Nicole Chats the Process of Finding her Side Hustle
The pandemic threw many businesses a lot of curveballs and those that survived learned a lot in the process.
For Nicole, a registered therapist who specializes in maternal mental health, her business’s survival also showed her she was ready to mix things up.
Enter her Side Hustle.
How many of you know you want to venture away from the one-on-one sessions, but aren’t sure how to pivot your specialties? In this latest episode, Nicole and I walkthrough:
How she got where she is
Where she knows she wants to be
Exactly how she can get there
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Learn all about the NEW version of Side Hustle Support Group:
Full Show Notes (Transcript)…
ML: Hey Risers. We are back with another coaching episode and this week we have Nicole McNellis with us, and she's going to be asking us some questions about the Side Hustle she's planning, and we'll work through it here on the podcast. And you can hear us process things in real-time. Nicole, if you wouldn't mind, just introducing yourself, tell us where you're from, what you're doing clinically, and then what your idea is with your Side Hustle.
NM: Sure. So I am a therapist in Pennsylvania and I have a niche practice. So I work with women, moms, and moms to be, so I specialize in maternal mental health, but I work with women through all phases of life, through transitions, through challenges, and that's really where my heart is. So that is what I have been practicing, in my time in private practice.
What's interesting for me is that I can relate everything to children and having children and having babies is because I work in maternal mental health. So my private practice is still in its infancy. It's just a little over six months old, but I've been a therapist for over 10 years now.
I've been in the field for a while, but my private practice is still new, but I'm starting to get to the point where I feel like I've maxed out on one-on-one sessions. As much as I love one-on-one sessions and they fill me up and I feel like I get so much out of working for clients and my clients really get the results that they need. I feel like I'm ready to add onto that, to supplement that with something that's really meaningful.
ML: Yeah. And so with your Side Hustle, are you wanting to stay in the realm of motherhood or are you wanting to do something completely different?
NM: I think I am. So I'm just at the very beginning stages of thinking about a Side Hustle and what I've been thinking about, and it really hit home, during this whole pandemic situation. and that's probably not a surprise for you. I think a lot of people have had some time to reflect, although I don't know, that's really the case. I have a three and seven-year-old at home, so I wouldn't say I'm really sitting and meditating that's for sure.
It was more of, yeah, it was more, urgency really. what happened to me was. My practice was just about six months old in March when this whole thing happened, and I have a private pay practice. And so I did a lot of work upfront to relate to the market, to make connections in my local area. And, as the pandemic hit my practice buildup, I was completely full . I was so excited. I remember looking at my schedule and I'm thinking, Oh, okay. This is it. I did it. And I remember talking to my husband about it and he was like, okay, great. So now you can just sit in this space.
And I was like, no, having a private practice was always my dream from the time that I went to graduate school. So I feel like I, I reached this huge goal, 10 years in the making. And then I sat with it for a few minutes and then it was like, okay. Now it's time to take this and grow it.
ML: Oh my gosh. That is so me. Do you do the Enneagram by any chance?
NM: So I've, I'm familiar with it, but I don't know my number.
ML: You might be a three from just from that little exchange because I'm a three and what a three is as the achiever. So always wanting more, always striving for more, but the downside of that is not being able to celebrate your accomplishments.
I'm that same way. I'm like, okay, cool. My goal was six figures. Got it. Okay. Now what's the next goal. Like I don't sit and, like celebrate. So I would encourage you to celebrate a little bit.
NM: That's a huge lesson for me. And it's so funny because I love working with women and I love working with moms. And so much of what I do is work on slowing things down and, like you said, celebrating and appreciating everything that we've done. And even in therapy, so many of my clients, they achieved their goal and it's okay, onto the next thing. And it's no, no, no. Let's take a moment and really look at how far you've come before we move on to the next thing and how we can use everything that you've learned before we move on to the next thing.
And I frequently have to remind myself of that too. So what happened for me, I had one full week where my schedule was completely full and I started thinking about, okay, I'm starting to refer out. I really need to get thinking about how I can serve more clients in a way where I'm not feeling like I'm getting burned out.
And then within a week's time, I lost half of my caseload because of the pandemic and my practice is kind of unique in that in normal times, it's a hybrid practice. So I do have an office where I meet with clients in person, but I've been doing the online stuff for years. So I was always meeting with clients, doing online video sessions because for new moms, especially it's an amazing resource.
It is literally barrier-breaking technology to have a newborn baby and to be able to feed that baby, plop while the baby's napping, change that baby's diaper and be in your session from home has done so much for my clients.
ML: Oh yeah. That would have changed my life when my oldest was born, most of the listeners know, my oldest was born with health concerns and now looking back and knowing what I know, I definitely had perinatal anxiety.
I remember I was at my internship and we had this board with magnets on it. And you put the magnet on, if you were in, you put the magnet on lunch and so we could keep track of where everybody was. And I literally multiple times a day would go in and make sure all the magnets were in alignment.
And like these little things that I didn't now, but looking back I know what it was, but during I had no idea, I didn't see the signs. And so then when she was born and had health concerns, it was postpartum anxiety through the roof and just trying to bring her to appointments, to my own sessions with my own therapist.
