The Therapy Business Podcast
We know how challenging growing a therapy practice can be, and don’t think it should require an accounting degree just to run your business. If you own a solo or a group practice, we’re here to help you build a business that creates more time, makes more money and serves more people.
The Therapy Business Podcast
Stand Out in Your Therapy Market with Ann Carden
Positioning yourself as a sought-after expert in your therapy practice creates more opportunities for premium clients and higher rates. Ann Cardin, author of "Expert in You," shares how therapists can establish themselves as authorities in their field by specializing and creating strategic visibility.
• Establish clear positioning that differentiates you from competitors
• Develop specialty areas rather than trying to be everything to everyone
• Build a hybrid marketing approach combining online presence and offline networking
• Create strategic partnerships with other therapists and healthcare providers
• Leverage speaking engagements, workshops and content creation to build authority
• Command premium rates by becoming the recognized expert in your niche
• Think beyond trading time for money by developing additional revenue streams
• Use your expertise to build "market fame" locally before expanding
• Focus on a specific client demographic or treatment specialty
• Transform your practice from a job into a sustainable business
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*Intro/outro song credit:
King Around Here by Alex Grohl
Marketing your practice is hard enough already, but positioning yourself in a way where you are a sought-after expert is really challenging and something that, honestly, a lot of practice owners don't quite achieve. Well, today, my guest, ann Cardin, the author of Expert in you, is going to talk about how to position yourself in a way that people look to you for your experience and expertise and they are drawn and attracted to you, whether it's through public speaking or through online presentations or podcasts or whatever you're doing to get yourself out there, making yourself the expert. My name is Craig and I'm the owner of Daisy Financial Coaching. Our team is on a mission to make your therapy practice permanently profitable. If you own a solo or group practice, we're here to help you build a business that creates more time, makes more money and serves more people. This is the therapy business podcast. All right, and we are so glad to have you here on the show with us. How are you doing?
Speaker 2:I'm doing great, Craig. Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm super excited for this one. I was perusing when we first got in contact, which I feel like has been a little while ago. I looked at your website and I got excited and even just before this call, I was looking at your website again, got re-excited because I was like, okay, I'm going to learn a lot today as well. But let the audience members know who are you, what is your business, what do you do?
Speaker 2:Yes, so I am a business consultant. I also do run a marketing agency, a media and marketing agency. My entire business is built around helping people really stand out in their market to be able to get more clients and build, get the best clients even but really establish that authority and that expertise that I like to say influence your market. So all of the pieces that go with that is a big piece of what I do with people.
Speaker 1:And it's such a need, I think, in every industry, but specifically in therapy practices, because I think a lot of times we talk about a lot on this show, but it's people go to grad school to become therapists and they end up working for somebody else, and at some point it's like, you know, I think I can make more or have more freedom of time to do it myself, but no one ever taught them how to market themselves or how to run the business side, and so that is just something we're always learning and always trying to hone in on, and so what you do is really, really helpful, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, create that market fame.
Speaker 1:Yes, so let's tell me more about that.
Speaker 2:So for somebody who's listening, what are some of the best ways to get yourself out there and establish yourself as an expert? Yeah, one of the first things to do is really think about your positioning in the market. How are you different from your competition? And if you are in business for yourself, you do have competitors, right, it doesn't matter what you're doing. So how are you different from your competition? So one way to really do this, to separate yourself from everybody else would be to go more specialty or specialized. That might be one direction that you could go. Maybe that would be with kids only, maybe that would be weight loss, maybe that would be anxiety, or there are so many different ways that you could go and there's no shortage of people in any of those areas.
Speaker 2:But when you establish yourself as an expert for that particular thing now, you can build referral partners. So that's one way to really build your business. You can write a book around that, all of your marketing, everything that you're doing. You could go out and speak about it. All of that will help you build your market fame, so to speak, and really become known in your market. And it's really not hard to do this in a local market. It is work, but it's not hard to do it, and I did it offline many, many years in many of my businesses before I ever did it online. In fact, it's interesting, I still have people that recognize me from some of those old businesses because I had done that. I built such a name for myself, and that's really what we're talking about building a name for yourself so that there's no doubt this is what you do, this is who you're for. That is the first step. That's like the foundation of your business.
