anxiety and avoidance is a niche. And I've kind of played around with it. Like I just did a space training that was over a couple of days over Easter. I just feel like it's so hard. OK, then let's not do that. We don't want hard. We want like joyful. And yeah, it's just a little bit like I worry that I don't have something that works. Right. Because it's not a quick fix.
No. Yeah. And I've worked with a couple of kids and we've gotten them back in school and it's been really great. But I worry that like I haven't totally figured it out. It's hard for me to like market and something that I feel like, oh, this is a solution and I can really help with this because I'm afraid that sometimes I can't. Yeah. I want you confident at work. We all have moments of imposter syndrome. Even if we've been treating the same problem for 20 years, we'll have a moment of it.
But I don't want it to be like a daily situation. So I think there's a difference between like what I see like the little kids or like teenagers that are kind of like avoiding some things and like that school avoidance avoidance. Right. Like that. Like I can't I can't get my foot in the door. Right. Like I've got a tummy ache that's based on anxiety. And then the parents are like, well, after school, you go. Sorry about that. Versus refuse. Right.
Yeah. Okay. So what about I'm thinking about like parents are the ones looking for the therapist. So what if it's more based on the parents experience of their kids, whether it's like they don't like they feel like they don't know how to help their kid. And then you can break that down into a few different presentations. So like your kid is anxious all the time. They don't always know they're anxious. And it took you a minute to figure out that they're anxious.
But now, you know, you realize that so much of their behavior is based on anxiety or your kids getting into trouble and you don't feel like you have the supports to get them back on track. Or if there's another one, you know, like if you enjoy parent coaching or you enjoy the grown up version of either of those things, then you could also talk about that.
But I think that was one thing I really latched on to, I think, early on in watching your content was this idea of like, and maybe because I like the idea that it made my niche a little like roomier, but this idea of this problem and how it looks throughout the lifespan. Mm hmm. Yeah. Right. This like, anxiety that shows up in childhood could sometimes be this negative self talk and adulthood, right? Like that gets people from kind of where they want to be.
Yeah. So I mean, what if we framed it as anxiety? You could. So like, there's the obvious kid anxiety, like once the parents like, oh, this is anxiety. I need to get therapy for my kid. That one's more obvious. You can frame the rotten teenagers as anxiety as well, because so often it is of like, teenagers are under pressures when we were never under like social media, all these kinds of things. It's a different world for them.
And sometimes the way they manage that different world is to act in ways that we hate, you know, and like to list some of what you like to work with, with those kids so that those parents can see their kids in it. And then adults with anxiety, where the anxiety is getting in the way of their confidence at work, their confidence in relationships.
But I think you got to be really specific about the daily lived experience of the parent of anxious kids, the parent of rotten teenagers and the daily lived experience of the adult. Like, I imagine like your website having three columns, basically, like you have your hero image at the very top, you have your tagline, essentially, and then three different columns or photos with some words that they can link to the specialty page.
Yeah, so right now I have like, an adult adults with anxiety, like page and then like children and teens. I'd split up the children and teens if their presentation is so different. Yeah. And even this, and I don't mean to like, make it more complicated, but even like the teens presentation is so different too, because sometimes they are not doing what they're supposed to do. Sometimes they're doing everything they're supposed to do. Yep. Right.
And they're driving themselves into this like anxious. What if you frame that as like teenagers off the rails, because they're going too far one side and the other. Yeah. And you can talk about how like, on the surface, the kid who is stressing out about getting all A's feels like a much nicer problem to have than the experience that other parents are having. But that the lived experience of that kind of compulsion and stress can be just as difficult as a parent.
Okay. And so you're okay with that? Or are you just going along with it that I have like three different populations here? I mean, it's all anxiety. So it's like, as long as the presenting concern is really solid, and you talk about the experience of anxiety, and you know, if there's a particular kind of anxiety you'd like best that is across the lifespan, then I would definitely talk about that.
Because I generally feel less attached to the demographic than I do the problem when it comes to niche. But you can't have like an across the lifespan niche without like an actual niche, like a problem, problem, you know, and anxiety. I mean, it's got its own heading in the DSM. It works. So a little bit more like a diagnosis, right?
So this problem, then the presenting problem, like can't manage they aren't, you know, the anxiety that's getting in the way of success or happiness, not happiness, but something like that. Yeah, you could frame it as like anxiety is getting in the way of success, and sometimes just functioning.
