STP 117
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[00:00:01] you worry about, can I endure another day of back to, back to back sessions?
[00:00:07] Or maybe there's family that needs more of you and the internal voice inside you is quietly saying, you know, there's gotta be, there's just gotta be a better way. There's gotta be a better way to help people without. Letting my business run my life, because that's kind of what the model, the model rewards you when your business is running your life and it's the most important thing in your life.
[00:00:38] Speaker 3: Hi friend. Welcome to the scaling therapy practice. I'm James Marland, your course creation coach.
[00:00:45] I'm here to help
[00:00:46] Speaker: therapists who want to scale their reach with effective online courses.
[00:00:51] Speaker 3: I'll share with you all the tools, tips,
[00:00:53] and technology I've learned along the way that will help you put your mission in [00:01:00] motion
[00:01:00] James Marland: The world is waiting for somebody like you to take action. Let me help you take your first steps. I.
[00:01:08]
[00:01:09] Hi friend, and welcome back to the Scaling Therapy Practice. This is episode one 17, how to Repackage Your Wisdom into Products That Scale. We're, this is the third part of the series, how therapists can build what's next without burning out or starting over. If you've been following this series, you know, we've been exploring how therapists can build what's next without burning out or starting over in episode as a review.
[00:01:38] In episode one 15, we busted the myth that being fully booked and scheduled out to the max means that you're free. We've exposed in, in episode one 16, we exposed how your location can limit your impact and how to reach further. we're talking about earning differently, because as you know, [00:02:00] time is a limited resource and the one-on-one model revolves around. You showing up at the right time with the right person. It's a partnership with you and the client to show up, and if either one of you don't show up, then there is less earning potential.
[00:02:18] Well, I'm not, as I've said in the other episodes, I'm not saying that this model doesn't work. It's not valuable. It definitely is. It helps a lot of people, but there is limitations when you're tired. Or you're, you're maxed out and you, you worry about, can I endure another day of back to, back to back sessions?
[00:02:40] Or maybe there's family that needs more of you and the internal voice inside you is quietly saying, you know, there's gotta be, there's just gotta be a better way. There's gotta be a better way to help people without. Letting my business run my life, because [00:03:00] that's kind of what the model, the model rewards you when your business is running your life and it's the most important thing in your life.
[00:03:09] You get all the money, you get, uh, accolades. Uh, but, but to do that, you have to give up your time. And sometimes that means giving up your family and what you care most about. So for those people who are thinking there's gotta be a better way, or in five or 10, I can do this for five or 10 more years. But after that I have other obligations, uh, that I wanna do.
[00:03:34] I wanna experience more freedom. Maybe I've lost, I feel like I, I'm gonna lose my creative spark for oth, for those people, for the, for those people. Where the model isn't working, or you can see yourself in a few years, like you've maxed out the one-on-one and you wanna explore something different. This is, this is what this is.
[00:03:55] This episode is for you. So we're gonna talk about how to earn differently by [00:04:00] repackaging your wisdom into courses, workshops, CEEs, and other scalable tools. For your client that don't depend on the one-on-one model, they don't depend on the couch, the clock or the the compensation model of one hour for one, the money for time model.
[00:04:21] All right, so here's the first big idea for you is you don't have to do anything new. You're already, you're already an expert. You're, you already went to school, you already see clients. If you're a a therapist for any length of time, you're probably getting results and seeing what works and knowing who the client you love to work with is.
[00:04:47] You don't need to become a tech wizard, you don't need to get another certification. You already have everything you need. So maybe, maybe just start with this. What do you find yourself repeating? [00:05:00] Over and over again in session. The, the client you can help the most. You, you immediately identify what they're going through and you, you just repeat the same information.
[00:05:13] Well tread information that, you know that works. See, they have a problem. Um, my friend. Tad Hargrave. Well, I call him my friend 'cause I watch his stuff and he feels like a friend. But Tad calls this island a when they're on island a, you know, immediately this is their pain island or their problem island, and you can identify it automatically and you know that they wanna get to their oasis or their pleasure island.
[00:05:37] The, the other side a a different location. And your model, your. Your mechanism, your, your way of helping them through that is the bridge. That's the bridge or the boat that gets them from their pain to the promised land. And you know it, like, you know it, you know it like the, the back of your hand. I [00:06:00] don't know what that saying means.
[00:06:02] But you, you know exactly what to do. You know the process they need to go through, you know the steps, you know how to get them there quickly, you know the shortcuts, and you find yourself just saying this over and over again and you, you get results. The clients light up and they, they. Get the relief that they need for what they're coming for, for, for you.
[00:06:26] They get what they're coming for. So what process? Just think. Just think out loud or write it on a piece of paper. What are the top five things that you teach naturally without thinking that the people who end up in your office generally get in one form, ano or another. That could be the genesis of your core curriculum.
