The Switch from 1-1 to One-to-Many
The need for helpers is high right now.
As a therapist, you may just be wishing you could meet the demands of all the people who need your help right now.
On the other hand, you know you can’t even entertain taking one more client if you want to maintain your own mental health.
When you create your own one-to-many online income stream, you can help even more people outside of the traditional therapy space.
You can make an even bigger impact in the lives of people—people out there who could really benefit from what you have to offer.
It’s an amazing opportunity I want you to learn more about. But first, we’ve got to talk about the necessary adjustments to make when serving large groups of people including…
✔️ Strategies to make sure you’re meeting the needs of every group member
✔️ How to address the needs of your audience in a lighter, more appropriate way
Listen to the latest podcast episode and I’ll walk you through everything you need to know about working one-to-many.
CLICK BELOW TO LISTEN!
Show Notes:
Hey, Risers. Welcome back to episode 148 of Empathy Rising. Today I have a little bit of a different setup because I screwed up my neck at the gym so badly. I had this three-pound weight in my hand, it wasn't even like a heavy weight, and I went to roll my neck and my shoulder or something and I moved, but it didn't move and something happened. So hopefully this audio is coming through to you okay.
We are going to chat about some things to consider when moving from one-to-one to one-to-many. This is like the ultimate goal, right? This is what scalability is. However, I won't say that we aren't prepared for it. As clinicians, most of us have taken some courses or done some therapy groups, and so we understand what it means to hold space for more than one person. If you do family therapy, you probably are used to holding space for more than one person. So it's not that it's outside of our wheelhouse or beyond scope by any means.
However, when we start talking about one-to-many numbers the 38 students that I have in Side Hustle this round or 300 people in your membership site, when we start talking big numbers beyond, you know, a 10 person therapy group or whatever, there are some things that we need to think about, and we need to understand logistically from the business end of things and also from the holding space side of things when you have a lot of people.
It's no secret that one of the main selling features of online income is this scalability. The ability to stop trading a single session for a single amount of money, and to really start seeing more people so that if you're still looking at it from an hourly place, your hourly rate goes up exponentially. But eventually when you're hosting things like a membership site or something like that, a group program even, you're not even thinking about your hourly rate because you're by serving one to many.
The amount that you can make for your time exchange is just so little or so much that the time exchange doesn't really come into play anymore.So the scaling beyond one-on-one work with one-to-many is really this draw, the ability to drastically reduce the hours that you're spending with people and maintain, if not have significantly more, revenue coming in.
So when you introduce an online program to your revenue streams, you could decide to do something that's under your therapy practice. You're much more limited that way, but it is possible. Or you could do something outside of your practice by starting another business entity, which gives you much, much more freedom. But either way, you get to decide your level of touch, how many hours you want to work per week, and the amount you want to earn from that program.
We don't have this option in one-on-one therapy. Right? The choice we have is how many clients do I want to take, but we know that choice, it's like, there's an inverse relationship. There's an inverse relationship between the number of clients that you take and your mental health or your wellbeing. I know several people listening to this are at 27, 28, 30, 32 clients a week, and you're just dying. So you have control over how many clients you take, but there's a... I'm trying to think of the word, deficit isn't the right word, but there's a detriment.
That's what I was going to say. There's a detriment to making that choice. And so stepping outside the therapy room is really empowering because neither your impact nor your income has a ceiling whereas in the therapy room, it does. There's a ceiling on how many clients you can see and still be a happy, healthy human outside of your therapist identity. Therefore there is a cap on your income.
Sure, you can raise your rates periodically, but even that only goes so far so eventually there is a cap whereas with online income, and especially one-to-many programs, there's no cap. Right?
So I think the fact that we have a cap on our income when we're inside the therapy room, you know, that contributes to overworking and overstressing. It's the dilemma that I know. So many of you are going through right now in the sense of, do I take one more client? Because the need is so high right now, the need is so high, and it can be heartbreaking to get an intake phone call or an email request from somebody that A) You know, you can help, and B) You know needs help but you just can't, you can't fit one more person. If you do, you're going to break. Right?
So this overworking, this overstressing, is because of the ceiling nature of one-on-one therapy. So online income presents an awesome solution that we really get to have complete freedom over and we get to design any way we want to. We get to work in any capacity that we want to, as many direct hours with our customers as we want, or as you direct hours with our customers as we want, and the income potential doesn't change whatsoever.
What I really want to dive into today is the adjustments we need to make when working one-to-many, because it sounds glorious, right? Untapped potential for revenue, untapped potential for impact. I could help millions of people and make millions of dollars. And yes, that is true. But the adjustment to serving large groups of people is something that I want us to just think about, I want us to imagine some of the ramifications, so to speak, or some of the, you know, side things that tend to fall into place or not fall into place.
