Summer Coaching Series: B2B vs B2C with Chrissy
Chrissy has been thinking of starting a side hustle for YEARS…
…and, finally, she’s ready to take the leap!
In the latest podcast episode, I share a coaching session Chrissy and I had together. Tune in to learn…
✔️The two totally different ideas Chrissy had
✔️Which idea she was leaning towards and why
✔️What steps she is taking next to maintain traction
CLICK BELOW TO LISTEN!
Show Notes:
Hey, risers. We are back with yet again another summer coaching episode this week. We're talking with Chrissy who is in Georgia, actually, not too far from me in a part of town that we go to quite a bit, and she is a licensed professional counselor. Hopefully, her story will resonate with you as she is a colleague of yours and a peer.
One of the big things that we talk about in Chrissy's episode is the difference between business to business and business to consumer. There's a lot of talk in the online space that the only thing that sells is business to business—helping coaches learn how to be coaches, to coach other coaches, that kind of... I don't wanna say pyramid scheme, but it feels like that when it's so enmeshed in terms of business-to-business offers, but that's not true.
We can have great success with business-to-consumer, straight-to-the-consumer offers. And if we want to be in business to business, if that's the position we wanna take, we can certainly set that up with integrity and in a way that is still really helpful for business owners and not manipulative or anything like that. So that is what we explore a lot in today's episode.
The other thing that comes up in our conversation is how Chrissy is mentioning that she not only has a caseload herself, she also runs a big group practice and she's got a family. So she's had these ideas for a side hustle for a long time.
We talked through two of them on this episode, and she's had them for years. But the ability to implement them to take steps forward and to take action has been limited because she's busy in so many other spaces. So I think that is something that can really resonate with you guys as you listen to this episode.
Marissa (M): Hey, risers. Welcome back to another coaching episode for our Summer Coaching Series. I am here with Chrissy Himmelstein, and we are gonna just power through whatever she needs help on today. And hopefully, by listening to her ask and answer questions for me, it'll help you as the listener get clarity and move forward on your side hustles as well.
So Chrissy, if you don't mind introducing yourself for us. Let us know where you live. Tell us a little bit about, like, your licensure and your practice, the kind of work you like to do clinically, and then we'll just dive on in.
Chrissy (C): Okay. I'm Chrissy Himmelstein. I live in the Atlanta area.
M: Cool. I'm not far from you. I'm an hour south of you.
C: Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm north of Atlanta.
M: So two hours south of you, yeah.
C: I'm not too far, in Alpharetta. That's where I practice. So I am a licensed professional counselor and a CPCs, which is like the professional counseling supervisor here, and a Registered Play Therapist Supervisor too. And then I have a group practice.
M: That's fun. We love Alpharetta. It's one of my favorite areas. My daughter rides horses, and we have to go to the Dover Saddle Store in Alpharetta. And I guess that's a pretty common area for... there's a lot of horse stuff up there. So we've been around that part of town. My husband's at Fort Benning, so we're not too far from there.
C: Oh, okay. Yeah. I know where Dover's at. It's off of highway nine unless it moved.
M: Yeah. Okay. Tell me a little bit about what your vision is for a side hustle. Why'd you start thinking about maybe something outside the therapy room, what's attractive to you about a side hustle...
C: It's just been an idea I've had for several years. So it's not anything, like, super new to me. I don't know, it's been like three years since I've had an idea of it. It's just the time to do it—that's where I struggle. I have a family and then, I see a small caseload, and then I run the practice and do supervision. So I have lots of things happening.
M: So yeah, tell me what your idea is and then we can go from there.
C: I had a couple of different...well, I had two ideas. One would be, like, a type of a workbook to use with clients specifically that are struggling with anxiety. So I wanted something that we could use in session. Clients could take it home.
I find that oftentimes like when we're in session I'll make copies of things, or we'll write stuff down in practice, but I really would love something that was just a workbook of sorts that they can use at home and then bring to the session and can go back and forth.
