Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses

98 The Power of Mental Health Networking: Lessons from My Conversation with Mark Tovar

• Dr. Kate Walker Ph.D., LPC/LMFT Supervisor • Season 3 • Episode 98

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Ever wondered if introverts can truly master the art of networking? Join us as we uncover the remarkable journey of Mark Tovar, a Chippewa from Central Michigan University, who transitioned from introversion to becoming a networking powerhouse. Mark shares his transformative experiences and practical tips for therapists looking to enhance their networking skills without the pressure of traditional sales tactics. Dr. Kate Walker and Mark challenge common misconceptions and emphasize the inherent connection-building abilities that therapists already possess, encouraging a reframe of how networking events are approached.

Navigating the intricacies of therapist communities, we delve into personal stories that highlight both the highs and lows of professional connections. From the lessons learned at therapeutic retreats to the creation of supportive and judgment-free networking groups, this episode examines the importance of trust and positivity among peers. We discuss how informal networking gatherings can be more effective than structured events, stressing the significance of personal resonance in making successful referrals within the mental health field.

Explore the concept of finding and nurturing your "big pumpkin" — that primary source of joy and income — as inspired by Mike Michalowicz's "The Pumpkin Plan." We discuss strategies for identifying and prioritizing tasks that align with personal fulfillment and financial stability. Whether you're participating in BNI, volunteering, or engaging in community activities that resonate with you, this episode is packed with actionable advice on building authentic and meaningful professional relationships. Stay tuned as we wrap up with an exciting announcement about next month's expert, Dawn Brunkenhofer, who will share insights on creating an effective will for your practice.

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.

Speaker 1:

You're okay, testing, testing.

Speaker 2:

One, two, three.

Speaker 3:

Thank you, you can take a break. I'm about to sing Sunshine, she's here. You can take a break. I'm a hot air balloon that could go to space With the air like I don't care, baby. By the way, because I'm happy, clap along if you feel like a room without a roof. Because I'm happy, clap along if you feel like that's what you want to do. Here come bad news, talking this and that. Yeah Well, give me all you got and don't hold it back. Yeah Well, I should probably warn you, I'll be just fine. Yeah, no offense to you, don't waste your time.

Speaker 3:

Here's why Because I'm happy, clap along if you feel like a room without a roof. Because I'm happy, clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth. Because I'm happy, clap along if you know what happiness is to you. Because I'm happy. Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth. Because I'm happy. Clap along if you know what happiness is to you. Because I'm happy, Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth. Because I'm happy, clap along if you know what happiness is to you. Clap along if you feel like that's what you wanna do, bring me down. Can't nothing bring me down? Your love is too high to bring me down, can't nothing bring me down. I say I tell you now, bring me down, bring me down, bring me down, bring me down, bring me down, bring me down, bring me down, bring me down, clap along. If you feel like a room without a roof, clap along. If you feel like happiness is the truth. Thank you do. If you feel like what you wanna do, hey, go, huh, bring me down. Can't none bring me down. Your love is too high to bring me down, can't none bring me down. I said clap along. If you feel like a room without a roof, clap along. If you feel like happiness is the truth. Thank you do, clap along. If you feel like a room without a roof, clap along. If you feel like happiness is the truth, clap along. If you know what happiness is, clap along. If you feel like that's what you want to do, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come.

Speaker 3:

I had a dream, so big and loud, I jumped, so high. I touched the clouds. I stretched my hands out to the sky. We danced with monsters through the night. I'm never gonna look back. I'm never gonna look back. I'm never gonna give it up. No, please don't wake me now. This is gonna be the best day of my life, my life. This is gonna be the best day of my life, my life. I howled at the moon with friends, and then the sun came crashing in. But all the possibilities, no limits, just epiphanies. I'm never gonna look back. I'm never gonna give it up. No, just don't wake me now. This is gonna be the best day of my life, my life, this is gonna be the best day of my life hey there, we're gonna give everybody a few more minutes to get in, like maybe one, one or two minutes.

Speaker 2:

We got some more folks in the waiting room, so hang out, watch the commercial, listen to the music, check your stuff and I will be with you in just a second Outro Music.

Speaker 3:

Her son was out till midnight. I say we lose control.

Speaker 4:

Testing, good Testing. Get my water here. There we go all right, welcome.

Speaker 2:

Welcome everyone. I'm dr kate walker and this is your expert of the month, the amazing mark tovar mark, thank you so much for coming. And mark caught my eye for lots of reasons. I've known mark for a long time, and then, first of all, he's a chippewa, which is super cool central michigan university and you know michigan, the whole michigan connection, you know, uh. But the other thing is, mark has a story to tell and and I don't know how much he's going to tell us today but it's about networking and I love networking. I'm an introvert converted into an extrovert, and the reason that happened is because I forced myself to network and it was the best thing I ever did for my business. It was just all around the best thing I ever did, I think, for the whole practice thing. So, mark, I'm excited to hear you talk about it and you will give us resources and ways to contact you at the end, correct?

Speaker 4:

Yes, awesome, all right.

Speaker 2:

Well, we are recording, which is half the battle with me, because I always forget. So I'm going to hit mute and turn it over to you. I think I made you co-host. You're good to go.

Speaker 4:

Yes, I'm good to go.

Speaker 2:

Awesome.

Speaker 4:

All right, excellent. Listen my story today. I'm going to be pretty. I know some of you probably weren't expecting this, but I'm going to be pretty vulnerable in this talk. There are some positives to networking. There are also a few negatives, and I happen to be, and I'm going to go through this here. There was a recent networking group that a lot of therapists had a negative experience with. Hopefully, by sharing my story, I'm going to kind of demystify it and say sometimes we may not make all the right decisions in the networking group, and I'm also going to give you some safety tips because I don't want what happened to one of the networking groups to happen to other folks. But it will be a positive story as well, so't don't worry, I'm going to spice it up a little bit.

