0400-amber-lyda. Amber: Thank you so much for having me on.

Transcription

1 0400-amber-lyda You re listening to the Abundant Practice Podcast. Where we work through the stuck places folks hit while building their private practices. Each week we dive into a practice building through different lenses. You ll get trainings, listen in on mini-consultations and conversations with other consultants. Each month there is a niche deep dive where we flush out a niche from a marketing perspective. Plus every now and then we throw in a Where are they now episode, and check in on the clinicians who were on before to see how the advice played out. When relevant, the show notes will include a worksheet for you to bring the content into your practice or life. Because I love you listening, but I want you to take action, too. This podcast is sponsored by the Abundance Party, where for only $39 a month you get courses on honing your niche and marketing your practice, scripts for the business side of things, monthly trainings, a chance for a one on one with me, and a much more intimate Facebook group. Where I currently respond to every post. You can check that out at Abundanceparty.com. Alright, onto the show. Allison: Welcome to the Abundance Practice Podcast. I am your host, Allison Puryear of AbundancePracticeBuilding.com. This week I am super excited to have a mini-training for you with Amber Lyda of DrAmberLyda.com and she also has an awesome Facebook group you should join, called Online Therapist Group. She s had this really amazing, well to me, from across the internet, it seemed like this really linear process of building an amazing practice that is exclusively online. Which is, in my opinion, harder to do than an in person practice. I wanted to have her on because clearly what she s doing is working. So Amber, thank you so much for being here. Amber: Thank you so much for having me on. Allison: I m really glad to, because I ve been watching you grow your business and it s been really awesome. Usually what we do here is the prompt I usually give people for these mini trainings is like what are the three things you get asked the most? And I would love for you to go into that. Amber: Sure thing. I think it s really cute that you think this process has been linear, because it has felt to me like throwing spaghetti at the wall and just hoping something sticks. But, the result has been really positive, so I am able to look back and see what things stuck and what things didn t. And I am a sharer, so I am happy to share those things with people. I can ask the most frequently asked questions really, really quick. And then, maybe talk about some of the questions that would be more helpful or at least as helpful for people to be asking. The top three questions are: Can I do online therapy legally and ethically? Can I see people across state lines? Can I see people internationally? And, the answer to that is it depends. There are three places people should be checking when they are trying to answer those questions. And it s not the random person you met on a Facebook group that tells you that you can do it or you can t do it. Because [licensure and allowances are] really different per state. So that s the first place to check, is just get on your state licensing board and look up the regulations. And that will be overwhelming. So look it up and the regulating body and ask them directly. If people need a template for what to ask, I m happy to provide that.

2 The second place to check with is your license. Social work has extremely tight guidance statements around what you should and shouldn t be doing online. And license mental health counselors have much looser lines. So, check with whoever it is that provided you with your license. And then, the third place is your liability insurance. I guess, you don t have to ask them if you don t care if they cover you, but I think it s really important that they do cover you. So for example, I use APA Trust. And not only do they cover my online practice, but they cover it virtually anywhere that I want to practice. So I frequently ask them questions and get their answers in writing, then, neurotically save it in a document somewhere so I have it written down. Those are the top three questions and the answer is you need to check three places. And I have a little worksheet that I use, I call it my cover your ass worksheet. Whenever I have questions about what I can and can t do, because there is so much grey and ambiguity and I don t like ambiguity, and they just include like okay, who s my regulating body? What does the state law say? What does my professional guidance say? Who have I consulted with about this, and what did they say? What was does my liability insurance say and where did I end up? Where is my decision landing? Allison: That s awesome. I think that having kind of a template that people can use makes it feel significantly more doable. I just think templates are helpful for all of us for pretty much everything. Amber: Me, too! Me, too. Allison: I know that s like, those are the three questions you get asked the most. And before we recorded, you were like, but I want to talk about the things, too, that they should be asking. So, can we start diving into that? Because I think that s juicy! Amber: Absolutely. I think probably the next question I get the most and also a really a helpful question to ask is how do you get clients? And I think