Summer Coaching Series: Managing Your Side Hustle Under Your License
Hot topic I get asked about a lot: Should your side hustle be a separate entity from your therapy business?
It helps to understand what exactly falls under your scope of practice and what does not.
If you…
Are just beginning to build a side hustle and need clarity
Already have a side hustle, and want to switch gears
Want to make sure all of your bases are covered
The latest Empathy Rising podcast will answer your burning questions.
CLICK BELOW TO LISTEN!
Show Notes:
Hey Risers, welcome to episode 167 of the Empathy Rising podcast. We are back with our final “summer series coaching” episode. This is going to be real fun.
We are chatting today with Brook Stevenson, who is an LCSW in Asheville, North Carolina. I know lots of you are probably from that area. A lot of my listeners end up being from Asheville. You might even know Brooke.
What I love about our conversation today is that Brooke wants to know how to keep this under her therapy practice. Many of my students are looking to start that side hustle outside of the therapy room, but a lot of what we focus on in this episode is how to do this within the therapy room and how to do this under our license, but also be scaling and still be shrinking our one-on-one caseload.
If you've been thinking about your side hustle, but keeping it under your license and under your practice, today's episode is going to be valuable for you. Let's dive into my chat with Brooke.
Marissa (M): Hey risers. I am back with our final summer coaching series episode. This has been super fun to do over the summer. It's given me such a break, and something fun to look forward to. We know that marketing can be a slog sometimes, and a chore sometimes. Doing something a little bit different and fun has really helped me through this season.
For our last episode, we are here with Brooke Stevenson and she is going to introduce herself, let us know a little bit about her clinical work, and where she practices, and then we'll jump into all her questions about Side Hustle and finish up this series strong and finish it in a fun way.
Brooke, if you're ready, you want to give us a little intro?
Brooke (B): Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here and for this opportunity and to have this chat. My name is Brooke Stevenson. I'm an LCSW in Asheville, North Carolina. I've been in private practice for only about a year now.
I've been in community mental health in schools and different settings for about, I always say 20 years, but it's actually like 17.
M: Round it up, go for it.
B: I feel like I've earned that two-decade thing. Like a lot of people, the pandemic taught me a lot about what I needed and what I wanted, and what my goals were, and with support from the people most important to me, I was just like, "I'm doing this thing", and it's been amazing. I don't know why I didn't do this 10 years ago.
My specialty, my niche, is trauma. I work really well with women in particular on a spiritual path. I'm into some spiritual psychology things, which feels more like in the healing as opposed to trauma mode.
I feel like I'm thriving in terms of my one-on-one clients. I've pretty much maxed out what I can do. I'm at that point, where I'm realizing that time and energy (however you say that, the inversion relationship between those two things), and have decided to spend 2022 really honing in on my niche. Also spending 2022 starting to think about what my inevitable side hustle will look like.
I really resonated with your last guest who talked a lot about this business identity stuff. That was such a great discussion, and that really resonates for me as well. I'm at the point where I've got a lot of ideas almost to the point that it is overwhelming.
A lot of ideas about not only what the side hustle needs to look like; is it an ebook? Is it a course? Is it a retreat? But also, what would the specific topic be? There's all that simmering and I'm just really excited to have a conversation about it. How do I start to pull it all together?
M: So when you're talking spiritual, are you talking like witchy?
B: A little bit witchy-woo. I don't shy away from the witchy-woo. I mean this idea of trauma being fear, constriction, and healing being openhearted, love, compassion, and joy. This idea of, how do we get more into it's what happens after we "heal" from trauma?
There's all this open heartedness that we can lean into in terms of like joy, and how do we infuse our lives with joy and connection? A lot of the things that trauma inevitably holds us back from, but it's like, what's next on that plate? That's my jam.
M: That's super cool. I only asked because I have my own side hustle that I'm starting this year. It started as 'lifestyle' and then it went into 'spiritual' and it's just full 100% 'woo' now. I can't even reign it in for the 'woo'.
B: I'm glad that you said that because when I think about Side Hustle sometimes I think "do I need to lean into coaching?" because some of the woo stuff, may or may not… I won't get on my soapbox about, like, insurance and all that good stuff, but there's that piece under the umbrella too.
A lot of the things that I feel passionate about are currently a little 'fringy'. How do I pull all that together? I'm super glad to know that you're down for the 'woo' too.
M: I do think that is one of the core decisions that need to be made early on. I don't mean to say that it's black and white and it can't be ever changed, but it's usually a good idea to decide: is this something that I'm going to keep under my practice and introduce a therapy group or therapy workshops that still allow me to move into a one-to-many model, but could be billed under my practice, could be billed under my license?
Or is this something that I really want a second identity here, a second business here, that I can say, - I don't want to say 'unethical', that's not what I mean, but to be able to play around, outside the limits of our board, to be able to play around, outside the limits of our license?