So that was like one idea I have. And then my other idea is just creating something for therapists that are wanting to get started in private practice, not sure where to start, they maybe wanna do their own billing and things like that. Cause that's how I got started. So two different kinds of ideas.
M: Yeah. So we're walking the line between business to business and business to consumer business to business would be this therapist-facing idea that you have, where you are helping a clinician, with an outcome that's directly related to their business. So the ROI, the return on that investment for them would be business growth would be money, would be monetary.
If they're moving into private practice it would probably also be time freedom. And some of that stuff that comes when they're leaving agency or community mental health. When we're on the business-to-consumer side, you're helping people with anxiety, like with a personal problem or a personal concern and you're addressing their life.
So the return on the investment on that is a little less measurable where we can't say, oh, I spent this money and I made X amount more. So there was a return on that investment. When we're doing B to C, we don't exactly have that direct correlation. So it's more like I report feeling better. I report things are easier. I have a noticeable difference in X, Y, and Z and so the return on investment is less tangible and more feelings-based.
C: Yeah.
M: Do either of those speak to you more or less?
C: I don't know. I can see and that's where I'm at I can see value in both. I know the workbook for the client is gonna be a little bit harder to measure, but I still think it would be valuable for the client. And it's something that I think would be helpful for them to have so that's where the values are in that.
M: Would you want that to stay within your practice? Like you just have your clients buy it or are you thinking just...
C: I don't know. I can really see other therapists being able to use it for their clients too, especially with anxiety disorder type of thing. So I think it could be possible that other therapists would find it valuable.
M: That's what I was thinking too because that actually has B2C potential where the customer themselves buys it, but it also has B2B potential because you could sell it as a resource to other clinicians. The other thing that makes something B2B is it's a write-off. So if it's a course to build your practice, then you would then write that off as a business expense.
Same with this workbook. If they bought it as a resource for their clients, then they could then write it off as a business expense. So that's another way that you can think, like, which category are you in?
C: Yeah. Okay.
M: The workbook is also in what we call a low price, high volume category you're probably gonna be charging certainly less than a hundred dollars for it. Probably less than 50, depending on how jam-packed it is, and things like that.
I don't have it in front of me, but in the Side Hustle Support Group, I make a physical copy. I mail it out to them, the workbook for our whole course. And it is like 200 pages, and I use Amazon to fulfill it. And Amazon charges like 36 bucks for it. So that kind of gives you the price point of what a workbook would be.
C: Okay. So how does that work? I guess that's part of my question, like, making something like a workbook, for example, like how to publish... I don't even know. I wouldn't even really know where to like… how to make it, where to start.
M: Yeah. What I would do is in this case, like, work smarter, not harder, and there's a website called creativemarket.com. I swear by it. It is a little bit of a rabbit hole. So if you go on there, set a timer for 30 minutes and that's it.
C: Okay.
M: Because you'll find yourself like... it's like an Etsy, it's like a marketplace. It's like a hobby lobby, where it's like another store that I get lost in. But it's all digital design products—logos and fonts—so you can get lost. So that's why I say set a timer. But what I would do... are you familiar with Canva?
C: A little bit. I've done some for Facebook posts and things like that for my business, but yeah.
M: Canva has its own templates, but what I like about Creative Market is a professional designer has gone ahead and maybe taken a Canva template and punched it up. Given it, like, a glow up, so to speak. It's professionally designed.
So if you go to creativemarket.com and search "workbook template Canva" there'll be thousands, literally, of results. And then you can start to look for what your aesthetic is. If you have more of a feminine or pretty kind of aesthetic, or if you have more of a bold and like brighter colors type aesthetic, whatever, there will be one that matches it.
The template itself will probably be 20-25 bucks. But then it's all made for you and you just drop the content in. So that is the route that I would take because when you design a page from scratch, it takes hours, but somebody else has already done that for you. And for me, 20-25 bucks, that's worth it, to go ahead and purchase for that.
