Clay: Hello and welcome to episode 10. Wow, 10 episodes. When I started this, I had no idea how enriching this experience would be, not only being able to meet these wonderful therapists and coaches and companies that are functioning around the space of online counseling, but also being able to interact with the listeners and finding out what things you want to hear about in this subject of counseling and how it’s working online. Please be sure to send me your questions and comments. It’s always a help when you rate and review the show in iTunes, so be sure to do that. And we are now on Twitter. Our title is The Online Counselling Podcast and you can tweet us to the address @oncounselling. We are on Facebook. Like us at Online Counselling Podcast. We are social media unsavvy, but it’s a learning curve like so much of what I do and thank you so much for your patience and joining me on this journey of really just learning this subject as much as we can that is out there.
Today’s guests, I’ve been so excited to meet. They are Kelly Higdon and Miranda Palmer. They are the founders of ZynnyMe.com. They are business consultants helping therapists and coaches build their practices through solid business instruction and education and support. They’ve got a wealth of knowledge and have been doing this a very long time. While a majority of the people I interview are strictly focused on the subject of online counseling, I think it’s important to mix it up some and bring value to different areas of a private practice. We talk quite a bit about business practices and what they do and what bring to the table, but we also talk a lot of how the online world is changing the industry and how therapists need to be able to react to that, and also asking hard questions of themselves to see if this is really right for them because it’s not right for everyone. I hope you enjoy the podcast. Here they are, Kelly Higdon and Miranda Palmer.
Welcome, my name is Clay Cockrell. Welcome to the Online Counselling Podcast. Today, I am thrilled to welcome a couple of therapists that I’ve been really wanting to get to know and I think that they are going to add a lot to our listeners. It’s Miranda Palmer and Kelly Higdon of zinnyme.com. They are both therapists but they help therapists grow their businesses. I don’t know if the two of you know this, you were just named by Daniel Fava as one of the best websites for therapists to help you grow your business. Did you know that?
Kelly: I think I just saw that yesterday. It was my day off. Yeah, I was the one who’s shocked and I wouldn’t have noticed it if someone hadn’t pointed it out. So yeah, it was pretty awesome.
Miranda: Yeah.
Clay: It’s pretty cool. So Miranda Palmer and Kelly Higdon, welcome to the show.
Miranda: Thank you so much, Clay, for having us and I think you know this but your listeners probably don’t that I have been watching you and following you for years. I thought it was such an amazing thing when you reached out to us because I know you and your walkandtalk.com. I was excited to learn more about the other directions and avenues you’re going to push the boundaries of great clinical work.
Clay: Thank you very much. We’ve been kind of following each other and now we actually get to talk.
Miranda: Yes, I’m excited.
Clay: So good, a mutual admiration society. As you know, the show focuses or the podcast, I don’t know if I should call it a show or podcast, but we focus on therapists who are doing work online and I just thought that the two of you even though that’s not your primary focus, because you work with therapists to grow their business, you can add a lot of value because a lot of my listeners are considering to branch out into online counseling. There are a lot of questions around it. They are entrepreneurial minded and I’m hoping that you can tell us a little bit about ZynnyMe. First, how did you get started?
Kelly: Why don’t you answer that?
Miranda: ZynnyMe was sort of, it was a collaboration between Kelly and I. We were working together as Kelly started her private practice and she kept asking that question of like, why isn’t there like a step by step process? Why does everybody have to go through this individual coaching process again and again? At the same time as Kelly was going through this process, she was just amazing. She was one of those people that just took, would take someone else like three months and then she would come back in four days and be like, “Okay, finished.” I was like, “Holy crap, that’s not the norm.” We decided to collaborate and develop ZynnyMe, and start putting together programs and processes for therapists. We started with the Website in 30 Days Program and then moved on to some other things, and now our main groovy thing that we love that’s our online program, it’s Business School Boot Camp for Therapists.
It really was like seeing a direct specific need in the community and looking and seeing if there was a more efficient effective way to meet that need that would work even better than what was already out there, which I think is what online therapy is about too, right? Like, there’s a need out there for a lot of individuals. It’s not just that, “Oh, this is the way that we can work where we can be in pajama bottoms on the bottom.” It’s like, how could this meet a need in the community that’s not being that met with traditional therapy?
Clay: Absolutely, absolutely. I think that’s the therapist mindset, right? We see a need out there. How can we meet that?
Kelly: Yeah.