Speaker 4:

The first thing and I'm glad that kate made this distinction she said she was an introvert. That converted to an extrovert, which I love. If you have seen kate at her trainings, you know she can be very extroverted. If you've seen her at any booth, you know that she will give the energy. But if you happen to see her on a break away from the training, you will automatically know that she finds a corner. She may have some coffee and if she can steal away, you will see very quickly that the introvert. You can see it that she's recharging, so it's okay to be both.

Speaker 4:

I'm asking all of my counselors to scooch just a little bit in their mind to not make introvert, extrovert and networking synonymous, because I hear this most of all. I'm an introvert. I don't like a lot of people. It's exhausting for me. I'm going to ask that we kind of reframe this, okay, because the truth is most of you see 25 to 35 people a week and guess what? They're strangers and you do really well making connection and making relationships. And you might say to yourself well, that's because we're therapists and this is what we do for our job and we want to do. Skills are the same, okay. So actually you going to a networking event is a lot easier as a therapist than some of the other professions out there that don't have as much training as we do in being so connecting. So we're going to stop telling ourselves that we aren't good at networking because we're not extroverts, not in the same realm. What I want you to think of is, wherever two or more of you are gathered, you are networking, okay. So I know you're looking out and thinking it has to look like everybody else's. I'm going to tell you that the networking group that I have didn't start out that way. We're growing but there's going to be some very unique things about the way we do it that are very specific to counselors, and I bet you that you're going to relate to counselors and I bet you that you're going to relate, so you can make it your own.

Speaker 4:

Therapists are very creative. I'll be honest, when I first started in this, I didn't make a lot of inroads with the standard networking framework. While we'd go in I would see a lot of salespeople and insurance and after reading the room for a while, I figured out that, oh, they're here to sell a product and they don't want to talk about their shortcomings, which is, as therapists, this is kind of what we talk about. My business is in everybody else's sadness. Unfortunately, the only time they come and see me is generally when they're feeling bad or sad. That's not really a good setup for a lot of the networking events. So I got really creative and, instead of marketing myself as, hey, I'm here for depression or anxiety, my speech was if you have anybody in your family or in your circles that you think could use a helping hand. Come see me after the networking is all done. I'll be over here eating my Cobb salad Delicious Cobb salad, I would recommend it and they go good. I think I'm going to get the Cobb salad and that became there. So it took the pressure off me to sell my wares, because nobody who is executive or wanting to be selling stuff wants to talk about their sadness.

Speaker 4:

So I have a networking group that I started with two other people. We're going to get into that, but let me tell you how it came about and the story isn't all puppy dog tales, okay. So after years online and trying to stay in the know, kate's was probably one of the first groups I had joined, but there were others and I was like, all right, I was my thirties at that time. I came across therapists and you know you vibe with some and I found a group that was about the size of this group about Kate, would you say about what? 4,000, about 4,000 plus. Yeah, probably so good, you know, as a therapist, we're pretty picky, so we're like OK, this person vibes with me. It looks like this group has been around for a while 4,000. They've been vetted by the American Counseling Association. Right, they've been speaking, they've been going through, they've been doing it.

Speaker 4:

So here we go, doing our due diligence, making sure this is good. It looks all well and good. They're very positive. They're doing cool things, talking about different areas of the niche, niches that we need to be into. It's very positive. I'm liking it. And so Mark, who's a little bit non-risky at the time, says okay.

Speaker 4:

Finally, I think I found my people and I found my people. These are the people that I'm actually going to spend money on and I'm going to go and do this retreat. And you know, because I think, after eight years of voyeuring online and putting in all my questions and comments and concerns, this is the people I'm going to go with. So I do, and I sign up for the retreat and I fly out there. The retreat is wonderful, fantastic. It's everything I ever wanted and more. And I'm so excited and, in fact, these five people that were on this retreat with me I have long-lasting relationship with these people. To this day, we have Zoom calls. It's wonderful, fantastic Plot twist. You ready for this?

Speaker 4:

We found out that the therapist that was running this had their own issues and concerns. Some of them were not ethical. There was mismanagement of money. There was mismanagement of money, financial things, retreats, ceus, unpromised, and because it was in a group of therapists, what you found is nobody wanted to say anything, because we all felt like we should have known better and I'm talking about mismanagement, myself included. We're talking above $2,000 here. We're talking three, four, five, six, right For different things that we had put in on and promised to return and just never saw it. And this went on for quite some time. And out of 4,000 therapists, how many people do you think said anything for one year? Let me see in the chat how many people Give me a number.

Speaker 2:

You're asking how many people said anything.

Speaker 4:

Kendra got it Zero, zero, okay. So that was week, that was year one. So, because we tend to be good and we want to give people the benefit of the doubt, here we go into year two of giving and waiting for promises undelivered. How many people now, after two years? Yes, I, okay, let's go between zero and six. We we had two people that had the courage to say, hey, this is something I want to bring to the community. You know, I didn't get this back. And then the floodgates opened and within about seven days there were about 20 comments on that board that said oh, this was me too. Gee, I thought I was the only one.

Speaker 4:

And turns out, within two weeks the message board was shut down and we all had to go find grievances in different ways and we would get on calls with each other the people that we were already friends with and go. Well, why didn't you say anything? We're good friends. How come you didn't? Well, we should know better, right? We're talking about? We talk about ethics and knowing how to read people, and I just can't believe that somebody in our own community would treat us this way. And I learned a very valuable lesson that day, and that was it doesn't matter how smart you are, if you are somebody who's giving and you want the experiences, and they're doing it. That person was doing it for a very long time and, for whatever reason, they fell off. They didn't do what they promised and there were a whole bunch of people within the therapeutic community that were affected by it. Here's the good plot twist About two weeks before this all came out, I contacted this person and I said I really like what you're doing.

