Show Notes

Kayla: Welcome back to The Designer Practice Podcast, and I’m your host, Kayla Das.

Ever think of creating a therapy or coaching group but fear has held you back?

Well, in today’s episode, I have the pleasure to sit down with Landy Peek, Occupational Therapist turned transformational coach, to discuss how to shift our focus from one-to-one services to developing group programs inside of your private practice so that you can continue to do what you love, but also start building in some financial freedom as well.

Hi Landy, welcome to the show. I’m so glad to have you here today.

Landy: Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Kayla: This is such an important topic. I get asked all the time, like, “How do I create groups inside of my private practice?” So, I know that this is going to be so valuable.

And when we spoke about topics for today’s episode, you shared with me a key element to group program creation that even I didn’t realize was the first, and probably even the most important piece of creating any successful group. Many of us think that the first step to creating a successful group is the development of the group itself, but that’s not always the first place we need to start.

I won’t give the key element away just yet, but after reflecting on our conversation, I wholeheartedly agree that it’s the secret sauce to really any successful passive income stream. Not even just groups.

Landy: Absolutely it is the key thing, and most people miss it or don’t even realize that’s something that they need to focus on. It really is, we start with the action steps, the creation. What am I going to do and what am going to say? But we missed that key part. That is where we’re going to create that success and ease in stepping into something new.

Introduction

Kayla: A hundred percent agree. So, I can’t wait for us to get in, but before we do, please introduce yourself, where you’re from. Tell us a little bit about what you do, who you serve, and a little bit about your own private practice journey as an occupational therapist and a transformational coach.

Landy: Yeah. So, I’m Landy Peek, and I’m a mom of two. I am living in Colorado and absolutely adore it. I have been an occupational therapist for about a dozen years now. And I had my journey through, started with rehab, shifted to pediatrics, and that’s where I first got my taste of private practice as I was school-based, EI, the whole nine yards. And then was like, “Ooh, I want to do something a little bit different” after I had my first daughter. And so, I stepped into private practice with pediatrics, loved it. My business was great. It was so easy. And then after I had my second, which is my son, I was really burned out on being with kids and going home to kids.

And I also had my own health issues after my delivery with my son, which got me interested into women’s health and specifically pelvic health. And so I went down my journey of pelvic health, shifted my pediatric practice now to serving pelvic health. Absolutely loved it. But I found a lot more struggle in stepping into that transition of pelvic health than I did with peds, and it was one of my like, oh my gosh, how come I had a blooming pediatric business with ease and I could not get my pelvic health business to go easily? I was working and constantly struggling.

So, as I realized kind of where that shift was, it was in my inner identity. And I was identified as a peds therapist, and until I could step into the identity of, I’m a pelvic therapist, I could not get my program to go. So, I was able to make that shift, but it took a while to get there.

Then as we grew, I had started having people ask me to coach them, other therapists, and I was like, “Oh yeah, this is cool. I can do this.” And that’s how I stepped into coaching was really, it fell in my lap. I had two people within a month call me and say, “would you coach me?” “Oh yeah, sure.” I love the coaching aspect. So, I am full-time coaching right now because I am working with helping people create thriving lives where we’re really upleveling and having a bigger impact. Because I can serve so many people in my private practice and I realized that I’m helping the therapist, I am now creating a much bigger impact. Because not only am I helping the people in my immediate vicinity, but their clients are also getting benefit from the work that we do. And I love that bigger rolling impact. And so that’s where I stepped into coaching and absolutely adore it.

Kayla: I love to hear your journey from, say, private practice as a therapist to coaching, and I can totally relate to how I love help other people. For me, I think it was instinctly and actually going to identity. I always said I was a business owner. I always called myself a business owner from the day I started my private practice. And I could tell you that not a lot of therapists will come in and say I’m a business owner. They’ll say I’m a private practice owner, or I’m a therapist. But I was a business– well, I actually say businesswoman.

Landy: Yes.

Kayla: For me, that was my identity. So, shifting in to business coaching was super easy because my identity was, I am business-focused. I’m a business person. So, it really does show that when we have this self-identity, it helps us move forward with whatever it is we want to move forward with a lot easier.

Inner Identity

Landy: Absolutely. Our subconscious is going to create our inner identity. And so, we have to be able to up-level into a different identity if we want to create a different reality. And so that’s kind of where we often get stuck is I want to do this, but that’s not how I see myself. So, when I was created my practice, I was therapist and entrepreneur and I think that’s why I stepped into coaching so easily is because I like you. I didn’t have business woman, but I had entrepreneur. So, I was able to expand in different ways because I was like, “Oh, I am here to create a business. I am here to create different programs in my business. I am here to have all of this,” and so I could step into different places inside that business really easily.

