Name: How Will You Differentiate Yourself?
Uploaded: 2025-08-26T19:31:25.312Z
Duration: 1 h 5 min 46 s
Description: How Will You Differentiate Yourself?

Transcript for "How Will You Differentiate Yourself?": Now let's jump right in. Who am I anyway? Right? Who am I to tell you how to differentiate yourself? Well, I'm Esther Boykin. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapy therapist. I've been a therapist for about twenty two, three. I try not to do the math after twenty years, well over twenty years, that I've been doing this work. I spent the last sixteen and a half years running a private practice. And so and I think my journey through private practice and my own learning as a clinician who then had to learn about how to run and start and scale and grow businesses is really kind of the expertise I'm here to share with you today, in addition to starting a a sort of small group practice with a partner of mine who's a social worker seven almost seventeen years ago. And, we grew that into a rather large group practice with interns and residents and fully licensed clinicians in multiple offices, across the DC Metro Area, DC, Virginia, Maryland. And then I slowly scaled back, and I am back now. I recently, at the top of the year, made the decision to close this the larger group practice, group therapy associates, and now I'm back to part time solo practice, which is much more of a boutique practice, very highly niched. And so I've really kind of journeyed through the full continuum of private practice. In addition to that, I, do some executive coaching, consulting work. I run retreats. So I am familiar with sort of bringing some other alternative services and and work into private practice. And lastly, a lot of this content also comes from my experience teaching at Virginia Tech. I had the good fortune of developing and then teaching the business of therapy, which was a course specifically around helping graduate students as they were preparing for graduation to think about what the business side of the profession looks like and what that means for their career. So I wanna recap just a little bit about from webinar one for those of you who weren't there. I'm not gonna spend a ton of time because differentiating yourself, niching, marketing is, one of those things that we could spend I could spend three hours. I could spend weeks talking to you guys about that. So I really wanna make sure that we're maximizing our time, and then I'm leaving a lot of time for, you know, questions and answers, at the end of the webinar as well. But I think, again, it's helpful to have a little bit of context. So when I talk about, you know, private practice success and sustainable practices, you'll hear me say that often, like, how do we create sustainable success. I think about sustainable success as what are the models, what is the approach, what are the systems, what are all the things we need to do to create a practice that is not just financially sustainable, but also one that helps us to avoid burnout, really kind of continue to develop our professional development, to really fulfill our full selves and not just, thinking about ourselves as, like, this one little niche, whether that's being a therapist or being a practice owner or any of those kinds of things. And so I want to you to be thinking about as we talk about these things, bringing in your whole self. I think the key to this is knowing, as I talked about in webinar one, our who, how, and why. And if we wanna think about this in sort of a structured way, why was kind of webinar one? Are you ready for private practice? Right? Like, why do you wanna do this? How do we think about, you know, kind of even taking that leap and what are we leaping into? Next month, webinar three will be a lot of the how. The systems, the like, what is required? How do we, like, run and operate day to day? Today is our who. Who are you and who do you want to serve? That's really what differentiating and niching, when we talk about private practice is all about. And so that's kind of that's where we'll be focused today. And because I will reference these archetypes, I wanted to also just quickly go over this. Again, you can always go back and catch the recording for webinar one, to get a little bit more. But when I talk about practice owner archetypes, this is something I'm borrowing from, the book, The E Myth Revisited. If you're not familiar and you're thinking about private practice, I highly recommend that, as a good resource to just thinking about what does entrepreneurship look like and who am I as I enter into business. And so the three archetypes we wanna think about here are, technician. This is the person who likes to do the work. Like, your passion, your love is in the work of doing. Right? So you love being a therapist. And we can all love it, but as a business model, this if you really fall into that technician archetype, this is really about, this is ideally suited for somebody who wants to be in solo practice. Right? You wanna spend a lot of time and energy focused on, this is sorry. I got distracted by the chat. There's some Virginia Tech grads in there. Sorry. So for technicians, this is a focus on being a solo practitioner. This is somebody who really wants to spend the majority of their time doing the work. The manager, which is our second archetype, this is somebody who's really great at, like, supervision, the management of people, the organization, the systems of it. And so people who sort of fall into that manager archetype, you could do great in solo practice. You could do great at running a small group practice. You might also decide that, like, you wanna run a practice that focuses on maybe supervision of the other therapist, and that's more their primary service. But understanding that your strengths sort of lie in that managerial organizational strategy, place. And finally, there's the entrepreneur archetype. And I think so often, and this is sort of the point of that book and why I recommend it, is we think all of us are entrepreneurs and all of us do not actually have a passion for that sort of big picture visionary thinking. I wanna run a 50 person practice and multiple offices. There are a lot of moving pieces to that. And so, like, if that resonates with you, that might be your archetype. And so you may be moving towards how do I build something that is big and scalable and does a lot of things because I have a vision for that. And and that also then requires, you know, that you're able to hire people to who can be technicians and managers and help to support your vision. With that high level overview, I wanna ask kind of our first polling question. Especially if you were in webinar one where I talked about this in a little bit more depth, which archetype feels most like you right now? Do you have a sense of, you know, kind of who you are, where you might fall in this category? Technician, manager, entrepreneur? This feels this is good. I like this. I'm looking I'm seeing a lot of technicians. I'm I I will say I'm surprised. I thought I'd see a lot a few more managers in there, but this makes sense to me. And I think it's one of the reasons I think the archetype is helpful, and you'll see this as we continue as I continue to talk today about niching and differentiation is the more we understand kind of who we are, what our archetype is, and that can change over time. That should influence every aspect of beginning and running our practices. And so as I talk about niching and and the framework, what you're gonna see is that, we're really kind of gonna think a little bit different about how we identify our ideal client, about the kind of marketing systems that we wanna put in place. All of those are gonna be influenced by what we do, and I will make sure to kind of highlight some of the differences as we go along. So let's start here, reframing the niche conversation. I'm just gonna jump into this next slide and say this. Niche is not a