When we're so focused on one goal we almost give ourselves tunnel vision, and we don't see some of the external factors, and that's what I want to bring into this today: Those external factors. I won't go so far as saying the challenges, but to be honest, sometimes there are aspects of the transition to one-to-many, like one to a lot, that are tricky and that are hard. So I want to make sure we're addressing these, we're making plans for these. We're envisioning these as we move forward, and as we step into the online income space.
So I have shared my story with you guys before, and if you want to hear the whole thing in detail, you can scroll back to it's either January 2021, or it might be December 2020, but I do have an episode in the archives, that's called the story behind my burnout or the details behind my burnout or something like that. You can go back and listen to that episode in full if you want to hear the whole story and all the details and everything that happened, because even though online income is kind of... it can be the antidote to burnout in your practice.
You can still burn out in online income, especially if you're doing one-to-many and you don't know what you're doing, or you don't have the systems and structures and forethought in place that we're going to talk about today. So I've very much learned this the hard way. But to give you the gist: My business exploded in 2020. I had been on a growth trajectory since 2017. I had doubled every year since 2017.
So I was growing, but to grow from 50,000 to 100,000 and then 100,000 to 200,000 is different than another doubling or another growing. Right? So in 2020 I more than doubled. It wasn't like a hundred percent growth. It was like 117 or 120 or something like that percent growth. And I had more students in Side Hustle that I knew what to do with, and the issue wasn't necessarily that I didn't think I could help that many people, it's that I didn't have the systems and the structures in place to support those students.
Because at that point I was still a solopreneur, meaning I was doing everything myself. I had one contractor who edited my podcast. She was a grad student in an MFT program. If you've been following along with me for a while, you might remember me talking about her. I paid her 50 bucks a month to edit my podcast and that was it. I did everything else myself.
Which I recommend, honestly. I really do believe that you can start a great online business all by yourself and you can easily get 100,000, maybe even 150,000 - 200,000 by yourself because that's how I did it, but when I grew from that figure and then doubled again, more than doubled again, it wasn't possible to do it myself. The marketing I could have held on to if I had wanted to, but at that point I had enough revenue coming in that I was like, I don't have to do this myself anymore. So I might as well outsource it.
But the things that had to change were every student in Side Hustle, I used to do their graphic design and I used to do their copywriting alone. They would create the things, but I would critique, and I would review, and I would tweak and I would help them get their businesses built. And with the amount of students that I had in 2020, I could not be the person doing that anymore, especially because my kids were home and everything that happened on the life side, the life chaos side in 2020, I could not do it myself.
So that was what I went through and how I learned what it means to serve that many people. It was very different to be one to a few and then one to a lot. Right? So it was a learning opportunity that I wouldn't trade for anything. I made some good decisions and I made some bad decisions in that time. And again, the life chaos didn't like... compounding on top of having to make these decisions and never knowing what I was doing.
Like, hiring people? I never even thought I'd have employees, let alone be trying to onboard them in, like, a day. Right? So I also made some bad decisions, but it was a learning opportunity. Like I said, and I wouldn't trade it for anything, but it really taught me what it means to scale to one to a lot, like one-to-many, the things I need to pay attention to the decisions I need to make and the ways in which to make that transit transition easier and also things to build into your program so that it doesn't matter if you have five people or 500, you stay stable and your output stays stable.
So those are the things that we're going to really dive into today because if you jump into one too many without a lot of thought, there's some things that happen. You start to get overwhelmed with tracking and like trying to pay attention to all the details. There's so much going on. It's hard to key into what needs your attention and where, what matters, what's important, and what can slide. So that is something that you want to think about as you were building this.
The other thing that I think clinicians are especially guilty of, or it's easily easy for clinicians to succumb to, is showing up on too high a level. Trying to hold a therapeutic space or trying to serve people as if it was a one-on-one program, like a one-on-one level of touch, but they're being 10, 15, 20, 30 people there. And you're trying to one-on-one each person instead of lead the group. So that is something that we need to make sure that we have a plan for and are thinking about.
The other thing that I am still guilty of, I'm still working on getting better, was terrible at it clinically too, that is going overtime. So if you have an hour and a half call set up for your group and you're going like two hours, two and a half hours, it's because you haven't learned or haven't thought about how you were going to manage a bigger group in the timeframe that you've allowed.
So we need to have some systems in place, some thoughts in place for that because without these things, your program's going to have a chaotic feel, right? You are going to feel super duper, duper stressed out facilitating the program. And I think even worse is your, some of your students are going to be able to pick up on that, and there will be students whose needs aren't met. Especially the introverts hiding in there. If you're scrambling and you're, like, running around like a chicken with your head cut off, there are going to be students who fall through the cracks. And again, I'm speaking from experience here.