Speaker 4:

The best thing about your group is that this positive energy is something I don't often see. Kate has. Also, if you've read any of Kate's posts about when people come into other groups and ask questions, you will see that sometimes therapists aren't very nice to other therapists. When they don't get the right ethical code, we tend to get a little I don't. What would you say Haughty? Oh, it's snarky. See, I like this snarky and mean. So we get snarky and mean and we say mean shit and we really shouldn't, because that person is look, if, if I have a question and I come there, I just hope that I'm going to be absorbed by people who love and care and have the information and I will tell you. Kate has had the information. Since I began in this, I've never been led astray by anything and I've never been treated unfairly or unkindly by anyone in this group, and that is saying something.

Speaker 4:

So when I contacted this person and I said I like your positivity, can I do this in San Antonio? I know you have it there. And they said I like your positivity, can, can I do this in San Antonio? I know you have it there. And they said sure, do it in San Antonio. In fact, I said, well, what about Austin? Well, they're going to do it. Why don't you guys get together in Austin, and myself and Tracy from Beyond the Couch and Dawn, who I think you had on last week, was it Dawn Breckenheimer?

Speaker 2:

last week. She's going to be gone next month.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, oh, next month? Okay, yeah, we were kind of all together sitting around and we're just like look, we love everything we're doing. Most of us are senior counselors at this point and we don't really have a need to hold all the information. We just want to share and we want to give it out, and that was the best thing I could have ever done, because when this broke two weeks later and everything was falling apart, I said I'm going to drop the name of whatever it came with and what I'm going to do is I'm going to take those people that I liked in those areas and we're going to do our own thing, and that became the basis of the networking group. Now I'd like to tell you I did it for the good of all therapists everywhere. I didn't.

Speaker 4:

I, at that point in my life, was probably at the lowest point of my business my wife passed away in 2022, and I became internal and I didn't go out a lot, became internal and I didn't go out a lot and I started to close off and it wasn't a good look for me and I thought, well, what do I want to do? I've had I had two other therapist friends here in San Antonio, and here's what we know about. Well, here's what I know about therapists. We don't. We always say we're going to go places and we're going to network and we're going to hang out, and unless if there's a client involved anywhere, like you have a case or a session somewhere, we always get bumped off the calendar. Every therapist ever. Well, we were going to hang out, but looks like my clients need me, and so I was like, okay, I'm going to trick them. I'm going to trick them, I'm going to tell them that we're going to talk about business and we're going to have a lot of cool things. And I just want to drink coffee with two of my therapist friends who they'll come out if they think there's business to be done. So I called them up and I said, hey, you guys want to go have coffee and good snacks and we'll talk business stuff. And they said, well, what's the agenda? Like, what else are we going to learn? And I'm like, well, you just get to hang out with me for two, like an hour. And they were like okay, cool. And then we did this and I said how do you guys feel about doing this for other people? And because we love each other and we're cool, and they were already tricked in drinking coffee.

Speaker 4:

That became the model for the therapy networking group. So it was selfish. It was selfish because I finally found something in my late 30s and where I found, it fell apart and everybody was upset and everybody was hurt. But there was something good in that. All of the people I met there had good intentions and I watched that group get virally nasty. I watched, for I'm not going to judge anybody. Look when, when you're hurt and your money is on, you mess with people's money, you're going to get the real deal.

Speaker 4:

And I saw some therapists come, absolutely medieval, just went and I just thought, look, I I'm not going to be a part of any of that, but I still love y'all. I want to do everything right, let's just be nice to each other. And then they said are you going to do it online? And I said no, unfortunately not. And they went why not? And I'm like well, as you can see here, we're really good communicators. And then when we're not seeing each other and we're not in face-to-face stuff, people can mis-instru things and so let's just be in person and that's where it grew.

Speaker 4:

Now we've got about 20 people at any given meeting every month. We pick a different place at a different part of town. We try and transverse. You know, like this time, this side of town, the only thing that I say is bring money for food and drink. We'll talk about business stuff, as it is important. If you have a topic, if you're doing a new thing, if you think you're stretching outside the boundaries, let's talk about it. Let's have a thing no judgment allowed, no negative comments, absolutely no selling of any kind to anyone for any reason, because you know where to go to get that. What we don't have, what we lack, is somebody to be like.

Speaker 4:

Look, I love you, I love my group of people, I love my therapist. I think we do good work and there aren't a lot of people that are willing to reach out to us and give us care, and we are some of the worst with self-care. I don't know what it is with us and nurses, but boy, sometimes we are just. I'm so glad, kate, that you put up like the rock climbing and this stuff, because at least then we get to see when you're out, looking you're like disconnected from the world, and then you see her hanging off the mountain somewhere. She's not faking, that's really her doing her thing. And when you see me on the with the picture drinking the coffee, that's the way that I get down, that's my, that's my jam. So basically they're like you run a networking group. Not really, I'll tell you it's a networking group. What it really is is a social group of therapists. They don't have to bring anything to the meeting, they don't have to worry about their spiel. You're just going to come and hang out.

Speaker 4:

Because at that point in my life I absolutely needed that, needed that, and I can't really tell you if that helped my business. But I'm pretty convinced that if it wasn't for that group, I might be down to maybe one or two days a week. I don't think I would have found the strength to pull it through. You need a tribe. You need a tribe. I don't care where it is, how much of an introvert you think you are, how long you've been in this business. You need some people around you who are like you. Know what I like you? You're a cool cat. I think you can do neat stuff. You should try it. And guess what? If you fail? That's okay. We'll try and give you the best tools that we can possibly give you to make sure that you're doing what you need to do. So I want to also talk a little bit about probably the best thing that I did and, kate, I'm interested to get your feedback on this because it may not be businessy enough.