My biggest identity hiccup was in pediatrics to pelvic health because ultimately, I was an occupational therapist. So, you had pediatric occupational therapist, no problem. I could do mental health occupational therapy, rehabilitation occupational therapy. But when I got to pelvic health, I was like, I don’t know how to combine this. Am I an occupational pelvic health therapist? Am I an occupational therapist and a pelvic health therapist? So, I couldn’t, in my brain, easily blend. And that’s where I was getting stuck in my own journey. And until I could figure that out and step into, “Oh, I’m a pelvic health therapist,” that’s when I really allowed my business to flow. And I was blocking myself. We really are our own blocks in business.

Kayla: A hundred percent agree. And I know we already touched into it, but let’s get into that key element that I foreshadowed in the introduction. So what is the first step in creating a successful therapy or coaching group?

Landy: Yeah, so what all we’ve been talking about our inner identity and this is really who we are and who we see ourselves. That’s our biggest thing because we have to have that identity. I mean, just like if you are a smoker or a non-smoker, right? We have those two identities. And somebody’s going to ask, “you want a cigarette?” “No, I’m a non-smoker.” Or “Yes, I’m a smoker.” Those both are our identities, and that’s the simple explanation.

But we have to, as therapists, we have that like pelvic health and pediatric, it can overlap and get confusing. But until we’re like, “oh, I am this.” Then we will continually self-sabotage, procrastinate, get stuck in the house while never stepping forward into what we want to create because inside we aren’t that person yet. And that’s where I work with my clients is we need to come to, “I am that person that creates this,” the who is first, from the who. Then we kind of reverse engineer for the what. And that’s what makes success so easy is because we’re stepping into, “oh, I have this identity now I’m going to create this.”

Kayla: I absolutely love it. And it goes into, like I mentioned in the introduction, it’s not something that I really thought of. I always thought about why we did what we did, but the identity piece, right? And a lot of listeners, came into private practice for therapists, right? So that is their identity. I am a therapist.

And now it’s about, even if it’s from a one-to-one perspective, it’s about a therapist in private practice. And then when we shift to adding any passive income stream, groups or otherwise, it’s now what identity can I either add? Or what identity do I need to shift?

I do have a question though, can people have more than one identity?

Having Multiple Identities

Landy: Absolutely. You look at like how many different identities we have in our life. I am a mom, I am a wife, I am a business owner. I am also, and I still hold onto my therapist hat. I’m a therapist. I am a coach. I am a. Speaker. And so yes, we have all of these different identities and who we are. And our identities can absolutely shift and we need to uplevel them as we grow on our journey of life. So, I talk to my clients a lot about we have a garden and when we’re born, we all have a garden. And everybody in our life, all those important people plant beliefs about us in that garden. So, doctors, peers, teachers, parents, any other relative that’s influential in our life.

And as a kid, my identity became that I was shy and I was quiet, and I’m not shy or quiet. But this really came from my parents were business owners. My sister and I often spent time in the back of their business and we were told to be quiet, you could be seen but not heard and be in the back. You can’t go running through streaming like a banshee through the middle of our practice. And so, I was rewarded for being quiet. And I was praised for being quiet. My parents weren’t intentionally giving me this persona, but they were like, come on, you guys can’t be yelling and being crazy and you’re back in here. We had a nice little playroom. You’re back in here and you’re quiet.

When I hit preschool, my quiet that had been really praised in my family was then labeled as shy by my preschool teacher, because that’s her reference. So, then I got the label of shy and quiet. And I held onto that label until college, and it was reinforced by friends, parents. When I go to their house, “Oh my gosh, you’re so quiet.” Oh, teachers would say “She’s so shy.” And that’s reinforcing that inner identity. And it’s not until I became an adult and I was looking at this garden of all these beliefs, doing my own mindset and inner work. Then I’m like, “Oh wait, this doesn’t resonate at all,” and this isn’t an identity that will help me create the life that I want. So, I’m going to weed that out of the garden. And I’m going to plant something completely different. And so then I planted what felt more true of being that I am an extrovert, that I am not loud, loud, but that I can speak in public, that I am comfortable in conversations that I can be seen and that I can be heard.

And so that’s how I shifted one piece of my inner identity, because quiet, shy would not work for growing a business. You can’t be quiet and shy and have a thriving business because you have to get out and communicate with people. And when I hit college and I’m like, ” Oh, quiet and shy is not doing me any service here. I’m not getting out and making friends, I’m not speaking up in class.” And then I hit grad school and I was like, “Oh, this is really shifting.” So, we do need to change those just as we evolve and change as humans. And yes, we can pick and choose which identities we want to shift and change.