trap. It's a bridge. I think for so many of us, because we, particularly as therapists, we enter into this field because we wanna help as many people as we possibly can. And niching, differentiating, right, like, really honing down into, like, a very narrow place feels like the antithesis of so much of why we started our careers. Right? I wanna help as many people as possible. And, yes, I mean, I have an interest in, like, anxiety or couples or, you know, working with children or whatever that looks like, but we're afraid. And I think we need to name that fear, particularly at the start of a practice when you are trying to build caseload. Eliminating people sounds like the exact opposite of what you want to do. But niching matters because clarity is actually one of the most important things you're gonna do to build a sustainable, robust client pipeline. It is what is gonna help you to stay full. It is what is gonna help you to stay profitable. One of the things and and it's also one of the ways that we help clients quite honestly. This is actually one of the ways that we help the most people is by getting super clear about what we do really, really well. I think most of us have had this experience. Right? One of the top things I hear from people looking for a therapist is how confusing the process is. There's 50,000,000 directories, and there's a different bunch of different letters and, you know, are you a an MFT or a social worker or your clinical psychologist? Do I need somebody who prescribes med like, people are confused. There's a lot of, like, specialty and not a lot of clarity. And so one of the things that happens when we get clear, when we can say, oh, I am a child psychologist who specializes in working with children who have ADD and learning differences around their social skills. That's a really easy way for a potential client to be like, that's what I need. That's that's it. That person does what I need. People don't necessarily wanna hear a lot about your degree and your training. They want to know more about who you work with, how you help them, and how their lives get better. I'm gonna talk a little bit more about how do we do that. Right? The other part so there's helping make it easier for clients to find you. It also expands you, and I think this is a business concept that many of us don't fully understand until we experience it. The more niche you are, the actually, the broader your own market opportunity becomes because there are depending where you are, there are thousands of therapists. Right? But then how many therapists are family therapists? And how many of those therapists work with, you know, I don't know, interracial mixed race couples with mixed race children? That's a very it sounds like a small pool, but it's a small pool of specialists. Right? And so you become sort of big fish in a small pond. And so, again, from a from a business and marketing and, like, growing a practice perspective, it's really, really helpful helpful. And and finally, what I will say, I think, just on a clinical from a clinical standpoint is recognizing that when we get clear about our niche, when we specialize, when we and I think we do this sometimes not even intentionally in our clinical training, like in our CEs and our certifications and things like that, is it helps us to just be better at the work. Rather than giving people a good enough experience, we get to a place where we're giving people an exceptional experience at a very specific thing. So I'm gonna give you a couple of examples. I talked about how Niching actually expands our opportunities. Right? It makes it easy for the right client to find us. And I wanna pause here and also say that when the right client finds us, that increases our word-of-mouth. And what you'll find over time is that word-of-mouth is in fact your most successful marketing strategy. All the things we can learn to do, all the money that we can spend, word-of-mouth will continuously be your number one marketing strategy. And so when the ideal client finds you and has an exceptional experience, they are so much more likely to tell their friends, their family, their doctor, all of these other people who will begin to send people to your practice. Helping people understand what makes you special actually is going to make you money, and the reality is sustainable practices need to make money and so this is important. So I'm gonna give a couple of examples. I'll show you kind of like a little bit of peeps and web pages, so that you can see how even just looking at the home page of a website immediately signals to a client, in this case, this is doctor Lori Johnson. Right? There's a clear signal to the client, like, you just read empowering diverse journeys in healing, family building, and mental health, culturally responsive therapy, and fertility counseling. This is a really clear way to signal. And I think in going through Lori's website and even on her social media, you'll see for a couple, particularly racially diverse couples who are experiencing any kind of fertility issues, any kind of reproductive issues, whether it's a couple or an individual, they immediately go, oh, she gets me. She knows something about my very unique experience, and this is helpful. Like, when we start to talk about things like, do I take insurance? Am I private pay? You know? Will people this is the kind of messaging that helps people go, like, but she gets me in a way that none of the other therapy websites I've looked at, help me understand that they're gonna get me. I I think I really need to work with, you know, doctor Johnson. Another great example. Right? They're not doing there's not a lot of fancy, you know, cute little sidebars and tabs. Right? It's a very straight to the point website. Mine's in motion. You look at this picture of their clinicians, and I'm gonna guess that we're all pretty clear about what their specialty is. Right? This is clearly a practice full of black men who work with primarily black men. Right? And so this is also an example of a niche that sometimes because there is and I'll talk about evaluating. Because there are so few therapists that specialize in a very in a particular area or represent a particular identity, sometimes that's a specialized enough niche. Right? This doesn't say we only do anxiety or mood disorders or we don't right? It's like we are black male therapists who understand what it's like to be a black man, you know, in this country navigating mental health. We've got you. Whatever the issues are. And so sometimes when we talk about niche, it's also thinking about your own identity or your like, sometimes it isn't as specialized as, say, what Lori does. Right? That the where there's a specialty around clinical like, client identity, clinical specialty. Like, there's a lot of nuance in her work. There's a little less nuance here and yet it is still equally effective when it comes to niching. And then one more example, doctor Jen, who I also really love, is a good example of both her special her niche, her specialization has not only grown a private practice, but it's also allowed her to expand into some other things. So she offers, you know, groups. She offers parent coaching, family coaching specifically around identity for mixed race children and in particular mixed race or multiracial teens. So I think these are three good examples of how, like, these are very successful practices, and that the more they niche, the easier it is for not just clients but also as clinicians. You know, I would hope that some of you right now might have thought to yourself, like, oh, I have a client. I wonder where Lori is or I I wonder where mine's emotion is. I have a client or I have a friend who actually is looking for that. That is why we want to niche. This is why we want to be really clear about what we do. It helps to grow the practice. So I talked briefly about evaluating niche. And I think oftentimes when we think about this, this is the place where