In that case, I usually recommend like 9 times out of 10 starting a separate business. Which looks like a separate business entity. It doesn't have to be an LLC. It could be just a sole prop depending on your state. It could just be a county business license. It doesn't have to be this $500 LLC, get a lawyer involved type of thing. It's a side hustle right now.
If you start making substantial money from it and your goal is to eventually shift away from your practice revenue and have this be your main hustle, then you might incorporate, or you might change your business structure down the road, but a sole prop is just fine to start.
It gives our board a paper trail just in case somebody ever came knocking and said, "hey, I see you're doing something different here". You get to say, "yeah, actually I have a separate business where I sell sensei", or a separate business where "I sell essential oils" or a separate business where "I offer these programs".
It's no different than having a different business, so we need that separate business license. I really recommend a separate website and separate bank accounts. When we're tracking the expenses and the revenue separately from our therapist expenses and revenue, again, it's just one more thing we can show whoever needs to see that, yes, this is a completely different business.
B: Yes, that makes total sense. I think that's a really important distinction. I think for the purpose of getting my first side hustle off the ground, I think I probably would do it under the umbrella of my license and do something like "somatic practices to get your body and heal from trauma".
I've got a whole list—meditation—something that falls under the umbrella of my license. For down the road, that is really good to know. I could see it branching off, down the road. I want to get my feet wet with the side hustle first and then branch off down the road.
M: The biggest thing is, I'm an LPC. I'm looking at the ACA code of ethics. Then I'm also going to the state of Arizona where I'm licensed and looking at those two things. You would look at NASW and you would look at North Carolina.
We've got to do our due diligence on our state and our particular license. What the ACA stresses in the marketing terms is if you use your license to market the event, "as a licensed professional counsellor, come to my somatic workshop", then it's under your practice and you have to then behave like a therapist.
Things like confidentiality, testimonials, all of those things that are restricted or regulated, you have to abide by. It's just something to think about. You can certainly scale. You can certainly start seeing one-to-many. You can certainly start shrinking your direct client hours and still be under your license.
I'm imagining you may hate this idea, but I'm just running with it: as a clinical social worker, you could buddy up or partner up with a local yoga instructor in town.
The two of you could do Chakra clearing, somatic something. You are showing up as a licensed therapist, and then maybe those people decide to come and see you as individual clients in your practice. That's totally fine.
You can charge a ticket for that workshop. You could even have a sound healer - I'm getting this total vision.
You guys go out on a lawn somewhere, you've got a sound bath going, then the yoga teacher does something and then you do something from the clinical standpoint or whatever. You all charge a ticket and you split the revenue three ways. Then, you are also funnelling people to potentially come in to see you as a client in your practice.
B: Okay, because then I'm still practicing under the umbrella of the guidelines of my license.
M: They'd have to live in North Carolina. They'd have to live where your license and that's where we start playing that game with what's allowed and what's not.
B: That's really good to know. I could start under the umbrella, taking all that into consideration of my license. Then if potentially I move into things that are less smiled upon by my license down the road, I could look into doing all those things and like putting it under a different umbrella.
M: I think what's tougher for social workers are two things. A) The state regulation, that's for all of us, and there are certain things like the counselling compact that got passed and the psychologist compact that got passed, where we're now able to start crossing state lines and stuff, but we still don't quite have national licensure.
For all of the licenses, where the client lives, or where we're located, that's something we're still going to have to worry about.
Somebody from Australia is, "oh my God, I want exactly what you said" and you're like, "I can't see you". Location is big for all of us, no matter our license.
The two things that I see are struggles for social workers, in particular, are; once a client, always a client. If you want to then offer something else, it's they were a client before, whereas LPCs and LMFTs, we have a statute of limitations where after two years it's fair game. That's one big thing.
Then the other thing that I've seen with social workers is testimonials. As an LPC, if somebody offers me a testimonial, yeah, I can use it. I can't solicit the testimonial, but if someone offers it, I can use it. My understanding is social workers can't use them, ever.
B: I've never used them. I don't know, but that makes sense.
M: Those are things you'd want to look into. I'm well versed in my license, but these are things some of my students mentioned.
B: That's really good to know.
M: When you do start moving into coaching, those are the three things that will be the barriers, that's why we separate out.
B: Okay. That's really good to know.
M: Then, of course, the documentation. If you're acting under your license, there's got to be some sort of documentation for an event or something. If you're acting as a coach, there's no documentation necessary.
B: That leads me into continuing the discussion about what does my offer look like? I have thought about in-person stuff, and where I've landed now is I'd really like to figure out how to do... I think you call it a 'low touch', like a course or a book, or a 30-day challenge, or an email, that kind of thing, under my license if that's doable.