Clay: How long has ZynnyMe been going?
Kelly: We’re coming up on six years now.
Clay: Congratulations.
Kelly: Mm-hmm. Thank you.
Clay: I’m assuming that, and I hear this a lot, is that therapists go to college. They go to graduate school. They take internships and they learn how to be a therapist, but no one in grad school pulls us aside and says, “This is how you run a business.”
Kelly: Yeah.
Clay: So this is what ZynnyMe does.
Kelly: Exactly and I think part of it is we want to empower therapists because we believe that running a business is something that therapists are very capable of and especially that marketing piece because a lot of marketing success depends on your ability to be an empath, to really know the heart of the person that you want to reach and who better to do that than therapists. We really have a passion for bringing this out in our clients and saying, “You are more capable than someone that went and got a marketing degree in the sense of you’ve been trained to be in tuned for so long and now, you just flip that and use that in your business.”
Clay: So you’ve got this muscle already. Here’s how to use it in a different direction.
Kelly: Sure.
Miranda: Exactly.
Clay: I noticed on your website that you help therapists start a practice, you help existing practices to grow, and then you help successful practices to transition into a group practice. Tell me a little bit about your target population, for a lack of a better world. Who do you work with?
Kelly: I mean, we’ll work with any therapist that wants to own their own business or that owns their own business. I just want to be clear. It’s not like owning your business is the best way to be a therapist, right? It’s not for everyone. We all have gifts and we all have different ways we can use that, and our passion is helping those that want to us that in a way that is in a business context and in a for profit kind of mindset, and that really want to live outside the box and challenge the way of doing things. That could be someone that’s just starting out or someone that has been doing it a while and just wants to expand their reach. We call it moving beyond the couch is the big term that we use.
Miranda: I think that other thing that I see as a theme in a lot of our clients who have been in private practice for a period of time is that at a certain point, they can no longer deny that the lack of confidence or the little niggling issues in their private practice, they can’t deny that those are impacting their ability to provide their utmost and best clinical services. I think everything that we do in teaching therapists about business is really in service to ensuring that you can keep your doors open, that you can be as comfortable and confident that you don’t have to go in while you’re horribly sick because you can’t afford to take time off, that you can take vacations and practice what you’re teaching to your clients. All of these things so that you can be the most authentic, oh there’s a word for it, like where you’re like….
Kelly: In mind?
Miranda: Yeah, like just, it all connects, right, with what we’re doing and so I think that’s so powerful and I love that you’re starting the conversation about how to do this in online therapy because I think that’s just not a conversation that’s happening, not just the business side of it but like the clinical side of it. How does this differ clinically?
Kelly: Yeah.
Miranda: One of the other piece, I think, that’s interesting about people going into the online market is I see some therapists who see that as they are just going to say, “Oh, I’m not getting any clients. I’m not getting any calls. I’m feeling kind of freaked out. I bet if I just said I did it on video that that would like solve the issue,” and it really doesn’t, right?
Clay: It’s a different approach alto-, not altogether but there’s certainly a learning curve.
Kelly: Yeah and at the end of the day, what we say is that your business should enhance your clinical outcomes. It should make you a better clinician for it. That’s the goal here and I think that really does apply in the online counseling world. Having done that myself, switched to completely online, just being clear about that and having the tools in place so that it is a positive experience for my clients and that I am giving my best in that context. Knowing who is my ideal client in that kind of context is different than who I see when I was doing brick and mortar for me.
Clay: That’s an interesting point. How is that different?
Kelly: There are some clients that I have found struggle with the video and they struggle in terms of providing themselves the space. When I had a brick and mortar office, I provided the space, the containment. When I’m doing online counseling, they are a little bit more in charge of that and we have conversations about that. There are some clients that don’t want that or feel that they can’t. I do think that’s grease for the mill, but I also think that there’s a point where maybe it’s not the best fit. It’s been kind of an interesting journey for me too in switching to online and discovering like what my feel is and how I am in that space, and who I work best with in that space. It has been different. It’s been a different kind of client.
Clay: Absolutely and it’s interesting that I think this weekend in London, [inaudible 13:04] is giving a speech to the British Association of Professional Therapists. I’m sure I got that wrong, but her seminar is all about how online counseling is different and that what therapists need to be aware of. I think those of us that are out there and have kind of gone through that learning curve, there’s a lot of value that we can bring to the table as the industry changes and more and more people come online. They don’t have to make the same mistakes that we did, I suppose.