Speaker 1:Great. So building a name for yourself, which and as we are talking about that, local, I think you know, with therapists there, I'm going to say somewhat local. Some of them may have licenses in a few states, but usually it's most of them are working just in the one state that they're licensed in. And so, yeah, that almost probably is a relief to hear, because I think we are in this day and age. You just hear all these things like you know, podcasts, obviously, or have YouTubes, or get on blogs and all these different things that are more national. Reach and concerns I hear a lot of times are well, what if people come to me and I'm reaching out to people who I can't even work with because of that? So, thinking on the local side, where should somebody start? If somebody were to come to you for the first time? Be like I'm trying to build a name for myself, what are some of the tips you give them for the best place to start?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and some of this is going to depend on who your market's going to be or how you're going to establish yourself in the market. So, for example, if you're going to target kids, tiktok might be the place right. If you're going to target high level professionals, linkedin might be your place. So it's really about understanding first who are you trying to reach and being very, very. It's really about understanding first who are you trying to reach and being very, very, very prominent on that platform. But then also how can you now also get to them offline? So the best model is a hybrid model where you're doing a lot online and you're doing a lot offline. But offline would be things like speaking, building partnerships. You could be running events, you could be running small workshops or partnering with people and doing offline events. I did all of that for years.
Speaker 2:But you can also really build your business online as well, even if you're trying to do it local. In fact, it's easier to do it locally because you can run paid ads. You can have that podcast, that show, that YouTube channel. I always say you should have an expert platform and that's usually going to include some sort of show or something that you're doing to really continue to build on your expertise and let people see what you're all about. So now people do vote online before they ever come and talk to somebody offline, unless even even if you're referred, people still check you out. You really need a very strong online brand and presence and expert platform. So I would say both of those things are places to start. Is that helpful?
Speaker 1:That's so helpful. Yeah, and that's good to hear that both, even locally, online is still valuable, as you're saying.
Speaker 2:them like that's true, you know, people are there.
Speaker 1:They are there, yeah, and they're coming to see your content and if you're going to be leading. You know if they're, if they're looking for a therapist and they go to a website and there's videos of you talking and there's a podcast of you talking. You create that connection and it's such a relationship based engagement. It warms them up.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So that's huge, and I guess reaching too many people is a good thing, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And here's the other thing. So I like to expand people's minds when I'm talking, because I help people build businesses. One of the things that you can do is you can partner with people. So if you're if you can only work with somebody locally, you still can partner with people in other states, and there's ways that you can still work together and build other revenue streams. There are other things you can do to build more revenue into your business versus just trading your time for money, and so I love for people to think even bigger, like what are other things that I can offer or who can I partner with?
Speaker 2:But not only that. When you establish yourself as an authority and an expert and you're influencing people, even in your local market, you can also get paid more premium fees. You could attract even better um patients. If you call them patients, you could attract even better people to your business, um. So all of those things build your revenue and they they start to build your business. But, more than anything, when you build that authority, there's no question about you being the best, and so you think about that doing the heavy lifting for you.
Speaker 2:Now you don't have to. When people come to you, they're going to be ready. They're about 80 to 90% ready to work with you because they do feel like they know you, they already like you. If they've seen you out there, you've just warmed them up to the point that, like they know you, they already like you. If they've seen you out there, you've just warmed them up to the point that when they are ready, or they know someone that's ready you're going to be top of mind, first person they think of. And that's so easy to do in the marketplace today. In the old days we had to like run front ads and it was expensive, and now we have all these tools and opportunities that we can do that so organically and easy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. And as you're saying that, I'm thinking I'd heard it once said you know, like there's a reason that a surgeon makes a lot more than you know your general practitioner because they are specialty. They specialize in this one thing knees or whatever you're getting surgery on. So to specialize in something, that's huge. I mean, obviously I'm on a therapy business podcast so we coach all kinds of businesses but we also specialize in therapy practices, so that really rings true. So, as somebody is looking at getting out into their local, you alluded to doing workshops or partnering with local people what have you seen work and I know, maybe not even just specific to therapists, but with some of your clients or some things you've tried what have you seen work? Or how can maybe somebody get their foot in the door to do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, that's really not hard to do when you're going to run, say, a local workshop. So one of the easiest ways is to find out who else has got your people. So first you have to establish that foundation. What are you going to be known for? What are you going to be the expert and the authority for? I worked with a therapist and she was able to charge three times more than other people per hour because she worked with people that had eating disorders. Well, that's very special, and she partnered with other therapists that sent those people to her. So she didn't even have to do a lot of marketing. She still was out there and she was visible. But she got so much business coming to her. Her biggest issue was how do I now grow this and expand my practice? And so that's kind of what we're talking about. But if you're going to do, say, a local event, who is it you're trying to pull into the room to share expertise and really help them and give them value, and who and who would have those people? So here here's an example Um, you're dealing with kids, maybe that have some kind of an issue.