So you can make that decision if you wanna build it from scratch, but this is definitely a shortcut that I think is like pretty worth it. And then, once you build it in Canva, download it as a PDF. And there's a lot of self-publishing software out there. If you're pro-Amazon or don't have an issue with Amazon.
The one that I would use is Kindle direct publishing. It's also abbreviated KDP, and it takes you just a few minutes. Like you upload the PDF that you downloaded from Canva, you put in the title and any tagline, and any keywords so like therapist, anxiety, mental health, like all these keywords and then within like probably an hour and a half you can set it up and then Amazon generates its own price.
And then people searching, that's why you wanna do the keywords, anybody searching those can just buy it. But then if you want to send it to people, this is what I do. I buy it, and then I put in my student's addresses, and then Amazon fulfills it for me. So I don't have to do that. So you can have people find it through search, searching themselves on Amazon. You can take the Amazon link and just share that out, "Hey, I have a book buy it here off of Amazon". Or you can purchase it and send it to people. If you don't like Amazon or if you're not a fan, there are other self-publishing software out there.
C: So why wouldn't people like Amazon? I don't know.
M: Yeah. Some people just don't like the values of Amazon or aren't fans of Jeff Bezos and stuff like that. Personally, it's the easiest, especially as fulfillment, but, like, for values reasons or anything, you can always find the other self-publishing software.
C: Oh, okay. But what about, like, images and stuff? Say there are images I wanna use like maybe yoga poses or something like that. Like how do you put images into like a workbook like that?
M: So the one thing you wanna be careful of is just the license. Does the image have a release? So right in Canva, if you are on the pro version of Canva, which is like 10 bucks a month, all the images in there are free to use and they already have the release. If you're on the free version of Canva, the images in there still all have the release to be used, but some are free and some you pay for.
So you just kinda gotta look at that Creative Market, that same website that I was talking about to get the template, you can buy photos right from there too. And what I would search is, like, "mindfulness photo bundle". If you search the word bundle, it means they've all been taken by the same photographer and they're curated to go together.
So then you know that all the pictures in your workbook will be a set. Like they look nice together because they're curated.
C: Oh, okay. Alright.
M: So again, that would be another 25 bucks or so if you bought a photo bundle, but you have the release, and that curation has been done. There are also photo sites like Unsplash, or Pexels is one of my favorites, P E X E L S.
And those are all free photos, but with those, you just have to be more careful about reading the fine print on the release. Is it able to be used in the way that you wanna use it? So there's shortcuts you can pay for, or you can certainly do it all from scratch. However, whatever makes the most sense for you timewise, money-wise.
But together it's a project that could probably be done in like a week between putting the book together and then getting that book uploaded to Amazon or whatever software you choose. It's probably like a week, 10-day type of process.
So in the like low price, high volume, we're charging maybe $35 for this let's say. So you've gotta make a lot of sales to make it worth your while. So thinking about marketing plans and things like that, the good thing is because it's a low price, you don't have to do a bunch of nurturing people to buy it. You just say, hey, I've got a workbook. And the low price is "oh, sure. I'll grab it". You don't have to convince people or nurture people toward a sale because it's a digital product, and it's low price.
C: Okay. Alright. I guess so, like, obviously my clients would talk about it, but like how would I market? What would be advisable for marketing if, say, I wanna do it outside of just like my personal clients, like, where would be a good place to possibly start?
M: So if you wanted to sell it to other people, like B2C, we just need to figure out where those people are. It's just there's a ton of opportunities. One of my students, her name's Morgan, she actually learned this strategy from Amber Lyda. Amber did an ask me anything on Reddit, and Reddit, if you're not familiar, it's not social media.
It's like a forum, basically a site with a bunch of forums on a bunch of different topics. And you can host and ask me anything where the people on Reddit, just "ask me anything as a licensed therapist", right? Oh, the thing that Morgan experienced was people were all over the world. And so they didn't really funnel into her practice because she's in Florida. They were not like living in the states that she lived in.