Kelly: Right. I mean, we’ve been integrating more of that into our boot camp because we’re seeing more of the people that come to our boot camp as wanting to really branch into it and so we’ve decided to start teaching more to that online piece of how do you manage some of your policies, procedures, what’s your process, all that kind of stuff, trying to be more sensitive to that and just kind of acknowledge like, you do this work because you’re passionate about it, you love it. It’s a great way for you to work and you’re able to give your highest and best. If you’re not, you’re not supposed – don’t do it just to fix the solution of them struggling in my business.
Clay: Tell me a little bit about the business boot camp. How long is it? What do you provide? Is it a specific signup? Tell us.
Kelly: Yeah. We created the boot camp as a lifetime membership. It means that once you join, you get to go through it as long as we offer it. We don’t plan on doing this into our 80s but you never know. Basically, we have it run live twice a year and it’s for two weeks. We go through eight modules and group coaching calls. People get updated material every time. The community and online community as well, it’s a handpicked community. If you want to do the boot camp, you have to do an interview with myself or Miranda, and then that interview, we just make sure that it is a good fit. After that, you get an acceptance and you join in. There are modules that you can watch anytime. After boot camp, people go back and they dig in more deeply, but we’re there to support them twice a year, kind of like a business health checkup.
Clay: Okay. That brought up one of the questions I wrote down, are there some therapists that you won’t work with or maybe are not ready for you?
Miranda: Absolutely. That’s part of what the interview is for. It’s for people to get to know us in deeper way but for us to explore what their expectations are and what they are really wanting from the boot camp experience, for example. There are sometimes when what someone’s expectation is, like, “I don’t have an office space but after 30 days after boot camp, I want to have 35 clients.” “Well, that’s probably not realistic and here’s why.” Also sometimes, there’s just a mismatch for a variety of different seasons and we really just try to very kindly point someone into a different direction and let them know what would be most effective to that for them because there are definitely some contraindications in a group environment. We all know as therapists what some of those contraindications are.
Also, one of the things that we do that I think also applies to any therapist who is doing online marketing or working in the online world is we try to put as much out into our website that is as authentic as possible so that people have a really good sense of who we are and how we work before they ever get on the phone. We don’t have just random people for the most part interviewing. We have people who have really been digging and really looking into things, and taking trainings from us and checking out. We have 10 hours of free trainings available on our website. Just free, just go in and watch them. Even sometimes, people will call in and, “Have you done your trainings?” “No.” “Okay, before you pay us any money, why don’t you go take a free training or two and really dig in and get a sense and get as much as you can out of that experience before you even dig in to make that kind of investment.”
I want someone to have watched at least one webinar with us and gotten value out of that before they invest in boot camp with us because I think that that really prepares them. Even with boot camp, I sort of, my hope is that people have done at least six of our webinars before the two weeks start because I want them to have that foundation so when we dig in deeper during boot camp, they are not starting from square one.
Clay: Right. I’ll put all this in the show notes as well, but there is a ton of information at zynnyme.com. You’ve got stuff on there about taxes, about business plans, marketing plans, and it’s just there for the taking. It’s tons of free information, so please go there and learn because there’s just a lot there. What you’re saying is that you’ve created that conversation online with that perspective therapist so they know what you’re about before they make the call.
Miranda: Yeah.
Kelly: And they know our personality. I mean, we do our best to practice what we preach and that is to be yourself. We are ourselves which means we are silly and we joke around a lot, and we laugh a lot and we really try to make things fun. You’ll get a sense of who we are and what it’s like to be with us and that’s important.
Miranda: Well, I think this is something too, like for your listeners who are starting that online conversation, realize that they can be doing everything right in terms of cutting themselves out there, being authentic, being honest, and giving people a clear picture of who they are and what would be like to work with them, and some people are not going to connect with that. Some people are going to actively reject it. We’ve gotten emails about, like, “You guys laugh too much. It’s like you guys, like, I just don’t understand. What’s the big joke?” We’re like, “What?” Yeah, we laugh too much.
Kelly: But some people think about it. They come from a very, like, therapy is serious. It’s professional. It’s a profession and so they have always been in this realm where everything is very austere and that’s not us. That’s good. It’s good that they find that out now and that’s the same thing like part of good marketing is that there are people, they are going to say, “Oh, that’s not for me.” In online counseling, you want to be able to speak to it in a way that the person that wouldn’t be appropriate gets it. It’s like, “Yeah, I probably shouldn’t go that route. I should go this other route.”