Kayla: I love that because something that really resonated with me as you were speaking is that even in our programs, like our educational programs, we’re taught to accept a specific identity. And that identity is who we are quote unquote, supposed to show up as. And personally, I’ve never felt I fit that identity that was supposed to happen. Hence why I have a podcast helping therapists design their own practices because I don’t believe in the traditional way people teach us to run our lives.

Now in saying that, if that fits you. That’s your life and you’ve designed that for yourself. But that’s why I think this one core piece really resonated with me is, it’s not something we think about. Even from the surface, we might not even be accepting our own identity. We’re accepting the identity of what other people think that we quote unquote should be doing.

A Part of our Identity is Somebody Else’s Beliefs

Landy: Absolutely. And so much of our identity is somebody else’s beliefs. And as adults we get to go back and go through that garden and say, uh oh, this isn’t me. This doesn’t resonate. This isn’t my belief. This isn’t my thought system. And I do a lot of that with my clients of, is this still serving you? Because we do get to choose.

And there are some thoughts and beliefs and identity things that came from childhood that you’re like, “Oh yeah. This is still me.” This really resonates on a deep level. There’s also a lot of stuff that’s like, “Oh my gosh, no, that is nowhere near who I want to be.” And so, let’s pull that out because that’s a block so that I can step into who I want to be and what I want to create.

And that’s what I love about your podcast is because it is that designer, we get to design our practices and our lives the way that we want. It’s not what anyone else thinks, believes or even wants because we’re each different. And what fits me is not going to fit you. And what fits you might not fit me. And so, we get to tweak it. And I do the same thing in my practice when I’m working with my coaching clients is we’re like, “Okay, so what do you want?” One of our very first sessions is going into, what do you want in life and in business? And that’s a big question and I’ve sat with clients who are like, “Oh, well I should have this,” or “My partner thinks this,” or “This is what my role models have done.”

And I mean, I did the same thing when I started my private practice. My goal in life was to have fill one to one with a waitlist, because that waitlist sounded so good until I got it. And I’m like, “Oh, this is not fun,” because now I have one-to-one. I am like completely booked. The only way that I can increase service to people or my income is to increase my time. I have two little kids. I don’t want to do that. I also value my yoga time, my meditation time, my hiking time, like something had to go. And I hated having that waitlist over me. It’s like, yes, I know I have business coming in. No matter what. It was supposed to feel like security. And instead, it felt like this weight of disappointment that somebody calls and says, “Oh, well I can’t get you in for three months. I hope you do okay until then.” I’m like, this is not fun. So that was somebody else’s viewpoint of what a successful business was, but when I got it, it didn’t feel good. So, then I had to shift and change, and that’s where I brought in, courses and group programs because I needed to create a business that fit my lifestyle and supported it and also supported clients in a way that felt good to me.

Kayla: Agree. And I want to go back to where you mentioned, you wanted that waitlist until you got it. And I think that that happens to a lot of us is we think that we get something and then when we’re there, that’s going to be the magic answer. And I’ve shared on this podcast before, my previous goal, before private practice was climb the ladder and run organizations. And I did it. And when I got there, I was not happy.

Landy: Right.

Kayla: And it’s okay to pivot afterwards, but this goes back to that identity. I was a leader. I was someone who ran organizations. That was my identity. So, I had to shift. Now, to be fair, having a private practice, I’m still running my own organization. So, it wasn’t such a large shift. And some of these shifts are very large for some of us, right? But in saying that, it’s knowing that you can pivot even if you get what you wanted, it doesn’t mean what you wanted is what you actually thought it would be.

You can Always Quit

Landy: Absolutely. I think some of the best advice that I have ever gotten in my entire life, and I’ve lived by this, my grandfather told me, you can always quit. And I was like, what? I mean I came from the pushing family and I was sitting down, I remember like we’re out to breakfast after I graduated college and I was debating a job. And he is like, “Well, try it because you can always quit.” And that’s it. We can quit now becomes pivot in my language, but we can try something and if we don’t like it, pivot.

This is not a lifelong commitment to whatever we’re doing. We’re not saying I’m going to run this private practice until the day I die. We’re saying, I’m going to do this until it no longer feels fun, good, and easy, and then I’m going to find something that’s going to feel better. Because I believe that we are on a journey in life, and as we go through that journey, we are going to grow and change as people and as we grow and change, we’re going to shift how we want to show up in this world and how we want to serve in this world. So, it’s absolutely okay to say, I’m going to try it and if I don’t like it, I can change it. And so, I use a lot of that language with my kids as well as in my practice of you can always pivot. I’ve pivoted a ton in my business, in my practice. I’ve also changed how I wanted that outcome to look.