people start. What's the market demand? You know, what's the cost of entry? Like, you know, it can cost a lot to get your, let's say, your EMDR certification. Do you wanna do make that your specialty? What is the revenue potential? Oh, I heard this kind of this niche or this specialty is making a lot of money. Those are very important factors. I don't think that they are the most helpful place to start. These are the things that you want to use to refine who your client avatar is, to refine your niche so that you make sure that you're moving with, you know, sort of business common sense behind you. But when we start here, what we lose sight of remember I said that what we're talking about today is who? It's not just who we serve, it's who we are. That is really important. And so I really wanna encourage each of you to start with you. And and that's kind of what we're gonna get into is as we, you know, figure out, like, who is our ideal avatar and all of those things is before you get down into the weeds of, like, what is the market demand and, like, how many other therapists are doing this and all you know, do I have all the right certifications? Well, probably start with that. Right? We wanna start with personal professional alignment. But before you get too far down that road, let's take a step back and think about, like, who are you as a clinician? Who are the clients that already gravitate towards you? We're gonna I'm gonna ask you some of these questions, in a minute so that we're building a client avatar profile that really makes sense, and then we can refine that in ways that actually help out build, sustainable practices. So you probably heard me say client avatar, ideal client avatar. I probably should ask that as a poll question, but we're not I'm not even gonna do that right now. But you could put in the chat, like, if you've even heard this term before, are you familiar with the concept of the client avatar, or you if you went to webinar one, you definitely have heard it because I said it already. This is something that I think often gets overlooked not just in, you know, practices. I I think for a lot of us as entrepreneurs starting small businesses, the the idea of an ideal client avatar or ideal customer avatar is something that, I really learned a lot about in doing more reading and going to marketing workshops and friends who, you know, sort of work in those spaces. Your ideal let me go back before we get too far into this. Let me just talk about this. So, like, your ideal client avatar, the way I want you to think about that is sort of like, there is somebody that you market to. So I have a friend. He like, the example he would always give me I'm dating myself, by this. But he would always talk about, you know, the iPod and, like, Steve Jobs. He's like, Apple's ideal client avatar was Steve Jobs. Now vast numbers of us were buying iPhones and iPads and all the things, right, who are in no way similar to who Steve Jobs was. But having that clear clarity of, like, this is who we talk to, this is who we market to, this is who we're designing our, in their case, product, but for us as therapists, like, this is who we're designing for, this is who we are looking for, helps us to have clarity of message. And I know, and I'm seeing it in the chat. Right? Like, this is this is where we get stuck because we feel like we're leaving people out, and we have to sort of trust this process that says, if I'm clear in my messaging, it will resonate with people who are not necessarily my avatar and they will still come and see me and still work with me. But the clearer I am, the clearer my messaging becomes, and that is actually what's the best thing for me. So here are a couple of questions. And as I said, like, if you go to docs, you'll be able to get the, slides, and that'll be really helpful for you, so that you can actually do this at a later date. You don't have to do it right now in this webinar. But discovering our ideal client, we have to sort of start with us. Right? And so, like, who are the clients that excite you the most? When are you lit up? When do you look at your schedule? Who is that client that you're like, oh, I love this. No matter how hard the session is or how hard it is, who is that person or what is that issue? No. We wanna write that down. We wanna start there. We also wanna think about who are the people who are attracted to us. What is that? Right? Like, what do they see in us? Why do they seem drawn to us? What is that experience they're having that, we would that we can learn something from? There's something special that we're offering whether or not we recognize that, and so beginning to be curious about that. The flip side is, who are the clients that drain you? It's important for you to know the answer to number two and number three. Because sometimes, the answer to number three is the same as the answer to number two, which will help you clarify your marketing. Just because you're good at something doesn't mean that's the work you wanna do. And if it drains you and you understand why it's draining you, it will help you. And I think this is one of those places again when we don't do this work on the front end, we can build, create a business model, and then we create a professional reputation that has us in a loop of burnout because we feel like things should take anyone. We happen to be really, really good. I'll use myself as an example. Like, early in my career, I one, I was good at working with children, of all ages. I was just you know, I was off some MFT. We did a lot of work. I did a lot of play therapy. I was also one of two in, like, a forty five minute drive radius. Like, there just weren't a lot of children and family therapists in the area. Everybody knew I was a child therapist. I did not wanna do that work. I did not enjoy the work. It made me tired. I would go home to my own two kids. I did like, I don't wanna play Uno anymore. I don't wanna play Jenga Woodfield. Like, I didn't enjoy it. And so work and building my practice felt draining for a little while. Now I solved it because I was in a place where I was scaling and so I just hired people who were gonna do that work and so I could stop doing it. But had I known this on the front end, I would have marketed my practice differently because here's the thing, I was one of the couple of available options. So even if I marketed a practice that was really geared towards couples, those families were gonna call me anyway. Right? I wasn't gonna sit there with nobody because I marketed to couples. Nobody called and asked me to, like, work with their 15 year old. That's just not how it works. They still come through. And so we need to be clear about that so that we, again, are thinking about sustainability of her practice, not just the immediate need. And then finally, what is your superpower as a therapist? What is the thing that you just are like, I am so good at? That, again, all of this, we bring bring it all together to really do some brainstorming about who who is this person and how will I serve them and what will I help them and we're gonna talk about this next. How will I help them to transform their life in some way? And your superpower fits into that. And so these are the questions I want you to really kind of sit with. So sorry. It is sunny, and my office is hot today. So let's talk about how do we build a, ideal client avatar. So we're gonna there's basically three core things I want you to be able to map out, and I'm gonna actually show you what I use what I did. I'm gonna give you some examples from my own practice so you can see that. Like, what this can look like and how detailed I actually am talking about getting. So we start with the basics. Those are the demographics. Right? Age, relationship status, you know, some of their just really you know what demographics are. Right? You collect that information. You can even look at who you're currently seeing to kinda help you get a sense of, like, if