Shaking knees, sweaty palms, and a racing heart - does this sound familiar when you're faced with public speaking or the daunting world of SEO? It was my reality too, as I navigated the terrifying landscape of marketing when starting out. In this episode, I bare it all, sharing my experiences from choking up in front of a large networking group to falling prey to an SEO scam. But it's not all doom and gloom, I also share the triumphs, like standing my ground and breaking through my fears, and the great satisfaction of connecting with the audience.
Are you struggling with SEO and content creation? Trust me, I've been there. Join me as I take you through my journey of understanding SEO, and how it's not as complex as it seems! I'll share valuable insights I learned from my bitter SEO rip-off experience, and why it's so important to create content that resonates with your ideal client. I'll also introduce you to the Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses community grant giveaway and how it can be the stepping stone you need to further your skills. Watch out for some valuable tips and strategies to help you work smarter, not harder, and overcome your fears. You're not alone on this journey, let's face it together.
Get your step by step guide to private practice. Because you are too important to lose to not knowing the rules, going broke, burning out, and giving up. #counselorsdontquit.
Shaking knees, sweaty palms, and a racing heart - does this sound familiar when you're faced with public speaking or the daunting world of SEO? It was my reality too, as I navigated the terrifying landscape of marketing when starting out. In this episode, I bare it all, sharing my experiences from choking up in front of a large networking group to falling prey to an SEO scam. But it's not all doom and gloom, I also share the triumphs, like standing my ground and breaking through my fears, and the great satisfaction of connecting with the audience.
Are you struggling with SEO and content creation? Trust me, I've been there. Join me as I take you through my journey of understanding SEO, and how it's not as complex as it seems! I'll share valuable insights I learned from my bitter SEO rip-off experience, and why it's so important to create content that resonates with your ideal client. I'll also introduce you to the Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses community grant giveaway and how it can be the stepping stone you need to further your skills. Watch out for some valuable tips and strategies to help you work smarter, not harder, and overcome your fears. You're not alone on this journey, let's face it together.
Get your step by step guide to private practice. Because you are too important to lose to not knowing the rules, going broke, burning out, and giving up. #counselorsdontquit.
In addition to the solution, I'm going to give you the why. Here's why you must master this very, very scary skill, right? Hi, I'm Dr Kate Walker. I'm a marriage and family therapist, practice owner and professor of counselor education, who took a passion for training the next generation of mental health providers and turned it into a multi-six figure business that designs the courses that teach mental health providers how to be clinical supervisors, teaching graduate students and seasoned counselors. I learned about the fears Fears about failing quitting toxic work environments where you're seeing 80 clients a week. Fears about starting a private practice running out of money, getting in trouble by the licensing board, the IRS, you name it. I created the Texas counselors creating badass businesses community so mental health providers like you could have a step-by-step guide and learn actionable steps to achieve the security, freedom and satisfaction of a counseling career you'll love. Look, you had the dream to become a mental health professional. You got the degree, you took the exams, you put in the time. Whatever your business is a private practice. Maybe you want to sell courses, like I do. You're adding clinical supervision. You want to write a book or get paid to speak? Whatever it is, you are too important to your community to lose, to getting in trouble, giving up, going broke and burning out. Are you ready to break through those fears once and for all? I thought so. Let's get to work. Welcome to Texas. Counselors creating badass businesses where it's all about working smarter, not harder. And here's your host, dr Kate Walker, whose least favorite chore is dishes.
Speaker 1:Happy November it's finally chilly in Texas. At last I can cuddle my hot chai oat milk lattes without sending myself into a full-on hot flash. I've got big news about the only online 40-hour LPC LMFT Supervisor course in Texas. We have officially graduated more new supervisors to be than any other course in Texas 236 graduates in 2023 alone, and the number just keeps climbing. We all know that counselors need quality continuing education courses full of great information that will help them build their career, protect their license, grow a practice and stay out of trouble. And bonus points if the course is not boring and outdated. But the real barrier to finishing a course that could lead to your supervisor designation Well, sometimes it's cold hard cash. Let me make it easy for you. I host the only online 40-hour LPC LMFT Supervisor training that can lead to the supervisor designation in Texas, and in the month of November we're accepting applications for the December Practice Grant giveaway. I'm looking for counselor badasses just like you who share my mission to fill the gaps in access to affordable mental health services in rural and underserved Texas. Applications will be reviewed by a panel and will announce grant winners in December. You, my bad ass, are too important to your community to not take the supervisor training because you didn't have the cash to make it happen. Fill out the application today for the 2023 Practice Grant giveaway. It's easy Just go to katewalkertrainingcom forward slash grant. That's katewalkertrainingcom forward slash g-r-a-n-t.