So yes, we can have that flexibility. We don’t have to get stuck in one place. And that stuckness again, comes to back to that identity of, “If I do this, then that means I am this.” And it’s like, “Wait. But I can change that if I want to.”

Creating Groups by Moving Past the Fear

Kayla: Agree. So, let’s bring it all back to coaching. If we think about group coaching, why do you think that creating groups can feel so scary for therapists and coaches who want to create these groups in their private practice?

Landy: Yeah, because we get into our own identity and inner beliefs. All of the subconscious stuff that is not coming out in our actual conscious speech, but are all of the worries behind.

So, if you are a one-to-one therapist and you are really good at it and you have that identity, then you say, I want to do group. And I want to open up and serve in a bigger way. I can serve more people with less time. This sounds fabulous. Except then come in that, are you a group therapist or a group coach? So, we have that identity.

If yes, like I can get into that identity sometimes we have the subconscious thought blocks of. Am I good enough to be able to serve a group? Can I actually get results in the group? I know I can one-on-one, but can I in a group. What are people going to think If all of that judgment coming in of what are my one-to-one clients going to think if I offer them a group. Are they going to see the value? What are my peers going to think? So, when we’re looking at shifting in any way in our lives, but into that group practice, we have so much that comes up around what are the judgements, what are the inner thoughts of, am I good enough to do this? Can I really do this? And can I create that value? That becomes really scary because change is scary. We know, and our little subconscious keeps us safe. It knows we can rock that one-on-one. But if we try to do something different, there’s a possibility of rejection and rejection hurts and we don’t want it. And if we go down to that primal brain, rejection can mean being expelled from the tribe and certain death. So, our brains go that extreme where it’s just like, “Oh my gosh.” And we’re not even aware of all of these little blocks that are coming up.

We see those blocks coming in, procrastination. In I’m going to dive deep into all of the how’s and have my whole entire group and I worked with a coaching client like this. She had been wanting to do a group program and she just couldn’t get it launched. So, we started working together and she had every last detail videos recorded to support her groups, all of these beautiful workbooks. She had gone down this rabbit hole for this six-week group. And she could not get past that doing because she hadn’t stepped up into that inner identity. She was a one-to-one therapist. So, we had to work to shift her up into being that group coaching. And the other thing that we’re working around is circumstance because a lot of times we’re blocking ourselves with our circumstances and she was where it was. “Oh, but I just have a small little one room practice. I can’t run a group because I don’t have space for a group.” So, she’s working from that circumstance versus, “Oh, well I have a one room office. Hmm. I wonder what could happen to allow me to find group space.” So that’s working outside of the circumstance of like, “Oh, I wonder what I could do,” versus, “I can’t do it because I don’t have.” so we really worked to shift her into that identity, working around the fears and thought blocks. And then the circumstance opened up and she was like, “Oh, oh my gosh. The yoga studio that I go to yoga, they offer rentals.” And here she goes, it all falls into place. She opened it up and it worked. But it had been almost a year of butting her head up against trying to get into this group until we shifted into, “Oh wait, I have to be that person that is a public speaker” because part of groups is public speaking, that I can stand in front of a group of people and talk to them and feel confident. And that was her biggest twist is she didn’t have that inner identity of that public speaker and she needed that, or she thought she needed that to be able to run that group. So as soon as we could figure out what is this block? What part of you is not allowing this to happen. Identify it. Then what does it need? We shift it and it’s all person-based, so it’s however you want to shift it. I don’t say, “Oh, we need to do this, this, and this. It’s, I’m really good at asking questions and you find your own answers” and that’s the sweet stuff about this coaching.

Kayla: Yeah. And a product of the self-identity of a one-to-one therapist is, I can’t do what I do as a one-to-one therapist in any other mode or model. And I always challenge people and I’m like, why? And it’s sometimes we can’t really explain why therapy is working, right? We know our therapeutic approaches and we know those pieces, but we don’t necessarily know why. But if we really think about, what is it that these therapeutic approaches are teaching us? We can start moving forward and creating it in other contexts, like of groups, digital courses, even templates or whatever. And these are some examples that not even too long ago, people thought you couldn’t do until somebody did it, was create self-help books. And a lot of clients will actually try to deal with the issues that they have on their own first before they come to you for therapy.