[00:06:47] You've already done the hard part. You've already lived it. You've, you've put it in your, uh, you, you, it's something that you, you teach over and over again. So now I. The [00:07:00] idea then is to put that brilliance and pull it out of the conversation and putting it, put it in something that doesn't depend on the clock.
[00:07:08] It doesn't depend on, uh, you being there at the same place as somebody else and you put it into something that, uh, pulling from the other episodes has a shelf life. It's not gonna expire when the, when the, the big hand of the clock gets to 12. So maybe that's something as simple as a workshop. A downloadable guide or a video course that you package up into a script.
[00:07:32] You're not, you're not really creating anything new. You're just repackaging your wisdom into something that other people can buy. When you're not right in the room, you're, you're capturing what already works, how you're already helping people and making it available, uh, in a different way. This is what we do in the Sustainable Therapist empowerment program, a cohort that I lead, uh, [00:08:00] and then I open up three times a year.
[00:08:04] We teach people the steps or the milestones of getting it out of their head and into a, a, a, a different wrapper, uh, a different way to sell it. It's the same wisdom. It's just packaged differently. Now, here's the next idea. Not all of these ideas are gonna be a flagship course that makes you.
[00:08:27] Independently wealthy with all sorts of, um, pass. You know, the big word is passive income. Not everything's a full product or a full course, or really, it should, should it be. You don't need to launch when you begin. You don't need to launch a massive flagship course that you have outlined perfectly. You know, all the steps right away.
[00:08:49] Uh, my friend Danny Eni says, uh, if you, if you had to write down all the steps you needed to do to drive your [00:09:00] car from, from the gro, from your home to the grocery store, you would never leave the driveway because you just, you can't write down everything. You, you, you go on what's working, uh, and you can't predict everything.
[00:09:15] You can't predict. How other traffic is going, but you can put it in drive and go. So there are things that you can develop, small scale that can help you build to your flagship product. This could be a 60 minute recorded workshop or a low cost mini course, or a downloadable cheat sheet or worksheet. For the things that people like, an assessment that people ask you over and over again, a template pack for your niche, whether it's anxiety or depression, or you deal with grief, um, or for widows or you deal with, uh, [00:10:00] relationship trauma.
[00:10:01] It could be you could do a continuing education training for peers or a paid email exchange or a paid email challenge. Or a short group. These are curiosity type products with real value. They're tests, they're little tests to see if people will respond to what you're doing. They take less time to create, they take less energy to launch, and they're gonna.
[00:10:28] They're really gonna help you learn what your audience wants. If you get a reaction, if you get response, if you get people wanting more, you know you're going down the right track. If you get crickets and people aren't responding or buying well, then you've also learned something. But you've put your, your mission in drive, so to speak.
[00:10:46] You've put the vehicle in drive and you're taking steps and you're learning. And the, the beauty of this is it doesn't require you to stop doing what you're already doing. You don't have to quit therapy or quit your money making machine to do this, [00:11:00] but it gives you a, just a short place, a, a simple step to start.
[00:11:07] They work with your practice, not against your practice. The third big idea here is from the book, um, great by Choice Jim Collins. It's one of the things I love, and it, it, it echoes the other two points. It's fire bullets, then cannonballs. Uh, that's a story from Great by Choice, where he says in, if you're in uncertain territory, you don't fire your biggest shop.
[00:11:33] First start small test, refine, fire, the low output, low investment. Product first. Then when it's working, put more effort into it. So your bullets as, as we talked already, your bullets or your low investment, low cost, low risk experiments. Could be your handout, your guide, a webinar, [00:12:00] a short, a one hour CEU, or CE offering.
[00:12:04] You just see what lands you. You know, there there are, there are probably many things. Many problems that you know how to solve. And you could write down an outline in an afternoon and make a handout the next day and, and you would be done. Just make it and see what happens. And then you make adjustments.
[00:12:24] Uh, you can hire people to do, you know, to do the canvas stuff or the handouts or edit your video. Your, your main value is the education points, but just. Try something, put it in, drive, fire a bullet, and when it works and you've proven it, then it's not risky. Like when you do something new, it feels risky, but when you've done it a hundred times, it's not risky.
[00:12:50] Using the driving experience a couple years ago, we were, it felt very risky. Like incredibly risky to get in the car with my [00:13:00] 16-year-old son. We, I, we did the, we did the thousands of hours of practice or whatever it takes. We'd logged our miles. It still felt like he was, uh, uh, not paying as much attention as I wanted him to, but, but last year I got in the car with him and he'd been, he's been working with cars and he worked for Enterprise for a while, and he like expertly maneuvered the car into a tiny space and backed it up.