Speaker 2:Would it be coaches? Maybe that would have those kids? Would it be, um, people selling services to those kids that you could partner with. So thinking about who has those people and how can they help you kind of curate that audience or those people in the room with you. So that's an easy way and you can get. I mean, Chamber of Commerce has free rooms and restaurants. You can do things with restaurants. There's just so many ways to do that if you're going to do it offline and then online you can do things with restaurants. There's just so many ways to do that if you're going to do it offline and then online you can do it as well, love it.
Speaker 1:So like an online workshop or webinar where people can sign up and attend. Yes, great, yeah, and I think even sometimes the online. For me personally, as I admit some of these, the fears that I think a lot of people have with these is like what, if no one shows up, online At least, if no one shows up, no one knows. But yeah, there's just something about nobody showing up while you're there live in person. But I think partnering with someone, like you were saying, really could probably help overcome that, and I never thought of that. Anytime I thought of doing a live in-person workshop, I was thinking just me and I'll promote it and cross my fingers that some people show up to it.
Speaker 2:So I think it's a great idea to partner with someone. Yeah, strategic partnerships are great. In fact, I just ran a two day online event about a month ago and I partnered with someone and she promoted it and a lot of the people that were there were from her, from her email list and and from her. It was. It's a really high level event and the attendance was 95% show rate for both days, and so it's just how you're doing it, how you're putting pieces together. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's fantastic, that's super great. And going back to something you even talked about with partnering with other therapists, which again is maybe something we overlook because I think it's easy to look at all of them as as competition. But you're right, if we're specializing in different things, uh, that's a huge, huge area of opportunity of um, not only setting yourself up as valuable to send somebody else you know, I have a connection that I think would be really good for you or vice versa, business coming in, and so is that a good place to start. Is it Cause, as people are like, oh, who should I talk to Doctor? Like, who do I talk to? Maybe therapists, other therapists is a great starting point for connection?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great way. In fact, my client that I worked with that was a therapist. She did partner with doctors. She partnered with other therapists. They didn't want to deal with that. That wasn't something they did. And so because she specialized, she got a lot of business from other therapists and from other partners.
Speaker 2:And but you have to.
Speaker 2:You have to do that because here's the one thing if they feel like you're competition to them, they're not going to send you business, right.
Speaker 2:But if they feel like you are truly exceptional at something and you would do a better job than they would, they would recommend you all day long. And then you can and this is probably going to vary state per state you might even be able to work out some sort of a money exchange or some sort of a revenue opportunity there where you're partnering and again, that's going to be dependent on the state and what the regulations are. But in a lot of cases, for example, realtors can't do that opportunity there where you're partnering, and again, that's going to be dependent on the state and what the regulations are. But in a lot of cases, for example, realtors can't do that a lot, but they can give gift cards and they can get around it right. So there are ways that you can get around things if it's an important thing for you, but it's powerful to do that and it really can help you build your business faster.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great, and I think so, even going back to what you said to start with, which was figuring out what you're going to be known for.
Speaker 1:And then maybe from there it's seeking out other therapists who so let's say, you're like I'm going to be known for trauma and so you're like I don't I'm not going to really want to do marriage, counseling or work with kids or any of those, and so that's a great place to start. Looking out is okay. Who are those people that specialize in that, who maybe don't want to do trauma or I also know there's different licenses that people carry.
Speaker 1:So if anyone listening has a specific license, maybe connect with people who don't have that because you're going to be. They can start sending those people to you because you're, maybe they can't or don't want to handle them. So there's a lot of opportunity there.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's fantastic you can even pick a particular market.
Speaker 2:So let's say you're in a big city, for example, and there are, you know, hundreds of thousands of people or maybe millions of people, and you can even go deeper than just trauma Maybe it would be trauma around child abuse, maybe it would be trauma around. So you can go deeper and really specialize and there's going to be more than enough people than you could ever serve in most cases. But you'll get all that business because now you are the go-to person for that Right, and then you establish that in the market. So everybody knows you're the go-to person for that. And again, it's easier to do that locally than it is to do that on a global stage or on a global level, which is what I do in my business. So I can tell you it's easier to do it local because I did it. But yeah, you, but even, even globally, you can set yourself apart in the industry, in or in your field that you're in.
Speaker 1:Love it, love it, love it. Yes, I think that's locally. I could see that because there's less, just less, people that could carry that same expertise and, honestly, very few people are actually showcasing themselves as industry experts on something. Most people are generalists. They're so desperately trying to get clients that they're trying to appeal to everyone and that's spreading them thin. That's making it to where they can't charge as much as they want to charge. So it sounds like what you're saying is, by doing this, you might not only going to get more clients, but you're gonna be able to charge a lot more for what you're doing.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, and if you think about you had kind of mentioned a general practitioner, right.
