Creating Out of the Box Offers
Have you been feeling a little bored in your therapy work?
What if I told you that you can use your experience and expertise in a NEW way that lets you feel less bored and boxed in?
In my latest podcast episode, I’m talking about out-of-the-box offers, which are essentially unique, flexible ideas on what you could do to expand your income possibilities online.
These ideas are SO great, and they also haven’t gained huge traction online yet, which means it’s the perfect time to take advantage of them.
CLICK BELOW TO LISTEN!
Full Show Notes (Transcript)…
Hey, risers. Welcome to episode 123 of Empathy Rising. I really want to just start by saying thank you to everybody who has sent your well-wishes about Josh. He's feeling fine. Now back to life as normal. Everything is completely physically fine.
We had our appointment, I would say "our", like, do you guys do that? If you're partnered, like if your partner goes to the doctor, is it your doctor appointment or is it their doctor? I don't know. I was going to say we had our appointment, even though it was for him.
But we went to the specialist, the hematologist, and he had blood drawn. They're doing a whole panel, and then based on what that says, then we'll decide if we need to test the girls or not. If it comes back positive for this blood clotting deficiency, then we'll test the girls. But because of COVID, there's like a backlog at the labs. That's going to take three weeks to get a blood draw back, which I think is nuts.
But it is what it is. I'm sure all of us are going through some sort of delays, whether it's Amazon packages or medical stuff. So, just kind of hanging in there. But by the time you guys hear this, we should know, we should have answers. Cause you know, I record a little bit ahead of when the episodes actually go live.
So after that, we will kind of know what our plan is going forward. If he's going to need a prescription, if he's going to just, you know, take an aspirin every day for a while or what. As I know, you guys will know, because it's really important to me to show the human behind the business, right? Each of us is starting a side hustle or is expanding or evolving for personal reasons.
Whether those reasons are financial related, whether those reasons are freedom related, lifestyle related, whatever they are. All of us, have a why that we're doing this, that we're we're entrepreneurs and that we're working for ourselves, and that we're looking for newer funner, lighter ways of working.
And so if I didn't show the human behind my business, I feel like it wouldn't honor the human behind your guys' business. So it's important to me to be totally transparent and share, you know, how I manage this with like the curveballs thrown in and monkey wrenches thrown in and everything else that's going on.
It's still is possible to have the business that you want and to have the lifestyle that you want even when it's a little harder. Even when it's hard. So that's why I share these personal updates is so that you guys get to get to feel affirmed in your personal lives and in what goes on with you guys because everybody has their own shit.
Everybody has their own stuff, so that's my stuff. And I will keep you posted on it. Along those lines, we do have an exciting announcement or another reminder is that the seats for Space Holder live are open this week. Only if you're already a space holder student, that's cool. You get to go through the next three weeks live with me instead of having our monthly check-ins where it's kind of like everybody's in their own place
we're going to, you know, kind of start a cohort, so to speak, we're all going to start in the same spot. For some of you, it'll be review if you've already gone through the curriculum, but it will be reviewed in real-time. Some of you who have purchased, but haven't dived in it yet, you get to start in real-time.
And if you have been thinking about Space Holder, if it's been on your list, or if it's been something that you are wanting to partake in but just haven't done so yet, Space Holder Live these next three weeks is the perfect time to do that because you'll be able to go through it with an accountability group asking me questions in real-time, finding buddies who are at the same place as you, launching the same types of programs as do, and it'll be really fun.
Now, if you're listening and you're like, what the heck is Space Holder? I have no idea what Space Holder is. Space Holder is my... I call it a weekend course or my short-form course. It's really a five-step system to help you come up with your idea. I have people who join my audience every day and I always ask you know, what is your main concern or what's holding you back? And so many times it's like, “I want to do this, but I don't know where to start” and “I don't know what my idea would be”.
That's exactly what Space Holder offers you. It helps you walk through the type of program, whether that's one-on-one coaching, or an ebook, or something in between that you can get up and running that can give you another income stream beyond traditional therapy. It helps you come up with the type of offer that you want to create.
It helps you come up with the person that offer is for, the problem that offers solves, the promise that offer makes, and the price you're going to charge. So everything you need to know to fully flesh out your idea happens in Space Holder, and I'm super excited that we're going to be doing it live over the next three weeks.