Speaker 4:

I did not use my business credit card at the time when I gave the money. What I used was my American Express card. Let me tell you why. In the fine print it says in the American Express card if you are at any point denied the product or service that the vendor has promised, contact us. We will refund your money. Then it becomes an issue between the vendor and American Express.

Speaker 4:

So two and a half years later I received all of the funding that I had put in back, all of the funding that I had put in back those people who took it from their checking accounts in their business. If it wasn't on a card that had that in the fine print, they've been told you can, I guess, write it off as a business loss, but I don't know how that works with the CPA. So eventually I had to wait. I had to wait a while, but eventually I got the money back. So I I win in the end, but it did cause a lot of difficulty because some of the therapists, as you know, we run really tight budgets sometimes and we can't really absorb that kind of 5,000, $6,000 loss at a particular If you're not running your own practice and don't see that kind of cash flow come in. It was really destructive to some people and some families. So that was tough.

Speaker 2:

Mark, I hope you're seeing some of the comments ever in the chat about your events yeah that's I walked away rejuvenated.

Speaker 4:

Oh, and you know what? We're so glad to have her. She's amazing. That's the other thing. I and okay, like wow, I'm spilling the tea today. I don't know what it is about this, but wow, um, I recently gave up my supervision. I mean, I haven't given it up yet, but I'm no longer seeing anyone for supervision.

Speaker 4:

Everybody's like, well, why not? One of the reasons is when you meet amazing, wonderful therapists that come to your events and things like this and they give you the card and they go. I'm just looking for supervisees and I took its class and now I'm all ready to go and I thought I'm retiring, I'm retiring, I'm good. I'm good Because I was around in a time where I I'm snarky. Now I'm 49. I'm snarky. Some of the things that they're doing, like I knew you people before you were on the board and sometimes I just get cranky and I'm kind of stuffy.

Speaker 4:

But when you meet other young therapists, like they're on fire for this, they're like, yeah, I'm going to go, I'm going to do this, I'm going to help people, I'm going to make money. I'm like, yes, you are, give me your card, you are going to be wonderful. And it's a three-year relationship for most of the time supervision and you're going to get some hours. You've got to have the energy and the time to dedicate to them. I still love the field, but when I see awesome people like that that walk away from my Because I have two other friends that do this along with me and they're much better at Canva than I am so they make the announcements and they make me look all you know, old, uncle-y, but that's okay, I'm cool, looking like the grouchy uncle. I want to give that work to them. And now what it comes to is when they come in and want something, everybody drops their cards and then when I get referrals for supervision, I know who to give it out to or anything else. So, mark, let me ask you something.

Speaker 2:

So when you say like this is the goal of the networking group that you operate isn't necessarily business, but because everybody is there, it's so low key, it's no financial commitment at all. They're just there to hang out. Business gets done. You are learning from each other and you're you're learning who you can refer to when people are saying oh my, my practice is full, who can I refer to? You're not just giving out blind referrals. You're giving out referrals of people you've sat across the table and had coffee with.

Speaker 4:

Right, and not only that, the hot, what I call hot tips. Sometimes I'll be like I got a hot tip and they're like what is it? And they'll be like did you hear? Did you hear this month about signa? No, what did you hear? Are you, are you on the headway thing? Oh, yeah, okay, here's the last thing. Did you go to the town hall? Did you hear that? No, I didn't hear that. But I like that because it's so juicy and it's like juicy therapist gossip that only we know. But it isn't like okay, here's Kate Walker and she's going to give you her 20 second spiel. Go, is that?

Speaker 2:

how I sound in your head.

Speaker 4:

No, that's basic. I told you I'm crotchety at this point. That's how everybody sounds in my head. Every time I go to these things I'm like, let me guess they're going to put us in a circle and everybody's going to go next. 20 seconds, 20 seconds, 20. And by that time I'm like so you're talking about traditional networking?

Speaker 2:

Like if for those of you in the group who've never done networking and you know I talk about the 60 second commercial and the elevator speech. And if you go to your chamber of commerce and you're asked to stand up and do that, please that, please, yes, by the way, please do that.

Speaker 4:

The reason we, the reason her and I are making jokes about it now, is because we have done our 60 second speech so many times that that's not a challenge for us. But I needed that in the beginning to learn how to cut my chops. I needed to be able to play those pentatonic scales. I needed to be able to be able to do it in 30 seconds or less. Those are valuable skills, and even if somebody says don't go, don't go to the Chamber of Commerce because they don't have that, I want you to go anyway, because here's the deal. Everybody wants to know the shortcut. There is none. Everybody is so unique and so special that I don't know who you're going to resonate with and you don't either. So don't let anybody tell you this ain't going to work, that ain't going to work. Don't do what I hear now. Don't go to doctor's offices and leave a letter. Well, I'm like. Well, maybe I don't know, maybe the doctor is cool, maybe you guys have a connection of some sort. You don't know. Now, if you go there a couple of times, it's not working out. I've gone in for five or 10 minutes and went. Not my crowd. Let me get a breath mint and I'm out. You know that's, that's OK. But I want you to go, I want you to have the experience and then you use that data real time data instead of what you think that's going to be about and that's what we would tell our clients, right? Well, what if this happens? Well, are you going to? You're going to make decisions based on what if, or should you kind of go and see how it goes and then report back next week and then we can kind of use the real thing instead of that? But there I mean, there's enough networking to go around. You could literally spend three days a week networking, and it just depends on your money, it depends on your time, it depends on your risk ratio, it depends on your niche. If you like a certain type of person, mine happens to be executive coaches, right? So you'll find me at a lot of those higher end kind of meetings that it doesn't seem to like. Why would you go there? Well, I'm just in the room. I don't really give a spiel. It's to the point now where the community is so familiar with.