M: That's super doable under your license. You can sell it right off your therapy website because you're not having any touch with the client. There's no chance of you acting as a coach or no chance of you using your license inaccurately or inappropriately if you're just selling an ebook.
Let's say you make a hundred-page ebook, you charge $37 for it. Let's just run with that. If your license is slapped on that thing, you still want to make sure that the information that you're putting out there is ethical information, is up to date, is research-based, or has evidence behind it.
If somebody buys it and you've got your license right on there, and then they contact NASW and they're like, "this was bogus", you then have a complaint filed against your license. You still want to make sure that it's legitimate.
B: No, it's just good to totally cover your bases. That's your license and cover your bases, for sure. I know there are potentially things about - even that I need to look into - but even anything that could be perceived as "soliciting" in terms of having an offering that I may want to make my clients aware of, how to direct people to that kind of stuff.
M: There are a couple of things you want to put in your informed consent. The first thing is something like, "Brooke Stevenson offers products and services beyond the scope of therapy" and then a sentence or a statement that says the client is under no obligation to purchase said services or products.
Another thing that says something about 'products and services beyond the scope of therapy has no bearing on the outcome of therapy. You're releasing the power differential, "you have to buy this for therapy to be effective", and so you're releasing that.
Then you're also just making them aware that they're under no obligation to purchase anything from you just because they're affiliated with you or your names on it.
From an informed consent standpoint - with all your clients, we usually make them re-up every year or whatever, even if it's not at their year mark, you still would want to say, "hey, I just have some new forms" for existing clients, and then, of course, any new client that comes on.
B: That's super helpful. Otherwise, outside of those things, then they can purchase that stuff.
M: Let's imagine, we're still talking about an in-person office that has a receptionist desk at it, which most of us have moved beyond that model, but it's just a good visual and the person is checking out and paying their co-pay.
Right next to it, there's a rack of essential oils and they're like, "oh, I'm out of lavender. Put this on my tab". That's totally okay because there's nowhere in your session that you said, "now you must do three drops of lavender on your pillow tonight, or what we talked about here, or the EMDR that we did will not work".
That's not okay. But if the customer or the client of their own volition purchases something, that's totally fine.
B: Okay. That makes total sense. That's good to know. I don't know if you have any other thoughts about that or if I should just keep rambling.
M: To mention the informed consent, even if you do eventually take it outside of your practice, it's still wise to have that in your informed consent, regardless because people might just Google.
They might be like, "what was Brooke's address? I know I have an appointment with her on Wednesday" and then they're Googling, and then they find your coach website and they're like, "what's this?" Even if you have it completely separate, you still want to have that in your informed consent.
B: Okay. That makes total sense. I'm thinking what that might end up looking like, other than something like an ebook or e-course is even something as simple - I'm wanting to get my feet wet with this, like a simple side hustle (if there is such a thing).
I'm telling you, two years ago, I would've never thought I was going to be a private practice owner. I love that mindset stuff.
One thing I could see is guided meditations that people could purchase for $5 to $10, and I could see that being helpful for my existing clients to reinforce some of the work that we're doing, as long as all those things are in place that we just talked about.
M: What is your therapy website? Is it on WordPress? Squarespace?
B: Squarespace.
M: Cool. I love Squarespace. You can set up a shop right on your existing Squarespace site and you could have each of these listed individually, and you can also have them bundled.
What Squarespace can do is if they bought the "Rose Petal Bloom" meditation, and then square Squarespace could pop up and say, "People who bought what you bought also bought the Lilac Flower Meditation, and then it could increase your cart value.
There's no touch point with you. There's no selling it to them or anything like that. Now, what this relies on (because I don't want everybody to be like, "oh, this is the easy way") is traffic.
If this is going to be your $200 Starbucks fund, then we don't need a lot of traffic for that. We make a few sales a month and we've covered our Starbucks dirty-little-secret habit. We need to think about what type of money we want to make from this.
I know people who make $10,000 a month from small digital products. Making a large amount of money from these small products is possible, but what they have is 50,000 website visitors a month. It's that traffic piece that if you're going to be low touch, you have to have a lot of people getting to see those pages.
B: I'm getting ready to do my fourth or maybe third website refresh in the last year, as we do. It is great to be more accurate and representative, but I haven't necessarily invested in something like Google ads yet.
I've looked into it, but because I haven't had a need in terms of my individual caseload, I've been able to get full thankfully pretty easily. I've just let that be. When I'm looking at stuff like this, it sounds like something like Google ads, maybe...
M: The way that these "passive income, low touch" products work at scale is certainly paid advertising. Can you make organic sales of them? Yes. That's going to be more of that Starbucks fund type of money.
When you want the 10K months, people are paying for that kind of traffic. I recommend working with an ad person who knows what they're doing.