If you want to get in on this, if you want to do it live with me, live with your other colleagues, other clinicians who are taking this step beyond the therapy room, this is your time to do it. You can head on over to marissalawton.com/space-folder-live. I know it's lots of dashes in that link, but we'll have the link for you in the show notes that you can just easily click on.
If you're on my email list, you'll be getting emails about it. So this is the time to participate in Space Holder, whether you're already a student or whether you're going to be joining us for the first time this week, now is the time.
Alright, so one of the reasons that a lot of clinicians start working with me is because they are either bored or they feel kind of boxed in, right? Boxed in by the traditional therapy business, boxed in a little bit with the therapy industry, you know, we have a lot of rules and a lot of regulations that regulate our industry.
And I think that that is for good reason, for our clients who are under baseline who need, you know, crisis intervention or things like that. And also to protect confidentiality, right? There's still a stigma around mental health and if people can trust that they are sharing their experiences and their stories confidentially, that can help break down that stigma.
So I do believe in the regulation for therapeutic clients and for the therapeutic industry. However, a lot of us see clients who may be private pay or maybe somebody using insurance, but they are above baseline. And we know that we do different kinds of work with them than we do with our clients who are needing more traditional therapeutic healing per se.
And when we see that when we make that shift or when we start to see that in our practice, it opens up a whole new door. Okay, what is coaching? Am I doing coaching? What is this thing here now that I'm not necessarily in the healer role, right? And then it opens the door of, well, how can I do this with more people?
Could I do a program, a group program, or could I do a course or maybe a membership site? Right? So we start to think out of the box and we start to realize how boxed in the therapeutic industry can make us feel. Limiting who we can see, how we can see them, when we can see them, what we can charge them. Even if you're private pay, there's still kind of a normal fee for your area.
And can you go beyond that? Absolutely. There's a lot of nuance there, but still, there is kind of a cap and then you cannot physically see 38, 42, 59 people without having ramifications for that. Emotional ramifications, mental ramifications, physical ramifications, right? So we're kept in an income ceiling, whether it's raising our rates or whether it's the number of people we can see.
So a lot of clinicians feel boxed in by the therapy. Another feeling that I get, or that people report when they start working with me is they're just a little bit bored. Perhaps the boxed-in feeling makes them feel like they have to perform in one role. And after you've done that role for a decade or so, or some of you listening a couple of decades, it just starts to get boring.
It's like, what else is out there? There is more for me. And not more in the sense of piling something on, but more in the sense of there is expansion for me. I can feel it in my bones that I have another level or another layer to me, another identity to me. And how can I explore that?
So feeling either boxed in or feeling bored and that's where I feel like I come in because what we can do is we can use our clinical skills in a way that feels more free, in a way that feels more fun. The reason the line is so blurry or it feels really gray, the difference between coaching and therapy, is because that's the same skill set. You're just using it in a slightly different way.
And so what's amazing about online income is you get to make a pivot, but it's not like you're going back to school and starting all over and getting a brand new degree. We can still use the years and hours and hours and hours that you've poured into your education, that you've poured into your experience, your expertise, and we don't have to negate any of that. And we don't have to throw it all away.
What we can do is use it in a new way. And this new way can add levity, and can be more fun. It can be lighter. It can also add leisure because if we start moving into a one-to-many model, all of a sudden you're making the same, if not way more money and you're spending a heck of a lot less time doing, right? So now we have time for leisure. We also can do online income from anywhere in the world. We don't have to worry about where we are physically or where our clients are physically. We can be anywhere.
And so there's opportunity for travel and "I'm frigging working from the back porch" or working from your bed. And you don't have to worry about who walks by and might hear you and all kinds of things. Right? So it's just an opportunity to just have a completely different feel around the work that we're doing while still using the skill set that we have built and cultivated and crafted, right.
Therapy is a craft. And so if we can use our craft in a new way that lets us feel less bored and less boxed in, that is a win for all of us. And online income gives us that ability. We get to trade less time if any time. We get to work one-to-many so that when we are spending time, we're maximizing it for the monetary return.
And we have zero restrictions on when, where, and with whom we can work. You hear me talk about kind of the tried and true online offers. You can take a quiz on them, right? There's eBooks or information products. There's courses, there's coaching, there's membership sites, there's group programs, and there's retreats and well, pre-COVID retreats used to happen in person.