So I think about those little kids who are just now realizing like those families who are just realizing that's anxiety or the person who stays plateaued in their career, because they don't feel confident enough to do the presentations they need to do to move up those kinds of things. Feel like I can work with this. Yeah. And that means the specialty pages, like you really need to go hard on the lived experience.
So when you have your kids with anxiety, all the different ways that that shows up for them, how that shows up for them socially, how it shows up for them physically, how it shows up for their dynamic with their parent. And remember, you're talking to the parents and all of this. So you can come from that perspective of how do these worried parents describe what's happening at home when they first call you.
And then same for the teenager, like teenagers off the rails, you can say like your first paragraph can say like, I end up treating teenagers on both sides of off the rails, basically. And then go deeper into each and the parent experience of each with empathy for the kid interspersed throughout. And then the adult, get really clear on that ideal adult. Really clear. Is it a parent?
Is it like the mom trying to keep everything together in the family while also being the breadwinner while maybe dealing with a teenager who is off the rails in one way, who was once that kid with anxiety and never got help for it. And this is how it's manifested as they age and go through life experiences. Can I incorporate work in there a little bit? For sure. Right. Burned out.
And like, what do you do when you're burned out, but like, you can't stop doing your job, you know, like you're so anxious and so exhausted and you have to keep going. There's no out for you. I feel like I can play around with it a little bit. I think I have some of it already on the website, but I think this will help to like, really clear it up and get very specific. And I think some of my marketing stuff, I'd really like to, this sounds a little bit like self-serving, I think a little bit.
Okay. Like, I'd really like to be like, seen as an expert. Yeah. Right? Like, I have insurance space. I take three insurances. I have like a threshold, like I won't take an insurance underneath like I'm like 105, I think it's the lowest insurance reimbursement in Akron. I'm in Akron, Ohio. So there's, there are a lot of private pay therapists, but I am not one of them. I have like probably about 20% private pay because I don't take insurance and they decide to pay anyway.
Yeah. I think eventually that's probably like a direction for me, maybe. Okay. But more important than that, I just want to be like an expert. Right. Well, and I made the assumption that you were taking insurance because you don't have a niche in your full. So I think if you want to get off insurance, you do have to pick a more specific niche. Like you would need to choose one of the three we've talked about and go hard on it.
That doesn't mean you won't get the other ones, you know, but the majority of your niche will be whatever, or the majority of your caseload will be that niche that positions you as the expert. What do you, when you say you want to be an expert, what do you want to be an expert on? I do like helping parents with kids, right? Like I like seeing the kids, but I like helping parents with kids. I feel a lot less capable maybe of being an expert in like the adult world. So I can decide.
I'm also going to, I had a really hard time getting into that like OCD foundation training, the BTTI one. So I'm going to Houston for that next, next month. I'm going to kind of play around with that, like OCD with kids and like all the different ways that presents. And so that potentially is something I could really niche down. Oh yeah. And I mean, no matter where you are, there are not enough OCD for kids therapists.
Like one of my closest friends' daughter has OCD and it has been hell trying to find truly niched care. People who really know what they're doing with OCD and not just anxiety. I have had people, but I feel like I'm, I'm learning on the fly, right? Yeah. Like five or six, but I'm open, like I'm reading the book over the weekend to be like, okay, what am I doing next session? What is this like? Because I was on wait lists and stuff to get into these things.
And so I'm really, as part of this like first year for me, it's been like, I just really want to figure out how to give good clinical care. Yeah. Perfect. You know, I'm not a new counselor, but I'm like new to private practice and I just want to be really good at what I'm doing. Like I want to help. Yeah, absolutely.
So as far as like kind of marketing at this stage where I'm like going to be a little more niche, but not like moving into like the next level of your program yet, which I forget what it's called. Yeah. And that'd be great when you want to switch to OCD, if you decide that's what you want to do and like get to the private pay world. So scary. Yeah. So this level of marketing, I was really good on blogs for like probably eight months. Right. I think my SEO is like pretty good.
People can Google me, find me now, right. My referral basis. Do you have any like social media content ideas? I'm like feeling like I'm in a total rut. Yeah. And I'll tell you one thing I don't do is videos. Okay. So then it was not worth it to do social media if you're not going to do videos because you're not going to get any leverage. I don't like myself in videos. I know I'm the same way or I was the I got over it with a lot of exposure. I don't understand how your skin is so great.