Speaker 4:

I'll tell you what they said. The other day, one of my clients came in and he said I hope you're not offended about what I'm going to tell you, because I said how'd you find me? And they said well, I don't want to tell you. I said go ahead and tell me you. I said go ahead and tell me. They said somebody said go look for that guy in the wheelchair in South town. He's really good. And I said you know what? As it happens, I'm the only guy in the wheelchair in South town.

Speaker 4:

If that's the thing that gets them to me, perfect, so show up. Perfect. So show up, be a presence, like, allow them to know you're there and then sit back. You don't have to shake everybody's hand. You don't have to kiss all the babies, you don't have to drink all the wine You've just got to find. I trust you. You're a therapist. I trust you.

Speaker 4:

There is nobody better at reading that room. I just absolutely believe that. Let that come in. You'll be amazed at how comfortable you look to other people. I know you think you're like I'm an introvert. This isn't going well. Nobody is thinking that about you at all. As far as they're concerned.

Speaker 4:

You come in, you float in, you have an hors d'oeuvre, you wave, you smile, you give thumbs up or you just sit in the corner and wait till somebody comes over and wants to talk to you. They might want to sell you solar panels. I've had that happen a lot Like so. Are you in the market for solar panels? No, not really. But if you want to give me your card and I find somebody that wants solar panels, I'd be more than happy to pass it on. Okay, great, and then they give me the card and then they take off and I'm free to do whatever I want to do, which is probably going to go back for more hors d'oeuvres. Sometimes the food at these places can be pretty pretty good. Folks Got to tell you I like to eat Now.

Speaker 2:

Mark, we had some questions in the badass groups and I know you were talking and answering those questions there, but I want to open it up to here here as well. Y'all feel free to put questions in the chat Mark can see the chat as well because I know we've talked about networking that costs money, networking that doesn't cost money. What is your goal for networking? So lots of different things and we've got a big group here. So maybe all different levels. Maybe you've been networking a long time, maybe you've never done it before and you're just trying to figure out where to start. Mark, I know you didn't like my bni, you didn't like business, actually you know what?

Speaker 4:

no, actually I love, I love bni. I'm just jealous that I can't afford, I know it.

Speaker 2:

You know I I could only do it for like two years, two years and I was out, but it was.

Speaker 4:

It was expensive if you guys don't know what the bni is, they are, they're serious about their networking. Like the meeting is, you sit around and you report out how many referrals have you given out for the other people in this group, and those people get it done.

Speaker 2:

It was amazing. It was like a bootcamp for me for business, like that whole idea of you know the giver's gain and understanding. You know it's not about me, me, me it's, you know it's it. That was. It was almost like going to business school.

Speaker 4:

And you did it for two years. So I did it for two years. Yeah, for those of you who don't know, bni is not. It is kind of selective. So the fact that you would show up and be there for two years means that they valued you and what you gave. Not everybody shows up there and stays. I mean, if you're going to go into that, they are going to ask a commitment of you that you're going to show up. At least in my town it was every Thursday at 3.30, no excuses If you didn't show up. You had to have a proxy, and that is like they're expecting you. And then you say I'm here, kate couldn't make it this week, but I'm her stand in and she wanted me to let you know that she gave one referral for Bob's Plumbing, one referral for the insurance company, one for and everybody claps around you get people who've given you referrals of you, so you didn't have direct connection with these people, but somebody else.

Speaker 2:

Well, but there were some ethics there right and part of y'all in the CE. Tonight you will get an ethics CE because you know I made it very clear when I joined a networking group. Like I can't tell you if your referral followed through, sorry. I can neither confirm nor deny if Bob's referral to me actually showed up and became my client.

Speaker 2:

So, that's one of the things you have to let people at these non-therapist networking places understand you won't be able to report back without a release of information anyway. Are they okay with that? After you said it, were they like? Oh okay, you won't be able to report back without a release of information anyway. Which right?

Speaker 4:

Are they okay with that?

Speaker 2:

after you said it were they like oh yeah, actually they were, it was, I can't remember they. We found a different metric for me to see if referrals worked out. So I had to get creative to to figure out how I was going to be, you know, a good, a good group member. But you know, we just had to think, think about it a little bit.

Speaker 4:

And I know the price tag I want to say at the time I was there it was something like $1,200 for the year.

Speaker 2:

Okay, it was only 500 when I was in it.

Speaker 4:

I think it's a little more, but the the takeaway is that people in that were really heads of industry, like they weren't. These weren't just people peddling like little stuff, these were actual, like heads of companies. So I mean I got some really good, just got to see the people in the area. But they will eventually pull you in for an e-board spot too. So part of this is understanding that you'll do some administrative service and most of us, if you've worked in any community agency, I'm sure that that's not foreign. Those of us who come from academia we have sat on a fair amount of those types of committees. So it was good. No, I really did love them. I think they have a great thing. It was just the price when I was just starting my practice.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, it was definitely not a new practice thing. It was sort of like I've been in business for five or six years kind of thing. So, all right, alyssa wants to know when is y'all's next networking event?

Speaker 4:

Is there a difference? I have one coming up on the 30th. Okay, it will be. Uh, I I should have a flyer.

Speaker 2:

I should put that up for you and if you send us a link when we send out certificates. Okay, I can, we can post in the badass group um. Also she wants to know is there a difference in how you network for clients versus trainings you offer?