you feel good about the clients you see, you can go look at what's the average age, what's the average relationship status. Like, you can gather this, but you wanna get clear on all of the demographics. Psychographics is getting more into, like, who is this person? What do they do on the weekend? Who are they following on Instagram? Are they even on Instagram? Maybe they're on LinkedIn. Maybe they're on YouTube. What are the podcast they like? Who what do they read? What are their fears? What are their aspirations? What did feel most important to them? What do they value? You need to build out a much more robust understanding of who this person is. And then finally, and I think this is it is the most important question, but you are gonna struggle to answer it accurately unless you take care of the first two things I just talked about. And that is what is their transformational need? What keeps them up at night? What is their pain point? What is the thing that if you speak to it, if you can you're like, I know that you were just trying to you just wanna balance being a mom and running a business. And I can give you the tools to do that in a way that doesn't make you feel like you're failing at one or both of those things. I'm gonna help you learn how to actually attend and be fully present where in all the aspects of your life. Right? For the person for, like, that kinda entrepreneur mom who's struggling and feels like she's failing everywhere, that's the life change she's looking for. That's the thing she's, like, talking to her girlfriends about or, you know, laying in bed talking to, you know, her husband about. Like, that's the worry, and that's the thing that And here's the secret, we are therapists. Like, it's not really a false promise. We can in fact provide. Now we can't guarantee that's the experience people will have, but we that's what we're trying to do is to help people create that kind of change in their life. And so we actually are really skilled at doing this if we are kind of encouraged to go through the process. So here just so you understand how deep I'm talking, here's an example of this is one, and I'll I mentioned. Right? Like, it's different if you're running a solo practice, if you're thinking about future scaling or you scale. So, like, I ran, like like I said, a big group practice. So we actually have three client avatars because I sort of, over time, was able to, like, look at my staff and kind of put them into three categories. And they're all different, but still everybody had a clear client avatar. So this is an example. Right? This is Maya. She's 43, and you'll see, like, I have a narrative profile about who she is and what her life is like right now. I actually I'm not saying you have to do all of this, but probably it's fun. You should do it. There's actually, like, a little quote, right, in her own words. How would she talk about what's going on for her? This is the chart. So, like, when I would hire people, like, when we would have staff retreats and we talk about client avatar, this is the kind of information that I'm providing to my clinicians. This is the kind of thing I'm thinking about. I would think about in our marketing strategy, in our sales, you know, like, all of the different things. Even when we're hiring, right, is this the right fit for this kind of this person because this is who we serve. And you can see and I think, hopefully, if you're looking at the docs, it might be easier or if you have it full screen, you could probably read this. Right? Even down to how and where she might be looking for her therapist or her support or referrals. Right? What are her pain points? What who are the influencers that matter? And I'll talk later when we think about, like, some of the marketing strategies about how we integrate this into, like, what we're doing. As I mentioned, right, how do we like, the very last thing I said. Right? Like, how where is she looking, but also how do we find and communicate to our ideal client avatar? This is why it's so crucial to be that specific. The more specific we are, we're actually giving ourselves and empowering ourselves with more data to develop more effective marketing that builds not just the immediate practice, the sustainable practice. I want you to get full and stay full. Whether you are a solo provider, whether you're part time, whether you're full time, whether you're gonna scale to, like, a 30 person practice, whatever your goal is, my dream for you is not just to be full now, but to get full in such a way that allows you to continue to stay full. And, yes, you'll have to pivot with the market. Like, there's lots of things as, you know, everything evolves just, you know, like humans, businesses evolve. But these are some of the really kind of foundational things that I think are gonna help you. So when we're clear on client avatar, we will begin to know, like, do we need to focus on online or offline communities? What kinds of where are they? If they're online, are they on Facebook or are they on TikTok? How do I find them? And if they're on TikTok, what are they watching? Right? What it like, what is the actual content? Who do they follow? How do they make their decisions? This is what is gonna help you when I start talking about, like, actual, like, marketing plan. This is the kind of information you want because it's gonna guide you. You're gonna see, like, there's so many ways for you to market your practice. And you need some guidepost, and, ideally, your client avatar becomes a guidepost. And this is just again, it literally, we have a whole slide deck of client avatars. So a little bit more detail. Right? And, again, I'm sharing this as, like, we were an established group practice, and so we had like, I also had an admin and we like, we had a team to kind of help with some of these things. But I don't want you to feel like you need to have a huge practice and a whole team to do this. This is something you can do for yourself, to guide you again even as a solo practitioner just starting out. This will help you actually save time and energy even though it might feel like a big project at the beginning. And so, like I said, we have three avatars. There's our three avatars. This is our sort of, like, where do you find them? Where do we focus our marketing strategies based on who they are and what we know about them? So I hopefully, you're hearing me say, like, this is a little different depending on where you are or where you feel like you're going. As a solo provider, solo practitioner, solo practice, what I want you to focus on is a single client avatar. Don't be like Esther showed me that she had three, and so you have three, but it's just you. You need one. Just get one. Even if you are a new group practice, let's start with one, and then we can think about how that evolves. So as a solo provider, just one. I just want you to think about the think about those starting questions, really build this out. Google a like, there's a lot of tools you can use to kinda help you begin to develop this, create your own little template, whatever, but I want you to focus on one. If you are a group practice, you are going to likely have multiple avatars unless you are very niche, and then you have hired in alignment with your niche. What I find a lot of times is that if you haven't been thinking about if you are not particularly niche and then started to grow into a group practice, then your hiring probably does not follow your niche really well, and so doing a client avatar is hard. I I say that from experience. Right? Like, I didn't sort of vaguely, I was like, well, I'm an MFT. Everybody has to have a, like, a relational focus. But it it really actually took some time in refining for me to, like, kind of go back and rebuild some of our client avatars. So that building thinking about this, especially if you're early, your client avatar is actually gonna be one of your best, like, hiring tools as well when you begin to think