I don't run my own ads. I pay for someone to do it because getting that math dialled-in like Hailey (everybody who listens to my podcast has heard me talk about Hailey a million times) she can look at my funnel and she can say, "Okay, you sold this many space holders the month in the last month, which means we have this kind of ad budget going forward and we can afford to spend this amount of money on each lead".
She can look at the math and know that for me. She's like, "alright, so I'm putting this data in, and this is our ad's budget for the month". If you're going to go the ads route, I highly recommend working with somebody who knows what they're doing so that you're not just wasting even more money.
This is my first month of ads for Rooted, which is my 'woo' program, and we're testing 12 different audiences this month. This month's money is pretty much garbage because I don't even know what audience to use yet.
B: That's what I was thinking in terms of where I would be starting; all I have is my 20 to 25 people that come to see me. I guess you just have to start with a garbage month, you just have to start somewhere.
M: I had to be willing to eat this cost and yes, it's an advertising write-off at the end of the year. Haley looked at me, she was like, "you're not going see this money back and it's not like you're not going see this money back for a while. You're probably not going to see this money back because, right now, what we're doing is paying to throw the spaghetti at the wall".
Then we'll know the spaghetti over here stuck, the spaghetti over here didn't. Now let's take a look at this spaghetti and now let's start playing around in here and making it better and better. Some people don't love to play with money like this, especially if it's a side hustle and it's not making substantial revenue.
That's why, when we have this conversation, some people are like "maybe completely no touch or completely low touch isn't the starting point for me". I'm not saying that's not true for you, but it's just something to think about.
B: For sure. As far as this issue of traffic goes, are Google ads the main players in town, or really what I should be looking at? Are there other things to be considered in terms of these low to no touch?
M: Yeah. I use Facebook and Instagram ads. I'm also using Pinterest ads. Google ads are not a bad thing, especially if you're running them to your therapy practice website. I don't use a lot of Google ads and I'm not sure why I don't. No matter which ad platform you use, you need to make sure that the website is optimized for that.
If we're running a Google ad, Pinterest is notorious for this because people can get to your website from Pinterest, but then your website isn't set up to do anything with that person. They're just bopping around on your 'about' page because you haven't funnelled them to where they need to be.
As you're doing this website refresh, be thinking about "what is the customer journey that I want people to have if they land on my homepage?" Perhaps your banner image on your homepage should be "check out the shop".
Here's where it gets a little tricky though because this one website is having to do double duty for you. It's going to book your therapy clients and it's going to sell these other products.
B: I don't necessarily use it for scheduling, but it's got to talk to them.
M: I think that's a fair question, is where are most of your clients coming from right now? Are they coming from the website? Are they coming from referrals?
B: They come from referrals.
M: That's nice because if this is a different funnel source for your practice, you want to have a practice website, but if that's not the way that people are predominantly booking you or deciding to work with you, then you can go ahead and use that website more for the shop or more for these products because you're not cutting your practice off at the knees.
If you told me the number one people find me is through SEO, Google search, they book right there on my website and all that, I'd be reluctant to screw with that because I don't want to cut your livelihood off by starting to funnel people to this shop.
B: The only people that come to me through my website are people my referrals have sent to my website.
M: Maybe it's not the banner image on the homepage. Maybe that still needs to be "welcome therapy clients", but maybe midway on your homepage - and if you go to marissalawton.com, you can see what I'm talking about.
I have my banner image right at the top for my quiz. Then I have a banner image a little bit further down, which just means the pictures that go all the way across. That's what a banner image means. I have one a little bit further down on the page that is for my master class.
In your case, I would have that first one be for the therapy practice, just because if the referrals are coming to your site to check you out then we want to still give them what they need to see, but maybe midway on the page, we can say “and check out the shop”.
B: On the landing page so it's not just buried over here.
M: I would have it on every page. I would have it on your home page. I'd have it on your 'about' page, but we need to make sure that we're balancing it with the people who are coming for therapy.
B: That's super helpful. I guess I have many questions, but what's coming to mind for right now is, that I'm still really wanting to explore this low-to-no-touch thing and see, and as I'm hearing you say, the reasons why it can be tricky and you said some people like to or they might decide to start somewhere else in the beginning. What does that look like? It's not necessarily a two-week retreat either.
M: Most of my students end up picking either a group program or a membership site. Both of those involve touch with you. Those would probably need to be on the other website with the other business license.
What I'm thinking might be a nice split-the-difference for you is things like workshops. We talked about doing them in person, which could be so cool now that things are starting to open up again, but then people are starting to get sick again.
Let's say that it stays open-ish, in person could be cool, but what we've seen is these work online as well. Those same three of you, you could do the sound healer and the yoga person and you, and do it via zoom. If it does ever get constricted or shut down again, or if you just don't want to do it in person, you can always take that same concept.
B: This is where our first conversation comes back into play, too. If I were working with folks, for example, all over the country, it would need to be under a separate thing, going back to the license.