[00:13:31] Without, without a problem, without a sweat. And I'm like, wow, you really are a good driver. But I wouldn't have said that without all the practice. Like he, he got good, he got good at driving. And that's what happens when you take your little risks. When you put your car in drive and you practice, you get good.
[00:13:50] And then it's not a risk if you know people are gonna buy, if you know people respond. Then you can invest. So that, that the, the bonus hint here is, you know, don't, [00:14:00] don't go all in hoping a course product is gonna save your business. Just do, do a little bit at a time. Do it during your, your no shows or.
[00:14:08] Schedule half a day to do it once a week or once every other week. Too many, too many people. I think, and this, this is me included, when I started my course creation businesses, I went all in not not necessarily knowing exactly what problem I'm solving or what people want, and you invest a ton of money and then, then your first shot is a little off and you're like, oh, it doesn't work.
[00:14:31] Or I guess it's not for me. And it's not really, the thing is you gotta, you gotta. Take small risks before you take the big risks. So don't, don't try to create that six hour course right out of the gate with a five or $10,000 price tag with months of content as your first thing. Now, I do think you should charge thousand to 5,000 or even $10,000 for your, your, uh, [00:15:00] flagship offering when you got it right, but in the beginning.
[00:15:04] You're not even sure that's gonna land. So the, the big, the big time waster here is the months and months of planning it takes to actually make something that's six hours long, or eight modules, or all the videos and all the things, and what if it doesn't land? So, do the small things. Do some of the small things first, get the, get the concept proven, and then fire that massive investment.
[00:15:30] Because you don't wanna fire something and then feel like, oh, this doesn't work. Or, I tried, at least I tried. I guess I'm gonna go back to something that sucks the soul out of my life. Um, if it's just a bullet that missed, just you're, you're a little, you're a little scientist, and you, you reload and.
[00:15:49] Adjust one or two parameters, probably one parameter, I guess, and then fire again. You don't have to actually, it's dangerous to wait until you have it all figured out [00:16:00] because you're not learning what you need to learn in the times that, uh, from the market, from the people who would actually engage with your content.
[00:16:08] The, the market speaks with money, and if you're not making money, you're, you're, you're, uh. Your message is off. There's something wrong. There's a bottleneck somewhere. So don't burn yourself out by making those huge investments. Start small, fire something, put it in drive, learn then, then build with confidence.
[00:16:27] All right? So if you're listening to this and you're thinking, well, I don't wanna quit therapy, but I do wanna earn differently and I support that wholeheartedly. I don't want you to quit therapy. The world needs great therapists doing their best work. But if you're thinking, I I, there is gonna be a limit of how many client.
[00:16:49] There, there's just some sort of limit, whether it's time, energy, emotional energy, location or so. Your family needs you, your kids need you, your parents need you, your community [00:17:00] needs you. Uh, start, start thinking about ways that you can package up your experience into ways that can earn you money. Without you being in the chair in front of somebody and that respects your time.
[00:17:15] I created a free resource, 15 ways to package your experience into a coaching product. It's, it's got a fif, well, it's chock full. It's got 15 ways, 15 practical ways that you can develop curiosity products, engagement products, or committed products for your ideal audience. You don't necessarily need a big audience to fire some of these.
[00:17:39] Bullets or tests. You don't need fancy funnels, you don't need to work 40 hours a week. You can just start, pick one that works and then work on pick one that works for you and your style, one that meets the need of a client and then just start from there. You can download it at courses that course creation [00:18:00] studio.com/store, uh, and then start making something that matters to you.
[00:18:08] The, the wisdom you have deserves to be shared with people not locked behind four walls or a clock or a calendar. What you have is actually really valuable, and it can be valuable if you package it up into a different modality of delivering it. Uh, and, and your, your lifestyle should not depend on you.
[00:18:32] Scheduling. Just one more client. You know, scheduling, I've, I've heard of people because, uh, during the busy time working, you know, 30, 40 clients a week, plus all the paperwork, you know, that's not, that's not super sustainable, especially for people who have other responsibilities besides therapy. So if you wanna start thinking about that way, go to the website courses dot course creation studio.com/.
[00:18:59] Store [00:19:00] and the free resources there. So in closing, I want you to know that the, the grinding it out treadmill isn't your only option. And earning more doesn't mean just working more, it just means doing things a little differently. Like thinking about the model and trying, thinking about the model of earning and maybe diversifying a little bit with a product.
[00:19:26] So I wanna encourage you to take the next steps. Uh, let's build something important together. The world needs your message and, and the world needs somebody like you to put their mission in, drive, you know, put their mission in motion and start getting it out there so that they, that you can help more people and also be freed from burnout and the tyranny of having to just see that one more client.
[00:19:54] This is James Marland. I wanna help you put your mission in motion. We'll see you next [00:20:00] time.