Clay: Certainly and it goes back to that authenticity. This is what this is. If it’s not for you, that’s okay.
Miranda: Yes. It is okay.
Clay: Absolutely. So now, what are some of the topics? Can you give us a little taste of what people are going to learn from the boot camp?
Miranda: Is this meant to be an infomercial for boot camp?
Kelly: Yeah, I know.
Miranda: I just keep like wondering. I mean, I appreciate that, but it’s like cracking me up. I super appreciate it.
Kelly: Yeah, thank you.
Miranda: One of the things that we start with with every boot camper is getting a really good vision of what they want for their life and I think that’s important for any therapist in private practice. You need to have a clear vision of what you really want and what works well for you as a business owner. One of the things that I did try on for size was online therapy when I moved states. I worked with a couple of clients online and what I found was although it was impactful work, I did not resonate with doing Skype therapy. It was really hard for me. I have just a little bit of ADD and so it’s just super distracting, even if I turned off all my notifications and things, like, I couldn’t get myself into the zone of what I felt like when I was in the therapy room where everything was sort of turned off.
That piece of understanding who you are and how you want to work, that’s where everything else like kind of comes from. We do think it’s funny too because I can do online coaching, no problem, but I’m like Googling things while I’m talking to people. Making checklists for my coaching clients online actually works better than in person because in person, I feel like I can’t do those checklists. I don’t want to be in front of the computer. That would be rude, but it makes it so much more impactful in this other way. It’s just sort of a funny thing. That’s the very first step and then everything, all of the polycystic procedures that we take people through, office policies, what’s the paperwork, how do you do your payment process and what practice management systems are you going to use and get set up. Everything is based on that initial vision and how can we get things to flow and be streamlined so that you spend the most time with clients doing impeccable work as humanly possible.
Kelly: Yeah. We always say your business needs to fit into your life, not your life around your business. When we address that through the financials, the business plan, and the marketing and all of that, it needs to fit you. For me, like I’m opposite of Miranda. I do online therapy and it works for me and also through lessons learned, I figured out who is the best client for that too for me in that context. What is a policy or your procedure look like if you’re in a virtual relationship world versus when you are in the brick and mortar? There are a few differences. We try to speak to those small lessons and saying like, “Okay, you figured out this is the way you want to be in the world, so how do we make it work for you and the client?”
Clay: Yeah and that goes back to the word, I think, you used earlier with alignment.
Kelly: Yeah.
Clay: Absolutely. Just to be clear with the boot camp is that this really is, it’s a process but it’s also a toolbox. It’s a resource center that people can go back to as things change. It’s always there for them, right?
Miranda: Yeah. I mean, we’re somebody, we’ve had people who started with nothing where they had the idea that they wanted a private practice in the very first round of boot camp and then in the second round of boot camp, they had plans. Now, they were dealing with other issues and they were going from part time to full time and then now, they are starting to look at ebooks and next level things. We love that. Initially when we started boot camp, there was a question in our mind about who the ideal client was and whether it really would be just for people starting out who were struggling with the foundation of their business.
We had several people who, they already had private paid clients. They already had enough clients. They felt like financially, they were doing just fine who said, “I really want to be a part of this” and we really like watched. I told one of the people who we actually have a testimonial video for her, I said, “I’m going to watch you because I really want to know.” She wasn’t able to verbalize. It was almost like an iffy acceptance into boot camp because she wasn’t able to like clearly verbalize exactly what tangible outcome she wanted from it, but her experience really just now that this is something that there is always that piece that can be streamlined. There’s always that thing where you need to reconnect with your vision and make the tweaks. Who you are as a therapist in private practice and a business owner today, it’s going to be different 18 months from now and we need to have a process in place to allow that to morph and tweak and shift.
Clay: Right. So you do the group process. Do you also do one on one coaching? Like if I say, Sam Jones wants to grow his business. He calls up ZynnyMe and he starts coaching one on one with the two of you?
Kelly: Yeah. We do a thing called intensives. They are really fun.
Miranda: I guess they are not super one on one though. There are actually two on one.
Kelly: You get both of us. Yeah, you get me and Miranda. That’s something that’s a little different about us and other coaches is that it’s two people.
Clay: That’s fascinating to me that both of you have teamed up and you’re both bringing all this information to the table, more minds.