M: If it's just you doing this somatic workshop and you do it in person or you at the library or whatever at a park, or if you do it online, you can target just North Carolina Facebook groups. If you do decide to run any ads you can restrict who sees them by 'North Carolina'.
If you start to involve other people, maybe the sound healer has a national or international audience, because they don't have the license restrictions. If you start to bring in other people, it gets a little tricky, but it's not hard.
Say it's you and a sound healer. The sound healer brings in people from all over. You get everybody's email address and then you just say, "Hi, I'm Brooke and a little bit about me; I work exclusively with people who live in North Carolina. If this isn't you, feel free to unsubscribe from my email list here. If this is you, I'm so happy you're here. Here's a little bit about the way I work".
What's great about email platforms (I use Mailerlite, but there are a bunch of them out there) they'll show you the location of the people. It's creepy, but yeah, you have a lot of data about the people. If you do find somebody who is not in the location where you can work, you can just manually unsubscribe them from your list.
B: Awesome. Potentially a one-day workshop or a two-hour workshop.
M: Yeah, that kind of thing. I typically charge a hundred bucks for a three-hour workshop, that's usually what I've done in my business. If you start bringing in more people and you've got to split the money half-and-half or three ways, then you might charge 150 or 175 or something like that.
They're getting more value because there's more than one person, and you've got to think that the money has to be divvied up. This could be a recurring thing.
I remember in Texas when we lived there, there was yoga in the park and you could buy a monthly pass or an annual pass, or you could pay a drop-in rate, but it was just ongoing all the time.
These could be one-offs, or this could be a series of something that you do and you'll have regulars that come, and then you'll have people who are new every time.
B: Perfect. I'm also fascinated by the idea of membership. That's another thing too that I can just dive in and explore. Otherwise, regardless of what I choose to start with, in terms of an action plan, how do I start pulling it together?
I don't know if I just need to tell my family I'm leaving for a weekend and go do a retreat and write. Which sounds great, but right now I don't even necessarily know, like, exactly where I'm honing in on.
M: The first thing I would take a look at is, is this a money motivation for you? Is this more, a time/freedom motivation for you? What's the driving factor here?
B: I would say both of those things, but what comes to mind first is lifestyle and time and preserving my precious life force.
Coming out of community mental health and burnout mode, really having something that can impact people's lives that requires little of me except my knowledge and expertise and experience that I can pass on, whether that's in a low touch or in a workshop, either one so that I can work less. That's really my goal.
M: What I like to do is work just from a math standpoint, because math doesn't lie. Numbers are what numbers are. Maybe you want to cut two clients and that extra two hours a week would just be that lifestyle that would let you go to the grocery store or it would let you do this or whatever, whatever you're looking for, and then quantify that.
So two clients, my fee is $150, that's 300 bucks a week, which means 1200 bucks a month. That's the amount that I want to replace. What needs to happen for 1200 bucks a month if I'm selling a $20 thing?
A lot of those sales need to happen. If I'm selling a hundred dollars work, you only need to sell 12 of those a month. We can start to play around with now, what do the numbers say?
Then, based on what the numbers tell me, how do I feel about that? That's how I like to go at it. As I said, math doesn't lie. It is what it is. Then we can make assumptions and make feelings about what the math tells us.
B: Beautiful. If I'm currently at 18-ish clients a week, and I'd like to be at 10, I just work backward from there. What's the difference financially, and then use that as a springboard for my creation.
M: When you work with me, I'm super realistic about timeframes. I'm telling people 12 to 18 to 24 months because maybe in 12 months you go from 18 to 15.
Then at the 18-month mark, you're down to 13, and then at the 24-mark, you're down to 12. Because to go from 18 to 12 overnight or 18 to 10 overnight, that's substantial.
B: Big financial jump.
M: It can be done for sure. I made a hundred grand in a year. Some of my students have made a hundred grand in a year. It's a different business model and it requires you to show up in a way that's probably the opposite of what you're saying you want.
B: Just coming outta community mental health, even though I see 18 clients a week, I don't work on Mondays and I feel more resourced than I have in my entire life. I feel like there's time in there to do it, which kind of leads me to my next question, which is, just what that content creation process looks like.
M: There are lots of different ways to market. When we think online business, or when we think online income stream, (because this is still going to be under your therapy business for a while, but it's still another income stream) we automatically go to social media or we go to using the internet to market, but a lot of what we've talked about could just be knowing a yoga teacher, or knowing a sound healer who already has a little bit of a following.
Some of this can be networking. Some of this can be the referrals that people are sending to your practice. You can let those referral sources know, "hey, it's hard to get one-on-one spots right now, so many clinicians are full or starting a wait list or whatever I've started doing these groups.
They're not a replacement for therapy, but there are ways that people can get something now and they don't have to wait while they're on my waitlist or these other therapists, send them to these groups". Even your referral sources could also send people to other things.