They were still sold online and now with COVID there are still some in-person things, but there's a lot of virtual retreats happening as well. So those are kind of like the big six, right? I think of these, like, you know, we have CBT, EMDR, this and that, like there's kind of the big modalities within therapy. These big six are kind of like the tried and true offers within the online space.
But what I'm excited to talk about today is some out-of-the-box offers because even after running a course or a group program for a long time, you can start to get bored. That same boredom, that same ennui, so to speak can show up, right? I'm going into the sixth round of Side Hustle Support Group, and while I tweak things and I make adjustments each round, and especially from round four, round five.
When it went from six months to nine months, I mean, that was a big change. Amazing change for the, not even for the better, but for the best. And I'm so happy I made that decision. So there's some newness and some novelty that can happen, but at the same time, it's still been running the same program, essentially for five rounds going into the sixth round.
So even when you move into online income, if when you have your signature program, it's up and it's running and your businesses is sustainable, there's still some boredom that can creep in, right? And that's what I want to talk about today is what are some of the out-of-the-box offers I have covered workshops extensively.
Like there's now probably six episodes of this podcast that focus on workshops and that if you've been paying attention to me or my business, that's what I did this year: Summer Slowdown Workshop Series over the summer. And that brought me some fun and some newness and some excitement into my business for the summer.
And I think workshops are a wonderful way to not only kickstart your side hustle but to bring some variety into your site. But workshops are just one way. If you want to know more about them, you can scroll back through the archives. There are tons of episodes, but today I want to cover out-of-the-box offers that I've never talked about before that are kind of on the cutting edge or on the forefront of the online business industry.
They've only been around, I'd say, well, I'd say one has been around for a while, but the others are really new, like 12 months maybe. And in the online space, you know, things move fast. But within the last year, I've seen these other types of offers pop up. And so I can't wait to dive into them today.
Hey risers, jumping in to remind you that we have a really awesome Facebook group that accompanies this podcast. We're a tight-knit family of therapeutic entrepreneurs who are super passionate about building online side hustles that evolve our business past private practice in soul-filling and sustainable ways.
There are in-depth discussion questions for you to reflect on that week's episode, as well as peer-to-peer conversations. I also go live once a week to elaborate on the podcast content and answer your questions directly. So you can know that you are making headway toward your dream of having an online income.
If you're ready to find a cozy spot to explore expanding your impact and your income head on over to https://www.facebook.com/groups/empathyrisingcommunity/ or just search for Empathy Rising on Facebook. I can't wait to see you there.
So when I was researching for today's episode, I came across a term, a new term or a new one to me called "boreout". Bored like boredom, boreout. So instead of burnout, which we're all very, very familiar with, this new term was talking about boredom and how you can have boreout instead of burnout. And basically bore out can be a precursor to burnout, not all the time.
We know overwork and overwhelm, and we know all the contributors to burnout in a traditional sense. I can see after reading some of these articles, how boredom can also turn into burnout. So these statistics were on, these articles were on publications like Forbes and Inc and you know, traditional business publications.
But I can see this being not only in the corporate world but in any world - in any industry. And they're of course talking about the ramifications of boredom at work and the fact that, you know, productivity drips or drops completely. People stop participating in the team. They do just the bare minimum to get by because they're not interested in the work that they're doing anymore and all of that kind of stuff.
And I can see that in that therapy industry. And I can say that I went through that sometimes I would have clients come in or weeks when clients would come in and I'd be like, oh, I got to do this again. I got to talk about the mother-in-law again. Or I got to talk, you know, it's like, you start feeling like you're kind of on autopilot, right?
You're kind of robotic in the session, which we know is a sign that we're disconnected. And that we're teetering toward burnout. When I was reading about the consequences of being perpetually bored at work, here's some things that came up in my research. And the first is that when we're bored, we tend to get stuck in our comfort zone.
We're unable to move into growth or unable to move into expansion because we're bored. We check out and we dismiss. We started avoiding and we're just like, ugh, okay, well, if this is all that it's going to be, then I'm just going to say it. And we settle. And so then our personal or professional growth, certainly, but I would say our personal growth also stagnates, especially when we are entrepreneurs, right?
When so much of our business is us, like what I talked about in the beginning of this episode, there is a human behind every business. If your professional growth is stagnating and you're bored, I would say that your personal growth is likely stagnating and stuck as well, right? So boredom can just be this slippery slope to just stack what these articles also said that when work is not stimulating enough, it can actually cause stress.