So she's oh, "I wish I had a little something that I could have sold to these people because there were thousands and they were from everywhere". So I think that's a really fun strategy that a lot of people don't know about and they automatically go to, oh, we'll build an Instagram channel or build a this. But yeah, there's so much work that goes into that when it's easier to just go where the audience already is and where they're already curious.
C: Okay. I had no idea about ask me anything.
M: Yeah.
C: Is there liability to that though?
M: I would certainly be making sure you were giving a verbal disclaimer. Like: I am a licensed therapist, but this is not therapy. And then if any questions came in, oh I find myself, like, thinking about this or whatever, yeah. Then just kinda having a default response or a default script that's "wow, that sounds really concerning. My suggestion for you is to go and find a therapist".
C: Cause you never know. You don't really know what to expect for that.
M: Yeah. So I would just make sure at the beginning and the end, you just again, have a disclaimer and then just be always like, if there are questions that come up that are borderline or that cause you like any kind of concern, just always be like "here's the way to find a therapist go to your... go search psychology today" or whatever. Like just have a prepared speech. That way, you know what to default to.
C: Yeah. Okay. Alright. That's a fun idea.
M: Yeah. And Reddit, they only allow you to do it every couple of months. Like they don't... if I knew it was such a gold mine for like my clientele, like it is for Morgan's and potentially, I think it could be for this because I've heard a lot of therapists do this.
I wanna do it, like, once a week, but apparently, Reddit only allows you to do it every so often because they actually care about their audience and they care about... they're not there for people to be marketing. They're not there for people to be, like, spamming their audience. So I think it's a really ethical platform.
C: Okay.
M: That's something that you could easily do. The Facebook groups, there are giant ones for therapists that all have like promo threads. If you wanted to take it in the therapist direction and you wanted to say "Hey, I made this workbook that I use with my clients. They love it. If anybody is looking for an anxiety-type workbook, you can grab it here on Amazon".
That's another great option. And these are ways that you're just kind of infusing some cash, right? It's probably not gonna be something that pays your bills all the time. It's not necessarily steady income, but it's oh, hey, we have a vacation we're gonna go down to Dustin for spring break, or whatever. And you're like, I'd like some pocket money, then have a flash sale of this workbook. And it can just bring you some PO some extra like spending money, pocket money type thing.
C: Yeah. Okay. Alright. Yeah. Those are some good ideas.
M: So when I bring up the idea of pocket money, are you looking for this to be just a side hustle, or are you looking for something to become maybe full-time income, or what's your goal with that?
C: Like the workbook, I don't expect that to be like a maintenance income type of thing. I'm just looking for something really to be helpful for the client and then maybe if it's well-liked enough, maybe be useful for other therapists and their clients. So that's just more of definitely a little side thing. Nothing major, I don't think
M: So impact is... more impact and just, like, helpfulness feels like more of a driver.
C: Yes. I think so. I think it's just from the helping perspective more than big money generating. Cause I've bought other therapists, like, I've been to trainings and stuff, and like I've done EMDR training last year and they're like, so and so has a really great little book for kids talking about interception, or whatever, and then I'll go and purchase that book.
And then it's oh, this is a great little book to read with kids. So I guess I'm looking at that more of that from that kind of point of view, but yeah, for sure.
M: This other idea with the practice building or helping other therapists students do practice stuff is do you envision that being more of a bigger offer, like a coaching package or a group program or something like that?
C: There's so many, and that's where... There's just so many things out there. And I get really tangled up on how to get started. But yeah, I see that maybe for like just therapists that are wanting to get started and they're wanting to keep their cost low and they're just looking for some help. I don't know, just some helpful things to get started. Especially if they wanna do their own billing and stuff, cause it's expensive. If you should take insurance, if you try to outsource billing right away, that's a lot.
M: So it would be more like solving micro problems for them? Like, how to do your own billing? Or would it be more all-encompassing of, like, here's how to build a practice?
C: I don't know. I think definitely the billing side is something that I did when I started, and it saved me some money. So I definitely wanna target billing. And then I don't know. I don't know. I haven't thought much more outside of just maybe the billing standpoint as of now.