So, if you could tap into reaching people before they even are looking for a therapist, you are able to help more people and also make more profits. And up until the pandemic, a lot of people did not think you could do therapy online. It was totally taboo, even though I know there was a lot of therapists still doing it like kind of in the shadow, but afraid to come out and say, “Yeah, I’m doing online therapy.” But when the pandemic happened, because of that circumstance shift, our identities had to shift. Otherwise, nobody was making money and everybody needed support because everyone was in lockdown and we all did it. And now it is such a normal or natural process in the therapy world now, but that’s where this identity shift changes. Because not always are we going to have the pandemic. Not always are we going to be the first person to do something?

But that’s why we need to focus and think about how can I do what I’m doing now to help more people? But also from an identity perspective, how do I be that person that can show up in a group, create a digital course, create digital templates or blogs or whatever it is that you want to create?

Visualizing Who You Want to Be

Landy: Absolutely. And I love that where it’s, who do I need to be to be able to create this? And that is like the language that I use over and over with clients is who do you need to be to create that group? And then what can you do to step into that energy so that you can create that? And sometimes it’s simple things. And I do this whole long process with my clients and we have a two-hour first-time roadmap deep dive. But what we’re coming to is some of the little simple things that create the biggest impact.

So, things that I’ve worked with my clients is who do they need to be? So, if we’re visualizing this person in three years, it’s been, I wear red lipstick, I wear thongs, I wear jewelry, I wear, and we can come to these concrete little pieces of, “Oh, that person that creates that group. She wears this, that, or the other. He wears this, that, or the other. They wear this, that, or the other,” right? So, we have this identity of like, “Oh, I can put something on me, shift and step into that energy and already start thinking from that spot.” And that is such a cool place.

Because I’ve had people wear certain colours where it’s just like, “Oh, when I wear blue then I feel like that big time person that can run that group.” And so, okay, so start putting on blue, sitting from that person’s thought process. And what do you need to do then to create that group? But it’s funny how sometimes we can just add one little thing to our outside self that makes our inside-self feel so much better. And so, it’s working sometimes backwards where it’s like, “What little tangible thing can we do that starts getting you down that road, and then you start embodying that personality and then it becomes easy.”

Kayla: Fabulous. So, the first step is self-identity. So, I know you’ve created successful groups in your private practice. Can you share a little bit about the process that you took when creating and marketing your groups once you’ve had that self-identity shift?

Creating and Marketing Groups

Landy: Yeah. So, I hit that wait list and I was like, “I’ve got to figure out a different way to do this because I want to serve and I also don’t want to expend so much time and energy.” so I stepped into groups and they were therapy groups at the time. I now run coaching groups. But therapy groups at the time. And what I first did was step into that inner identity. I then, from that inner identity was like, okay. What do I need to create here? And I looked and listened with my clients and I’d been a therapist for years.

And what I started stepping into was, “Oh my gosh, I say this same thing over and over to almost all of my clients.” We have our own unique journeys, but so many of our problems overlap with other people’s problems, and they’re more common than we think. So, it’s like, “Oh, there’s an educational component that I can do.” And so, I stepped really into a teaching model where I had groups and I did pelvic health groups, focused on postpartum.

So, stepping into that and saying, okay. This is really, really common, so I’m going to do six weeks of this, this, and this. And I did live groups. I then was like, “Oh, from this live group place, I can shift this into a video-based course that people can watch on their own time and, again, same information that I went from one-on-one repeating all day long to, let’s change this into a group. I’m repeating it to instead of one person to 10 people. Let’s change the same information that I used. And I really firmly believe you’ve got to master your stuff on one-on-one and then you can take it to that group and once you’ve got it and like, oh, this works. And they’re understanding what I’m saying, because I can tweak as I go live. Then let’s shift it into video, is how I did it and was like, “Oh, and this really works and they’re still getting the same results.” This is fantastic and it gives me passive income now on the video and it helps more people because I’ve had people who have signed up for my therapy groups who literally said I didn’t feel comfortable having that one-to-one attention, but I can hide in the group to get started and still be helping myself. And they did, where it’s those people that are hiding, the wallflowers on the background, they are still absorbing, even if they’re not participating fully, they’re getting a lot of impact.

And what I had not as a one-to-one therapist given a lot of credit to was the social healing. That in that social setting, we get a lot of, “Oh, me too.” And the questions of, “Oh my gosh, that is so me. But I never thought about it that way.” And we were having bigger, more in-depth conversations in the group. I was seeing bigger shifts in people than one-on-one. Because the one-on-one, they’re stuck on their own stuff. But if you hear somebody else’s story that overlaps yours, you’re like, “Oh my gosh, yes, that’s it.” So, I stepped in that.

The way that I marketed it, and it is still how I market my practice, is I tell the story or my, so post email, whatever I’m doing to do that marketing, I speak to one person because I have found if I speak to one person, many people hear it. But if I try to speak to all of these people, no one hears it.