about scaling. And those of you in a solo practice who want to scale know this and really dive deep into who your client avatar is. In all three cases, but particularly for group practices or those of you wanting to scale into a group practice down the road, this is a place, and I'll talk about this more in webinar three, where it's also helpful for you to refine also based on the data you're collecting. You should be collecting data as you have clients coming in. So if you're like, this is my client avatar and I this is what I do. This is who I'm marketing to. It's not about a right or wrong, but you want to at least a few times a year look at like, I said my our client avatar is Maya, and she's 43 and she runs her own business and she has, like, an adolescent child. If I look at my practice data and the majority of our clients are actually men in their thirties, who are having their first child or just got married, there is a disconnect somewhere along the way. Right? Like, either my marketing is off, I'm something about our marketing is appealing to this. Like, what you do with that information is personal, but we I want you to also begin to, like, see where data matters. Right? Like, understanding what you're doing, why you're doing it, and then going back to look at how it's working out is really, really helpful and I I'm sure I'll say that again because it's what's gonna help you refine your marketing as well. Okay. I've talked a lot. I've said a lot of things, a lot about client avatar. So right now, again, no judgment, no right or wrong, on a scale of one to five, with five being crystal clear, how clear do you feel about your ideal client avatar? Alright. I'm impressed with those of you who are, like, four or five. Kudos. I see you, everybody, all all of the twos and threes and the ones. Like, there are many of us who might be well into our practices who are still being like, oh, I don't I don't know. We just see everyone or we just see. So I appreciate the the candor. It's nice to see the looks like the majority of you are in the middle, which is a good place to be, and I hope that, like, these questions and and some of what I'm sharing is also gonna help you to begin to, like, really work on creating that clarity for yourselves. Okay. Let's imagine that we are all at a four or five. We're all feeling clear. We know who our client avatar is. So who are we? And how do we like, what is our unique value proposition, which is really, like, what makes you special? Like, there are listen. I don't know the last time some of you have been in, like, a like, gone online and, like, searched for a therapist. There's a lot of us out there. Maybe not enough to meet the need, but there's also still a lot of us out there. So, like, what is your magic that you bring that your ideal client is looking for? We need to think a lot about who we are and what how do we bring that into our marketing messaging. Your unique approach, many of us are eclectic. The longer you do this, the more I think we are like, I do a little everything. But we also have, like, a unique personal approach. And so this is a place where I think sometimes, like, our clinical training sometimes gets in the way of us being able to describe what we do in a in a much more user friendly manner. Bring your personality. Bring your values. Bring like, what what do you bring to the client experience? Are you funny? Do you, like, show your clients memes in session because it creates rapport? You know? Like, are you a reader and you love to recommend books? Are you you know? What talk about your approach less from a clinical framework, less about how you would explain it to me as a fellow clinician, and how would you tell, like, I don't know, your sister or your mom or your neighbor what it's like to be a therapist? What's it like to be a client in a room with you? What is that thing that you kind of know that people walk away experiencing because they have chosen to work with you? That is going to be really important in the messaging. And I think, again, it is we really get very focused on our training, our certifications, our degrees, our licenses, and they are very important in a particular context. They are not very important to our potential clients because they don't live in that world with us for the most part. I mean, unless your potential clients are other therapists and even then, what they really wanna know is who are you and how are you gonna help me. As you get clear about that, there's a lot of ways for us to sort of I want you to think about it. It's like telling your story. Right? Are you a good writer? Do you like to like, I'm a person I like to just be on video. Feels like less prep. It's an excuse to put makeup on my face, which I wouldn't do otherwise. I'm like I enjoy it. It doesn't I spend less time doing it, like, refining things. I also find that, like, hopefully, it's true, you know, in this particular webinar where I'm like, analogies come to be. Things come to like, you get a feel for my personality. Right? And that's great. For some people, it's being in person. Like, you just you people get to experience you differently, and there's a lot of ways for us to do that. Here's an example. So one of the things that I think is really helpful is an elevator pitch. If you have not heard of that, it's basically just sort of like I and I love a one sentence elevator pitch just because it's easy for you to remember as opposed to, like, a cut like, a little three or four short paragraph or something. It's basically this is who who I work with, how I help them for this experience. I'm a really big fan. I think somewhere in the chat is already a link to, like, my bookshop so you can grab the book. The Story Brand is another, like is a marketing book that I really like. And I think as therapists, even if you don't lean towards, like, narrative, maybe you're more CBT or whatever, we do tell stories and people come and tell us their story. And so I when thinking about marketing as storytelling and so the story brand is high level. It's just kind of like one marketing strategy. It's not the only one. There's a lot of really great ways. Again, read some books, listen to podcasts, find a path that works for you. I found it really accessible when I had a, you know, a wide large team of people where there's just a formula. Think about it like a hero's journey. You are the guide. Clients are the hero. You're the guide. So who is the client? How do I help them? What do I help them with? What ends like, what is the transformation at the end? And so in one of, in some of my staff meetings and eventually with, like, onboarding new clinicians, one of the things that we would do together is craft their one sentence elevator pitch. So here are some examples. Right? I work with clients of all ages with ADD, helping them discover their strengths, build confidence, and go after their dreams. It's clear. Right? Somebody's like, what do you do? And you're like, oh, I'm a clinical psychologist and I right? Like, our tendency is to sort of get into, like, our credentials. We wanna get really clear, about being this is the first answer. When somebody's like, what do you do? Oh, you know, I'm a therapist. Grief can feel really isolating, especially for immigrant and first gen clients. I help them build resilience and self trust so they can create lives that feel meaningful and whole beyond their losses. And the thing about it, like I mean, I do know my staff pretty like, I know my former staff pretty well, but, like, I can read these without their names, and I know who it is. To include people who worked for me, you know, years ago, I can read it because I'm like, oh, right. Like, I know this about them now. This is what I want you to have for people in your community. This I want if nothing if you take nothing else, you just don't work on anything else. See if you can just work on this. Can you craft a one sentence elevator pitch for your practice, for