B: Absolutely. That's awesome. I think what I mean more is; I've got this list of ideas for healing your inner critic, or victim mentality, or making meaning through transformational times in your life. I've got this whole running list of things that I'm interested in and really reflect the work.
M: Creating the products themselves?
B: Creating the products themselves. I don't need you to walk me through it, but where do I even begin with that?
M: Again, we need to start with just mapping some things out. If you're going the shop route where you're going to have a bunch of things in there, and they're all going to be around 25 bucks, maybe 45 bucks or whatever for some bundles, that's going to require a lot more creation from you because you've got to make a lot of small things.
In the workshop route, you might just make two or three workshops that you rotate through. What's cool about workshops, the reason I like them so much is that there's a lot less content that you have to make because they're experiential, the people are working on something.
When I run my workshops, they're three hours. An hour on each topic, it's only 15 to 20 minutes of actual teaching, 15-20 minutes of Q&A, and then 20 minutes of the experience. For you, the somatic breathing, the breathwork, the meditation, the whatever, you're not building a lot of content.
B: Okay. That's great to know.
M: Let's say you do it live for $150. You can sell the replay then for $50 and people can still push pause. You're going to say, "okay, it's time for our 20-minute break.
If you're watching the replay, I want you to push pause, set a timer for 20 minutes, and here's your exercise", or “here's your journal prompt”, or whatever. People can still have that workshop experience even with the replay you just have to facilitate it.
B: That's beautiful, and I just like the experiential piece of it all. That just feels a lot less intimidating. I had this vision I had to write a book and it's not like that per se unless I'm writing a book.
M: I know this is not necessarily your idea, and I'm not pushing this idea on you, but what I like about workshops is a little bit bigger asset. We can charge a little bit more money for them.
You can sell the replays and you can facilitate them live. I know you said guided meditations, maybe you have a little library of 5 to 10 guided meditations that you make, and those are at an accessible price point.
Then we have these workshops that are at this mid-tier price point. You can choose the live, or you can choose the recorded. I know you've talked about a digital course, and that could be closer to the $500 price point. You have things that are accessible to people with all different means.
B: I love that. Digital courses, since you mentioned that, and I have mentioned it, (for some reason I have that in my head), just so I'm clear on what I'm talking about, often it's not necessarily me live.
It would be a lot more content creation because I would be handing them the whole thing, but it's not me on a screen. It could be experiential as well, I hope.
M: You could put exercises in them for sure. The way that I do mine is... Side Hustle is a total behemoth. It's totally different, but people now can buy that self-study version of it. Space Holder, I call that a weekend course. It's much easier to get through in one sit-down or just maybe a Saturday and a Sunday.
I have an intro video where it's me-to-camera with a pretty background, and I'm like, "Hi, I'm Marissa. Welcome to my program. Here's who I am, here's what I do, and here's what you can expect from this course". Then all of the lessons are PowerPoint slides.
I just put them full screen and zoom and I record them. You hear my voice going over the material, but you don't see my face on the slideshow.
B: You're working through the material. I'm not at all opposed to being on the camera. I'm just thinking about 'live' me. It's something you've recorded. You're in the background. You're reading your material - the content that you've created. That is part of the course. Then that's your offer, like you said, a weekend or a few days or whatever.
M: What's also nice to give sometimes for these are workbooks or worksheets so that somebody can be watching the slideshow and you can say, "Okay, now flip to page three of your workbook, and I want you to jot this down", that would make it much more interactive or you can just give them the workbook and they can just do it at their own time.
We know that people are different types of learners. We have audio learners, we have visual learners, and we have those pen-to-paper kinaesthetic type learners. Giving multimedia in a course is always a good idea.
It also makes sense because we're dealing with a higher price point. We want to have value that people can consume in multiple ways.
B: Yeah, for sure. I lost my train of thought there. I was thinking about the digital course. I lost my train of thought. It'll come back to me.
M: Eventually you could be building up this shop that's more robust. Let's say you sell some workshops, you can then take that revenue and put that into the Google ads and start getting the traffic, there are lots of roads to the end result. It just is, where do you want to start?
Do you have some cash that you don't mind throwing at it in the beginning or do you want to wait until it's making its own cash and then start using that cash for the ads? It's all up to you.
B: I really like the idea of having multiple tiers of offerings. Maybe starting with, not only to be able to offer it to folks but also for the experience for me of just getting the experience of putting guided meditations for sale on my website and starting with that.
Parallel to that, starting to create some content for something like a course that I could maybe launch in a few months, I guess there's no way to say how long that's going to take creation-wise.
M: One of my older courses was called 'cathartic marketing' and some of my listeners might remember it, but it wasn't even videos. It was all written. It was, thinking of this as an Ebook, the ebook was a lesson, and then there were five lessons in a module.