Kelly: Yeah and we have different strengths and we really have a sync about us. It’s like marriage. I think overtime, we’ve gotten finer and we’ve refined our process. You got to understand, this is the first year we’ve been in the same city. We’ve always been doing this virtually. We do an intensive where people come to our home, one of our houses, or we come to their home for a day and we spend six hours and we have a coaching call prior to that so we have a plan in place as to what we want to accomplish during that intensive so we have some very clear goals. We do the intensive and then we do a follow-up call after that, another coaching call, and then we can go into regular coaching if that’s wanted.
In that intensive, we’ve been able to launch people’s programs. We’ve helped them kind of – we helped most recently someone. She has moved from doing therapy into life coaching and we’ve revamped her sites, looked at her SEO, did some landing pages, and then we set up a process for her virtual assistant. There’s a lot you can accomplish in six hours with two people helping you and basically, it’s a day where we take care of you and we get a lot of work done because we find that when people just do one on one, which we do with our boot campers, we do one on one coaching with them after they have done boot camp, but some people come to us and we’re like, “Why are we extending something when we can accomplish it in a day?” Let’s knock it out and get a big chunk done so you’re not feeling stuck.” You want to speak more of it?
Miranda: Yeah. The other thing that I really like about it is that Kelly can be digging in and coming up with a virtual assistant plan while I’m sitting down and writing out like a marketing drip, and then I can take the person aside and we can be recording videos as Kelly is going through and digging into their SEO. It really gives us this wonderful time for us not just to, like to really do work and implement for the person. It’s different personalities. Some people just relax and answer questions while we do it and other people dig in and like do work alongside of us. It’s just been, I mean, it’s so much fun to see how much things can shift in that one day and I have to say, as much as I like individual coaching, this fills me up so much more because you just check it all off the list. There’s no question of like, I did this translate. It’s just done. It’s just so much fun. I love it.
Kelly: Yeah. It is. Yeah. That’s what people say is like to be with us.
Clay: I can imagine. Everything inside me goes, “No, that would just be too much, the tag teaming,” but I know there are people out there that, “Just let me jump in and peep in and soak it all in.”
Kellly: Yeah. You think about it, like, we had a gal call us and she’s like, “I work 40 hours a week in my other job. I’m trying to launch my practice. I just need like a day to just sit down.” We’re like, “Yes. Let’s just sit down. Let us help you,” and like Miranda said, we’ve had people have done intensives. They are just like, “I’m going to sit on the couch. If you need me, let me know.” We just ask them questions and we take care of things for them.
Miranda: Yeah. We’ve always been more like implement our hands on as coaches, which is a good and a bad. It’s easy to get like sucked down the rabbit hole of updating someone’s website and that’s not necessarily the best use of time in a coaching session, but also, I’ve watched people who like, it’s like in the way where we’re doing the coaching. We come up with the plan. Everything is there and then you have an appointment in two weeks. They are like, “Oh, I got stuck on this one thing and I just can’t get past it.” Sometimes, it’s just the best use of time to spend 15 minutes getting that done and then move on as opposed to going, “Well, why didn’t you think you could do this?” Sometimes, it’s just not worth that. I’d much rather just support and take care of that person.
Clay: This is kind of a pretty good transition to talk about the most awesome conference because from my understanding, that’s kind of what it’s going to be like.
Kelly: Yeah, that was born out of me and Joe Sanok having, we’re joking around one day and we’re joking about how we hate therapy conferences, how they are like so boring and you get this like lanyard and you walk around this exhibit hall. Mind you, I’ve been an exhibitor too, so I’ve in both sides, but we’re just like, “Yuck. What would it be like to do something really fun and unique?” I said, “Hey, if you really want to talk serious about it, let’s just go up and just talk about it.” We did and then three of us sat down and then Julie joined us and thus was born The Most Awesome Conference. This is our second year doing it and the idea is that you leave with stuff done. Also, some of the feedback we’ve gotten is that not only giving some stuff done but really making some serious connections. It has been amazing.
Clay: That’s coming up in May, right?
Kelly: Yeah.
Clay: There’s a few slots left, right?
Kelly: There are. We’re halfway through ticket sales. We have half of them left. We only have 35 slots to keep it small and intimate.
Clay: Absolutely. I’ll put that in the show notes, but I’m going to be there.
Kelly: Yeah, I know. We’re going to rock it out.