Well, thank you. I'm really just using drugstore stuff, but I mean, same, but this is, that's all I see. Like the shadows on my face and I can't get lighting right. Oh, it's all lighting. I mean, really like if I, this is a desktop, so I can't pick it up, but if I brought it over here, you'd be like, oh, but I'm just in front of a South facing window. That's all it is.
So for you probably getting the right ring lights, if you don't have a South facing window, it could make a world of difference because from here, your skin looks great. There are shadows because you don't have the lighting, but if it's just about self judgment, I promise you with enough practice, it goes away or it less, it gets quieter. I should say. And then it's like, what you're matters more to you than what you're beating yourself up with as that quiets.
Yeah. I do feel like I get a lot of referrals from social media, but they're like, people like, no, right. They're not. And which is a bit like, it's a big chunk of my referrals. It's like somebody I went to high school with sees like something that I posted and, you know, they tell a friend and, you know, they're recommending me in mom chat groups and things like that, which is so nice. So you do think I get referrals, but they're not, it's not coming from like a wider community of people.
I don't know. So I might try. You can try faceless reels while you're working on building up your courage to be on video because being on video is going to make people connect to you 10,000 times more than just something you post. But also I don't know what to say to people. Oh, I got you covered with that. Don't worry about that. Let me find this faceless account real quick. So my friend Julia started on Instagram. The handle is the flow brain, all one word.
And like, sometimes there are some pictures of her or videos of her in the background, but you can't really see her face at all because words are on top of it. And she grew that thing to 28,000 followers, almost 29,000 followers without ever talking directly to the camera. I think, yeah, there's one where she interviewed somebody where both their faces are on there, but for the most part, she's not doing what most people do, but the content on the reels are really valuable.
So look at her, see if you can model some of that. You can use Canva for the backgrounds. Those are videos, but they're not like... They're not of you. Yeah. So put a trending sound behind it, write some really helpful, truly helpful, truly niched content on top of the photo and let it go for like a few seconds. I don't know how long hers are. Looks like about three seconds.
So then they get a lot of views because people are reading the words and it takes them like, you know, 30 seconds to read the words. So that's 10 views right there with one person. So I didn't know that's how that worked. Yeah. The one person's like 10 views. Okay. Okay. I can look into that. I can try that. So truly helpful, truly niched. Am I doing like what I do in therapy? Well, you're not talking about like in therapy, but you're like, think about the things you say a lot in therapy.
What's something you're always saying to anxious kids? Usually first session, we do this like fire alarm analogy, right? Like anxiety is your fire alarm going off. Sometimes there's no smoke, no fire. Yeah. So you could be like, try this colon. And my first sessions with clients, with kids, I talk about how anxiety is their fire alarm, that it's just alerting them that something is going on that they need to pay attention to.
Try saying it like this and then put an arrow down and say like, check the caption. And then you can kind of walk a parent through how you explain the fire alarm. That's an actionable thing that they can take away. Don't be afraid to like give away the great things you say in therapy. That's not going to prevent someone from coming to see you. That's going to make them more likely to see you. Because if you're going to give that away on Instagram or Facebook, what are you going to do in session?
So when you think about your anxious adults, when you think about the teenagers, your ideal parents probably have some empathy for these misbehaving teens, right? Like they're pissed off at them and they want them to act right, but they still love their kid. And so tapping into that empathy and talking about why kids behave in that way sometimes and why that's so hard for parents and how they've done everything they knew to do up to this point and they feel like they're failing.
Like you can tap into that truth for parents, thinking about your anxious adults. And I mean, like if your people struggle with perfectionism, for instance, your adults, you can talk about how it's freezing them at work, how if they just were willing to do a shitty first draft of something, it would allow them to make some real progress because it doesn't have to be great right out of the gate. You can edit it and make it what you need, that kind of thing.
And that you're thinking like, could be like, there's an introduction to it, but the actual content is in the comments. I would put it on the reel for the most part, but to go a little deeper in the comments sometimes. And sometimes you could just be like, what are your thoughts on this question mark? Is empathy with your misbehaving teens something you struggle with? You're totally human if so.
So I would keep a little notepad next to you for sessions and just write down the themes or the phrases you've, you're like, oh yeah, I definitely say that more than once a week and you'll end up building up content ideas really quickly. It looks like we're up on time. So hopefully that's a good running start for you. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I will talk to you soon. Okay. Thanks. Bye. Bye. If you're ready for a much easier practice, TherapyNotes is the way to go.
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