yourself, even if you haven't started your practice. Right? You're just thinking about it. Like, start think about your own personal brand. Who am I as a therapist? And start to work on this. It will help you and it will help others. We got our messaging. We're crystal clear. We know who our client avatar is. We got our one sentence elevator pitch. What do we do with it now? So some I'm gonna talk through several marketing pillars. Hopefully, it does not feel overwhelming. What I'm gonna say at the end, I'm gonna say at the beginning right now is pick one or two. Do not try to do all of these. The most important thing here is to pick one or two things and get really consistent. And when you are consistent with it and you have a system for keeping it up to date, then add one more thing. Do not, like, leave this webinar being like, I am going to now, like, revamp my website and start my YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram accounts and start a blog. Like, just one. Two, if you if you just can't reign yourself in, if you're a little overachiever heart like mine just can't do one thing, maybe two. But please don't try to do all of this. So let's talk websites. Think about your website as a digital hub. I will talk about websites again in webinar three because there's also, like I'll talk a little bit more about, like, a sales system and, like, it fits into, like, a larger, like, systems thinking about this. But your website really serves multiple purposes. It is both marketing. Right? People get on there. They they should. I think I saw somebody, mention that in the chat. Like, I need to get really clear on my solution on the website. Yeah. And it should be before the fold. Like, if you think about I'm gonna go back. Really? Right. Let's look at this is as soon as you get there on her website, this is here. It's super clear. Soon as you get here, it's crystal clear. Even here. Right? There's not a lot of words, but you very clearly get the message. So thinking about your website as it needs to serve that purpose. Right? It needs to be crystal clear, but it is also a sales tool. It is also a place like, it needs to be really clear also for how how do people who are interested in you become clients. And I'll talk more about, like, creating a sales funnel and systems later. And then it's also a place to engage and retain. Right? Like, you want your own clients to find some purpose ideally in your website, whether it is to share with other people, or it's a place where they get additional information. It just makes it easy for them to contact you. If you do not have a website, if you are not a web developer or do not have a budget to hire a designer and web developer because you kinda need both, which is most of us, the website builder, SimplePractice is actually pretty excellent. So it's a really good way, like, do this I'm talking about these things. If you're gonna spend time and energy, I want you to spend time and energy on the things that I talked about at the beginning of the webinar. Your client avatar, your own voice, your own personality. What is your niche? I do not want you to spend obscene amounts of money building out a website at the very beginning. It's just not really necessary, and it's more important that those other things are clear. And so I think SimplePractice does create you'd like it's a very easy way for you to take what we talked about and then build something that really works very well for you. And then it's also, you know, easily connected into when I talk next week about, like, creating systems and funnels and making it easy for people to book appointments or consultations, we wanna streamline because that makes your life easier and clients' lives easier. Remember, story. They're the hero. You're the guide, which means that the story starts with them and not you. I think not because we are necessarily trying to be self absorbed or self centered, but we think that we need to convince people that we're experts, and that is not the first step. The first step is really kind of helping people understand that we're interested in them more than we I think it I completely missed it on another slide. I used to say it all the time to clients. I do a lot of dating workshops in the past, and I would say, like, it's more important that you're interested than interesting, which I'm pretty sure I stole, borrowed from the Gottman's. But wherever I got it from, it applies in dating and it applies in recruiting. Right? It is more important for clients when they land on whatever your marketing I'm talking about websites, so we'll move on other things. For them to feel like you are interested in who they are and what they need than it is for you to show them how, like, magical and special you are just in and of itself. They wanna know about your magic and what makes you special from the standpoint of, how it actually makes their lives better. And then just, as I said, clarity. Again, I'll talk a lot more about this in webinar three when we're talking more around it as as a system. But please don't have people, like, hunting through, like, footer menus to try to figure out how to email you and, like, also, like, if email is not the ideal way for them to schedule, make that very clear, really big, bold somewhere up at the top because what you don't want is people falling in love with you as their potential therapist and then feeling annoyed that they can't figure out how to book an appointment. Networking. So networking, again, is another marketing strategy. It is very important. I think I hopefully have drilled in word-of-mouth. It will forever be your best marketing tool, but it it is a slow build. I also wanna talk about marketing because I think that it is when we are intentional about it, it is also about, self care. It is about, like, taking care of ourselves as clinicians is you need to have colleagues who are also running practices. They don't all have to be running practices, but you need to have colleagues who understand the journey that you're on, not just so that you can refer clients and they can refer clients, but so you can share resources, So you can go to happy hour and chitchat about what is frustrating, not only as a clinician, but now as a as a business owner because there are different sets of frustrations, and that you're looking like, you're building that network so that it is both about, you know, ensuring that you have a robust source of clients, but also that you are gonna be okay in the process. It's really, really, really key. I will also say get out of your comfort zone. And so both in attracting clients, going back to our avatar. Right? Where do we find them? Like, some of our most effective marketing was early on, workshops at schools. Like, I had several child psychologists and therapists and family therapists. Like, it was much more effective for them to be at the elementary school doing workshops for teachers and parents than it was necessarily, you know, having 18 individual coffees with pediatricians or other, you know, child therapists. Like, both things are useful, but we wanna think about, like, how who are the other professionals? Where are the other communities for us to get involved in where we can bring some value? And, again, in taking care of ourselves. Where are places you can go where you get to know other entrepreneurs who understand the business side. They may not know what it's like to be a therapist, but they understand what it's like to run a small business, and they can provide support there that you really are gonna need. Social media. I wanna make sure I realize I'm running low on time, so I wanna keep make room for a lot of questions. So I'm gonna go through these somewhat quickly so we can go to q and a, and then you can bring me back to this and you can also read through the slides yourself. So but the one thing I wanna talk about, again, start small. One or two platforms. Do not try to do a bunch of things. Every platform has its