Clay: I’m really, really going to be, I’m really, really excited about this. I think it’s a chance for that intensive hands on, let’s walk away with all these wonderful accomplishments and goals met.
Miranda: What I love is that Clay said it was intimidating to think about two on one, but you really said it was like four on one.
Clay: That’s a really good point. I might need to rethink about that.
Kelly: Hope you’ll get a massage and a meal from a food truck. It’s always there.
Clay: Okay. I’m looking forward to that part.
Kelly: Yeah.
Clay: So now Miranda, I have to go back because I’m talking to a lot of therapists who are working online and they love it. It’s wonderful and we’re getting all the positive side, but you’re the first one that I’ve talked to that said, “I’ve tried it and absolutely, this is not for me.”
Miranda: Yeah. I think it could be like my niche and my preferences working with clients who have been through trauma and who are doing deep work that way, and my preference is doing EMDR work. I do know people who do EMDR which is interesting as well, who do EMDR line and who love it. Again, I don’t want to say that I hated it. It just was, you know when you just have that deep knowing and intuition of like, “Hah, I feel like I’m just sort of like banging my head up against a wall a little bit that there is something not quite flowing.” I’ve had amazing phone therapy sessions, even within clinical practice. I’ve had phone therapy sessions. The client specifically like sort of lie to do a phone therapy session because they need to disclose some trauma and it was just too much to disclose face to face.
I absolutely see the benefits of phone and online therapy that they can be so impactful, but just with my personality and with some of like my brain makeup, it just was a mismatch. I think it’s important for us to like be aware of our highest and best and how can we be the best clinically. If we try something on for size and try to like dial it in and it doesn’t dial it in, don’t force it. Sit down and reassess because not every intervention is going to be the best fit for how you work.
Kelly: Can I also add like some of the appeal to working online, right, is this idea like I can be flexible, I can be mobile, and Miranda will tell you, you can still be flexible and mobile and not have an online practice. You can still like travel and do things. It’s not like it’s the only way.
Miranda: Yeah. I think that’s the other thing is that my private practice was two days a week. I made very good money. I saw the perfect amount of clients for me. I love my space and then I was able to do stuff with ZynnyMe on the off days or spend the day in my pajamas, so I wasn’t going into the office five days a week and this wasn’t like an escape valve. I felt good on the days I was going into the office and it felt, there wasn’t, I didn’t see like the shift for me. I think it’s just such a, if my clients were sick or something, I always utilize it if they needed to do a session.
I had a client once that was super sick with laryngitis but was like, “I really need a session,” and had asked for a tech space session. We did that and it was really impactful, but again, if I’m going to design my life and my practice, in a way, I have to look at like the big picture and after trying it out and maybe, who knows. Twenty years from now or 30 years from now, since we have longevity in this work, maybe that will shift for me, but for right now in my life, I like in person work for that and I like online for coaching and consulting.
Clay: Yeah. That’s just an interesting take on it, but I think you’re absolutely right that this is not for everyone and it’s important for people to look at this as an option or maybe an addendum to their practice, but it is very different than face to face.
Miranda: Yeah.
Clay: So, you’ve been on the ground working with a lot of therapists from day to day across the spectrum and experience. What are you hearing about those that are looking into online counseling, some of their concerns, why they are looking at that as an option for their practice? What are you hearing?
Kelly: I think some of it is the people they want to work with. It’s going to increase the accessibility with their idle client, like we’ve talked to some people that want to work with college students and people that are in industries where maybe their career and that sort of thing, like they are comfortable with the tech, but it’s just hard for them to set in the time to, like, the way they want. Also people that they want to see, maybe clients that are agoraphobic and stuff like that. They can’t leave their home. It’s going to give, it increases accessibility.
I think one of the concerns is how do you market because one of the things we see is online counselors do is they say, “Okay, I’m going to do online counseling and I have this niche.” Let’s just say it’s anxiety, right? They start marketing online counseling and I can serve these states or this area, and it’s just so broad that they are competing against, like, if you’re thinking the online sense of being found just even on a search, they are competing too broad and so we say like, “Even if yes, you can meet with people anywhere in the world” or whatever, depending on how you run your practice, you need to pick an area to target first.”
We’re finding like that’s one of the struggles that they are kind of going through is like some that has a brick and mortar business in Oceanside, California knows that they are going to build their market in Oceanside, California. When you’re online, where do you build it? We say, “Well, you’re going to find where the ideal client is most saturated,” those kinds of things, and start targeting those areas, building relationship in those areas. It’s a little different. I think that’s one of the concerns. Could you think of anything else?