And this was interesting to me because I would think, you know, if you're overstimulated, you're stressed, right. If you're overwhelmed and if your nervous system is fried, then you're stressed. But this article was saying that the opposite is true as well. Understimulation, it can lead to stress. It can lead to questions of like, what's wrong with me? Why am I not showing up? Why am I not interested? And it can lead us to emotionally beat ourselves up and it can lead to a sense of stress as well.
So that was interesting. The other thing that comes up with boreout, when people are so bored they are boreout, is moodiness. Things like irritation, things like cynicism, and even feelings of worthlessness. So that's where that emotional stress and that emotionally beating ourselves up comes in. As we start to feel like "I'm never going to get out of this. What's wrong with me? Who am I to be doing this kind of work? I'm not even doing the work well". And of course, now we can see how all of this can be a precursor to burnout.
So I really just thought this was fascinating. And when clinicians are coming to me because they're either boxed in or they're bored, I can see a lot of this boredom leading here. The therapy industry is set up for us to always go get the next certification or to always go get the next thing and to strive and strive and strive, which I think can help with the boredom, because if you're like, oh, well, I'm going to go get certified in this, or I'm going to go get certified in that.
But my answer to that is we don't need to prove ourselves anymore. Right? We don't need to prove our skills anymore. What we might need is a shift or an evolution or a change in identity. We might need something on the side that allows us to explore, make more creativity. Something that allows us to explore new ways of working. It's not always about doing the same work better, or the same work with a new set of letters after our name. Maybe we need to do different work.
Okay, I know this is controversial. I know that there's probably some of you listening, being like I'm in the middle of my next certification right now and I'm happy about it. And I'm not saying that we shouldn't better our skill sets and better ourselves, but I'm just saying are you doing that because you think that's the answer or you think that that's what you're supposed to do when there may be an alternative over here.
There may be a new, different way of working that still relies on the skill sets and still relies on the education and experience that you have. Something that doesn't negate that, but just as a little bit different arena, that can be exciting. That can be a new evolution, a new identity, perhaps.
None of us wanted to be like people on the assembly line. Right? None of us got jobs at factories and we're like, let me put this cog in this, in this wheel. And let me just do that on repeat over and over and over again. We didn't become therapists to do, you know, monotonous tasks over and over again, even with good intentions, however boredom and lack of stimulation happens.
Especially when you've been doing this a long time. Especially when every client, when we're talking about like, a pandemic or we're talking about, you know, worldwide heaviness that everyone's feeling, are we all having the same conversations with every client over and over and over again?
It's okay to feel bored. It's okay to feel like, ugh, I don't want to do the same thing every single time. So when you introduce new ways of helping, new ways of being a guide or helper, and therefore new ways of making money, you can elevate your work life again, and you can elevate yourself again.
You can enliven and you can bring more zest into this experience, right? When you shift into something new, when you try a new way of being, it reemphasizes those strengths, right? If you move from... if you continue to work clinically and then you add on a course, right? You probably do a lot of psycho-education in session anyway.
But when you move into a course and you move into the role of teacher or educator, all of a sudden it reemphasizes how good you are at that. Like, dang, I'm pretty good at this psycho-education stuff. Right? If you move into a membership site where you're emphasizing community, you get to see like, wow, I am pretty good at linking people together.
And these other groups skills that I've done in group therapy, I am pretty good at it. Making sure that we can have a group conversation here. So when you step out of your normal arena and you step into a new arena. It actually reemphasizes your strengths and reemphasizes those skills.
You also get to experiment with new ways of earning money, right? I don't want money to be our only sense of validation. In fact, that's like my work in a nutshell, but I feel like, you know, money equals success and I'm slowly starting to recognize that that's not necessarily true. However, there is something pretty cool about having a sense of self-trust and having a sense of power that I can generate money whenever I want to, whenever I need to. I have an ability and a skill.
And so going out and hosting a workshop, or going out and selling a course, or whatever means that you now have reclaimed your sense of wealth, reclaimed your sense of abundance. And it's pretty neat to be able to do that if and whenever you want to. And with this notion of self-trust, you know, when we are boxed in and when we're kind of told how we are supposed to be in an industry, we can sort of get used to the rules and we can get used to being told how and when, and in what way things can be done.