own algorithm, its own tone, its own style. Pick one. Be consistent. And then if it makes sense to add others, you can. Educational content, I think it's the place where most of us start. We share a lot of things, tips to manage your anxiety, and that's really useful, particularly if you are newer to the field in general. It helps build credibility. Educational content doesn't really convert people into clients, though. It convert it kinda creates you as, like, an expert in the world, but not so we wanna make sure we're also pulling in process oriented content. Talk about what it's like to see, like, work with you. What's it like to go to therapy? What's it like to book an appointment? What's your unique approach to these common issues? If, again, like, if you're into books, share books. If you happen to be funny, like, be funny. If you like video, like but bring your personality and bring and also be clear. There needs to be a call to action. It's not enough to just post a bunch of stuff that people like. The number of people, not just therapists that I know, who have massive followings and are selling nothing. Like, they are not booking clients in part because they're just not asking. So just I want you to be mindful of that. Like, make sure you're sharing a a variety of content. These are other options. Blogging, articles, thought leadership. This could be your website. This could be on LinkedIn. This could be creating an email newsletter or a LinkedIn newsletter. It could be a substack. If you're a writer, there's a lot of ways to create long form content. I mentioned doing, like, school workshops. You could do a lot of different kinds of workshops. You don't necessarily even have to be community based. You could do webinars. You could do LinkedIn live. Think about what works for you and then align it with that client avatar. What where are they and how do they like to get information? And then finally, speak engagements, TV, podcast, radio. I've done a fair amount of TV, podcast, radio. That if that if you are very comfortable and you love to be in conversation, that could be a really great way. One thing in particular about TV and radio, b, remember your niche. Like, it's cool to be on the Today Show, but it is far more effective for your practice if you are on the local morning television station because those people are actually gonna call you for an appointment. The person in if you're in New York and they're in Omaha, then they saw you on, you know, The View. They think you're cool. They'll visit your website. But unless you were selling other things besides your therapy services, that's not gonna turn into a client because they're not where you need you are, and and that's just not gonna make sense. So stay local thinking about that as a marketing strategy. I am going to stop here and make sure that I will pick up the marketing plan when I'm talking about systems in webinar three. So a little mostly so I can answer your questions. I I wanna be mindful of people's time. I I'm happy to stay a little bit longer, but I know that for some people, like, you may have a 03:00. You gotta go. So I wanna answer some questions, but, I will talk much more about building a sustainable marketing plan in webinar three. I promise you're only missing. Look. I'll show you. One, two, three. Just three slides. Four slides. All of which I will talk about in webinar three. So let's get into questions while we still have a little bit of time together. I need to click I'm going to stop sharing my side and go over here. I love oh, I was like, oh, is this the most popular question? How do you register for webinar three? It is not. It's just the most recent question. So, I we will post in the chat, I think, the link. Also, it will come out to you. You'll get there it is. All the details. Let me resort by upvotes. Here we go. Okay. I'm going to share the questions up here and read them because I you guys will get it with me. So if you are a solo private practice therapist, is it okay to have two very separate avatars that you are passionate about, or do you need to narrow them down to just one example? My passion are working with kids in the foster care adoption system as well as working with late teens, early twenties, LGBTQIA individuals. If you are just starting out, what I would recommend you do is build a client avatar that is a late teen who is in foster care or who was adopted, who is also an LGBTQIA individual. Build that client avatar. Be hyper focused. Because here's the thing. Every it's not like you're going to, like, suddenly now, like, every I don't know. Whatever. Like, LinkedIn post is going to be if you are adopted and 19 and, oh, you know, part of the LGBTQIA community, then this. Right? That avatar is gonna help you then create content that will speak both to kids and adolescents who might be in foster care or in the adoption system. Also, it will speak to the other individuals. Somebody in their early twenties is still gonna see that and feel that gets relevant. Your messaging will be clearer if you have one because otherwise, you start to feel like they're two separate people. Make them one person. That that would be my advice. You can then expand beyond that. I think as your practice grows, as your content like, then you have a system in place. So then you have figured it out. Maybe you develop an email newsletter, let's say. Well, then you might, on the back end, be like, okay. So I put out my email newsletter twice a month, and on the fifteenth of the month is my foster care adoption system focus, and on the thirtieth of the month is my LGBTQIA focus. But first, have a really clear avatar. It's much more helpful. It will be more helpful to you, and I I feel really strongly that you're not going to eliminate potential clients from your marketing. Would Esther, will you please share the impact of giving a time time in free consult and the message that gives our value relative MDs, etcetera, and that is all the things all the places. I'm of two thoughts about free consultations. I mean, the reality is that it is hopeful, partially because people are trying to make sure it's a good fit. That said, you need to be really, really mindful about your time. And I think one of the struggles is, again, when you're early building a caseload, it feels like, well, what else am I doing with my time? I have to do this. But I do think being really conscientious. And so one of the ways, that I I do this now. I'm a I'm in a very different place career wise, so I wanna, like, name that and acknowledge it. Also, I wanna say that, I I see other clinicians at various points in their careers also doing this is create a little bit of work if you're going to offer a free consultation that there's a little bit of effort that's involved in that. Like, they shouldn't be able to just sort of, like, click a button, pick a time, and they show up and, like, you have, like, their name and their email. Like, I I do like to both provide some additional information like, hey. Here's how I work. Let's also clear some things up. Like, in my case, like, I don't take insurance. These are what my rates are. These are, like, these are the clients who I phrase that. The clients who find me the most helpful commit to therapy every week, duh duh duh duh duh duh. Like, I give a little bit more content. At that point, they've already decided that they think I could be a good fit. So now it's a good time to share more about you, and you ask people for a little bit more commitment on that end. I think as you move to, like, a larger practice, in our case, not everyone loved it, but we did our free consults with our intake coordinator. They were not with a therapist because therapist time is extremely valuable and expensive. And so I think we have to sort of be we have to find a balance, but I think a lot of mindset about how well do I value my own time and energy is really key to doing that. You know, your doctor doesn't give you a free