there are a couple of mistakes I made and that others typically make when they are first starting, and one is that they try to sell online therapy as their niche. And that s not going to be helpful. There just aren t enough people out there that know that online therapy is an option, for your whole practice to get filled up with people who go out looking for an online therapists. So what is much more helpful is to sell your actual specialty. I don t sell, hey I see clients in an office. That s just the mode of delivery. So it s important to sell what you are good at in treatment and to make sure that it s clear upfront that you re going to be doing that treatment online. I think that s important. The second piece that was a total shocker to me was I thought it was online so all my marketing should be online. And as it turns out, most of my clients come from person to person contact. So, my friend s friend s of friends have referred a lot of people to me. My colleagues refer a lot to me, my clients refer a lot to me. And then, people that I ve met online or in person networking that have become my cold to warm contacts. They will refer people to me. So your online marketing is important, but it is not going to be sufficient. I wish I would have known that earlier because I would have prioritized things a little bit differently. I guess the third piece to me about getting clients is you do need an online footprint and it needs to be helpful and it needs to be typical and you need places. You probably want a professional Facebook page or whatever your social media place is that you like to use. Or a website. You need to be listed on directories. All those things are helpful and important. But I think it s also important that you are putting

3 yourself out there in ways the clients get to know you. I ve done a lot of self-help YouTube videos and ended up getting me lots and lots of clients. And that s kind of a unique place for therapists to post information, so it s easier to get found there because there aren t a ton of therapists doing it. So when I say, you need to be in unique places, its stuff like that. Or I did.oh this is cool. I did a Reddit interview (Reddit) and if you re a tech geek like me, you have like stalked lots of Reddit forums to learn about things that are really probably not what you should be doing with your time, but it s fun. And so, I participated in one of those, and basically it s an ask me anything. So I said something like I m a complex trauma specialists. I do online therapy. Ask me anything. Then, people jump in and they ask and you answer them in ethical and legal ways, and I didn t think that was going to do anything other than I didn t have a full caseload yet, so it seemed like a fun thing and helpful thing to do. Like helpful to the potential listeners. And as it turned out, a whole bunch of people ended up reading it and seeking me out for therapy. So that was also kind of a unique way to make a footprint online. I think it s important that you re being helpful, so it doesn t feel salesy. At least that s how it works for me. And that you re doing it in the typical places people shop for therapist, but also in places where there s not going to be quite so much therapist s content, so it s easier for people to find you. Allison: You know, I think there is something to Reddit. I haven t explored it yet, but I had one of my Abundance Practice group members say her husband had kind of put some things on Reddit about her practice, or something like that, and that s where she started to get clients. Because there aren t that many therapist s on Reddit. There s not a lot of, it s not like Facebook where many of us are there. And yet, there are a lot of Reddit users out there. Amber: Yeah. And it s a little bit intimidating to get on there by yourself and figure out the process, so the platform that I use, ITherapy ended up setting that up for me, so it was really easy, and actually, I don t mean this to be salesy, I totally mean it to be helpful, but our online therapist group, I decided to host a Reddit for them to make it easy for them to get to experience it. So of course I thought it would be like 10 people would be interested. And now it s like 50 people that are interested. So, ITherapy is going to co-host it with me, and my tech guy is going to help us put it all together. So if folks are interested in participating in a Reddit and getting your toes wet without having to figure it all out yourself, you can come join us. It s free. There s no like weird hidden strings in there. Allison: Awesome. And yeah, that s not so salesy, that s just helpful. And it s okay to sell, too. Because that s how people get the help they need sometimes. Alright, I know you re licensed in two states, right? Amber: Yes. Allison: Do you feel like that s been significantly helpful? Or do you feel like you would have had just as much luck being licensed in one? Amber: I think I would have been fine in one. That s a really great question. Because initially I thought, okay every year I m just going to get licensed in another state. And that s how I m going to make sure that I have a full case load. And, I have decided against that. I don t need to do that. I m turning away clients now. I started my online private practice part time and I was turning away clients within three months of starting it part time. So, you re not going to have trouble getting clients in your state. Remember, you ve expanded beyond your city. You re now covering an entire state. There are lots and