M: I like that, actually, because I don't believe in market saturation. I don't. But we already have... when I think like off the top of my head, who are the practice builders, there's five, six people who come to mind that are maybe already established in that, and so what I like about going at it from billing is I think I can think of maybe one or two people off the top of my head that's their focus.
So kind, it's almost like niching down within the niche, right? You're talking about practice building for therapists. That's a niche in itself, but you're getting even more narrow and solving an even more specific problem within that niche. And I always think that's a good idea.
C: I think there's a need for it. And I think sometimes people don't understand the building, and then they hire people that maybe aren't doing a great job, and then they don't know how to step in, understand what the problem is, and resolve the problem. I don't know, that's how I started out. I had somebody teach me the basics, and then I just learned things on my own. And I saved a lot of money over the years when I was doing it by myself.
M: Well and there's so much meat there because there's the insurance versus private pay debate. So you can address that debate, but then even in the insurance, people who are like, okay, I'm gonna take insurance, then there's so many. Who do I panel with? Who do I not panel with? How do I advocate for a higher rate?
All these things are in that. And then there's also the "how do I make sure I'm getting reimbursed like I'm supposed to?" So there's tons of meat. It sounds like, oh, billing. It sounds like something that might be too small, but when you look at it and you unpack it, there actually is a lot of meat there.
C: Yeah, I think so. There's a lot to it. There's the credentialing aspect of it. Then there's CQH which you have to do, there's that side of it, and just like how to submit claims and troubleshoot problems and then rate negotiations when you would like a higher rate. So there are lots of different little things that can happen in that topic, but yeah.
M: And I'm picking up that this is easy for you to talk about.
C: I've had my practice for 10 years. So for the majority of the time, I was doing our own billing. And then when COVID happened, insurance got really wonky about payments. So then I actually hired a outsource some of the bill billing. We had to because it was just so time-consuming. But yeah, I mean for years it was just really me and then a part-time admin person that we were handling it yeah. Yeah, I saved thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars.
M: Yeah. And that story right there is so powerful. This is something that our hands are a bit tied sometimes in therapy, of self-disclosure and being able to tell our stories and our journeys. And sometimes we choose to do it anyway or whatever, but in online income, it's not only allowed, it's encouraged.
So sharing that story of "I got into private practice for this. It was important to me to use insurance because of these reasons, even though there are downsides to insurance. Here's how I made it work for me, and here was this outcome of like literally thousands of dollars saved". Like, telling that story is gonna be really inspiring to other clinicians.
I've said this before, but if I was gonna go get a therapist, I'd want somebody who took Tricare. The first thing I would do is use my insurance, even though... and I know that's like an oxymoron and contradicts a lot of the stuff I talk about in terms of business building, but I still think that's the default.
And I do think there are a lot of clinicians out there who value accessibility and want to be able to provide some accessibility through some insurance. Maybe they're picking and choosing the panels they participate in.
C: Yeah. And you should pick and choose in my opinion.
M: But I do think that there is a subset of clinicians who are like, oh, all private pay all day. But there are other clinicians who are valuing that accessibility and valuing the ease of use with insurance and things like that. So from the client standpoint, at least, you would certainly be talking to a certain type of clinician who would want that.
C: Yeah. I think so. I've been on both sides of it where I've done the billing myself and then I've had to hire out. And I've made the decision to come off some panels while keeping other ones. So I've been on the whole journey over a decade, basically.
M: Yeah, and there's so much value in that learned experience or earned experience and learned experience. There's so much value in that, and in our field, we're quick to emphasize our education, right? Or like the things that we've gone out and like the certifications we have, and those are all great. But being in the trenches has so much value to it as well.
C: Yeah, because when you mess up your stuff and you don't get paid, you learn really quick.
M: How to not do that again.
C: You're like, that was bad. Cause then it's hey, I didn't get paid for that claim. So I need to figure out what I did wrong and get it corrected, or resubmit it, or whatever you have to do to finally get paid. But yeah, you learn fast.