So stepping out and trying something new allows you to reconnect with a piece of yourself where you're listening to your own inner guide, right? When you're listening to your own gut, your own intuition, you get to practice self-trust.
There is nothing in my mind... this is my experience, but there's nothing scarier than just stepping out and saying, I have something to offer. I have something for sale. It's scary, but like the good kind of fear, the more, what is that anticipation or the opposite of the bad fear, anticipation, or whatever. It's scary, but it's exhilarating. It's scary, but in a way that's like lights you up almost. And when you can make that happen, it's like this experience of, oh my gosh, there's nothing I can't do. I trust myself again. I believe in myself again.
So many of us have had times of self-trust, like putting ourselves through school or, you know, whatever that might be. And sometimes when we get stuck in a rut or when we get boxed in, we can forget how strong we are and how resilient we are and how capable we are. So trying something new allows you to practice that allows you to experience that again.
And I think that's pretty cool. The other thing that I think is really neat about online income, in particular, not just trying something new, but trying online income is you really get to cultivate a lifestyle that you want and not the one that you think you're supposed to have. Right? You get to experience more of what you want and less of what you don't.
You get to experience more time freedom, more location freedom, more financial freedom. More fun, more creativity. And so by stepping into this new way of earning and this new way of working, you get to have a pretty cool experience. I'm not saying it's all roses, but it's pretty interesting. It's interesting, to say the least. And I think that it can be really empowering as well.
Alright, I feel like I went on a little maybe soapbox or a little like emotional rant there, but I really believe in what I do. I really believe that this is an alternative for clinicians who have been told for a long time, that there's one way to be. There's actually lots of ways to be.
So if you had been thinking about moving into online income, of course, we already mentioned the big six, but let's jump into some of these out-of-the-box offers and their benefits and how these offers might be exactly what you've been looking for in terms of your offer online.
So the first one is the idea of an online VIP day, and this is the one that I would say has been around for a while, and even in our therapy industry. We've seen this before because it's like an intensive, right? In therapy we may offer, you know, our standard 45 to 50 minutes, 55 minutes, whatever session.
And then we may do like intensives once in a while. I think this is really common in couples therapy, marriage counseling, whatever, where there's like, a couples' intensive over a couple of days of a weekend or something. I think, you know, Hold Me Tight, kind of comes to mind like, and hold a Hold Me Tight intensive.
But with the idea of a VIP day, you're spending four to six to eight to 12 hours with one coaching client. So it's not like you're on the phone, or on the computer, or on zoom with them for 12 hours straight. That's not how it works. There may be, over a 12-hour period, there may be like three check-ins, every four hours, right?
You kick off the day, and then four hours later you have a check-in, and then four hours after that, you have a check-in or something like that. Right? VIP days can focus on one specific result.
I have done VIP days with a graphic designer where I wanted new logos and new stuff created for my brand, and so we did it over an entire day. We met in the morning and then I had a little homework before. I had to fill out an intake kind of thing, like a packet the night before. And then based on that we met in the morning, she said, okay. So over these next 12 hours out of what you filled out in your packet, here's what I can deliver in 12 hours: X, Y, Z A, B, C.
And so we kind of talked, shared a vision a little bit on that first call and met back up in the early afternoon. She showed me the work that she'd been doing so far. I was able to say "Ooh, I like that. I don't like that. I like that. I don't like that." And then it was like, okay, I'll see you again in four more hours, she continued to work.
And then at the end of the call, there was like one more kind of round of revisions. And then I was handed design files one day later. Now, if any of you have ever had your websites designed professionally you'll know that it's usually like, weeks, if not months-long process. So to be able to do this in one day was really neat.
So it can be something that focuses on a specific result like that, or it can be like an on-call type of situation. Right? We're gonna meet three times, three to four times over this timeframe and you can just ask me any questions that you have. I think what works best if you're in an on-call situation is a mix between the calls and then implementation time.
So perhaps this coaching client wants a VIP day with you or an intensive with you, and they're working on a breakup, right? They just had a big breakup and they want some breakup coaching. And so you're doing a VIP day. And so you hop on, maybe you have them fill out an assessment or something the night before, so you have some details and then you hop on the first call and you're just kind of gathering information about the breakup gathering information about whatever.