4 lots of people for you to see in therapy. You don t have to get licensed in 40 places. But, if you are feeling like, oh well, maybe I need to manage my anxiety by getting licensed in other states, there s something to check out called the interjurisdictional pact, I think is the name of it. And, what they allow you to do is to house your licensing credentials in a bank. And there have been at least 5 states now that has agreed that if you have your credentials housed in that bank, they will let you practice in their state for 30 nonconsecutive days without having to go through any additional rigmarole. I have looked into doing that rigmarole and it was just insane. Just a crazy process and not worth it but it might be helpful for some folks. It s not a huge process, actually, to get your licensing materials with them. And they also end up helping you in some other ways. Like they help your online footprint. They give you a directory. There are some CEU s, etc. etc. So that might be helpful for folks to check out. Allison: We ll lead to that in the show notes, for sure. And I like that idea of 30 non-consecutive days. Because I don t know. That could be 30 weeks. Amber: Exactly. Allison: Is that in each state you get 30 days? Amber: Yeah. Allison: Wow. Amber: Yes. So if you re super strategic, you would just line up all of your clients for that state on one day a week, and then, you can see all of them for up to 30 sessions. Allison: That s awesome. Amber: Yeah. Allison: Ok, cool. So what went easier than you expected, in marketing your practice? Amber: The whole thing went easier than I expected. After the first three months. The first three months were a little bit scary. I had my part time work. I had my base of clients. I knew I needed to get to a certain number in a certain period of time. And, all of that kind of initial work, laying the ground work of marketing, didn t get me immediate feedback. So I didn t know what was working and what wasn t working. And I wouldn t know until months later. So I think what ended up making that process much easier for me was I hired a business coach. And, she could give me that immediate feedback. You know, Amber, you re doing the right thing. That was good that you went to that coffee hour that you hated every second of. Thoughts about your work. All that kind of stuff. So, I would just warn folks that the first few months, it s just going to feel slow. And you just put in the work. And it will pay off for you. And after I followed my business coach s advice to go meet people face to face, within an insane, within 6 weeks my income had doubled. So meeting people was really important. This will be helpful. I m not good at is like dropping off cookies and baskets with my business card. And it s just like not me at all. My business coach was pretty clear that I wasn t going to be successful at that, because it s not my personality. And so she helped me, sort of like you do when you talk about make friends. You don t have to think about it as networking and schmoozy and salesy. Just go make friends. Well, for me, I m an introvert, so making friends feels a hard. So instead we kind of talked it through. I was just going to go be helpful to people. So the way this worked, and it was super fun, is I have made

5 some self-help stuff on YouTube. And so I would bring it on little USB drives to different physicians offices that I kind of knew from friends. So I asked my Facebook friends, who are your physicians? And I would call the physicians and like so, my good friend so and so sees you. And she thought it would be good for us to connect. Which was mostly true. And then I would go with my little USB and I would talk to them about what I could do to help them. so instead of feeling like I was telling them hey I need you to help me fill up my practice, I would say, I m really good at matching therapists and potential clients. So if you want to send people to me, I ll do a free 30 minute consult, and I will help them get connected to the right person. It might be me, it might be someone else. I refer out 60% of the people who come to me. But, I m happy to do that service for you. And by the way, here s a little USB thing you can give to clients with some self-helpy stuff. So I think when you ask what s the easy part, I think the easy part was harnessing the part of my personality that was natural and using that in my practice. I like to help people. So finding ways to help them, it made me feel like I wasn t trying to sell myself. It just felt like I was helping people and the secondary gain, the benefit was, they ended up wanting to see my for therapy, because they knew me better. Allison: Right, exactly. And I think I wouldn t go to a doctor s office to make friends. Not that they are not lovely. They are just too busy to be my friend if they are at their work place. And I think that s kind of the way I ve framed it for myself, too, when I go to doctor s offices is how can I be helpful? What I often tell people is who are the people that are relieved to refer to you? And it s often doctor s offices. Because really, they genuinely want to do right by their patients. But with 15 minutes and without our skillset, they are not going to be able to suit that anxiety or help them through that trauma or whatever in a way a