Speaker 1:Today is all about scary marketing stories. All right, but you know me, I'm always going to give you a solution. So I'm going to lead with the scary story and, spoiler alert, it's about me and that's where a lot of this comes from, because I coach a lot of new practice owners who struggle with networking, marketing, advertising, all of the things we must do to make sure that our community can find us, because that's the service we're offering. We're offering this amazing, wonderful service, but we have to be a bright, shiny object to capture the attention of people who need our services. So, yeah, there are some scary stories and I will leave you. Because I love the number three. I will leave you with at least three solutions that you can do today. So let's dive in Marketing scary stories. I'm going to just start with the obvious, and that is the big networking group.
Speaker 1:So I started my practice achieve balance in the Woodlands, texas. Oh my gosh, long, long, long time ago. And so when I started marketing, I went to the Chamber of Commerce because that's what somebody told me to do. Go to the Chamber of Commerce. Well, I walk in to their weekly meeting and there are over 100 people in there, and then they say, okay, you're going to have to stand up and talk for one minute about your business. Now, yes, I am a former music major, right, I'm supposed to be used to all the auditions and the juries and getting up there and doing the performing, and you know what y'all Back then, uh-uh, no, that was not my happy place. So I can remember feeling that feeling in your stomach like you don't know which end it's going to come out, and you're just like, oh my gosh, I can't do this, I'm going to lose it. Well, that was just murderous. It was so terrifying. And I did it, though. I mean, I did it, I stood up, I gave my one minute commercial, but that's not the end of the scary story.
Speaker 1:So what I would observe because that's what I do, right, I'm a counselor, so I'm observing people giving their talks and their speeches and I'm seeing people sweat, I'm seeing people shake. I saw one person have a panic attack and have to stop and sit down and be helped kind of off to the side. And, of course, I would see therapists, because in my community we had several therapists and you know I would see people kind of overshare. So they would stand up to give their one minute commercial to this roomful of people and they would tell too much, it was too personal of a story and you could see when they were finished that they weren't really happy with what they talked about. And so, when it comes to that space, because there's so much coming at you about what to share, so I'll own this because I feel like I'm seeing things like you need to be more vulnerable, you need to share more about your struggles and what you're going through and, yes, that's all well and good, it really really is. And I'm a huge fan of sharing mistakes, because I think people can learn so much from mistakes and how you recovered and it's wonderful. It's how I built my business. But when you're just learning the ropes and you're getting out there and you're networking and you're talking to groups and you're standing up, that's probably not the place you want to share your most personal story and for most of us in counseling, it might be the story that got us into the business, and so that's part of what I'm going to talk to you about because, yeah, there's a solution. So when I talk about marketing to big groups getting too personal, having a panic attack, the solution is you're going to love this.
Speaker 1:Nobody's listening to you, all right. Here's how I know this, because I'm a counselor. What I know is that when anxiety goes up, cognition goes down, otherwise known as fight or flight. So when you're in a room with 100 other people and they are all waiting their turn to speak and you look around and it's every profession in your community, from mechanics to realtors, to Arbonne ladies, to you name it none of them are professional public speakers. So they are all sitting there thinking about what they are going to say, losing their own you know what, having their own panic attack, that anxiety level in these folks is so incredibly high. They're not listening to you, all right. Or if they're listening to you, they're not going to remember. If you overshared, they're not going to remember. If you forgot your speech, they're not going to remember. If you said the same thing three times and got the hiccups in the middle, well, they might remember that. But you have to know, as a mental health professional, anxiety goes up, cognition goes down. That's the ability to take in information and download it into that mid to long term memory. So that's number one. Number two memorize. So to do this and I talked about this a long time ago, in fact, I think you can probably find the video on YouTube somewhere and it may even be in our Step it Up membership the 30 second elevator speech or the one minute elevator speech Memorize, memorize, over-memorize and then practice, practice, over-practice. I mean, I still remember mine, I think. Let me think so.