Speaker 2:So if you think about a brain surgeon, a brain surgeon has this instant credibility, this trust, right, you wouldn't go shopping around for a brain surgeon. You would just realize, you would just believe that they knew what they were doing if they were a brain surgeon. But if your doctor retired, you just go find another doctor, right? So? And you're only going to pay them so much for that visit, and so that's really what we're talking about here. It's about really elevating your brand and elevating what you're so great at and what you do. That would be completely different from other people in the market and it really does make you the go-to, and people don't question the pricing or the money when you are specialized, when you are the brain surgeon, they, you wouldn't go price shopping for a brain surgeon, you just right. And so it's the same thing and that might sound like a silly comparison, but it really truly is the same thing. When they believe you're the only person, the go-to, they're going to pay for that, yeah.
Speaker 1:And a lot of our therapists. Some of them want to take insurance, but I would say majority feel stuck taking insurance and they want to switch over to private pay where they can dictate their rates. There's a lot of fears and stigmas around it Fears of leads dropping out, but also just value and will people pay what I'm asking? And so it sounds like having that specialty can really really help bridge that.
Speaker 2:Even the people who maybe they have insurance like I want to hire you because you are the industry expert on this and it's worth the extra money in my pocket to get it well, and here's another way to look at it, and I don't really know what therapy rates are and things like that, but here's a way that you can think about it. If you're charging, let's say $300 an hour, okay, and or you're selling a package, maybe, if you're. If you're charging, let's say $300 an hour, okay, and or you're selling a package, maybe if you're. If you're selling something and you know that they're going to need this many sessions and you're selling it almost like a package. But let's just say you're charging $300 an hour and you know three people would be a thousand dollars, or you could work with 10 people at a hundred dollars, I mean, which is not going to grow, right, because you're going to max out, you're going to tap out, and so that that's really what we're talking about. So just because you don't take everyone, doesn't mean that your business can't grow because you you're going to max out at some point anyway can't grow because you're going to max out at some point anyway, and so if you think about that, it's a lot less work. It doesn't mean you can't take on other people.
Speaker 2:If you want to do that, or maybe you can offer some sort of a scholarship programming or something you can offer some sort of help to certain people, but for the most part you're still one person. So it's what? What do you want to make from that practice? You're building a business If you and there's overhead and there's things that you have to pay for in that business, so you can't think about yourself like an hourly employee. It doesn't work in a business. You have to be able to. I always say you need to be able to make three times what you would as an employee just to make the same amount of money. But here's where the difference is. The opportunity is bigger. You have all these different ways that you now can make money and different uh, different ideas and revenue streams that you can add in where you don't have that when you're an employee. So that you know that's the difference in having a business if you are treating it that way.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely. There's so much opportunity there. But you're right, it's um, as a therapist she's working for another practice. Your scalability is only so much. But when you own your own business, you got to find a way to really stretch out, because at some point your capacity is going to get so thin that you're like I have other stuff to do besides just meeting with clients. I have marketing and I have to run the business, do the finances and so, yeah, the less people I'm seeing, I need to kind of almost get as tacky as it sounds in this circumstance more bang for my buck on each of these clients. Just, you need to get more premium clients and pass off the ones who maybe, if they need insurance, there's other therapists that you could refer to.
Speaker 1:I think that could be the other referral partner piece of it.
Speaker 2:But it is hard to do this. If you don't do the other things we've talked about, if you're not the specialist, if you haven't, you really don't stand out in your market. It it's really hard to do that. It's hard to justify the prices, it's hard to justify the increase. So those it it's not just one piece, they'll raise your prices right, it's all of these things that build a more powerful, robust practice.
Speaker 2:And and, by the way, that client that I was talking about, I mean she's expanded, she's put in massage therapy and she's put in all these other revenue streams. But because she was making the money in her practice, she had the funds and she was able to do a lot of other things, and that's really what we're talking about. So the opportunity is bigger to make more money. If you're only thinking about it like a job, why not just work for someone? I mean, why the? You know, the whole reason people want to be in business is the opportunity to make more money, better their life, better, be able to set their hours, all of those things. And but if you're not building in the right way, none of those things are going to happen. You're going to have more headache for less.
Speaker 1:Yeah, completely, completely agree. So establishing your area of expertise, then starting to leverage that. So we talked about getting you know with other network partners or referral partners and making that yourself known in that realm, I assume updating your website and making sure that it's targeted to that specific yeah, so when somebody is like we talked about, maybe it's childhood trauma is what you're focusing on, and so that's what the messaging on your website is speaking to when somebody is ready to get themselves out there and do public speaking.