clinician in the mental health field could. Amber: Right. And it does seem like they get frustrated with trying to think what the right therapist would be for each client. They just don t know that. So being able to tell them, I m happy to do that part for you, seemed to open up some. I really like doing those consultations. So it was fun for me, too. Allison: Yeah. And for those out there that think, oh, I don t know if I could do 30 minute consultations. What if I get too many? I do these on the phone. A doctor s office will call me and be like hey Allison, do you have room, blah blahh blah. And I m like, I don t. But it sounds like from what you ve told me, these people would be helpful. So the doctor s office can also be calling you if you re their go to. And you can still be matching them with the appropriate clinician based on the information the referral coordinator has. Amber: Absolutely. Allison: Yeah, to remember you guys, it feels intimidating to go to a doctor s office. But they need us. They absolutely need us. What around the marketing piece, what do you feel like has gotten you the most traction? Which one thing? Amber: I think that the work that I did with my coach on getting clear on my values has been most helpful in figuring out my marketing strategy. I think what s really, really important for marketing is that you are ahuntic and aligned with what your personal values are. I think there are tons of strategies that will work. But the strategies that would work for me had to be in line with my values. And so, for example, we got really clear about what my scope of practice was going to be. And what sort of clients

6 were going to be good fits for me and what sort of clients weren t. And that made it really easy to talk to people about, okay, I m going to help you and this is why. Or I m not going to be the best fit for you, and here s where you need to go. So that work was helpful and it protected me from getting in that place of wanting to hoard clients even though they weren t a good fit. Or they wanted a sliding scale that really wasn t affordable for me. I think for most people that I talk to, my advice is two-fold. One, don t think just because you re listed on a directory, you re going to get clients. Psychology Today doesn t work as well for online practices as it does for regular practices. And it s lovely that there are now starting to be online directories. But again, because people don t know that they are looking for an online therapist yet, there s not a good spot yet for online therapists to be found. So, it really does mean that you have to get yourself known by people before they are going to come see you. So whatever that looks like for people. Whether its blogging or vlogging or YouTubing, or there s something called HARO, Help a Reporter Out. It s really fun, actually. You can sign up for HARO online and they will send you way too many s about reporters asking for people to do interviews for them to be able to get a story out. If you get cited in a bunch of those, then you are now online. And people are going to find you easier when they are looking for information about anxiety. Your name is going to show up in articles. And they are going to get to see your personality. And I guess that s the number one piece of advice I would give for folks is it s scary to go see a therapist. And it s scarier to see a therapist doing something weird like online therapy. So, you need to make sure that they are getting to know you so they can get over that potential obstacle, that it s scary and maybe only weird people do online therapy. Or maybe people who really aren t licensed and they are just making this stuff up. I think getting over some of those objections can be done by letting people get to know you. Allison: I feel like, so your videos, I ve seen some of them and they are so good. And, video is so powerful for helping people feel like they really know you. And I know that it makes a lot of us squeamish, but would you say there s something you did to kind of get over that squeamishness? Amber: Yeah. I pretended like nobody was going to see them. I made them immediately after therapy sessions when I was, actually many of them were made specifically for specific clients of mine. So we would do something in session. Like we did diaphragmatic breathing. And I thought, okay if this is going to stick they are going to need to see it repeatedly. I don t want to use up their therapy time doing that. Let me make this quick little video. And then, I just make it a little bit more general. So that if other people happen upon it, then they would be okay. So that s what I pretended in my head was only my client was going to see it. And I already looked dumb doing this in front of them earlier today, so it s not going to be a big deal. And when I can get into that stance, like I m helping and I m not promoting, it just feels less important if I look dumb. Allison: Yes! I love that! Amber: It also helped that around that time, I was getting ready for my wedding. So I was practicing makeup every morning. I d be like my makeup is really good, I might as well make a video. Allison: Nice, yes! Is there anything else around marketing and online practice that you feel like people should know, or you feel would be like a nice quick win for them, or anything like that? Quick win with quotations. Let s be clear with this, a quick win with building your practice.