It was so hard. So I can definitely see how, the online therapy, as you said, it's barrier-breaking. It just makes it so much better for those new moms.
NM: Yeah. Yeah. it's huge. And so I've been, working in that space. And I really appreciate it. So thankfully I was able to very quickly move my in-person clients, the ones that were ready to, move them online.
So I didn't have any of the issues of setting up the infrastructure. Everything was already set up. I had the structure, I had my systems in place, but what was an issue is because I am private pay, suddenly I had clients that were losing jobs. The other piece of it was scheduling. My clients who had their children in school all day and were at work or whatever the case might be, suddenly their kids were home most of the day with them, and they've got partners who are working. It really brought home the point for me that as much as I love therapy and as much as I love the one-on-one work, you can lose it all very quickly.
So it took about four to six weeks to really get my caseload back up to where it was. And I was honestly, I'll be honest, I was surprised that I was able to be nearly full again, within four to six weeks.
ML: Well that's a testament to your marketing. That's a testament to the groundwork that you had in place before. And then also, you knew what to do to get back to that level. I mean, that's again, celebrate,
NM: I am, I'm a planner. So before we signed on, we talked about how I have pages of notes here, things that I'm going to make sure that I mentioned and get through. And, I listened to your podcast all the time so I'm so many pieces that resonated me in your, with your podcasts that I've written down. Yeah, there was just, I really, there was a moment where I was able to say, okay, I, we got into the pandemic situation. And the first thing I did after being in shock was I need a plan. And what I came up with was it's not that my clients and potential clients don't need mental health therapy right now. It's that we have all been thrown into this complete chaos. And there are other things that I didn't consider before.
There are more accommodations than I need to make. I need to reach back out to my referral sources. I need to reach back out to my clients that I haven't heard from, make sure they're okay. Let them know that I'm offering evening sessions now where that had not been the case before. My first thing was okay, I need a plan and I need to get my name back out there and let referral sources and clients know that things have changed and I'm changing with the times. So if you need me, I'm here and this is how I can accommodate you.
And it worked. And that was a huge relief for me.
ML: So out of this necessity came the idea for a Side Hustle, meaning maybe a way to diversify your income, a way to hedge your bets against if something like this happens again. So what were you thinking? What led you to the idea of having maybe something, another income stream?
NM: So what's interesting for me is that I think I have a slightly different background than most therapists. There were six years for me, between when I graduated from undergrad and when I decided to go to grad school. So my undergraduate degree is in industrial-organizational psychology because I couldn't decide between business and psychology.
I always felt like I had a foot in both and that's fairly unusual, I would say, for people in our position. When people think of them, identify as helpers, which I absolutely do that is where my heart is. They think I can't do this business stuff. I don't think like that. I actually really enjoy the business stuff.
And when I look at networking, so many therapists cringe, and I think, no for me, networking is a connection. And actually, the network is not about me. It's about who I'm meeting with. I actually do. I want, if I'm meeting with the doc, if I'm meeting with an OBGYN, I want to know what their needs are. I want to know how I can serve, not just their patients, but them.
What did they need when they're referring someone to me? What do they need from me? Do they want to hear from me? Do they not want to hear from me? Most of the time, they just want to know that their patients are taken care of. That's really what I'm have been finding. But really, so I find that I have that, that really works for me looking at, what are the needs of the people that I'm meeting with. And of course, that translates into therapy.
Yeah. So I have this major in industrial-organizational psychology and then. For six years. I was in sales. And even though it's one of those things where, you know, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. So I was doing fine, but I wouldn't say I was doing well, my heart wasn't in it.
And so it really, it was a tough journey of six years where I just kept thinking, okay, maybe it's this sales job, maybe it's not me. And then I realized, no, it's the whole thing. It's both. It's the environments that I'm working in where I feel like I'm just a commodity working for someone else, and the fact that my heart's not in it. I loved meeting with clients and customers, but really just because I wanted to build, I was a relationship-building salesperson, and that can get you far. But at the end of the day, it's still about the bottom line. And it was somebody else's bottom line. So that didn't necessarily sit well with me.
So after a very difficult, year six in sales, I decided I cannot do this anymore. I literally called my high school guidance counselor, who I adore, and was like, I think I need to make a change. And she said to me, I've been waiting, I've been waiting, I've been waiting for this phone call. And I was like, okay, all right, this is it. Sue says I can do this. This is what I need to do. And the day that I got my acceptance to graduate school, I quit my sales job. I gave my two weeks and I was like, I'm done, I'm moving on.
And then I got through grad school as quickly as they would let me so that I could move on to this next phase in my life. And I started out as, so this was the plan, I started out as a school counselor and loved being a school counselor, but the plan was always private practice. So I started out as a school counselor, got my license while I was a school counselor.
Then I had my kids. I took a year off with each child and I worked agency jobs in between, cause that's a big jump from working with high school students in the school setting to private practice. So I got my feet wet, working individually, one-on-one doing therapy. And then after I had my second, I was like, okay, I've got this under my belt now. And I'm ready. I'm ready for private practice.
So that's what got me to private practice. And then, of course, six months in I'm like, okay, time to grow.