So, we need to make sure that you are able to facilitate from a calm and grounded place that you are showing up, not over showing up, but showing up in a way that's appropriate for the type of group and the size of group and showing up in a way where you are regulated and where you feel. I don't like the word in control, but in command of yourself and the group, and this intern is going to trickle down to the students who are able to feel grounded in themselves, especially as they're learning something new, right? You're the leader at this point, and without thinking about how you're going to lead, it can get really messy.
You want to be strong in your leadership and feel comfortable in your leadership, and that way your students will pick up on that. Once you start thinking about this and you start thinking about your one-to-many container and you're really solid on it, you're going to know what is important to pay attention to and what is not.
We'll talk a little bit more about that as the episode goes on, but some things are your responsibility and some things are not. Some things need to be addressed immediately, and some things don't. We really need to know what your leadership role is and what program you're leading people through so you can decide that because believe me, if you're trying to track and pounce on every single thing, you're gonna drive yourself nuts.
There's also a difference between the type of space that you hold in an online income program, in an online program, than the type of space that you hold at therapy. This is part of what draws so many clinicians to online income is they still get to be instrumental.
They still get to be working with people, but it's not a healing-heavy, trauma-focused type of energy or space that you're holding. It's a question-and-answer space. It's a community space. It's a conversational space, and so learning how to do that and imagining what that looks like ahead of time makes a big difference so that you can make sure that you're not over-delivering and overstressing yourself out. Also, you want to make sure you're not crossing the line into therapy.
You're also going to just be much more efficient. You're going to be much more efficient as the leader, keeping those call times to what they are supposed to be, but also in delivering the information, making sure all the students are feeling seen, heard, and served, making sure everybody's getting what they needed when you approach this from an organized place or a place where you've accounted for your vision.
The efficiency and the organization will be there, and then you can, you know, shut the door and go onto your regular life. Your program ultimately will feel well-executed, and when a student enjoys being in your program, when they get the results that they were supposed to get, when they feel like they were supported through the journey, that's a gold mine. Because that's what turns into word-of-mouth referrals. That's what turns into them sending their friends your way and all of that stuff.
So this is why we want to think about how are we going to facilitate, and what type of one-to-many do we want to do? What's our leadership style, what feels like a right fit, all of that needs to be thought of before you dive in so that your program is well-executed, so that it is impactful, and that so people enjoy it, and so that your business continues to grow.
This is why it's best to understand what you are looking for in your one-to-many offer as the facilitator, right? This needs to serve you and your lifestyle. Otherwise, you just do more therapy. Otherwise, you'd take that 32nd or that 33rd client, right? You're doing this because it's supposed to serve.
The key to this is figuring out what actually needs your attention and what is less important. That depends on the type of outcome that your program provides. So let's talk about a program that might be community heavy. So this might be a group program. This might be a membership site, although both of these could not have community... like there's nuance to all of this, but community heavy programs where that is really what you're selling is community and connection.
The growth opportunity here is for your students or your members. It comes from sharing and it comes from interacting and it comes from joining with others. That is the key takeaway. That's what you want them to remember from your program. That's how they're going to achieve results. So if this is the case, you have a community heavy program, then your primary objective is making sure that customers are enjoying their time in your program. Making sure that there's opportunities for connection that you're helping people join and link, right? Some of those group therapy skills, right?
Joining people together, making connections for people, facilitating dialogues, facilitating conversations. That is what your primary focus is. You also need to keep an eye on relationship dynamics and making sure that things are matching the intention of your program and so you will need to pay attention to and give some energy over to setting and maintaining boundaries in the group. So there's things that you have to make sure that are happening, and then you also have to make sure there are things that aren't happening. But it focuses on this community-heavy type of program.
Alright. Another focus is an education-heavy program. This is most likely going to be a course of some sort. However, you might run a group program and focus less on the community, more on the education. Okay, so the growth opportunity for students or members or whatever in this type of program is gaining knowledge, accumulating knowledge, and if that is what you want to sell is knowledge, and that is what you think your ideal customer needs at that stage, then your primary objective is creating quality lessons and curriculum, right?
So your focus is on making sure that the knowledge in your head is getting transferred in a clear, concise way, and that students are able to understand it and they're actually learning. It's probably a good idea to provide mixed media for different learning styles and also for accessibility. So you might think about slideshows, but you also might think about audio-only. And you might think about some other ways for workbooks or worksheets that are more for the kinesthetic or the writer, the people who learn through writing.
Having visuals, having audio, having written... I can't think of this word... written a process, like the way where they might take notes or something that's going to help them cement the knowledge. It's also wise to maybe have periodic knowledge checks. Teachable is one course platform that allows you to build quizzes. I'm pretty sure almost all of them do that.