And I always share with my coaching client it’s like being in the airport and when you’re in the airport, there’s constant loud speakers going off and you know this flight, and this flight, and this flight, and you just tune it out. And that’s what a lot of people do with marketing. We just tune out this mass amount of information that’s coming our way until we hear over that loud speaker our name or our flight number. And we’re like, “Uh, that’s me.” And so, when I’m doing my marketing, I am speaking to one person in, what is that one problem? What is that identity of that person that I’m speaking to? And so, they’re either hearing their identity like their name, or that problem, like their flight number, and they’re self-identifying in like, “Yes. That’s me.” and even if we didn’t get both on track, they still paid more attention because they heard one. So, I literally sit down and write my emails to one specific person and I will pick either a person that I know that needs to work with me but has not jumped in yet. And I will write emails to that person because I’ve already had conversations with them.

When I was in my therapist practice, I was in a lot of mom’s groups because I had little kids at the time. So, I heard all of these stories from the mom’s groups and I’d just sit down and be like, all my posts on social would be like to this specific mom that I’m like, “Oh, you need to work with me, I’m going to write to you.” Literally putting it out there. And I still do that. So, it’s either writing to the old version of me because I needed a lot of the work that I’ve done, writing to somebody that I want to work with, or writing to an existing client, because for me, it’s so easy to get lost in all the stories. But if I’m writing specifically to one person and I don’t do dear, you know, whoever. Like this is the message I want that person to hear. I find that those posts on social, those emails are the ones that bring in the most people because they hear the story because they can self-identify.

I love speaking, so another huge part of my marketing for groups is I held free workshops. Where I do, and it was part of my service too because I’m big into service, where I would have a value-packed workshop that I ran every six weeks in my community. It was the same workshop every single time, and I got out and got a chance to speak and I could help people even if they couldn’t afford to work with me, even if they didn’t have the time that they thought they had the time to work with me. They could show up for a one-hour workshop and walk away with changes, or at least seeds planted to change their life.

And so, I did a lot of speaking, especially in my small community and then my little free workshops started really getting packed. And I would get asked to speak at different groups because they knew somebody had gone to my workshop. They knew what I was going to say and it was constantly filling. So, it was twofold. I got to serve my community and I got to grow my business. And so it was a huge way that I kind of marketed my groups.

Speak to Your Ideal Client

Kayla: I think that’s really important for listeners is speaking to a specific person. And I always say using you. Like even earlier in this episode, obviously I have a script here for anyone who doesn’t know, but my first thing that I asked you ever think of creating a therapy or coaching group, but fear has held you back.

My goal by saying you was the answer would be yes, right? That you felt compelled that I was speaking to you, and that’s really what you’re saying is speak to someone so that they feel that personal relationship, even if you don’t know who they are yet. Even if it’s your previous self, even if it’s a client that you’ve had in the past. Of course, not saying names not getting into great detail, but use the You’s. Speak to them.

But what’s important is really marketing how it feels authentic to you, right? You love those workshops. It’s that free content that really will help clients come into your practice. I often hear people say, “Well, what if I give out too much stuff and they don’t want to come to therapy with me?” Well, the truth is if you give stuff out, they’re going to want to come because you are the expert in that area. They know you over someone else. They know that they’ve received a small win.

But again, it’s going with what’s authentic. For me, I love podcasts. I love blogs. One of my self-identity is a blogger. I’ve not yet accepted the identity of a podcaster, even though I’m in a podcast, but I’m a blogger and that is who I am. This is when we talk about designing the practice that you want to design for yourself is, how can you be of service of others, but also help market your practice? And people begin to like you, know you, and trust you. We talk about that a lot here on this podcast. And they begin to trust you. When you start consistently showing up, doing those things, helping them get wins, right? That workshop. And this is how you advertise, whether it’s, again, your group, your one-to-one service or whatnot, is continually showing up because it’s okay to show up once, but that doesn’t position you as the expert or that doesn’t position you as the go-to person.

It is now how can I create this identity for myself? One day I’ll create the identity of a podcaster, but I’m doing it anyway. So, it’s really thinking about how can I create this identity for myself? That one, this feels authentic to me, but two can help me grow my practice and get a little bit into that business-person mindset because private practice has to be a little bit of business identity there, or entrepreneur, whatever word you want to use.

Identity of a Business Person

Landy: Absolutely. Because to have a thriving business you have to think of yourself as a business person. And then we come into like, we can get all of money blocks around being a business person. But yes, there’s a lot that goes into it and I love that you come back to feeling authentic and good, because when I first started, I was on the bandwagon. You had to do this and this and this and this. I’m like, no. I was getting burned out and drained just in my marketing. But we each connect with people differently.