Then you say between now and our next call, I want you to journal on this, do this meditation, and do this other exercise. And then you meet up for the next call and you're like, alright, so you can talk through that a little bit. How was that for you? What came up? Okay, now between call two and call three, our next check-in time, I want you to go do this exercise, take a walk, and do this. Making this up off the top of my head, but you'll see that there's a mix between support holding space in a coaching capacity and implementing or exercises or doing something.
And so by the end of that intensive, there can be a pretty profound shift. There can be a pretty profound transformation that happens in just one day. And I think that's really nice. VIP days, another benefit to them is that they're premium priced, right? The fact that I paid to have graphic design done in one day and I didn't have to wait weeks or months meant that I paid a premium for that.
And it was awesome because I got my files like that day, not even the next day. I got them that afternoon when we finished. And so the same thing can happen with coaching. Like if you did this as a coaching VIP day, it could be the same price as an entire coaching package, but done in one day.
So, therefore you have significantly shrunk the amount of time that you are investing in your coaching business, but you are still reaping a ton of income and you're making a profound impact because those two go together. So I've seen people who've had fully booked out calendars, right?
They've got a coaching client on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And there they've got four or five calls a day. Sort of like what our caseload looks like in therapy. And instead of being completely booked out where their calendar has no white space, they've turned all of those coaching clients into VIP days.
So they go from an entirely booked out month to like, you know, they have one VIP day, each Monday, or something like that, or maybe Mondays and Wednesdays are doing different VIP days. And yet they're making the same if not more money. And they're only working one to two days a week instead of five clients a day, four days a week.
So VIP can really let you condense the amount of time that you're spending, but you're still making substantial money. It's less time for your money, but what the people are paying for is individual attention, sole focus for one working day. And this, like I said, can replace months of coaching packages with a handful of VIP days.
So the reason that this is appealing for the customer, right... it's really appealing for the provider, but the reason this is appealing for the customer is because they get fast action. They don't have to do weeks' worth of coaching to get a result. They get to get a result in one day.
I'm thinking about another, instead of graphic design, I'm trying to think of another example. So let's think about... oh, you know what, you know how, when we're we do like 50-minute therapy sessions and it's like minute 42 and all of a sudden that's when the breakthrough happens and you're like, well, crap, I've got eight minutes now to like wrap this up.
And what's great about having a VIP day is there is more time for that insight to develop. They get to go think about or do the exercises or the meditations or the implementation about what you talked about. And then they get to come back and be like, okay, I think I'm getting it. Here's where I'm at so far.
What do you think? And what's next, right? It all happens much more quickly than "alright, well, I'll see you next week for our next session". And then that insight might not have had time to cement. It might not have had time to stick around. And so you might start the next session right back where you were.
So having, it's not more time, it's more time in a single setting, but having it being drawn out a little bit, allows for some of that marination to happen. And then they get to come back to you in the same timeframe and they don't have that gap. Well, I can't think of the term, but like when kids finish first grade and then they lose an amount of knowledge over the summer.
And then when they start second grade, they have to do all the reviews and the refreshers, right? That's the same thing that happens between therapy sessions. It's like we made this much progress, but then we'd lose a little bit. And then we come back next week, and then we have to kind of pick up and there's that back and forth, back and forth. With VIP days, you don't lose that time in between. You don't lose that knowledge or that progress.
Now the main concern for VIP days is energy management. It's a long time to be on if you're doing 12 hours. I'll share with you in a moment that I have started doing a version of VIP days. My first one was 12 hours and I was like, nope, not doing that again. And I shortened it to eight hours.
So when the client is in their implementation time or their exercise time, make sure that you are resting, make sure that you're not constantly thinking about that client, are constantly thinking about what they're doing. Take time for you in the downtimes so that you're not leaking energy, so that you're resting and rebuilding your energy throughout. So the next option is audio only. Audio only is really exciting for me, and this is what I have started doing.
So just like we have phone therapy, right? Audio-only coaching. It kind of goes with that same type of feel like you're on the phone, or I'll share with you some other ways to do it, but it's another alternative to traditional coaching. And instead of sitting down and being tied to a location and having to do the zoom, you get to be up and free and moving about and doing audio-only.
What I think is best about this, as opposed to phone therapy is we don't have to worry about confidentiality or HIPAA when we are doing audio-only coaching, right? So we can be going about our normal day. We can be running errands. We could be on a hike, or in my case, on a paddleboard. You can be driving in the car, taking a road trip, and you can still be facilitating coaching.