7 Amber: I think there are probably three separate things that I would be thinking through. The first is, if you don t believe that online therapy can work, that will absolutely show up in the way that you are talking to your client or potential clients or potential referrals. And I ve heard people be almost like apologistic about their online practice or they are doing their own practice and they have a couple sets online and they might say to their client, oh well, I only have online therapy spots left. So when I tell people, you need to be sure you believe it s going to work in order to sell it. And the way I got sure, was I did a whole bunch of research on the ethicacy of online therapy. And there is a ton of it out there, so if you need it, let me know, I can get it to you. I did it myself with my own therapist, so I could experience it from the client s side. Also it worked well for my attachment style. And see how well it worked. And then I piloted it with a couple of clients without being attached to the idea that this was going to be what I did with the rest of my life. I knew I wanted more free time and I knew I wanted flexibility and I had about four ideas for how I was going to achieve that and online therapy was just one of them. So I didn t really get attached to the outcome. I just thought let s try it out. So experiencing it myself and then doing it with a client and seeing how effective it was, that was sort of the seal the deal for me. And then, I think the other piece is we have a lot of anxiety about doing it wrong. Or sliding into a funky legal or ethical territory. So I do think it s really, really important for people to do that research themselves and not just ask other people, is it okay if I do this? There have actually been four resources that have been really helpful that I think everybody should check out. One of them is person centered tech. And home boy knows everything there is to know about technology and ethical and legal issues. So he s my go-to. I subscribe to him. I listen to his stuff. He s fantastic. And he both increases my anxiety and decreases my anxiety. I know some people feel that maybe they need to get some sort of certification. I have mixed feelings about that. If you re going to be billing insurance and it s required by your insurance biller, sure. Go ahead and do it. I do think that some of those programs are overpriced for what you are getting. And you could be going to, for example, Zur Institute. He does a 26 hour training and its super cheap. And it s incredibly thorough. I found it really helpful and it starts with for people who know nothing about how to send an . He starts at that level. And works you all the way through. And honestly, your site was my go to when I first started. So the Abundance practice site. Because you know, most things are going to generalize into your online practice. And then surrounding yourself with people who are also doing it successfully. So I had two colleagues who were starting their practice at the same time I was. And that was so helpful. And we would talk most weeks, and talk through the weird ethical and legal stuff that would come up. And our liability insurance has been incredibly helpful in talking that stuff through, too. So having a community and now we have the online therapist s community which is super-duper helpful. And has, for some reason, the last two months, just gone nuts with new members. I don t know what s going on there, but that s really cool and exciting. So I think that s kind of the next piece, is making sure you have access to resources that you need to be sure that you are doing this well. So that when you talk with clients about it, you can come from a place of confidence. If you want to do an online practice, you need to be prepared to do a lot of legwork. There are some weird, weird things that come up. And there really aren t answers to it. And you have to go digging. So when I got my very first international client, this is how it went down. This person called me. They are in another country. I tell them no I can t do that. They are in another country. He s like, oh that s a shame. And I was like, oh no, I ll do this free 30 minute consultation. And then help you figure out the right kind

8 of person to find. So we did that. And I gave him some recommendations. And then he ed me back the next day and he was like, I looked into it, and I m pretty sure you can do it. Allison: Which shows how committed he was to you, right? That s awesome. Amber: It was hilarious. And I would like oh really? So then I started calling around. And that s really the legwork folks are going to have to do. You just have to dig in and do research. If you re uncomfortable with ambiguity and just need super clear answers, this probably isn t going to be a good fit. Because it does require more comfort with ambiguity than I have without a lot of yoga and mindfulness. And a lot of legwork. Its stuff you don t have to think about in a physical practice. Allison: And the tradeoff for that, extra research and resourcing. You have a lot of flexibility. Amber: It s so nice! I m traveling right now! And, looking out at a beautiful piece of water. You get to travel a