Speaker 1:Hi, my name is Dr Kate Walker. I'm a therapist in the Woodlands, texas. My marriage and family therapy practice, achievebalanceorg, is located just around the corner in Market Street. Do you know someone who is suffering because they know a family member who's going through depression or addiction? We can answer your phone call today. Again, my name is Dr Kate Walker. My marriage and family therapy practice is Achieve Balance and it's located just around the corner in the Woodlands, texas. Kate Walker, give me a call today.
Speaker 1:Oh, I can't believe I remembered it. So that was. I didn't time it, but I'm pretty sure that was around 30 seconds and then I could draw it out if I needed to. But I wrote it down, I said it out loud. I think this was before everybody had a camera on their phone, so I don't think I videoed myself, but you may know of an organization called Toastmasters. You can go to Toastmasters and I never went, but I understand they're a very, very kind organization. They can help you nurture this ability to stand up and speak.
Speaker 1:Now, in addition to the solution, I'm going to give you the why. Here's why you must master this very, very scary skill. Right, because speaking gigs not for money, necessarily, but for you to get out into the community and talk to a PTO or chaplains that work with first responders, or you talk to a group in a hospital that trains chaplains. You're going to talk to people and they want to get to know you. They want to hear how you speak, they want to hear how you address issues, and that is I can't tell you and those of you who are listening to me right now and you have talked to people for free you know what I'm about to say.
Speaker 1:Every time I stand up to give a talk, at the end I've got people pulling me aside saying, hey, how do we contact you again? Hey, my kiddo is my neighbor is, my daughter-in-law is. You're going to have people who we call that connection. Right, you're building connection. So, although you may have some folks say, well, only market in the way that makes you feel comfortable, who are you to? That? When you're able to stand up and give a talk, show eye contact, help people really understand. Because this is how we do our job. Folks right, we talk and they start to hear how you can really connect with them and tell a story and then tell them about solutions, then they're going to feel confident about referring to you. Remember your basic private practice you don't need all the people, you only need about 20 of them. And so, with that speaking skill that you're going to develop, you will have people in the community who connect with you and then refer you out.
Speaker 1:So, spreading the word speaking gigs, it's absolutely lucrative if you're planning on serving a mid-sized small community, I mean in bigger cities. If you look at huge metropolitan areas like Houston, there are smaller groups or I don't know if they're necessarily smaller business networking international B capital B, capital N is in Nancy I. Those groups are wonderful for getting you used to talking and networking and telling the story and honing your elevator speech and really helping people. I don't know if you noticed what I did in my elevator speech, right, I said my name like three times and then at the end I had a call to action. Well, I learned that by attending a business networking international group, and I think Houston has about a million of them. They're smaller groups but they're able to train you, help you learn how to develop this skill. All right.
Speaker 1:Next skill I'm calling the SEO ripoff. So I want to say this is what do we call them? The early teens? Right, 2012, 2013, something like that? I was approached by someone who said they could help me optimize search engines on my website so the Google could find me Now. Keep in mind, 10 years ago this wasn't really a thing. It almost seemed just like astronomy, like oh my gosh. Or splitting the atom like this is too hard. I must hire this out.
Speaker 1:Well, here's how this person proposed to help me. They were going to take my blog content because I had written some blogs. You know I talk about infidelity, recovering from infidelity, crafting an apology, all kinds of things having to do with my practice. And then at that time I actually had a big practice, so lots of the therapists had been contributing blogs, so we had a lot of content on the website. So what this person's idea was they were going to take one blog and turn it into three blogs in the way that and this is before AI, right Before you can just put it into a machine and it would spit something out. So she was actually going to hire this out to her staff and they were going to rewrite our blogs in two different ways that Google would not necessarily recognize, but because they were optimized the same way and they were all tied to the Achieve Balance website, it was going to crank us up in the ratings, supposedly. I'm like, oh, awesome, yeah, it was super expensive too, and you know monthly payments. So, yeah, I was all in because I mean, that's what you do as a new practice owner, right, you got to try things.
Speaker 1:Well, then I started reading those blogs and I hadn't been a doc for very long. I think I've got my PhD in 07. So maybe I'd been a PhD person for five years or so, but these blogs sounded like they were written by my third grader. They were terrible. I was embarrassed. They were up, they were published, like people were reading them. There were calls to action, there were buttons leading to me and I couldn't believe what I was reading. The grammar was terrible, the words didn't make sense, there were misspellings and she was cranking these out because she had sent them out to her staff, which I had no idea who they were or anything. So super long, expensive, story short, we ended our relationship. I took all of those blogs down.