It was like an ebook was a chapter. Then five chapters made up one book and then the books altogether made the anthology, which made the course. If you're making some of these smaller assets, they could compile into a bigger asset and you're working smarter, not harder.
B: That reminds me of what I lost a minute, which is, platform-wise, what do you use for like your core stuff? Or potentially something that I could start, chunking like you're talking about what platforms do you use for that?
M: I use teachable, teachable has a free tier that allows so many numbered students before you have to start paying for it. I think it's 10 if I'm remembering right. I think it is another platform, one that has a free platform, or a free tier. I don't think they have a student restriction, but I think it is pretty sparse in its aesthetics.
If you want pretty, teachable is the one I use because out of all of them Kajabi, Podia, Kartra, the teachable courses are the prettiest. But again, if we're thinking about minimizing costs and stuff, some of my students - we go for it and they put their course on Google drive for the first time.
Then they take every single cent of that revenue except for taxes, and it goes back into their pocket. If the profit margin is important to you, we can get super creative.
B: This is probably a silly question, but teachable will allow me to go in and start using it, writing, creating the course, creating the chapters if you will, for free?
M: Yeah.
B: Okay. It's just until I start, when I start sharing it with other people, it has a cap.
M: You have so many students enrolled in your school before they start charging you for it.
B: Okay. That's really helpful. I feel like I need something like that and I think I'm going to lean into Teachable, to just start seeing it because I have all these ideas. To start like streamlining it and seeing it create itself, see it in creation in front of me. Not just in my brain.
M: There's another one that Hailey wants me to think about switching to. My checkout system now, I use Thrive Cart, which is $600. Just once, it's not a monthly payment.
This is nice to find in software because most software is subscriptions. Thrive cart has also introduced a course platform - that the name is escaping me for the moment, but it's $200, once.
B: Okay. It's Thrive?
M: Thrive Cart is the name of the checkout (the parent company) and they have a course platform. It is also pretty bare bones in terms of aesthetics, and that's why I'm reluctant to pull the trigger. I pay a thousand dollars a year to Teachable. To pay $200 once to the course platform, I'm tempted to do it.
B: Totally. I could see that. I'll look into all of those. That's a really helpful container for this, to start creating.
M: Normally what I say is don't make the assets, don't make anything until you have buyers. That's really more for the six-week, eight-week, and four-month group programs that are very content-heavy.
This course, I would say don't make the full-on course until you have some sales and some buyers already happening, because I don't want you to put 50 hours into it and then it not sell, but these smaller assets, these meditations and things, these eBooks, those are the ones that we can't pre-sell those. We just got to go ahead and make those.
B: Those could be like the chapters that are like you said, work smarter, not harder. The chapters that I'm building that ultimately maybe one sum, total thing, but also could be standalone things on their own. I like that idea a lot.
M: When we used to go to concerts and they would have the merchandise table in the back, "don't forget to grab your merch". Let's say you do one of these live workshops, but as people are leaving you'd say "and if you loved what we did here, I have recorded meditations for you that you can grab, and you can have them on your iPhone with you. Grab these, and use these on your way”. We have not only upsells but cross-sell potential too.
B: This is awesome. It also circles me back to our first conversation of if I want my course to be more 'woo' then I do maybe need to think now, not later about just separating things out. At first, I was like, "oh, I really want to do it under my license".
I think because it's easy and it feels like the path of least resistance. But I do see long-term, the way the things that I feel passionate about and the way I want to support people's healing falling a bit out of that and more into the 'woo' stuff.
I'm just thinking about all that as very good advice and thinking that if I want this course to be in that realm then it might make sense to go ahead and set that stuff up.
M: Maybe it's a both/and. You might make this first ebook or two or three eBooks and they sell, they fit in perfectly with your therapy client audience now, and they have crossover potential.
You start making some revenue on this website. You contact your dream website designer for the 'woo' stuff and they tell you, "yeah, it's five grand for me to build you a full web branded website" and then you're like, "awesome. I have a five grand goal".
Once this ebook makes me five grand, boom, I get this website done. We can layer it in and set little benchmarks and set little goals.
B: I love that. Oh my gosh. This was so helpful. Good. Yay. I'm glad I know you. You asked me a minute ago for concrete steps.
My concrete steps right now are to start dialling in. I've got 5-10 guided meditations in word documents right now that I've created over the years, like from various places. Starting to dial into that, which may require some equipment, but that's okay.
M: Do you have AirPods?
B: I do.
M: Use those, and then record in zoom. Then, from what I've heard from people who've made the meditations is; it's better to have the music playing on your phone next to your computer, rather than having the music playing on the computer. I would try both.
B: I was thinking I was going to go in later and layer in the meditation.
M: If you have that skill. If you can add an audio track later, totally, but if you don't have that skill...