ML: And I saw you get a little emotional when you brought up Sue, your high school guidance counselor, and it feels like you're at another one of those moments, where it's time to pick up the phone, call Sue again and be like, all right, here I am. And it might not be like a hundred percent pivot like you did. I know, I have a finance and marketing degree, and so I worked in corporate, like hardcore multinational corporations before grad school.
So totally different, it's so it's like a hundred percent pivot. And now here I am and it wasn't a hundred percent pivot. It felt more like an amalgamation. A combination of all, everything I learned in business school and everything I learned in grad school. And now it's in this interesting business here and it evolves every day.
So this might not be another a hundred percent pivot for you. It might be a way to just evolve to the next level.
NM: Yeah. And that's how I've started to think about it, that this is going to be a growth of what I currently do. And what's interesting is I remember when I was thinking about starting my private practice, so I'm a researcher and sometimes that can slow down my process. So I'm learning to work with that. And I remember being in the gym on the stationary bike and listening to podcasts. That's how I really started the process of thinking about what do I want my private practice to look like? Because it can look so many different ways, right?
You can be in solo private practice with a really narrow niche, which is what I decided to do. Cause I decided that works for me. That's where my heart is and something you talk about a lot that really resonates with me as being aligned and being authentic. I actually, I feel like I don't know any other way to do things. Because I was in sales for six years and it was so misaligned with my values and with where I was comfortable and where I felt like I had room to grow. It just, it didn't feel like any of that. So because I experienced that, I feel like I don't ever want to go back there. So I started this process again, thinking, okay, how do I grow?
And I've been listening to your podcasts a lot and I listened to Alison and all of these things where I'm starting to get these ideas again. What's resonated with me from your podcast is that you can do this, the Side Hustle thing in a way that works for you in a way that is aligned.
So when I listened to Alison, actually on your podcast recently, and she was talking about her Facebook page with 15,000 followers, I like did this thing where I thought, Oh, that, that does not feel comfortable for me. I love the idea of having a small engaged community where it's not just information, where it feels like there's a sense of connection.
So something I've been thinking about. So I'm a do-it-yourselfer. And I struggle with that a little bit because I think when I was starting my private practice, I took in all of these resources, but it really took a lot for me to say, I need one-on-one assistance with this. And I found someone locally, who's both does clinical supervision and kind of does some business coaching too.
So she was a really good fit for me, really helped me to grow my practice and get it off the ground. So now I'm thinking it was so hard for me to do that. How do I start putting together those pieces now? How do I put something out there where I have a small engaged audience that really feels like this is worth it, this would be something worth paying for.
And then I think of the podcast I listened to and I think, they put out so much good information. Sometimes I wonder honestly, like what could be left to pay for it? I think, is it the connection? Is it the idea that this person is taking me a step further? Maybe you can speak, but that's where I'm feeling like I'm stuck right now, as I'm thinking about the big picture and the details at the same time I'm getting stuck.
ML: Yeah. So I love this question. I can just dive on in here because there's a strategy behind this. What is free content and what do you keep behind a paywall, but there's also, just some of this authenticity, some of this alignment type of stuff, some of this touchy-feely stuff that comes along too.
So when you're trying to decide what to keep free and what to keep, or what is paid, there's a couple of different factors here. Most people will say, so have you ever heard of Gary V, Gary Vaynerchuk?
NM: I've heard of him, but I'm not familiar with his work.
ML: He is intense. He uses the F word, like every other word. And he's very like in your face and aggressive. So I take him in very tiny, small doses, but he's brilliant. So he came up with this concept called jab jab, jab. I was going to do jab jab, jab, right hook. But this is my left hand, whatever jab, jab, jab, right hook. The idea is give, give, give, give, ask. And with the, I don't want to say the advent of passive income, but with the rise of passive income, the rise in popularity of passive income, this give, give, give, give, ask, concept has kind of have gone out the window. Because with paid advertising, and with some of these new funnels, I have a couple of podcasts episodes coming out about these new funnels that like go straight for buying something instead of straight or straight for selling something instead of giving the freebie away or the opt-in away. As that has grown in popularity, this give, give, give, ask has fallen out of popularity, right? Trends come and go.
For most of us in the helper field, the give, give, give, ask feels much better. And that's the way I serve. That's the way I build my business and I'm still having great success. I don't have this self-liquidating offer funnel up and running, even though it's like the new, coolest thing. And it's passive income and there are people who are making thousands of dollars, tens of thousands of dollars a month from them. I choose a different strategy. And so then it brings up the question, if you're giving everything away, what are people paying for? And there are a couple of things and it depends on what type of program that you're wanting to do.
So the first decision point, when you're coming up with your Side Hustle is the type of program. And so you've mentioned community and you've mentioned an intimate comradery type of feeling. So that leads me to the higher touch end of the spectrum, which could be one-on-one coaching, which could be a group program. A group program could be group coaching, or it can be a group program. Those are different. And then also a membership site has a sense of community.
When you're selling a membership site, you're selling two things. You're selling access to the expert at an affordable rate. So rather than paying your one-on-one coaching fee, which is more expensive than one-on-one therapy, instead of paying that for independent access to you or one-on-one access to you, they're paying for large group access to you. Meaning they get to pick your brain for free, they get to ask you questions as they come up, but they're not getting like deep, deep guidance from you, so to speak, but they're also getting access to a community.