Speaker 1:It scared me away from SEO for a long, long, long time. I did look at it like splitting the atom, like something that somebody else was going to be good at and I was never going to be good at. So that you can guess the solution here, right, take a course. So SEO is not algebra or quadratic equations. It's barely even math. It's easier than you think. Don't treat it like something you can never learn. Take a quickie online course. Learn what SEO is. Watch some YouTube videos, because our niche is not that big Right. So for me, my niche was infidelity counseling, so I came up with some SEO.
Speaker 1:After taking a course, getting some instruction, I learned how to optimize my own content. Now this allowed me because I learned it, to then off-board it and let someone else help me with it. I let that person help me. Now my assistant is great at it, but we work together on keywords. Keywords are how you optimize for search engine optimization to crank that website of yours up into the lower numbers on the Google rankings.
Speaker 1:Now I feel like I don't need to say why, but I'm going to say why. Here's why you have to get over this fear of SEO. Here's why you have to watch a video, take a course, do something so you understand SEO. In fact, I know some of you out there. You don't even know how to get into the back office of your website. Here's why you have to do this. Hey, badass, I know you don't have time to sit in on another boring, outdated webinar for your counseling continuing education. So I wanted to make sure you know about the best deal going in Texas Counselor Continuing Education Free webinars at Kate Walker Training.
Speaker 1:Best of all, every webinar is presented after 5 pm. It's completely free and every webinar meets the new Texas rule mandating that 50% of CEs come from a designated provider. The free webinars are presented by real people, facilitated by yours truly, and there is always an opportunity for questions and answers. Here's what we have coming up in the next four months. October 25th I'm presenting a webinar for the supervisor. Curious, scared of becoming a clinical supervisor? Attend this webinar and help me get you over your fears and out into the field where you can multiply the difference you make in underserved Texas communities.
Speaker 1:November 30th, dr Lisa Wines will present bridging the gap from grad school to LPC associate. This is one of our most popular webinars and I invite professors to tune in with your entire classroom of counseling students. December 22nd isn't exactly a webinar, but we are announcing the winners of the 2023 practice grant giveaway. January 25th 2024 will be the exception to our five o'clock rule because our speaker will be the fabulous and knowledgeable Christina DeLuna, board administrator for the Texas LPC board. She'll tell us what's new at the board and, of course, answer your questions. Get in on all the fun by going to katewalkertrainingcom forward slash free webinar. That's katewalkertrainingcom forward slash free webinar.
Speaker 1:As long as we have websites, I mean, if we go back to billboards and business cards. You can call me crazy, but as long as we have websites, you're going to be fighting for the attention of the participant the people at the other end of that keyboard right and the best way to win their attention is through your Google rankings and excellent content, and Google rewards excellent content. It wants experts out there who aren't AI or who use AI sparingly. They want you, they want your content and you want to put out great content because your ideal client is out there looking for you. They're over here going Halloween grief. After you know, I just got a note home that my kid is failing school. I mean, that's pretty niche, right, but if you specialize in helping families where a kiddo struggles, especially in those first six weeks of school, or they just found out no pass, no play has knocked them off the football team their senior year and you put a blog like that out there, they're going to find you. You creating excellent content is going to connect you, just like that speaking gig did right. People are going to connect with you through your words and even if you don't feel confident, well, ai can help you. Other people can help you.
Speaker 1:And that actually brings me to my next scary story. So I couldn't really think of a good name for this scary story. It's sort of like big dreams, big let down. So it reminded me of two things writing Christmas cards and journaling. Those are the two things in my life you know about this time of year. As a matter of fact, I would have these huge intentions, like I'm going to order Christmas cards this year, we're all going to go take pictures in front of a Christmas tree and we're going to have the best Christmas cards. And you can guess the end of the story, right? They never went out and I just um, you know, I'll try again next year. And then I'm beating myself up because I didn't get the Christmas cards out.
Speaker 1:And same thing with journaling. You know, I'd want to write a journal. I really, really would. I'd want to keep a diary oh my gosh. And then I would just be like, oh, what's this book? Oh no, this is my diary that I haven't written in in six months. You know, I wouldn't just stop, I would forget about it. My kids say I'm ADD, and they're probably right.
Speaker 1:Anyhow, you have to base your fear of creating content. I already told you why. I mean not only is great content going to help your SEO, great content is going to help you connect with clients. I've got some solutions today, as I mentioned to you guys earlier. If you're one of the blessed folks who is listening to me on a replay, then I will absolutely tell you what I'm doing. Can you tell I'm talking slower? That's because I'm getting into some things here that I want to show people, and I'm going to show you one more thing.