And I have found, like I connect with you because I love listening to podcasts. So of course, that’s where I’m going to come in. That’s how I found you is because I love listening to podcasts and my clients are going to connect with me in ways that resonate with me and them. And you don’t have to do it all. You just get to do the things that are really fun and engaging and feel good to you and create value.

A huge part of what I do with my free content is creating value. And yes, if somebody gets one little win, they’re going to come back for more because we as humans, we want success inside of ourselves. We want to feel good. And so, if we can connect on that feeling level, we have a deeper connection. And if we give them a little win, they’re going to go, “Oh wait, this person is awesome.” I feel good with them. I got a success with them. I want more. It’s just like, you know when the cupcake tastes good and you want more of that, we have that brain that repeats.

And so, it’s okay to share value. And I totally agree. Unless you’re doing like free coaching with people all the time and never charge, and then that’s an identity piece that we have an issue with. But if you are just going out and sharing some way that somebody can have a win, you’re impacting their life. And I always think about it as if they work with me or don’t. That’s okay. I was able to create an impact in their life and the people that are meant to work with me. Wholeheartedly come and are like, “Oh, yes.” They know before I do free discovery calls with all my coaching clients. Majority, I would say 90% of my coaching clients get on that discovery call with me, knowing they’re already going to work with me. That’s it. They already know it because we have a relationship. Even if I am not quite aware of that relationship. We have a relationship outside, through emails, through social media, through podcasts. They know my voice, they know you know who I am and what I’m about, and they know that I can help them. So, they show up on those free calls and are like, “Oh yeah, I’m in.” And that other 10% we might be working through because I want them from that free call to walk away with one piece of value. We might be working on something that they’re really stuck on. And there are people that are like, “Nope, this is great. Thanks. I’m going to work on that and then maybe I’ll come back.” That’s great. I was able to have a connection and created value in someone’s life and I’m happy with that, knowing that the people that are right for me are going to be signing up whole-heartedly ready to join me in the work that I do.

Kayla: And you don’t necessarily have to consistently create new content like you mentioned.

Landy: No.

Kayla: You have the same workshop every six weeks and that is getting people in. You don’t have to make it hard for yourself. You don’t need to have 10 different workshops that you bring in every week.

Start with One

Landy: Yes. The one workshop is huge. Oh my Gosh. I don’t have time to create all this content. I repurpose content like crazy because I value my time. I also have a VA that helps me because I value my time and I value my VA’s time. But it is that one workshop, and I think this is key, is that one workshop allowed me to be known in my community. And because it was the same information that people could trust over and over, it wasn’t like, “Oh, I have no idea what she’s going to say this time.” I was asked to speak at different groups over and over and over and over. And I no longer, like the first year I hosted my own workshops from then on out, I never hosted my own because I had so many different speaking engagements that I didn’t have time to host my own.

And as part of that workshop, I would always put an offer in at the end. And most of the time my offer included, if this resonated with you and you feel like you need more support than what you got in this workshop. I would love to work with you, and here is my offer in how you can work. And I think a lot of us as therapists feel uncomfortable making me offer in the how, and I tell my clients it’s like it’s being in a farmer’s market and here’s the thing, and if you sit there with your booth closed and nobody knows what you’re selling. They might see you, but there’s no way they can come up and say, “Oh, I want a tomato.” But if you are out there saying, “Hey, this is what I have. This is my offer. This is how I can help you.” Then people can come up to you and say, “Oh wait, I need that. I want that.” And it’s just like a farmer’s market where people can mill about and all of this marketing media stuff and say, “Oh wait, I want that. That would help me.” But until we’re out there sharing how we can help and that’s our offer is just to share. I can help you in this way. People can’t say yes to us because they have no idea how we can help. And that was a huge block as I first started. Like I can’t ask people to like come into me. That doesn’t feel right. And I was like, oh wait, but I’m doing a disservice if I’m not sharing how I can help. Because I can sit here in my empty practice going, I have amazing skills. But nobody knows I’m here. Or I can go out and say, Hey, I have amazing skills and this is how I can help you. It’s their choice. And I always go, it’s just like a farmer’s market. It’s their choice. Do they want tomatoes from me or do they want tomatoes from the guy across the aisle? Either one. It’s okay, but it comes down to, I put my off route. They get to choose if they take it or leave it. Nobody’s upset. I’m not upset if they buy a tomato down the street. Somebody’s going to buy my tomatoes.