A hundred moms who have postpartum depression or who went through postpartum depression or whatever. So there's so much value in those hundred moms being able to say, this is my story. I did fertility treatment. Wanted this baby for years, then this baby's born with health concerns. And I feel like, Oh shit, I screwed up my kid because I took all these fertility drugs and it’s like you wanted something.
And then what you got, wasn't what you wanted. I'm comfortable sharing that story now, but when I was in it, I was not comfortable sharing that story. But if I had a hundred other moms around me that had some sort of similar story, again, life-changing. Yeah.
So in a membership site, yes, you give away your free content. You teach the site, I'm just running with this idea. I have no idea if this is even what you're thinking about with your Side Hustle, but you teach the signs of PPD. You teach postpartum anxiety versus postpartum depression. You teach all of that. So that's all that you give away for free. And then what you're asking them to pay for is the ability to pick your brain whenever they want and also the ability to be with other people in the same predicament or the same scenario.
NM: Okay, this is so helpful. So this, so correct me if I'm wrong, but this is what I got. So what you give away for free, the giveaways are really the teachings, but what people are paying for are access and connection. Is that right?
ML: Yeah. And a good way to think about it is free content, what you're giving away for free really answers the what and the why. What is this? What is postpartum anxiety? What is postpartum depression? Why is it important to know what postpartum depression is? Why is it important to know the difference? Why is it important to be able to see the signs? So the what and the why.
How we're going to deal with this is what goes behind the paywall.
NM: Okay, that makes a lot of sense. So what as I've been thinking about, so we talk all the time in therapy about our ideal client, and especially when we have niche practices and, so I've even taken it a step further and thought about if I were to do, and I love this idea of the coaching and the membership site. I think that feels right. That fits really well with where I'm at and what I'm thinking, and honestly, how I work best.
So I've thought about who do I work best with who are the clients that refer other clients to me, who are the clients that send me emails in the middle of the week, and just say, I was just thinking about our last session and so much resonated with me. Who are those clients? And what I came up with are, they're the type A, high achieving stressed out, overwhelmed moms who are hypercritical who have that really loud inner critic voice. And when someone looks at them from the outside, they think this is a mom who has it together.
And when I meet with that mom, that is a mom who incessantly, beats herself up. And she is never doing enough and feels overwhelmed and feels exhausted. And especially, this has really not surprisingly come to a head right now with the pandemic situation, because here are my high achieving moms who are now also doing it, we call it homeschooling. It's not homeschool. It's crisis schooling.
Doing crisis schooling, who are also trying to manage their household in a way that they never did before. And it's really, really overwhelming and exhausting. And I feel like. Those are my people, right.
ML: I'm raising my hand because I'm like, sign me up for whatever your program is. I don't care what it is cause I know I need it!
So you've done a great job. So the first question is the type of program. We haven't gotten exactly clear on that, but we know we're on this end of the spectrum with a higher-touch delivery, rather than a course that somebody can buy and they never know their name, you never know if they even liked it. You never know if they've been opened the thing. And there are benefits to that too. But your feeling is over here more.
Dive deeper into which type of program, but that's the first question. The second question is who is it for? I think you've got that nailed. I don't think you need to do any more work on who it's for. The next question we ask is what is the problem? Here's that big difference because, in therapy, we don't solve a specific problem for our clients. We teach and guide our clients to solve problems for themselves. But in an online income with your membership site or with your group program or your one-on-one coaching, wherever it ends up being, you are hard-charging at a problem together. So there's still a guidance aspect, but it's more like I'm going to take your hand and I'm going to take you through this problem rather than in therapy it feels more like I'm going to take your hand and you guide me wherever you want to go. And I'm going to walk along with you.
It's a different feeling. Does that make sense?
NM: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. it sounds, it's the difference between therapy and coaching, right? So this is, so I think this is going to be more challenging for me to answer because I think off the top of my head, the problem is that these moms feel overwhelmed and exhausted.
Is that enough?
ML: It's too big. It's too big because what we need to really get down to is, so I actually started coaching moms. Some people know this story, some people don't. Before I was serving therapists I was actually coaching moms. And so I was like, Oh, you're overwhelmed. And that's what I was going for. And I couldn't get coaching clients to save my life. It was too big of a problem. And so what I then did was I really narrowed down and I said, you're overwhelmed because you're looking at this scattered to-do list. You might have 50 post-it notes or, one piece of paper and it's got boxes around it, you know, Monday or whatever. And they're there to-do list looks all like this. And I said that's why you're overwhelmed.
So what's your problem? You're unorganized. What's your problem? You don't have your time, your schedule planned out. What's your problem? You don't, have a, not only a to-do list, but a time blocked schedule of what you're doing on that to-do list right now. And so then what the promise I made, which is the next question is the promise that I made was you will understand how many hours you actually have in a day, what you can accomplish in each day, and then it was values-based.
So the way we did it was we're going to go through all of your values, we're going to categorize those values and we're going to assign numerically time to each of those values. So for instance, one value is their marriage. One value was one-on-one time with their kids. One value was comradery with people who weren't family, like a church family or a mom and dad or siblings or whatever. And so it's like, all right, how many hours do you want to spend on your marriage each week? Five hours a week. Okay. Every evening after bedtime from 8:30 to 9:30 it's marriage time.