Speaker 4:

Ooh, good one. I'm going to give you just a real quick answer and say no, because I don't. I'm not sure who needs me as a client versus who needs my trainings. I don't know exactly If it's. I guess if it's something with with like the networking. Oh, the real important thing about this particular networking group is that one of the only stipulations we have is that you have to be a clinical mental health professional or adjacent, so you could bring your spouse or your significant others or partners or people that you know, but we don't allow anybody who doesn't work within the area of psychology, mental health. I mean, it's a pretty wide gambit, but you have to have some sort of degree in the human services. And that was just a way for me to kind of limit from the other, because I really found like when you get to talking with human services and then somebody is like hey, would you like to buy insurance, it throws the thing off. I can't explain it, except one is transactional and it comes off really transactional, and then I don't want people getting into that kind of cause. I know you're there to sell something. I know that you're coming in and you find somebody in the crowd and your job is to sell. I know that you're coming in and you find somebody in the crowd and your job is to sell and I just I it's my group, I'll do what I want and I don't want people selling to other people. Now, by the way, that doesn't mean other people don't buy from people in my group. What I mean is if there's a therapist and you say, wow, I really like that.

Speaker 4:

Alyssa, I think you did a. If I'm not mistaken, you had a training last week on how to supervise and you did decolonization of supervision or something. Yeah. So that would be something where I'd be like, ooh, I like that, that's juicy. And I would go over to her and be like, hey, what's up with this training? So we can talk amongst each other. As long as somebody comes up and asks what is your, can I get this from you? Not me going out being like, oh, there's this and this and this, because if you want that, you can go to my website and you'll find it. Otherwise, or I'll put it when you put the lemonade stand up on what is it? Fridays or Fridays, thursday, wednesdays? Okay, when you do that, then I'll throw something in there, but I don't. I, I'm really not using this to build my business. I I found it more necessary to build the community for therapists.

Speaker 2:

Well in building the community, build your business. I mean, I want to you know and that's so, alissa, if you want to talk and kind of expound more on that point, um, like because you do offer trainings and you do have a practice right, or so are you wondering, like how networking can can help both sides of that?

Speaker 1:

well, for me, getting clients hasn't really been the issue. We we're trying to also raise up you, our associates and those people that are learning in mental health, and the problem that we came up to is like everybody saw us as just providing counseling services to the community, to the community. But we're also providing training and education and we have supervisors here and everything has been a little wonky, like we're not getting as much traffic in that area, like even the training coming it's in November, y'all can join uh it's uh decolonizing supervision, an approach rooted in ancestral wisdom and the we. All of our trainings are very people need them, like toxic masculinity and confronting machismo. We have another one on play therapy with latinx children but we are having difficulty with like connecting with other therapists because, as mark said, a lot of times you go places plug, plug, plug, plug, plug and they're just crowded by the sound of everybody.

Speaker 4:

Um, I think you're actually doing better than you think you are, because if now, if I was able to call you out on a social media post, if you realize.

Speaker 4:

If you noticed, I've got your title pretty close right. So what she does that I don't know a lot of other people are doing, is when she does her post, it's actually her face discussing what the training is going to be like in the post itself. So you actually see her face and she talks it through. Now I've seen this probably about six times in the last two weeks. So even if you don't think I'm clicking, I'm seeing it. Now I'm not going to send something, but there's a good chance that November comes and I'm going to be there because you but you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 4:

You guys keep doing it and she has other people on her staff that are doing the masculinity stuff, so that that is the way, that is the way you, and do it long enough, like do it for six to eight months. I see a lot of therapists start something two months and then, oh, that didn't work. And then, or they, you know they do Google ads and then oh, that's two months Like, look, I need six to eight months to kind of build a trajectory and just know that what you're selling is needed. Now I would. I'm going to refer you back to Kate when she talks about you know, watch your pumpkin, or you know, whatever your pumpkin is, that you have to change. There's going to be a time where you're going to look at that and go at the end of the year. That probably wasn't my hottest selling item. I'm going to pivot, but I don't freak out.

Speaker 4:

The first couple things we did were like four people, four people, four people, four people, four people. And then the next one was 20 people. So you don't know when that tip is going to come, but I'm telling you I saw it. Anybody who's on these. You should be a part as a therapist. You should be a part of many different groups. So you should be seeing repeat, repeat, repeat, and it has to get to that saturation point. You got to be tired to see in your face. It's the last thing I want to see. I don't want to hear my voice, I don't want to see my face. So when the Google thing comes up, I'm like, oh God, no, please don't, but it's not for me, right, it has to reach that level of saturation. People are so inundated with things You're just going to keep seeing my face until I see you in one of my trainings.

Speaker 2:

So I'm going to, I'm going to dovetail off of that and y'all put more questions in the chat while I'm talking. Because I think what we don't understand, what we're doing when we're networking, we're not attending a thing. You're actually building a community. So, like Mark said, he would stand up and say has anyone ever had anyone in their life that struggles? And then he would go over here and he would wait for people to come to him. So he, that's his community. They're actually gravitating to him because he planted that idea in their head that and people love this that they could help their friends by coming to him. So when you're networking, you're not just going, hey, here's who I am. What you're saying is, hey, we're similar here, let's see where we can all kind of come together, and so whatever you're putting out there, I mean that's what happened with the badass group. I was just like, hey, let's talk about business, but no snark allowed. I mean, that was it. That's what the badass Facebook group was business, no snark.

Speaker 4:

And you would check people when?

Speaker 2:

it started.

Speaker 4:

I remember they would try it and you'd be like not today and so that became but I mean that is one of the reasons that I refer to your group so much is because there aren't a lot of places where I can be like I'm going to be totally vulnerable, I'm going to tell you how I screwed up and then Kate's going to tell me how to fix it. But she's going to be gentle. And even when it started, there was a time where I had to pay her individually because even though I knew that the group was good, I still wasn't sure if everybody was going to. So I'm like, let me get with you individually and then we just case consulted individually. And then when I was like, OK, good, Now I would not do individual anymore, I'm safe enough to bring it to the group.