Miranda: I think the other thing that I see is sort of a funny, it’s not funny but it’s concern about what other people are going to think from other therapists. They are really concerned about the judgment. They are really concerned that people are going to judge them clinically, that they are doing work that’s less than, which I think is BS. I don’t know if you allow profanity on your show but it’s not just okay, that there’s just so much, like, honestly, like shaming happing in the therapy world around online therapy. I think it’s really, really difficult.
I think that’s why podcasts like yours and creating communities like ours, these places where therapists can realize that it’s okay and helps them to tolerate some of that feedback that they are going to get that’s very negative. It’s a powerful thing. It’s hard. It’s painful to watch.
Clay: That is one of the reasons that I started this. I want people to be proud about what they are doing and that this is an acceptable form and that you are serving a need, but as we isolate ourselves, I think, in this industry and we have our little office, we’re not interacting a lot with other people that are doing the same thing that we can learn from but also to get that encouragement.
Kelly: Yeah.
Miranda: Yeah and I think that’s the other piece too is that because there’s not communities, it’s almost impossible to find a consultant that’s specific to online therapy work or consultation groups, clinical consultation groups for online therapy that it really is impeding the growth of this intervention and the ability for people to feel confident in their clinical services. We know that confidence and security for the therapists is a huge piece of our interventions being impactful and just doing good work.
Kelly: I would say, I was brought up as a little bit of a therapy snob to be honest, like my background and my own therapy process has been kind of analytic in nature. I had a lot of assumptions around this stuff and I’ve like been humbled by what I have seen happen with my clients and my assumption of like, “Oh, that could never work” or “This is bad because of XYZ.” I see it a lot in forums with therapists telling other therapists like, “You can’t do a phone session this way” or “That client is not appropriate for online” and it’s sort of like, well, we need to open up this box. This is the way our culture and society are going and if we can start establishing some good clinical practices in it, I think it’s an awesome thing. I’ve been challenged and have really changed my mindset around it, especially now that I do it. It’s just been awesome.
I’m thankful that you’re starting this kind of thing because we need to talk about it. I mean, there was a time when probably someone with it [inaudible 42:51] was doing said, “Oh my gosh. She’s crazy, like, that’s just too insane. Did you do drama like that? How can you?” Or you look at the Gottmans or whatever it is, but someone has to open up the conversation and you’re doing that, Clay, and that’s so important because how else are we going to keep improving and challenging ourselves, and what we think is the right way. What we thought was the right way 30 years ago, not so much today. That’s why everything keeps changing. We’ve got to keep up on it and keep asking questions and being open to new possibilities.
Clay: I think it was yesterday I finished a podcast with yourdost.com which is an online platform for online counseling based in India. Doing a little research, 32% of the suicides that happen on the planet happen in India. They are a culture that is really suffering from a need, but also a culture that does not embrace traditional therapy.
Kelly: Right.
Clay: This program is bringing trained professionals online to work with some of the Indian population and that is just one program out there that I’m learning by doing this.
Kelly: Yeah. I mean, you and I have even talked about, like, there are people that do not have access and this is going to increase access. I think that is exciting.
Clay: Yeah. Okay, I want to be cognizant of your time. The two of you have so many wonderful things that you’re cooking. Any last thoughts?
Kelly: Miranda is always good at last thoughts. You’re good at summarizing.
Clay: And she tosses the ball to Miranda.
Kelly: I’m good at tossing the ball. I’ll say this much, like, wherever you’re at in your practice, be surrounded by other people that support you and love you and will challenge you to do your highest and best. That is the key here that whether it’s in your clinical work or your business life, you want to be giving your best and doing it in a way that contributes to a wonderful life for yourself and enhances the lives of the people that you meet with. I love what you’re doing, Clay, to help therapists do that and we’re here to support in any way that we can.
Clay: Thank you, beautifully put. I cannot thank you both enough for spending some time with us. So just to wrap up, we’re going to have a lot of information in the show notes on ZynnyMe and Miranda Palmer and Kelly Higdon, and how you can work with them in their business boot camp. I thank you so much for listening to onlinecounselling.com/podcast is where you go for additional episodes and that’s Online Counselling. You can find us on Twitter at @oncounselling. Thanks again. Kelly and Miranda, I hope you all have a wonderful day.
Interviewee: Thank you, Clay.
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