And so we got from this crazy ass to-do list of overwhelm to a values-based schedule. Okay. So we need to, overwhelm is what they're experiencing emotionally, but what tiny sliver of overwhelm can you actually help them solve?
NM: So interesting. It is as a therapist, it is a real challenge to think like this. And even for someone who has not been a therapist for their whole entire professional career, I'm still finding it's really challenging because we are taught not to do this. And I'm also a cognitive-behavioral therapist. So we really do, the clients lead with their goals and we're just there guiding.
Okay. So I, I think visually also, so I guess the way I'm seeing it as the overwhelm and exhaustion is at the top and I need to break it down further and that's what that's part of what I'm struggling with. And I love the way that. That you just did it. So when I think of my moms who are overwhelmed and who are just exhausted right now, a big part of the problem is, and I probably need to break it down further than this is that critical inner voice. It's not anything that they're doing, they're not doing. And this is okay. So this is part of the problem. They think they're doing something wrong. They're not doing anything wrong. The problem is how they talk to themselves. And that sounds super simplistic. But as we also know, from being therapists, sometimes the things that sound really simple are so complex and so huge that they are, it's really a challenge.
So yeah, the moms that I work with, my high achieving type-A moms that are super stressed out, they're not doing anything wrong. In fact, they're the moms who are working to do "everything" right. And I say that in quotes because there is no way to do everything right. But they're reading all the books, they're looking at the blogs or watching the YouTube videos. They're doing all of that. And they're trying to put, they're, they were the first ones that were jumping on the color-coded schedules for the pandemic. They're not doing anything wrong, but they are so unkind to themselves. And their critical voice is the meanest person in their lives.
ML: So you've already done this because when people are, when students work with me and they're thinking, they're having trouble coming up with their problem, I say, let's break it into one of two categories. Is it an emotional problem or is it an action-based problem? So if by action-based like you're saying, they're not doing anything wrong. An action-based problem might be they're actually doing too much. So I'm going to help them stop doing too much. That's more of an action-based, it's reversed action-based really because instead of getting them to do something differently, you're getting them to stop doing something.
An emotional-based problem is emotional feelings. And you went right to an emotional-based problem with the sense of inner critic shame. That kind of stuff. So that's what you're wanting to solve.
Here's where we have to be careful is you're wanting a high touch program and you're wanting to solve an emotional problem. We need to really be able to distinguish between therapy and coaching or whatever you're going to call it, coaching, educating whatever. So that'll be something that we just pay attention to when we outline the deliverables of this program.
We've decided it's a higher-touch type of program. Not a hundred percent narrowed down, but we know where we're leaning towards with it. We know who it's for. The problem is inner critic and I would get clearer on this, but I'm like, what does the inner critic do? How are they hearing the inner critic? How are they experiencing the inner critic? Those are things that I would explore more.
Now here's the biggest part of this is the promise. And again, as a therapist, it's going to feel very, even more foreign than coming up with a problem because we have to make a promise. We have to say, when you hire me as a coach, when you buy my group coaching program, when you enroll in my membership site, whatever that is, you will accomplish something.
And we can't probably can't ever remove her inner critic, but we can maybe teach her to befriend her inner critic or to understand her inner critic to be able to interrupt her inner critic. So see how that's a little bit different. We're not making the inner critic go away. We can't promise that.
NM: No, no. That would be dishonest. The inner critic doesn't ever go away. How I usually say it to clients, and I don't know if this would apply, as we learn to work with the inner critic, we don't fight the inner critic. There's a way to work with that critical voice, cause the other thing I don't do is I don't like psychobabble either. So actually even using inner critic, it feels somewhat uncomfortable for me, but it's that inner critical voice, learning how to manage that voice and work with that voice and not allow that voice to just continuously, to beat you up. So there's a way to manage that productively, but is that, I don't know I'm mean, of course I go back to, is that enough?
ML: It's halfway there, you will, by being a member of this program, you will learn, so learn not process. So there's one distinction between what we're doing in therapy and what we're doing in here, you will learn to work with your inner critic. That's the first half of the promise. So you can, what? What's the result of learning to work with the inner critic?
NM: That's a great question. So what is the result? What is the…
ML: It’s usually the direct opposite of their problem. So you can relax into motherhood.
NM: Oh, they want to enjoy the moment. They want to slow down and enjoy their children and their partner and their life. But they don't know how to do that without being hyper-productive all of the time.
ML: Yeah. This is just what came to me. It may not be your voice at all, but by being a member of XYZ program, you will learn to work with your inner critic so you can enjoy the small moments of motherhood.
NM: That makes so much sense, but that was such a challenge for me.
ML: And then we just have to figure out how we're going to get them to do that. And what that is, is your deliverables. So that could be coaching calls. That could be a curriculum, that could be a framework of a membership site, but at least now you know what you actually want to do.
NM: Yeah. Yeah. And what's funny is that sounds very CBT to me. You don't ever state your, or you are encouraged to not stay goals in the negative. You state your goal and in the affirmative in the positive. And that's what we did. So that's, that is really, really cool.