Speaker 2:

But well and we can talk about that too it's that moment when, okay, when does it need to be something that you pay for Right Cause, like for me I don't know if you heard Mark earlier talking about he was a voyeur in these groups. Well, that's what you do when you first start out networking. You just kind of go on the free days, you kind of scope it out and see how it works. And then what is that moment when you're like okay, I need to spend some money here. Right, use your American Express. Whatever's going to cover your investment.

Speaker 4:

And you'll know when it is Right, you'll know when it is.

Speaker 2:

And you know that, if so, if you guys are looking at networking as a way to join community, if you're looking at network as a way to build community, both of those things will result in you talking about your business and growing your business, right? I mean, I, I, I think, and then I don't know. I always tell people when they call, when they email, it's like if they want a consultation. I'm like are you sure you have gone through every free thing you can possibly go through in the Facebook group on the website? Are you sure that you really want to talk to me? Because I'm almost positive, we've got somebody in one of these groups who can give you an answer that you won't have to pay for. You know, but that's because it's not my big pumpkin.

Speaker 4:

But y'all ask questions Is the step-up group? Is that the thing that you're most concentrated on now?

Speaker 2:

No, the 40 hour training is always that's my big pumpkin.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, do they. Do they know what the big? Tell them what the big pumpkin is.

Speaker 2:

Oh, okay. So, Mike and I'm going to say it wrong, mike Mecklewitz, mike Mecklewitz, it's called the pumpkin plan, I believe. So, long story short, you can sell pumpkins right at in the fall and you can dig up a lot of dirt and you can plant a lot of pumpkins and you can water and spend a lot of money, or you can grow one huge giant pumpkin, like they do on, you know, once a year, and sell each seed for $10,000 a piece, right? So the idea is, you go through all of your products, which, for counselors, that's individual therapy, it's couple therapy, it's play therapy, it's supervision, and you look to see what brings you joy and what takes resources and energy and what brings an income.

Speaker 2:

And if you look at nine out of 10 things, and those nine things don't bring you joy, don't bring energy and don't bring money, you dig up your field and you go plant one big pumpkin and that's where you put your energy. So, alyssa, that may help you too when you start thinking about who you are, what you're representing, what you're selling. Right, you'll know more. Next year, you know, you'll be able to kind of look back and say, okay, well, where, where am I still earning the most income here, or getting energized. I never want to discount energy right, because if you're getting energized by something that needs to stay on the table, yeah, but at this, you know, especially when you start, you're really desperate for pumpkins that grow.

Speaker 4:

I mean I was great to be energized, but I'm like, wow, I really got to make some money here.

Speaker 2:

Or these doors are going to keep these lights on.

Speaker 4:

At that point I was ready to hula hoop and for those of you who don't know, I'm in a wheelchair. That would really mess people up. They're not used to hula hoop and wheelchair guy but I would have done it because that's how desperate I was. And I'll give you a 100% guaranteed plan to make you make connection. Go into your next networking event, find the person that you most align with the, the vision, and then offer to just come by their place and do something for free. I'm not talking about a 60 minute therapy session. I don't have to.

Speaker 4:

I'm going to be like, for instance, uh, there was a person that I aligned with really well and they did a lot of things with uh, like kids in church and and things, and I said, hey, do you guys ever need anybody to come and just hang out for a while? And his luck would have that they were having this thing and I was like I'll show up at your thing and I showed up at his thing and I've been on three podcasts of his and we're good friends. So this thing of pro bono, you don't have to give away everything, but generally my thing is I find somebody there that I think I can be helpful to and I would want to, and there's going to be somebody there that you're going to align with that. You're like, wow, that's a really neat purpose, whether it be Habitat for Humanity or the soup kitchen. I might just go there to fill my cup and they will remember the therapist who showed up on a Saturday to clean out cat cages, when everybody else just sat around and gave the 20 second blurb.

Speaker 4:

Who do you think sees all the crazy cat ladies referrals in the neighborhood? And I use crazy in the good way, because I'm a crazy cat dude. But you see what I'm saying. Instead of going like, oh you got cats, I got cats. Hey, do you want to come and do therapy with me? No, but I'll show up at your thing and there you go. But it's got to be genuine. That's the other thing. You can't pick the funk on this people. If you tell people you're going to show up and you don't, you'll never see that person again and they'll tell 20 other people you're full of shit and you're going to live with that. So don't overpromise. Only deliver what you can deliver. But if you show up seeking to help, they're going to reward that in kind and if not, I did a good thing for the world and I just fill my book up. Fill my book up with good things that I don't get paid or reimbursed for. I dare you fill it up. The pages just keep going.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I got a second and third and fourth and fifth bat. That is just. That is absolutely.

Speaker 4:

They'll never pay us any. Nobody in this world will ever pay us what we're worth they you couldn't the amount of good juju that I've given out to people. You can't even put that into money, and I'm going to do it again and again, and I don't care if it's on a podcast or I'm on a park bench. It is your suchness. Most of you are here because this is how you were created, this is how you were made and you will do it with every fiber of your being and it feels so good.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely All right. Jennifer wants to know what's a good place to start to even find networking events. Mark, we've talked about a few, including yours. I'd say what are?

Speaker 4:

you in the mood for If you want coffee, you go to the coffee place, if you like sweets, you go to. I seriously just look for the networking events of the latest restaurant I wanted to try or the building I wanted to see. It's going to be led by what I want or what I need.

Speaker 2:

Very self-serving. So do you work on billboards? Because I know Starbucks has a community billboard. I know Facebook you can Google your community and they'll have meetups that way.

Speaker 4:

And your group and five or six others. If you're not, if you're on this call right now and you're not part of at least six other, if you're not voyeuring six other counseling groups, you're late Voyeur. We're a we're kind of a closed community, so you got to know. The only reason I know what's going on is because I'm old as hell and I kept up with a lot of other people. So this is well I mean when you say old as hell, what. I'm 14, almost 50.