Speaker 1:I know we talked about doing like workshops. Do you work with clients a lot, or I assume you recommend but getting like maybe speaking at conferences or speaking at other things that people have built out, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:All that.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I say step into the expert spotlight, speak, sell and scale. So that's sort of yes. So when you're out there going, you know, getting in front of the right audience speaking at conferences can be huge. Let's say, you want to do mental health or mental wellness in a corporate environment, you need, you're going to have to get out there and speak Right, you're going to have to be seen and heard. So it really all of this is part of a marketing strategy that's going to fit what you're trying to accomplish and there's no one size fits all here. When I work with my clients, we figure out what's going to be the best path for them, and so they're not just out there trying to do all this stuff and and making themselves crazy. That's not the right way. You need a great strategy behind what you're doing. But, yes, absolutely Speaking, getting on stages. But you have to be in front of the people that you can either partner with and they could refer business to you or people that are, you know, potential patients or clients, whatever you want to call them.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's great to know. That's a good point, because I don't know they could be out there. But I was like I don't know how many people go to conferences just for trauma or whatever it is they're doing, but maybe it's the referral. You're going to conferences where you're right, other network partners that maybe you can work with, that you can connect with Awesome, and so I think it's great You're talking about all these ideas, but you, like you said there's gotta be a strategy behind it, cause I think that's where a lot of people get stuck. So when somebody comes to you to work with you, what does that look like? Tell me about how you help clients kind of create that strategy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the first thing we want to do is figure out what do you want this business to be for you? How much money do you want to make, you know? So I like to help people make a million dollar leap. How can you make a million dollar leap? And so that's going to come down to, first, your offer creation, like what are the packages or the offers that you have put together that you're selling? How are you going to be established in the market? What is that positioning? How are you going to be different from your competition?
Speaker 2:So we look at all those foundational pieces and we do all that before we start marketing, because you can't market with the right strategy until those basic things get in place. What are you selling? Are your packages going to get you to the money that you want? For example, I mentioned the. You know, if you want to make a thousand dollars working with 10 people, okay, how many? What is your capacity? We have to look at that right. And so what would be the model of your business that could get you to the revenue that you want?
Speaker 2:So all of that has to happen first and and getting really dialed in on that specialty and what that looks like, then I help people put really what I call the influence strategy in place and the visibility strategy in place.
Speaker 2:Okay, you need to do what I call is high impact marketing, and I already mentioned it write a book, do a show, be out there, be visible, speak on stages, run workshops virtually offline. All of that starts building out your visibility and it also raises your authority and establishes you in the market as the go-to and as the expert for what it is you do. So that becomes then the next piece, and then obviously, you have to be able to close sales. And then what do you do beyond that? How can you grow that thing beyond you? What are the ways that you can continue so that you have a real business and not just a job for yourself? So many people create a job for themselves but they don't. But you're in business. If you're in business, you've got opportunity to build your wealth and impact more people, and so you want to. The first thing is you really want to just expand your mind to what is possible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's amazing and I know a lot of people that resonates. I know that firsthand with some of my clients who've really been struggling to get themselves out there as experts and industry experts and finding these opportunities, and so I know there's got to be people listening who are hearing. This is what I'm looking for. I need help because I feel overwhelmed with it all. So how can somebody get in contact with you If they're saying you know, I want, I want, I want her to help me do all this?
Speaker 2:Yes, so you can book a call with me at a cardencom and you can also follow me on social. I have a big YouTube channel, but you can go to my website at annelcardencom if you want to just check things out and just learn a little bit more. But yeah, book a call if you're interested in doing that.
Speaker 1:Yes, I recommend everyone does. I think that's a great, great, it's so important and I think that's probably something a lot of people are lacking, and so we'll put all those links in the show notes below and it's. I've learned. I took a whole page of notes here. I learned a lot already for myself.
Speaker 2:And so.
Speaker 1:I hope I know a lot of people listening are going to take away a lot, and so I'm grateful for you. And also we'll put a link to your books out there as well, right?
Speaker 2:So we'll put a link to that in the show notes. Yes, yeah, and I actually have a new one coming out, probably this week. It's going to be called be the one they choose, and it's going to go into a lot of these. It's it's the new rules for standing out and winning the business, so it's going to go into a lot of these things that I already talked about.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. I'll link. I'll link those in the show notes as well so that people can find those and read those as well. But thank you so much for being here. I've learned a lot and I'm just grateful for you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining us on the Therapy Business Podcast. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with a practice owner that you may know. If your practice needs help getting organized with its finances or just growing your practice, head to therapybusinesspodcom to learn how we can help.
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