And yeah, I love that. I love that. And that feels so. Ah, that feels so comfortable to me. It feels like this is good information that would be of service. Something that I actually wrote down in my notes, and I think it's because I wasn't sales. I have this like radar for things that are slimy and feel salesy. And I want to stay so far away from that, that just feels so gross for me. So I love this idea that this is a community type program and it feels like it's of service. And that's what, and I love that. And this is truly, as obviously we're here talking about it as moms and therapists and business owners, this is a real, it's so real, it's so real. And it's also, it can be hard to speak of and when you're going through it, it feels so devastating, especially when other people just think, you're fine. You have it all together. You're just fine. It's like, no, no, I'm not great. It's really a struggle.
ML: Yeah. Yeah. And so what other questions did you have on your list?
NM: So one of the questions that I had, and this is because I have a tendency to go, I go back and forth between big picture and details, is it -does it make sense to have kind of a membership type program that's multifaceted where you include things like one-on-one? Because I wouldn't want to do, I wouldn't want to do all one-on-one. And where you have things like group coaching and then where you have maybe, and I dunno, maybe a podcast or some type of audio, or maybe it's audio just for members like a multifaceted program, because that kind of speaks to me too. I don't like the idea of, kind of just putting it in a box and then leaving it and putting it out there. Something that can grow and change as the program grows and changes.
ML: Out of the three, membership sites feels just on a hunch like it might be the best fit for you, because of that multifaceted nature. So there are lots of different ways to run a membership site. Technically Netflix is a membership site.
You pay them the same amount of money every month, and then you get to watch a crap ton of content. So there are content-based membership sites. I have a love-hate relationship with content-based membership sites. And I'll tell you why. Stitchfix or Ipsy or those ones that like you get products to your door. That's technically a membership site because again, you're paying a monthly fee for a subscription that gets delivered to your door. So those are like actual physical products. And then there's, I don't know if there's really a name for these, but I call them coaching memberships.
The way that I teach people to run them is, they, you get a monthly fee, let's just run with 50 bucks a month. Some are less than that. Some are higher than that, but I think 50 is a good number to start with. So people are paying you 50 bucks a month. The way that I suggest doing them is not too content heavy. Netflix can get away with something too content heavy because they have millions and millions and millions of dollars so they can continue to put out really great content that people want to watch. And you'll see on Netflix, they're getting away from running other people's shows and now they have all the Netflix produced shows.
We can't do that. As solos, Side Hustlers, we can't do that. And also research shows that the number one killer of a membership site is actually too much content because it makes people feel more overwhelmed.
NM: Yeah. I believe that.
ML: I think it's wise to have some content in a membership site because it frames, it gives it that framework. It's, here's what we're talking about this month, but I think, and you already mentioned audio because I think you're right. Moms like audio best because they can listen to it in a wall, on a walk while they're walking in the stroller, they can listen to it while they're putting the baby down. I used to do podcasts all the time and cause I didn't want my baby looking at the screen. But I was like, I have to have some kind of noise in this house. So that's actually how I found podcasts six years ago. So I think audio is really great.
Release a 20 minute, 20 minute audio on the first week of the month. A training on something inner voice-related, right? The second week of the month, you can have a Q&A call where everybody hops on zoom just to pick your brain. Some people will come every month. Some people will never come. Some people will come when they are really interested in the topic.
The third week of the month, you could do something like a hot seat coaching call. Where two or three people apply for a hot seat and they get 15 minutes of one-on-one with you. And then the rest of the membership members get to either be there in the zoom room watching, or they get to watch the replay kind of thing.
And then the fourth week doing something community based like a mini-challenge or an outreach. Reach out to another mom in your area and have a dialogue with them or something like that. You can figure out what that community-based thing might be. But that gives you that really wide range.
I don't think one-on-one is great for a membership site. What I use it for, I don't have a membership site, but what I teach it for is as a retention strategy, because just like your husband mentioned, you got to a certain number of clients in your practice and then it was about just staying there.
The same type of thing happens with your membership site, right? Let's say you get a hundred members and you're really comfortable with that until it's the time for you to let more members in. Maybe you launch once or twice a year, right? But you get to that initial a hundred members. This is the bottom line income that you want from it. You have to keep those hundred members.
So what is a really good retention strategy is on your six month anniversary of being a member you get a 30-minute one-on-one call with me. Eventually, that won't work because if you have so many members and their six month anniversary is every day, if they're joining, if they're joining whenever they want, then you're going to have 12, 30-minute calls every day. So it won't work for the term. But when you have just a few members and you're really wanting to solidify the relationship with them and keep them around, that could be where I would use one-on-one.
NM: And I love that you said relationship because I feel like that is, I don't want to lose that and that, that feels like that is aligned with my values.
It's funny when you mentioned the course before, of course, listeners can't see this, but I was shaking my head thinking that is not a good fit for me. Because originally when I started thinking about this and I was thinking, I love working with therapists and I can do something that they need, like CEOs.