So, it really just comes into, we have a service. Let’s share it. They get to choose. There’s nothing personal if they choose or not. It’s nothing personal. It comes back to that goodness of fit. And if it’s the right time in their life. And sometimes, I mean, I’ve had people in my email list for three years where they will finally say, “Yes, I’m going to work with you.” And it happened to be like the right time in their life, but they’ve been following me for a long time and they’ll share that. And I just keep providing information and sharing. And they’re getting value from there, my email that have so many people that when they finally sign with me are like, “Oh my gosh, your emails gave me so much value. And now I finally feel like I’m right there. I’m ready.” But we can still provide value. Yeah.

Kayla: Same here. Like my email list says that to me all the time too. And very similar to you. It doesn’t mean that people on your email list are going to buy today. They might buy next year, but this is that growth piece. And by providing an offer– I have to say, I’ve never been offended when someone has given me true value in something and then quote unquote pitch their services. I’m more times grateful because I didn’t want to just end like, “Oh, that was it. Now there’s nothing else.” People want a next step, whether it’s getting on a email list. Maybe it’s a free guide. Or maybe it’s a program or something like that.

Now what people do get offended by, and I will say I do too, is people getting random emails saying, “Hey, buy my stuff.” And you’ve never heard of this person ever. But if you’re providing true value, it’s so much easier because people actually expect it and want it versus you having to feel like you have to go out and pitch your services all the time from nothing. And again, one workshop. Couple blogs every couple months. It doesn’t take a whole lot. And you can obviously build on that and grow if you want to grow and put a second workshop if you want to. But it doesn’t have to be complicated. And I want to bring it back to the first step. But we have to shift into that self-identity of whatever it is that we’re doing because if you don’t shift, it’s going to be so much harder.

Landy: Right, because that’s when we hit all the procrastination and all of the things that we come up with that we could be doing. Or we think we’re focusing on the group by going back to all of the details for the six-week group that we’re going to have. That’s going to be amazing. But maybe then we don’t have that identity that we can share that offer. So, we sit on this and we’re frustrated that we spent so much time on this lovely thing that we created, but it’s not helping anybody because we don’t have the identity to create that offer. And so it all comes back to who do you need to be to create that thing in your life that you really want to create?

And once you step into that, who then it comes easy. And you don’t have all the procrastination things. You have the like, “Oh, I am this person and I do this.” And we all have that ease in our life. That’s where your identity’s really strong. So, it’s looking at, “Oh, well, I can go out and do this really easily, so how can I step into the identity that I can do that really easily too?”

Free Resource

Kayla: Fabulous. So, I know you also have a free resource that you want to give to our listeners. Can you tell us a little bit about this free resource and how it can help them with group program development?

Landy: Yes. So, it’s Create Success with One Thought Shift and it goes through what we talk about. It’s a little worksheet that you work through and ask you questions to help you identify are the circumstances that you’re working from? So, a lot of us have circumstances, like, when I get the money, then I will do this for my client. When I have a space, then I will do my group program. Right?

So, it’s whatever you want to create. And that’s open-ended. Then comes into figuring out what circumstances you’re living from and are they actually real circumstances or are they something that you’re just using as a block? Like my client was with her group, it was as long as I was thinking I need a bigger space, so I have to grow my practice, rent a new space, do all of that. Or, “Oh wait, I could use a yoga studio.”

It is what circumstances blocking you? What are you living from? Who do you need to be? And it has questions all through the who. And even to like, what little thing can you wear that’ll help you step into that identity. And then we’re looking at from there what are some action steps that you can take? Because that’s really where we want to come back to, is that who, what’s blocking you? And as you go through, you’ll also discover a thought block that is blocking your success just through the questions. And it’ll be like, “Oh, why am I not doing this? Because I’m really afraid of what my colleagues are going to think” and that’ll come out in that worksheet. So, it really is a little worksheet that you go through. It’s about a page and a half long. Ask you a bunch of questions. Has an example so you can look at my answers and walk through and be able to identify some of those blocks and some action steps that you can use to start moving in that direction right away.

Kayla: Fabulous. So, if you’re interested in signing up for Landy’s free worksheet, Create Success with One Thought Shift. Check out kayladas.com/landypeekfreebie

That’s kayladas.com/landypeekfreebie or you can simply scroll down to the show notes and click on the link.

Conclusion

Landy, thank you so much for coming on the show today and giving us these invaluable tips on how to shift our identity as well as start creating that group that we’ve been wanting to create.

Landy: Oh, thank you so much for having me. This has been so much fun.

Kayla: Yeah, hopefully sometime soon we’ll get you back on.

Landy: I would love that.

Kayla: So, thank you everyone for tuning into today’s episode, and I hope you join me again soon on The Designer Practice Podcast.

Until next time, bye for now.

Credits & Disclaimers

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