B: I was going to try to acquire that skill.
M: What I've heard from people who don't have the editing skills is to have it play next to not on the same device. That would be the only thing I would say you need, is a quality microphone, your AirPods work fine for that.
There have been times where, this microphone, I had one and it broke and then I recorded a couple on my AirPods and they were fine.
B: Just the AirPod microphones themselves from my AirPods?
M: Yeah, and just make sure it's syncing to your zoom.
B: Okay, and then go into an insulated space?
M: That's why I'm in my closet.
B: Totally. Totally. I've got a little side thing here. You can't see it in my office, that is like a closet, that I think would be a really good place.
I guess this is where I'm still struggling a bit in terms of what to do first, but I think this is on me in terms of; what do I want my first course to look like? What do I want the content to be? What are the many contents within that?
M: If you're going to keep this under your therapy practice for right now, a really easy place to go if you do intakes, go look at what the intake paperwork is. What's the number one question that people are asking on their intake paperwork?
What's the number one complaint people are saying? Why did you come to therapy? What are my clients needing?
B: It's often grief, it's often shame, that kind of stuff.
M: We don't need to hypothesize when we have a huge pool of data right in front of us.
B: I'll play around with this. Is it under the umbrella of my license? Is it not? I like the idea of using that in-front-of-my-face information that is relevant to my clients.
It's going to be relevant to my clients because I'm getting it from them, as a starting place in terms of all of this stuff that we're talking about, rather than going to like full-on tarot cards with your ancestors.
M: I'm all about that. I know I'm all about that. You noticed we haven't talked about "Oh, you need to build an email list" and we haven't gone that route because that's not what I'm picking up from you.
If you told me, “I need to make 50 grand in the next six months”, we'd be having a completely different conversation. It does seem like you have the time or even just the energy around going a little more gradual here.
B: I think so. I'd like to have something launched in six months., something that's moving in this direction.
M: That's super reasonable. If you're going the ebook route, Canva has its own ebook templates in there, but you can also go to creativemarket.com and you can find ebook templates for Canva that have already been designed professionally.
Then you just drop your content in them. That takes out a huge part of it. Then you could have something like that up by the middle of August, depending on how fast you wanted to move.
B: I'm eager to get going because I can see how this could build momentum on its own. It just feels really exciting, for multiple reasons. I'm eager to start. Even if it's starting small, just start building.
M: It's a creative outlet. It's empowering. It gives us a sense of a little bit more autonomy and like how we make our money. A lot of energetics comes from stepping into this, for sure.
B: I love it.
M: Okay. So you laid out kind of your first step, your first action step. What's been a big takeaway for you from our chat?
B: Oh, gosh, a takeaway has been that this feels doable. Even though it's still coming to me, I feel like I have things to dig into that will make it come even more in my mind. Honestly, the takeaway is that it feels doable.
M: Awesome. Do you have any other questions hanging out there?
B: No, I think I'm good for now. More later on maybe, but I'm good right now.
M: Awesome. Where can listeners find out more about you find out more about your practice?
B: My website is fullbloomholisticpsychotherapy.com, and my website is there. I'll be doing another refresh, but for the most part, right now, it's me and it's there and I've been proud of the work we've done so far, and otherwise, I'm hanging out in Asheville, and welcome anytime.
M: Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time today.
B: Oh my gosh, thank you.
M: I hope that it's been valuable for you.
B: So valuable. Thank you so much, Marissa.
M: That was a super fun one. What I love about our chat with Brooke is there were so many different options. I even said there at one point there are many paths to the end result we can get to the end result in a million different ways. It's those computations or permutations...
I don't know. It's where you have a bunch of different outcomes. I think you guys know what I'm talking about. That's how this works.
If we know what the end result you're looking for is, or even just this version of the end result, it can always change. But if you know what this version of the end result is, then we can make plans and strategies and steps for it.
Those strategies can look completely customized to you and may look completely different than your neighbour who might be doing the same thing. Your side hustle is your own and you can do whatever you want with it.
I hope that it's a passion project for you that also makes you money, gives you that creative outlet, gives you that energetic refresh, gives you that autonomy, and is something fun for you.
If you know that you want to get started on the Side Hustle route, buying Space Holder is your best bet. It's a super affordable course, it's content that you can knock out quickly and it gives you access to monthly ongoing coaching with me. It's a self-study course.
You pay for it once, but you get to meet with me every month in perpetuity. It's a great way to get started. You can grab a space holder over at marissalawton.com/space-holder. I would love to see you in that program. I would love to work with you.
Next week, we'll be back with just regular episodes. I will be chatting about how I took the summer off from marketing. Hint hint: these episodes were not recorded in real-time.
We'll be talking about how we can continue to grow our businesses, but take summers off or take time off. If you're ready for that, I will meet you back here next week. Until then, keep on rising.