And then I was like, I'm not like a training person. I actually love this type of content where it's this really it's this reciprocal back and forth. And it's very, it's very natural and spontaneous. And what's so funny to me. And I talked to my clients about this all the time, how we all contain multitudes, right? Because outside of the therapy room, I'm such a planner. In the therapy room, and I think this is why connect with clients is they, I'm in the zone. They really do have me fully present for that full 50 minutes. And that's hard to get when you're a woman. Know that doesn't naturally happen now in the real world. So to have someone who's really listening to you and making you feel, helping you to feel okay, seen and heard that's really. So that connection is so meaningful and I'm so spontaneous and I'm not spontaneous in any other areas. But in therapy, I’m spontaneous. So I love the idea of having a program that can grow and change and that I can add onto, and that doesn't just feel like this is the way it's done.
If you're doing CEU programs, you have to meet this criteria. That's not how I work, which is surprising to some people, but that is when, I work best when I give myself the freedom and the space to move around.
ML: Yeah. So what's really cool about membership sites is there in perpetuity. They don't have a start date and a stop date. A group program might, a group program and a membership site are basically inverse of each other. A membership site is a lower price, higher volume. In an, Oh, you can think of it as an open therapy group, right? Like it's just always ongoing people come and go and come and go and come and go. A group program is a high price, low volume closed group.
So something to think about when you're fleshing this out. But with a membership site because it's just going and evolving and it's really great for people who consider themselves more creative and an idea generator because as long as you have the framework, the bones of what is this membership site. We talk about topic one, topic two, topic three in topic four in this membership site. Then anything that falls under those categories is fair game.
NM: Yeah, and I, I love that. All right. So this has been, this is so helpful. And then, so now, then my question is I love the idea of kind of organic growth where it doesn't feel forced. So how do I go from this very, in some ways, very traditional therapy model. Even though I have a hybrid practice, which is a little untraditional. For the most part, I see clients one-on-one for 50 minutes and I'm a cognitive-behavioral therapist and that's what, and that's what we do. How do I go from that to this, to more of a, to a membership site, to something that where I'm reaching, I'm not doing the one-on-one anymore? I'm reaching a larger number, of customers. how, where do I go from here? I know that's a huge question,
ML: I think the first thing I learned, I remember learning in business school on day one was, your net worth is in your network. And I think that has applied to you for your practice because you said, I reached out to my referral sources. I said, here's, what's new and different, which I love because you adapted to the times you didn't say, Hey, send me clients. You said, Hey, here's how I'm attempting to the time. So I thought that was really cool. But this networking, model, networking growth has worked for you for your practice. You can do the exact same thing.
Find other people who are serving moms. Dana Malstaff of Boss Mom is one, Mother Like a Boss, Kendra Hennessy is a good friend of mine. Trying to think, Kelsey van Kirk. Oh, I can't think of the name of her podcast anymore, but these are all people that I knew when I was coaching moms so that you just do the same thing, but now you're on a global scale or at least a nationwide scale.
And so you can network with somebody who has a cloth diaper company in Wyoming.
NM: I love this idea and I feel like this really goes back to, and I heard this on a podcast somewhere and I can't remember whose podcast it was, but when they talked about, niching your practice and really kind of breaking it down to who your serve best and really, getting so narrow that it feels uncomfortable. And I feel like this is, and I had to think the question they asked was when you think of your ideal client or your niche population, where are they before they see you? And finding them.
So, that's what you're suggesting. So finding where, other, women who are serving a similar population and networking with them and seeing what they're doing and how they serve their base and how they, start that. That's really cool.
ML: Yeah. And it's a strategy that's worked for you before. So now you're just taking it to another level and there's like I, on another podcast I talked about this, the tortoise strategy and the hare strategy. So you can go in and find these other people and you can send them pitch requests, like pitch them to be on their podcasts. Pitch them to do a guest blog for them, pitch them to do a Facebook live appearance in their Facebook group or whatever.
That's the more hare strategy. That's the more aggressive strategy. You can also do a more tortoise-y type strategy and just invite them for a coffee chat on Zoom. Which could feel very much like what this feels like. But just like you were saying, I want to know about those OBGYNs and not only how I can help their clients, but how I can help them. Taking that exact same mentality into these coffee chats.
Hey, I saw that you have a cloth diaper company and you are seeing a lot of moms and what are the, like, how can I be of service to those moms, but how can I also be of service to you? What are you seeing come up at that you're not equipped to handle or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever.
So there are the coffee chats, just inviting them for a conversation and then organically from that, they might be like, Oh, you know what? You should come on my podcast. And it starts from relationship, or, you, it's still organic strategy, but you can put the pedal to the metal, so to speak and you can go and say, I'm going to pitch these 10 podcasts.
NM: Yeah, I think that what a great way to think of it. And I love the idea of relationship building. I think that's what feels more natural to me and yeah, that feels like it's more aligned with who I am and how and how I do things and leaning into my strengths and the way that I work. And this was definitely from one of your podcasts where you talked about, and it was a similar question, where someone had been asking. But why me? What is special about my program? And your answer was it’s you. It's you.
And I thought, okay, what would clients, what would mentors, what would they say my superpower is so to speak? And I've actually, my, the, my local clinical supervisor who I work with, she talks to me all the time and she's at, she actually watched me and I guess it wasn't, we were at training or we were at a networking event and she watched me after the event, unbeknownst to me, and she said you were just walking around the room, talking to people, one-on-one making connections. And she said that's what you do.