M: So versus getting a workbook up and ready for sale, like I said, a week, 10 days, call it two weeks. But getting this kind of program up and running where either... you might decide it's a course.
C: Yeah.
M: Where you're not offering a lot of support. It's just more, here's the knowledge, here's the information. Or it might turn into a program that has more support where people can ask you questions or people can form a community or other things like that. That turns it into a different type of program.
But regardless, because they're higher price points, that's where we've gotta talk about a more consistent audience, building more consistent things, rather than just the flash sales that might happen with more of the workbook. Of course, each sale is probably 10 to 20, depending on what your course is priced at or whatever, 10 to 20 workbook sales is one course sale, right? In the amount.
So sometimes we're more willing to work for that higher payout. But the flash sale strategy isn't gonna work as well because we're at a higher price point. So it's less of an impulse buy, right? So the audience, the consumers, are going to need a bit more nurturing.
C: Okay. So I guess, like, how do you make a decision on this is a course and they purchased a course versus this is like a, I don't know, a monthly membership? What do you mean by community, like, a monthly membership type thing?
M: So there are a few different questions to ask. The first is price point versus volume, right? Or volume versus marketing. If you have a lower price program. Let's call a course $500. There are some that are less, there are some that are way more, but that's a good round number for us to use. A course is 500 bucks. And then we need to understand, like what money goal are we working towards? Oh, if I wanna make 5,000 a month from this course, then we need 10 core sales a month to make that happen. If it's oh, I wanna make $2,000 from this course, then we need four course sales for that to happen. So we have to work backward from what's the intention of this.
And if I want 10 course sales a month, how much marketing do I have to be doing to get 10 course sales a month, kind of thing. So that's the trade-off. There's a trade-off between money and time. The more money that you want from it, the more time you're probably gonna have to invest in it.
C: Okay.
M: When we think about a group program that might cost $2,000, $3,000, obviously we need one of those compared to the four, five, course sales that we needed.
C: Okay.
M: The time is less invested in marketing at that point because you need fewer people to hit your goal. The time instead is invested in delivering the program because now you're having calls and you're meeting with people and you're working with groups of individuals groups—that doesn't make sense—groups of individuals. You're working with groups of people through the programming.
A membership site is gonna be priced similar to what the workbook was priced at, but instead of a one-time purchase, they're paying you that every month. So a course, the emphasis is knowledge or mastery. So if you're teaching them how to do your own billing step by step, and then by the end of that course, they have mastered that skillset that could be done in a course.
The main selling point of a membership site is that community, come hang out with people on the same path as you, and recognize that you're not alone. The main selling feature or selling point of a group program is growth. We're gonna dive in here. It's delivered almost as an intensive, right. We're gonna dive in here and we're going to just address every pain point every question, every concern about this. So then at the end, you really feel like you went through a transformation like something is different by participating in this group.
There's community. And that's an aspect of it, but really it's that intensity, that depth that comes from a group program. And then there's others like coaching and stuff like that, but yeah, that's like one-to-one which is not most available.
C: Yeah. And I don't have the time for that. Realistically, I don't know if I can make one on one happen, so yeah. Cause I've had like other clinicians reach out to me about can you help me with this? Like credentialing, or this and that, and I'll pay you. They pay me for my time, but I can't. I just don't have time. There are just not enough hours to do all the things.
M: So if they were like, hey, can you help me with your credentialing? And you were like: Absolutely. I have a $300 course that you can buy right here. And it'll walk you through every year.
C: Yeah. That's different.
M: How does that feel for you having more of like that asset that you've put together? It's still your intellectual property. It's still like your method or whatever. But when people inquire about it, it's not an exchange of your time and energy. It's: Absolutely. Here you go. Take this asset.
C: That feels definitely different, and that feels like it makes sense. And yeah, like it feels better than versus someone needing my time.
M: Do you feel that you would want any contact with your students? Like you would wanna meet with them once a month or answer any questions, or do you think it's not even necessary?