So building in a quiz after each module or maybe like a final exam or something so that there are knowledge checks along the way. And if you want to have a little bit of community, you could facilitate discussions that help cement the learning, but the discussions are not about necessarily like, oh, Jane, you mentioned this and now Sarah, you mentioned this, you guys should connect, right. That would be if you're in a community and have a program.
This is more like, hey, let's talk this through, repeat it back to me, so I know that you've got the concept. It's more about cementing the learning than having the community. So those are the things that you're going to want to focus on in an education-heavy program. Some of the other stuff can go by the wayside. It doesn't need your immediate attention and it perhaps doesn't need your attention at all.
So the final type of category is a transformation-heavy program, and this is most likely going to be, if you're doing one-on-one coaching group programs, can definitely be transformational group programs, especially if they are longer in duration. I'm trying to think of other offerings that will be heavy on the transformation, but those two are the ones that come to mind. Those are the two that are top of mind.
The growth opportunity for your students or your members in a transformation-heavy program would come from there being a difference in behavior, a difference in mindset, a difference in confidence or something, or a difference in emotional state. So a difference in behavior, a difference in action, a difference in emotional state, something where there is measurable forward movement.
Okay, now how is this different than therapy? Remember, it's present and future-focused. It's not past focused and it's problem-solving. It's not processing or healing. So that's how transformation will be different. But if you have a one-on-one transformational coaching package and you're still doing therapy at the same time, that's the greatest line.
That's the muddiest water. So we have to really pay attention there. It's not that you can't do it. It's just that you need to pay attention to it. In a transformation heavy program, your primary objective is defining their current state and their desired end state. Here's where you are. Here's where you will be after you. You participate in this program or after you give this, you take this coaching package.
So here's another way that it's different than therapy: we make a guarantee. We make a promise, which we can't do. Right? Once you've defined the change that's going to take place, you'll provide challenges or exercises for them to embody something new or different. So practical exercises.
I want you to act as if let's go through this entire program or let's go through this entire call as if you have a different mindset or something, like role-play, play pretend, or some of these things to give them that embodiment to know what it feels like to be on the other side to have already gone from point A to point B. Instead of having periodic knowledge checks, like in an education-heavy program, you might have periodic growth checks.
These might be one-on-ones throughout, like at certain intervals throughout your program, or if it's one-on-one coaching, you might have them fill out questionnaires at certain points of your coaching package so that they're reflecting on how they're changing and how things are transforming.
Another thing to be careful about here and that can help you make sure that you're not doing therapy is facilitating a deeper process outside of the coaching package or outside of the program. You can certainly ask them to do deep work, but you're going to ask them to do it through a meditation that you provide them or a journal prompt that you provide them, or a workbook that you provide them so they are doing that type of stuff externally. You don't want them to do that with you because that could quickly border into therapy territory.
So if they need to do deep work to achieve the transformation, that's totally fine. They do it by themselves. This is why screening is important at this level because you need to make sure that the customers who are participating in your program are not below baseline and therefore should actually be therapy clients. They need to be able to go and do deeper processes by themselves and be okay.
Once you know the leading factor of your program, you can start to fill in: What's most important for you to focus on as a facilitator. Am I focusing on community aspects? Am I focusing on education aspects? Am I focusing on transformation aspects? And then other stuff can fall down the priority list or down the priority pyramid, right. There are certain things you'll still always have to address, right?
If boundaries with relationships or some of these leadership qualities that you're still always going to have to do, it might not be like an education heavy program. Let's say attendance, who was there each week, or who showed up for what things. That's going to be less important, right, because they're there to get the knowledge however they get it. And if they get it on their own time, that's fine.
So you're not trying to mentally calculate who is there. Remember, in a community-heavy program, if somebody has an accountability buddy with somebody else and that one person isn't showing up, then yeah. That's something you got to pay attention to. Or in a transformation-heavy program, if somebody has kind of fallen out and isn't showing up for calls, you might want to reach out to them and be like, hey, how are you doing on your growth?
When you know what the focus of your one-to-many offer is, you can start to understand what needs your attention and how immediately it needs your attention. And if it doesn't need your attention at all, it can just be, you know, let it go. It's not your concern. So I hope this helps you think about what you want to do in your one-to-many offer, and also what you want to look like as the leader of your one-to-many offer, and what you want your students or members to experience in your one-to-many offer.
To learn more about the different aspects of different programs and to see the logistics of each and how they compare and contrast, you are going to want to register for my free masterclass. The one-hour training puts all different programs side by side and shows you some of these factors so you can feel super prepared as you move into the transition and as you go from one-on-one to one-to-many, you'll know what to expect.
So that masterclass is totally free and it's on-demand. So you can watch it whenever you want. Whenever it fits your schedule. Just head on over to marissalawton.com/masterclass, and that's where you can register.
Alright, this has been super fun for me this week. I hope you've enjoyed it. I'll be back next week, and until then, keep on rising.