And I thought that really, and I love like my superpower is connecting. So I've been thinking about how can I connect on a larger scale? And there's a way to do this with who would eventually be customers, but also with who, colleagues really, what we call complementary colleagues, right?
Where are, where else are my customers, and this is where they would be. So I love that. Oh, this makes so much sense to me, so much sense.
ML: As you're connecting with these people, like Alison teaches to keep a spreadsheet, there are ways to keep contact or keep track of who you're building connections with, but these people can easily invite you onto their things.
Oh, I had an Instagram swap plan for next week. Do you want to be part of it? So they can invite you to their things. But then also when it comes time for you to do something, maybe in a year from now, you're hosting an event, a challenge or a summit or a something right. A bundle, whatever it could be, you now have people to reach out to as well. To be a participant in that.
NM: Yeah. I love reciprocity, right? It's a reciprocal relationship where everyone is benefiting and truly feeling like they're gaining and growing from it. I love that. I love that. That sets. I know I've been saying that a lot because I'm looking for what sits well with me, cause I did, I went through the same, a similar process in building my private practice.
I thought what sits, there are so many ways to do this. I have to find what sits well with me. Of course, there's always room to grow and to push and to challenge. But on some level, this has to feel like this is in line with what I value and this feels in line with what I value. And that's so important to me because I think it's so easy it's easy to tell them when it doesn't. And I wouldn't want to that feel, that feels phony. That doesn't feel like it would work for really building and growing something that's meaningful. That's important to me too. I need this to be meaningful.
ML: So what would you say has been your biggest takeaway from our call?
NM: Oh, my God. That's such a talk about a challenging question. Oh, there are so many. Okay. Maybe I'll start with the idea that I can do this. This makes sense. I can take what I have. And the other piece of it is that I don't have to rush it. I love that, that I can take an approach. I can take the, I clearly I took the tortoise approach to opening my private practice. It took me 10 years and it was worth it, and I just.
I was just having this conversation with someone the other day, when I went to graduate school, I didn't take six years off. I was working for six years and I was really scared. I was terrified. I remember sitting in my first class thinking here is my cohort, my classmates. They're you know, 23 right out of undergrad. They're in that zone. They're in that student zone and here I am, I've been out of school for six years. I haven't written a paper in six years. I haven't taken a test in six years. This is going to be a disaster. And instead, what ended up happening was, first of all, I was not messing around because I was 28 and I was like, I need to get through this program as quickly as possible and get back to work.
But I also brought all of those skills with me and they weren't, they didn't just fall by the wayside and those sales skills and those relationship-building skills helped me. They help me network with my professors. They helped me get my graduate assistantship, all of these things that I wouldn't have had before.
So I think looking at this as looking at it as a process and as a journey. And then I can take an approach that feels right for me and still challenge myself. And the end result is going to be something of worth, but also something that can grow and change. So I think that's been my takeaway is that this is possible in a way that feels values-based and in a way that feels that I really will be putting something out there in the world that feels like it's of service. And that's huge. That's huge for me.
And also, you gave me some really specific strategies and some really specific ways to think about some of this really beautiful, big picture stuff. It's okay. Now what's the work behind that and you will have already helped me to work through some of that. So there's so I've, so now I went from two pages, I have four pages of notes. Now I'm in good shape, I would say.
ML: So what with that being said, then what is your, what do you think is your first action step?
NM: So believe it or not, I think I need to actually take a step back. And really take this in. I think I need to, really look at these notes, really think about this conversation and think about, okay, now that I have some of the bigger picture ideas, really thinking about some of these great questions that you asked me, what is the problem? What is the, how do I, what kind of content do I think I want to put out there? But thinking of it, in a way that makes sense. So starting with some of the big picture ideas and then drilling it down. And I think what I need to do is I need to give myself some space and some time to work through this.
ML: Drink, some tea, take a bubble bath, go for a walk. That's what I, in Side Hustle, there are four different points where I'm like, okay, it's time to step back and you need to go for a drive or you need to go for a walk or you need to go do whatever it is that, if your ideas come to you with a shower, wherever it is, go do that for a while.
So I think that's exactly where you're at, which sounds awesome.
NM: Yeah. And then I can, I can, there's no rush. I can give myself, like I said, it took me 10 years to get to private practice. And then I filled my private practice in six months. It's okay. I can take some time to think through this.
ML: There's something about laying the groundwork, making sure that it is not only a fit for your lifestyle, but it's the way you want to run it. And that it is set up correctly. And well, and then when you open the doors, things happen, magic happens.
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time today and for being willing to share your story on the podcast. It's been, I've had a lot of fun. I want to be friends.
NM: Yeah. Great! We made a connection. This is what I live for. No, this has been, this has been so helpful and really our conversation has really resonated with me. And I'm excited, but I don't feel like this, like urgency.
Do you know what I mean? I'm excited to move in the right direction without feeling like this all has to be done right away.
ML: Yay. I love that. I love that!
NM: And I think that kind of fits with what I want to do. All right. wonderful. Thank you. Thank you.
ML: I will speak to you soon. I'm sure. And thank you for your time.