So there is no butt in the chair at all. Oh, yes, it's still exchanging time and energy, but in a much more free way. It does not impede on your life. It doesn't keep you from doing anything that you want to do. If you want to, you could be taking a bubble bath for all overall we know, right. You can be doing anything you want to be doing during audio coaching. And I really love this option.
So a couple of different apps that facilitate this is one is Voxer. I use Voxer as a community support for all of my Side Hustle students. So it was an app I was already familiar with. So instead of doing it in group format, I have moved to now doing this as one-on-one. Marco Polo is another app that people may have heard of that that works. And even WhatsApp is another app that works this way.
So Voxer is the one I can speak most to, but it works like a walkie-talkie. I push a button, I record audio, and then the other person gets to listen to that audio. And you can have real-time streams of conversation.
If you're sitting down with each other or you can leave a Vox message. And then when that person hears it, they can Vox you back. And so there can also be time in between. Audio only can be sold as a package. So just like you would do a three-month coaching package where you meet on zoom twice a month for 90 minutes or whatever, you can do the same thing, but instead of meeting on Zoom, you meet audio.
So you can have it structured and scheduled out like that. You can block off times on your calendar, right? Like I am on Voxer or I'm on Marco Polo or whatever, from nine to 10. You can do it that way, or you can sell hours. We have 10 hours of Voxer a month, and then it can be just used more free-flowing right.
That client can Vox you or use the audio app whenever they want, and then you can get back to them I usually say within 24 hours. And so then it's more kind of like check-ins and for questions and stuff like that. So you can have it structured as a coaching call that is done audio only, or you can have it structured as audio access for X amount of hours.
What else is really neat is that you can take the concept of the VIP day that we just talked about and you can do that audio-only. So there's no check-ins on the computer. You don't have to sit down three times a day throughout the eight hours or whatever you do. You don't have to do that at all.
You can just all be done audio. And this is what I have started doing. So it combines the flexibility of the audio and the short duration of a single day intensive. So you know, people always approach me for one-on-one and I didn't want to do a traditional one-on-one coaching option. And so I would say, you know, I do a little bit of kind of screening and I'd say, well, if you're a better fit for one of my programs, either Space Holder or Side Hustle, let's get you in there because that's where you're going to get the best of me.
I don't do one-on-one coaching. However, now that I have introduced this Voxer day where people can have a VIP day of audio with me, I'll absolutely do that one-on-one because again, I can be going about my day as normal. It doesn't impede and it's a short duration. I've tested a couple of these throughout the summer, and they've been fabulous.
People have really gotten a ton of insight and made a ton of progress throughout our day. The first one that I did was much more like, okay, here's an assignment. I want you to go do it. Check in with me on Voxer, after you've done it, let's talk about it. It was very structured. The second one I did was just that person came in every day.
They were like, okay, so what about this? Or what about that? And what about this? And it was much more kind of Q&A style. And that was really fun too. I remember that's the point of this episode. Yeah, this is fun. It's new and it's different, and it's making me money and it can make you guys money too.
And it doesn't have to be so rigid or structured. It could be whatever you want it to be. The biggest thing with audio-only was that time management and energy management was important for the VIP day. What I think is most important for the audio is boundaries, right? Are there certain times that you are available during for audio coaching?
Will you have certain office hours? Will you block off time on your schedule or will you allow messages to be free-flowing? And then maybe you tell somebody that you have 24 hours to respond because there can be this sense of immediacy that happens with Voxer (or I assume with other audio apps) where it's like, oh, Vox came in, I have to drop what I'm doing and I have to answer it right now and that part can feel overwhelming.
So what I recommend, if you're going to think about audio-only coaching, is having really good boundaries set up around it. If they're allowed to Vox you at any time, if there are, you know, 10 hours a month that they buy from you or whatever, what's your timeframe for returning that Vox?
Are you guaranteeing free-flowing conversations where you're going back and forth and back and forth like a dialogue, or are you just guaranteeing that you'll get back to their question within a certain reasonable timeframe?Outlining that for you and communicating that very clearly and specifically to the customer is what is really important here.
The other offer that I think is really neat, and I also have this set up in my business, is the idea of a mastermind. What I think is really fun about masterminds is that as the name implies masterminds are for customers who have already gotten to a point of mastery of something. So there's no coursework or a curriculum needed in a mastermind because the people who are participating already know they've already learned everything they need to learn.