consult. Also, doctor appointments tend to be fifteen minutes versus so it might be that you offer, like, a thirty minute intro appointment. It's less expensive for the client. It values your time. There's a variety of ways for us to kind of navigate that that also, you know, is mindful of our time and our value. And that is I I'm glad that you brought that up because I think there are a lot of places where that shows up that we need to be thinking about it. Okay. If you are a solo private practice therapist, is it okay oh, I answered that and did not check the box. Okay. Also unanswered. What's an example of addressing objections proactively on our therapy website? This is a great question. I'm glad you asked that, because I didn't get a chance to talk about it. Thinking about sort of, like, the core things. Right? So a cost is one of them. I believe in being very I I'm very transparent about what it costs because the reality is, like, if I'm out of budget, and we're wasting each other's time. Right? Like, that's not really helpful. But I think some of the other objections, like, I wish I had kind of shared I could have saved some screenshots. Like, one of the things we talked about, on, like, my group practice website when when we were still open was, how do I know that that you're gonna understand me? Part of our client avatar was really speaking to people who often felt excluded or marginalized or unseen in mental health and in wellness. So a lot of, you know, black, brown, immigrant, LGBTQIA, a like, people whose identities just often were not being reflected, for them in mental health. And so one of the core objections is, like, do you even understand me and my culture? Or are you gonna tell me that, like, that some of my cultural practices are unhealthy or dysfunctional or toxic or enmeshed? And so we literally just it was like a headline, and we just talked about, like, this is an experience for a lot of people. And we knew it was an experience for a lot of our ideal client avatars. So, again, when you get clear about who your avatar is, then you understand what are some of those objections and, like, you can do it as an FAQ. You can do it as a, you know, just like a headline where you talk about, like, here's how we do x. Again, I think also moving into, like, your content elsewhere where whatever that is. So whether that's social media, whether that's emails, whether that's, you know, public speaking, but raising those issues that are actually oftentimes create hesitation or objection for a potential client. And a pause for I'm happy to answer a few more questions. I just wanna pause for a second because I know it's 303 and just thank everybody who is here, who does need to leave. I will answer two more questions, and then we can kind of wrap up. And I hope that I see all of you at webinar three. Like I said, we'll talk about marketing systems and sales and all the things that you're gonna need so that you are not exhausted and burnt out. Oh, okay. Here we go. If you are not on social media such as Instagram or Facebook, what other ways can you reach potential patients? This is also a good question. So I think, again, I'm gonna be a broken record. Go back to your client avatar. Where is your client avatar? So I will just say this. If your client avatar spends a lot of time on social media, then we probably need to think about creating a professional presence on social media. And if you're not comfortable with that being your face, that could be, you know, you create a nice load, like, it can be, like, the practice is on whatever. So assess that. It's really important that you do that. But it is not the only place and it's not always the most effective strategy quite honestly. So some of the other options are, again, building an email newsletter, looking at your looking your immediate community. Where are the social and professional organizations that you can get involved in and and donate your time to? You know, and I know we get into, like, how do we value our time. I think that eventually you should be paid for your time. But if you think about it as, like, when am I doing it as a marketing strategy and evaluate it from that perspective. If you had an Instagram account, you were going to spend x number of hours a month creating posts, posting, looking at, you know, your engagement rates, all of those things. So thinking about it is like, okay. Those hours are marketing hours. So I'm willing to do a free workshop at the high school because that is aligned with my client avatar. We don't just do it just to be doing it so that you're out there. You need to be really strategic in evaluating, like, where are those places you do that. It could be again, I talked about, like, TV and radio. I always tell people, like, your local TV producer has to create so much content on a daily basis all the time nonstop. They love to find a professional that they can rely on who will come and just give some opinions and some tips on all different kinds of things. And so, that's something for you to think about. It is another way to kind of reach out and do something that feels different and maybe feels inaccessible, but actually could be really accessible to you and really good for your practice. Let's see. That's also online strategies. Alright. I'm gonna answer this one. Last question. I see individuals and couples. I have currently created my website to only be about my work with couples, specifically doing half day intensive couples because that's what I want to market. Should I focus my website instead of my client avatar, which is couples intention, and list all of my services? So this is a good question. High level, yes. Refined to couples, refined what what is the tension? What does that mean? Is it high conflict? There's argue like, what does that get clear? And then, yes, I would mark it. I would kind of redo your website to speak directly to them. And then you could refine it into, like, for the couples that want fast change and intense work and are ready to commit half day intensives. Not sure where to start, not sure what support you need? Schedule, you know, an individual or a couple's session. Are you part of a couple where there's a lot of conflict, but your partner refuses to go? I offer the, you know, like, come I do do individual work to help individuals and couples who are trying to navigate conflict with a partner who is refusing to enter couples therapy. Right? Now you frame your services based on who that avatar is at the top. And, hopefully, that's helpful for other people thinking around you may have a very different avatar, but, you know, something similar along those lines is start with the avatar. Let that be the guidepost for everything else that you do. Alright. I could be here all day long, but I will not keep, the whole SimplePractice team on my webinar for two more hours while I answer questions. I do wanna say thank you to everybody again who joined, everybody who stayed for some more questions. Again, docs, you can find a copy of the slides. September 23, I will be back for webinar three. I'm gonna try really hard to tighten up those slides so we have more q and a time, while still giving you what I think you need to know, in terms of understanding the systems that are gonna help you both be sustainable and be joyful in your private practice because it's it's hard work and but with the right systems, we can really have a great time. So thank you all. You can also find I feel I have mixed feelings every time I say this, but you can just find me by googling me, Esther Boykin. You'll find my website. You'll find my Instagram. You can always message me if you have a burning question that you wish that you I had answered that I didn't. That's probably the easiest way to do that. And, yeah, I will you will I do believe you will get an email with a link, sign up for webinar three. And, again, you could message me. I will post about it as well on Instagram and LinkedIn. Alright? Bye, everyone.