C: I dunno. I think there could potentially be questions, but I don't know how committed I can be to answer lots of questions.
M: Yeah. So where I'm definitely leaning for with you is just a course. With a membership site, you have to show up every month and you have to show up with new, renewed energy every month because you wanna keep those people paying every month. And that doesn't sound like maybe you have the time or energy for that.
A group program is very time intensive. It's the... you make the most from it, but you have to give the most to it. Whereas the course, we have a course or we have a course with support. So my Space Holder course is a course with support because you get the curriculum immediately. All the lessons are unlocked, but then every month we have one monthly call where I'm just like anybody who has the course...
C: That seems manageable, more like a monthly thing. Like once a month.
M: When you include any kind of support with your course, it's always gonna make the price bump up a little bit. Whereas a course with no support is $100 to $500 depending on how much content is in it and the impact of the content. The problem that the content is solving courses with support starts at 500. And they go up from there, like the highest kind of course with support that I usually see on the market is around the $2,000 mark. 500, 600, 700, if you're including that monthly call is totally reasonable.
C: Okay. Okay. That makes sense.
M: The other good thing about a course, even of course with support, is it can be an evergreen program, which is the new way of saying passive income, meaning you could build a funnel for it eventually. You could drive organic traffic to that funnel, or if you had resources, you could drive paid app traffic to the funnel with ads.
And then it would just sell on its own, right? Like you put a hundred dollars into ads and you make a $500 course sale, and it just cycles like that. So when there's no—I was gonna say no timebound, that's not a word—when the program is not time-bound, you can sell it on autopilot.
C: Okay. And there's lots of platforms on building courses. I looked at Kijabi and is there, I don't know, one that's better than another one for developing a course?
M: There's no platform out there that's better in terms of developing the course. Every course platform is a course platform. They're all gonna have very similar features. The things that might be different for them are the aesthetics. Personally, like I think Kajabi courses are ugly. I think GIC courses are ugly. I think teachable has a prettier aesthetic than all the others.
So if that's something that's important to you or your brand, what becomes different is what's included. So Kajabi, Podia, Kartra, they are not only course platforms. They're also your email marketing. They're also your website for some people if they don't have an external website. So that becomes really what is the difference.
C: Okay.
M: The course part is gonna be pretty much the same across the. Like I said, the aesthetics change it, but the features that are included in the course part are pretty standard. What changes is the other software that comes along with them. And you can decide if you wanna pay $150 a month right away for something like Kajabi and have all your tools in one place. That's certainly a decision you can make.
If profit margin is more important for you, like you don't wanna shell out that much right away, then you can do what I do: the free teachable, the free mailer light, and trying to think what else. Oh. And then I do pay for my website on Squarespace. But keeping the other two free until you grow into having revenue, that's more of my approach because I would rather have the money in my pocket, in the beginning. So there are lots of different options, but again, like a course platform's a course platform.
C: Yeah. Okay.
M: There's one... I can't think of the name of it right now. I use thrive cart for all of my checkouts. And what I like about thrive cart is it was $600, but that was a one-time payment. I don't pay that every year.
Obviously, I don't pay that on a monthly basis, but it's not like an annual subscription. It's just a one-time payment thrive cart also has its own course platform, which is like $200. But it's $200 once. It has all the features. From what I hear, it's pretty bare-bones, aesthetically. They might improve that or they might not, cause it's cheap, but yeah. Hailey, my business manager person, my person who does everything for me, she's talked to me about moving over there because it would save me probably $1,200 a year if I did that. So that's one option too.
C: Okay. There's just so many to pick from. I think that's what it is like. There's so much out there.
M: Honestly, I would just pick one and you can always move if you don't like it. If there's a feature you don't like, or if you find you don't like the way it looks or whatever, you can always move. But that's not a decision that I would let keep you from getting started and just to do it.
C: Okay. I didn't realize teachable had a free option. I don't think I realize that.
M: Yeah, they let you enroll 10 students for free. And then once you hit that threshold, they make you upgrade. But at that point, you've made enough money to pay for the upgrade.