Masterminders don't need to learn anything new. Instead, they need to practice implementation, build their network, have stimulating conversations, or stay on track accountability. Right? And as a mastermind facilitator, your job is to make these four things happen. It may only be one of those things, or it may be a combination of the four.
You may be evenly spread among the four, or you might be heavy on one and a little bit light on the others for me. What my mastermind is set up to do is to have people stay on track, to have stimulating conversations, and to build their network. There's of course practice and implementation because they need to do the work to stay on track. But I would say staying on track is the number one.
Like 60 to 70% of what I focus on the mastermind and then the stimulating conversations and the networking are kind of lower priorities or lower percentages. But you're less in the role of a teacher here, right? Because there's no curriculum, and you're more in the role of a facilitator is helping people have conversations, which I think is really easy because I know and I trust that the people in my mastermind have already learned what they need to do.
I taught them in a different container and now they're already at the level of they know what they want and need, and I'm there to just facilitate and support them as they go on their own path. So it's easier, to me, to do that than to have to teach. And you also have a lot less to build and create. So instead of building an entire course or curriculum, all I do and what I think works well for masterminds is to host zoom calls minor twice a month. Some people do it once a month. You can facilitate conversations, you can offer coaching and guidance.
You can do question and answer, right? A lot easier in my mind, the teaching. You can also maybe have hot seats where somebody gets individualized attention for a certain amount of time, and you also might have guest experts that come in and then you don't have to do anything that time. You just host the Zoom room.
You've just hit the blue button when people join. And you hit the record button, right? And then there's someone else who's doing any conversation or facilitation for you. So masterminds can be really good. They have a much more relaxed feel because they're not structured around a curriculum and that kind of stuff, but there are a few things to be careful about.
The number one is scope creep. You need to make sure that if you're running a mastermind, that your customers are truly at a master level. This is not the place to be teaching new concepts. That's what the curriculums are for. And so if you have some people in the mastermind that are at mastery level, and then you have others who aren't, and those others who aren't are always asking, like needing to be taught, concepts are taking up too much time.
The people who are at the master level are going to get bored, and they're gonna feel gypped because they thought they were in a container that was different. And now instead we have to reteach concepts. So you want to make sure that you're not doing that. In this case, a mastermind might not be your first offer.
Your mastermind could come off the back of your course or your group program. So they went through the course with you. That was the curriculum. That was where they learned everything they need to know. And then they can come into a mastermind with you. That's more about accountability. Networking, you know, staying on track, whatever.
So masterminds can be a really easy offer to add onto the back of something because you don't have to do anything else but host a couple of zoom calls. Now adding something onto the back is what's known as an ascension business model. There's a couple of episodes in the archives where I talk about this, but where I will be talking about this a ton more is during Space Holder Live.
So one thing that I think is exciting about these out-of-the-box offers is I have created a brand new lesson all about these offers and it is now in the Space Holder curriculum. So you'll be able to learn about them in more detail and do the exercises in the workbook about them. We'll be going through them live and we'll also be talking about this ascension model.
So maybe some of these out-of-the-box offers create your entire ascension. If you join us this week, this week only you'll be able to attend Space Holder Live, and you'll be able to ask me questions and build your own out-of-the-box offer in real-time. That's the part that I think is really important in real-time.
The cart closes for Space Holder Live this Friday, so you still have plenty of time to join us. If you're on my email list, you will get emails about it and you'll be able to ask me questions and reply to those if you want to see if it's a good fit for you.
But if you know you're ready to join us, go ahead and head over to marissalawton.com/space-holder-live, which I know is a crazy link, but it'll be right here in this show notes for you and you can click on it and you can join us for Space Holder Live.
I'm super excited guys. It's going to be a really fun time. And this is the time to join the program if you've been thinking about it. So I can't wait to see you in there, and I will be back next week with another episode. So until then keep on rising.
Thank you so much for listening to the empathy arising podcast for show notes, links, and downloads. Head over to marissalawton.com/podcast, where you'll be able to build a deeper relationship with me and the show as well as binge on all past episodes. If you'd loved what you heard today, it will be so kind of you to share it with your therapist, friends, subscribe to the show, and even leave a review. Can't wait to connect with you next week.
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