lot. You have a lot of flexibility. I have clients who are super stoked about doing online work from the get-go, and clients who are just excited to work with me, and the online work, whatever. Doesn t really matter. Who now, won t do anything but online work. Because it s worked out so well for them. So there are people who this is going to be a great fit for. And you just have to make sure that they can find you. I have one last helpful tiny thing to share. Maybe two. But I don t know how much time we have. Just to be aware, you re going to get super weird and Facebook messages. And you re going to think they are all scams. And maybe half of them are scams. Half of them are not. I get a lot of bazaar intro or Facebook messages, Instagram post ones, which is deleted by the way, from potential overseas clients. And initially I was really reticent to even respond to them. And as it turns out, it s just different cultural guys. They don t know how the US culture works around talking to a potential therapist or how you get in touch or how much you share. And so, be cautious so you don t get scammed. But also be open minded that if you are looking at working with people overseas, they might contact you in ways that aren t traditional. And just to give folks the benefit of the doubt without giving them your bank account information. Open the door to some potentially really cool therapeutic opportunities. Allison: Awesome. And there s one other thing you wanted to say we can squeeze in. Amber: When folks are getting started, they need some basic tools to start their practice. So I hit the compliant video , etc. and I think it can get overwhelming to figure out where to get all of those resources. So I m doing a podcast in the next couple of weeks about whether to platform or to piece meal. So whether to pull all of those little things together yourself, or whether to go with an existing platform that does all of those things for you. And then talking through the difference between client facing platforms and therapist facing platforms. And for me, the discrimination between those two is client facing platforms are things like Breakthrough or Talk Space. And their job is to get you clients. And then more therapist facing sites also help you find clients, but that s not their primary focus. And they tend to let you fill out whatever rate you find is appropriate for you. And they have a flat fee per month. And I have a very strong bias towards therapist facing platforms for lots and lots of reasons. Those are things I m happy to talk through with folks who are coming into the group or wherever. me. And I ll be going through another podcast, because I think those are important things to think through. If you re just starting out and you re just like piloting it, you re not sure if you want to sign up for things

9 that cost a bunch of money, you can use a program called Doxy.me. It s free, it s a compliant video. And if you have a private practice already, you probably already have your record keeping system and all that kind of thing in place. So you can start with Doxy.me and maybe Squareup as a way of taking money and see how it goes for you. Allison: Thank you so much Amber. Will you make sure I get a link to that so we can put it in the show notes for folks? Amber: Absolutely. Allison: So Amber is actually doing a more in-depth training for us in the Abundance Party on December 20 th. So if you haven t already joined the party, Amber is a member of the party, too. Check out abundanceparty.com for access to courses and trainings and a chance for one on one with me each month. And just a really awesome, fantastic community for $39 a month. Gets you basically everything you need to build your practice at a really affordable price. Amber: And I m just going to doubly pimp your program real quick. Because it really is amazing. And every time I think, oh gosh, what do I do about this, because I ve never done a private practice before. I ve only worked in University counseling center. So this is my first year doing a private practice at all. I just go to your website and everything is so easy to find. And you can get it in entry level depth, and then you can go deeper. It s just beautiful and it covers everything I could possibly need to know. Thank you so much for offering that. Allison: Thank you. That s such a beautiful testimonial. Amber: And it s cheap, so that s even better! Allison: Yeah! Absolutely. Yeah! I had been doing higher cost, and I still do higher cost programs, but I was like, I want to get the people in who really, like they actually truly can t afford more. And I just love the Abundance Party. It s so fun. So yeah. Alright. Well thank you so much Amber. And I m looking forward to talking to you on the 20 th. Amber: Thank you so much also. I hope you have a great day! Allison: You, too! Bye. Thanks for joining us on the Abundance Practice Podcast. Check out this week s show notes for relevant links, resources and homework. If you re new to private practice, check out the free checklist you need to get started at Abundancepracticebuilding.com/checklist. And if you need more support, check out the Abundance Party at abundanceparty.com. See you next week!