Speaker 1:So the first thing that took me out of my funk and took away my writer's block for content is Canva, and I really like Canva because you know the calendar that I make for you guys. Well, I have tried so many things to stay organized and on task to create content. And then I remembered hello. I used to be a teacher. I have taught literally kindergarteners through seniors in high school. That's what music teachers do. So these calendars really got my brain working.
Speaker 1:I was like, oh OK, well, I can plan ahead. Now I can hire or get my webinar, my expert speakers, I have my topics. They're all kind of created through a theme and I would have colors, and so what I'm scrolling through right now, listeners, is just my calendars that I create in Canva. So, for example, in August I had August 1. I pre-recorded a training. Actually, I had two weeks of pre-recorded training because I traveled. Then, august 15, I presented onboarding new employees. August 22, business plans 101. In August 31, I had our expert speaker, sarah Almondara's Rivera. So these Canva calendars were a godsend to me because it was creative, it was colorful and it helped me plan ahead. So as I scroll, you can see I've got all the way through December.
Speaker 1:Now don't hold me to the November December, because I'm actually planning on working on those today, but right now those are helping me stay organized. The other thing that helps me stay organized is my friend I call on all the time is my Trello. So because I have a podcast and because I post things on YouTube and we create courses, this is also a godsend for my brain. It thinks like me. It allows me to move things. So if you're listening again, I'm just going to show off my Trello for how I process recordings from what we're doing right now to a download that I can send off to my editor and then send to my blogger, put it into processing, then turn it into a course or a training and then, my favorite thing in the whole wide world, which is to slide it to done Now. I could pick up the camera right now and show you the wall over here. I'm pointing off to my left because in the corner is actually a huge calendar that shows the entire year. So those are solutions that work for my brain when I get overwhelmed by content Because, remember, content can be scary, but I have to create it because I value being higher in the Google ranking.
Speaker 1:So solutions like Canva, the Big Wall Calendar, trello Board and the why is because you must be consistent. Remember, your community is going to fall in love with your services. They need you and if they're trying to refer people to you and people are like I can't find them, what are you talking about? So you say that they're good with grief. Well, all I see is this website that's got one button on it and there's I don't know yet. So you must connect with the people who need you. They're trying to find you. You're amazing. You're providing a service. You got into this business because you had a calling to connect with people. Your content will help you connect with those people. So I know these are scary stories about talking to big groups, seo and creating content, but my hope is that maybe you've gotten over it just a teeny, teeny bit and you'd be willing to stretch and do the work All right. I think we're good then. You guys have an amazing day. Thanks a lot of Dr Kate Walker. Have a wonderful day.
Speaker 1:Hey badasses, we can all agree that counselors want a path to a successful counseling career, but that means you have to find quality training. That's not even the real barrier. The real problem is a lot of information can be overwhelming and you, my bad ass, are busy. So you're probably asking yourself how can I improve my practice while still caring for people? How do I grow my skill set, become a supervisor without losing my work-life balance? How do I find quality training that won't cost too much time and money? Bottom line counselors who want a successful counseling career value the goal of growing their skill set and even becoming a supervisor, but at the same time, struggle with finding time to attend quality courses. Counselors can't overcome this barrier because so many times, courses with tempting titles over promise and underperform. Let me ask you something what if there were courses that delivered exactly what they promised, that didn't take a lot of time and didn't break the bank. That's exactly the kind of course we design at Kate Walker Training. I specialize in helping you grow your skill set and career with quality courses on demand, and we have so many to choose from.
Speaker 1:If you're asking yourself, where do I go if I want to sustain my practice and grow my marketing presence? Well, check out the Step it Up membership. What do you do if you're ready to pay it forward and add streams of income? Well, check out the supervisor training. See if you're eligible. If you're looking for an experience that's more hands-on, keep an eye out for open enrollment for Badass Basics and our exclusive mastermind groups. I'm Dr Kate Walker. Thank you so much for listening to Texas counselors creating Badass Businesses. Thank you to Ridgely Walker for her lovely voiceovers at our introduction and do me a favor when you get a second, please like, share and subscribe and write us a review. That's really how we get picked up by other RSS feeds and we get this information out to the mental health Badassists who need it. Thanks again and keep saving the world with excellent therapy.