Plan, Build, and Launch an Irresistible Offer as a Counselor | Kasey Writes, 12/500

When I started graduate school in 2007 I knew that owning a private practice was part of the end goal for me. What I didn’t know was the process of creating and growing businesses would ultimately become such an important part of my life. 

In 2009 I finished grad school and immediately opened a private practice. It only took one client with an eating disorder before I realized I didn’t have the skills necessary to function independently, especially not in private practice. 

I traded in my shingle for a bottom feeder position at a large non-profit counseling organization. I worked tirelessly doing in-home support services for children and their families for five years. I drove over 100 miles per day and my office was a makeshift set of file folders and suitcases in my trunk. 

It was rewarding, but I was tired. Once I felt strong enough clinically, a series of unexpected circumstances led me to, again, hanging a shingle. This time I wasn’t going to let anything hold me back, definitely not my lack of experience. 

To be honest, I thought, how hard can it be? If other people own practices, I can too. And I was right, I could and I did, but it wasn’t always the easiest. I worked day-in-and-day-out, sometimes through the night, bound and determined I would make this thing work. I read over 100 business books a year, I developed a relationship with influential people, and became best friends with a banker.

From there came the partnering with world-renowned, Wall Street Journal bestseller, Mike Michalowicz to write a derivative book, Fix This Next for Healthcare Providers. In a lot of ways this was a passion project for me because I know first-hand how hard mental health providers work. They work much harder than what they’re compensated for and I think it’s time that changed. 

The book is about making that vital change in order to level up your practice. It’s about teaching readers a system for prioritizing the needs in their business so that they can be certain to always focus on the most impactful need, rather than the most urgent. 

When I realized that prioritizing my own business needs is just like diagnosing a client, it all started to make more sense. When I understood that businesses needed interventions just like my clients battling anxiety, change started to occur. When I held my own business accountable with a treatment plan, in the same way I did with my clients, they got well. 

It is important to me to take something we already know how to do so well, and turn it into something that will serve us so well. 

Today, I’ll walk you through four strategies that will help you make the most money out of the talent you already have. Let’s get started: 

1. Identify your strengths and talents or even your niche

If you’re practicing as a counselor right now, what is your area of expertise? When I finished graduate school all of my peers and community business leaders told me I was absolutely crazy to exclude the majority of my potential clients by specializing. Why on earth would you want to work harder to get clients, they would say? 

I guess I could see their point, but I thought about it a little differently. I always look for a specialist. Subconsciously I think they’re more competent if they specialize. And that’s how I wanted to be seen.

Also, after having worked in an in-home setting for so long, I was tired.  The mental energy it took to go from a trauma case to major depression, to play therapy techniques, make me feel scattered and less effective. I wanted to focus on one thing, and do that one thing well. 

2. Create a plan to monetize your strengths and talents

First look at what you’re most passionate about, then consider which one of those things solves a problem that other people have. That’s a great starting point for choosing what to monetize.

If you are going to spend any of your time on something other than counseling, it needs to be worth the investment of that time. In other words, this idea needs to not only be satisfying to you, but it must also be something others will be willing to invest in. 

Some examples from other counselors that I’ve helped other counselors monetize a talent are: creating a high-ticket therapy offer such as couples or individual self-discovery intensives. This allows the counselor to work for two days seeing two clients, making the same money they would have made in two weeks or more seeing 40-50 clients. Based on the time investment, this is a heck of a return on investment. 

Another example is launching a course that is an extension of therapy, but psychoeducational. This could be part of the therapeutic package, but clients can purchase it as a supplement to their treatment program. Once created, courses are excellent passive income streams. 

Going further into a specialization. This creates instant credibility to potential clients and positions you to set up a training program or institute for new clinicians to train under you to learn your specific method. This is a great entry point for a group practice or even for consulting.

Maybe you have a clinical skill that you could package up in a way that existing group practices would want to buy. For example, I just helped Rachel Harrison launch a big idea as an extension of her EMDR consulting experience. She created a coaching program that would help practice owners implement an EMDR program into their practices. I appointed a Director of Trauma Services as Mindsight and put her through Rachel’s program. Now we have 15 EMDR trained and certified clinicians and have the foundation for an entirely new revenue stream for the practice. 

What are you doing already, that you’re good at, and that you like, that you could extend to earn extra income? 

3. Launch a counseling-related offering and turn a profit quickly

This will sound contrary to what you have seen, heard, or done before, but the key to launching a new product or service is to sell it before you make it. 

I know what you’re thinking, and no I don’t mean rip people off! I mean, most people spend months and even years developing this perfect product and for a multitude of reasons never get that offer off the ground. It just dies.

You must gauge the market’s interest in what you’re offering before you invest hours upon hours in creating it. 

If you’re designing a course or some form of digital product, you can always do a pre-sale. Once your vision is clear, your value stack is developed including a pricing strategy, then you can pre-sale. Make the purchase available now, and deliver the goods at a predetermined date in which you know you will have the product finished. Add a disclaimer if you choose that states should there not be a minimum number of purchases, any pre-payment will be refunded. 

Do the same for a service. Presale the event or service to gauge the interest. If no one signs up, then don’t spend all your time developing the details. This would be a good point to mention that sending out a survey or making a Facebook post that says something like, “Hypothetically speaking, if I were to offer X, would you be interested?” 

You must always trust wallets not words. People will say yes, I’ll buy that, but when the time comes, they don’t. Pre-sales, betas, and pilot programs all utilized with pre-sales are the best way to gauge interest. 

4. Supplement your counseling income by investing as much or as little time as you like

When you have decided on a product or service that you are passionate about, and have landed on a pricing strategy that you’re confident in, you can start to make other decisions about your plans for monetizing and supplementing your income. 

When I started consulting back in 2017 my plan was to pick up a client or two a month which would add a few hundred extra dollars to my income. The time investment was fairly low and I was making more hourly than I was seeing clients so it was a no-brainer. 

Those 1-2 hours per month turned into 10-12, and after a couple of years, I was doing it full time. Now, I’m not saying that you should or would make this kind of choice, but after a while, the business side became something that was fulfilling to me. It challenged me and brought about something new that I liked. 

I could have continued seeing clients, and working with a handful of consulting clients per month. In fact, I almost did something very similar. I recognized that one of the things I loved doing for my clients was creating forms and worksheets. I liked the functionality of it as well as the design. 

I was doing the work anyway, so I found an easy online platform called Gumroad that allowed me to sell my forms in a way that customers could download and edit easily. After one year of selling forms, I made $27,000 completely passively. When I filed my taxes that year I was stunned. I had no idea I had made that much money doing absolutely nothing other than uploading them to Gumroad.

It really is that simple. When you understand where your strengths lie, you can build a plan to monetize them so that the work you're doing anyway counts for more. This strategy is one of my keys to success and is still my go-to system for launching a new offer.

Next Steps

• Preorder Fix This Next for Healthcare Providers on Amazon!
• Want to learn more about Fix This Next for Healthcare Providers and the foundational levels of your practice? Check out these blogs:
• Sales Is An Issue… Now What?
• Diagnosing Sales Issues
• Profit = A Healthy Business
• Ready to start fixing, but aren’t sure how? Check out this post!
• Learn more about Kasey and how she helps.
• Learn more about Mindsight Partners.
• Learn more about Systemizer School. New cohort coming soon!
• Get in touch with us!