C: Yeah. Okay. That makes sense.
M: Are there any other questions that you had jotted down or that you wanna talk through?
C: I think that's it as far as questions. I think that's it. Yeah. I don't have anything else on my list.
M: Yeah. Right now, as far as time, I know you mentioned, you have your practice and you have this stuff and then you have the kiddos and the family and all of that. What kind of time investment do you feel like you have to put into this?
C: Maybe like, I don't know, like a couple of hours a week. Like to develop something maybe. It's not gonna be a lot. Yeah, maybe two to three hours a week.
M: Yeah. And two to three hours needs to be for developing and for marketing. So the workbook we talked about having that lead in a couple weeks, and then that two to three hours a week goes to marketing, to sharing in Facebook groups, to promoting.
If you do the therapist route, other great places to go are like your Alma mater might have an email list or a listserv or something for people who graduated from your grad school you could just send a little note in there. There are a lot of untapped places. People automatically always think of social media, but there are so many more creative things we do they're way more creative.
That one I feel like is gonna take the least amount of time for you to make, and it's also gonna take the least amount of time for you to promote. But it's also just gonna end up being like pocket money or spending money as well.
C: Yeah. That makes sense.
M: What do you feel has been your biggest takeaway from our talk?
C: I think just talking about the workbook being like, the low price, high volume. And then just how to go about starting with it and then like the publishing part of it. I don't know. That was helpful for me. I don't know. All of it was very helpful.
M: Good. I'm glad. Do you feel like you have an action step or something that you wanna take action on first?
C: I think probably more realistically would be the workbook, I think for right now. I think after June, I've got some office stuff going on, but if I can get to June, I would like to make this my priority, I think for, like, maybe summertime.
M: Yeah. And between now and then you can hop on that creative market and just look, and maybe what you can do is favorite your favorite things. And just start to almost kinda like a Pinterest idea, like start to collect ideas like, okay, I like this template, these pictures catch my eye or whatever.
That'll keep you still mentally engaged in it and get you through till June-July. Then when you're ready to work on it, you won't have to go searching for stuff. You'll just go to your favorites folder and then just be picking instead of searching.
C: Yeah. Okay. Five minutes favorites. That's a good tip.
M: Yeah. So if you have a no-show or something like that, you have an hour to kill, then that's like how you can still be making forward progress.
C: Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. I think that's a good starting point for me, for sure. Yeah.
M: Thank you so much for your time today.
C: Thanks.
M: Where can people check you out? Can they go to your therapy website, or is there somewhere you want people to follow along with you?
C: Yeah, we have a therapy website, sunshinechildcounseling.com. So that's our website.
M: Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for hanging out.
C: Thank you. I appreciate it. It was helpful.
M: Alright. So I think my biggest takeaway from the talk with Chrissy is the idea of taking small steps forward. When you are limited on time, you want to make sure that those small steps are actually going to be effective for you because you could take a lot of small steps, but they're gonna be a lot of small steps in the wrong direction.
So how do we not only take action in bite-sized ways that are gonna fit into our schedule and our other obligations but also move us in the direction we want to go. Alright, if this is you, I would love for you to grab my Space Holder course during this Summer Coaching Series special. When you grab Space Holder, you get to follow a six-step system.
It's also a very small course. It's a weekend course that gets you from point A to point B very quickly. I've had students do it in literally two or three days and just knock the entire course out. But just because it's small doesn't mean that it's not mighty. This six-step system moves you forward and moves you forward in a way that is going to work for you and is going to bring you more clarity and get you going in the direction that you want to go.
So if you know that this is the time for you to be moving forward during the summer break, Space Holder is perfect for you. And if you're enjoying listening to others get coached and you wanna get coached yourself, there are monthly coaching calls in the Space Holder program as well. You can go ahead and grab that over at my website, marissalawton.com/space-holder.
Alright. We'll be back with several more coaching episodes in the coming weeks and until then, keep on rising.