Speaker 2:

And I'm older than you, so yeah.

Speaker 4:

Look, I take that as a term of endearment. To be around in this field for as long as we have means that we like it, so get involved. That's where I get all my information on those other groups no-transcript. Now we've got Texas counseling association. They always have good, good stuff. They're trusted, they're vetted. We know that that they're good folks. Sometimes you're going to go to places and they're going to be duds. Sometimes you're going to go to these places and it's going to be like oh, I don't know if these. That's okay, drink your coffee, be pleasant, shake hands, thumbs up, cause you never know.

Speaker 2:

So you mentioned pickleball. I mean, I would even say like leagues in town. You know, if you're in a I live in a small town uh, you know they have like a one of those places that has bowling and it has pickleball. It has all different things. Um, you know, it's not like this has to be for business, right? If you're going to join uh, habitat for humanity or the humane society and clean out cages, you're gonna chit chat. What do you do for a living? I'm a counselor, really. Oh, that's cool, you know, and that's the next thing, you know, you're providing training at the Humane Society, or you're being invited in to help people understand their grief when they lose a pet, and you're going to be the go-to expert, right? So it all builds on itself. I'm going to put some more over here.

Speaker 4:

These are great questions, and I wish I would have known this when I started. Actually, what I just did was I just went to every thing that I could find when I started.

Speaker 2:

Me too.

Speaker 4:

I opened the doors and then I didn't actually build a community. Before I opened the doors I thought if you just had a building, that they would show up. So I had a lot of time on my hands really nice conference room, nobody coming in and I thought, well, I better get out and start. So I went everywhere. Anybody who had a coffee at oh, I don't do eight thirties in the morning, cause I'm absolutely terrible in the morning. It's not. It's not the time where I shine and a lot of people do breakfasts. I won't go to any breakfasts cause you don't want to see me at breakfast until I get a couple of cups of coffee and it's about 10 o'clock. That's when I'm at my best, uh. So I mean, pick, pick a time that makes sense for you, but go everywhere and then challenge yourself to go someplace where you don't think that you what about like gaming, you know, like those stores that have like the dungeons and dragons um the virtual comic-con.

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh, so you know like or get on a committee oh yeah, oh man, san japan.

Speaker 4:

Actually there is a large group of therapists right now that are into gaming therapy, right they actually use dungeons and dragons and that thing as part of their therapeutic milieu so they're bringing clients in to you know, play games, but there's also a lot of therapeutic stuff.

Speaker 4:

so mean, I always say start with what you know, you know wherever you're. Kate is a musician, so that's where I mean. That's a closed community. Actually, musicians know other musicians and if you know musicians, you know that sometimes there's financial stress and sometimes there's substance stuff. Now, I can't do it as a friend of that person, but I have people that do music and I would say look, you probably want to talk to a musician about this. Huh, and they go yeah, do you know somebody who is a musician and a therapist? Well, yes, I do.

Speaker 2:

There's a lot of us. There's a lot of us Right.

Speaker 4:

And so that's how that happens. But you see where it starts with what she's best at in the community that she knows. For me, disability is a big deal. It's a closed community. If anybody is dealing with chronic health issues or disability advocacy and I tend to come up because it's a closed community and those of us who know each other, we're kind of on each other's lips so they will say, yes, if you're in San Antonio, you might want to consult with Great Good, and that's so.

Speaker 4:

I just want to kind of again demystify. Don't think of this as a big deal where you have to go out and meet with 100 people. I want you to pick a place you'd like to go meet with one or two people. If you can't find the meetup, call two of your friends who are also therapists and be like, hey, where could we go? Could we just hang out for a while? Is there maybe a community service thing? And then you could be like we're a therapist from this area of town and we just wanted to come help build the playground or whatever else, or nature walk or geocache, it doesn't matter, Just go and do it, yeah, and you never know what will come of it.

Speaker 2:

It's my honestly, I think that's what I learned the most from BNI. It's networking is making friends. You know, and as an adult, when I started at BNI, I had three kids. I didn't know how to make friends unless they also had kids and I needed them to carpool. You know, it was like I had no idea how to make grown-up friends, and so networking it gave me this crash course in hi, my name is Kate, I'm happy to meet you. You know what I mean? It was just this very stilted, but it was. It's, it's what, what it was. I mean, I can't put it any any simpler. I learned how to make friends and it was so fun and then it kind of grew from there. I want to, I want to circle back though. Mark, you, you were, you said something, or you were about to say something like, if there's not a community, and maybe you said this, maybe I thought you're going to say it, but I want to like make one right, make one, do a community do it right.

Speaker 4:

That's what I did. I just I had two friends I wanted to hang out with, and the only way I had to do that was to trick them, because they're therapists and they work too hard post it in the lemonade stand sit on wednesday.

Speaker 2:

say look, I live in this part of texas. I want to do a face-to-face meetup who's with me? And then go on Facebook to you know the Austin, there's DFW.

Speaker 4:

There's El.

Speaker 2:

Paso, new Mexico, there's Valley. There's so many networking groups on Facebook and even if you don't do Facebook, I get it. I respect that.

Speaker 4:

But you get so much positive from it, people are just like oh, I'm glad you did this. I was looking for something to come out to and we didn't know what to do.

Speaker 2:

but we're glad we came. That's all I need. I have to take Facebook off my phone. That's how I do Facebook. It is not on my phone. I do it when I have my laptop and then I don't put it away. So give yourself boundaries, yeah.

Speaker 2:

What else, though, wait, let me okay. Before we get to the last two minutes, do me a favor and click the link. If you're using tonight's webinar as a CE, click the link right now, because we won't be able to give it to you later. And when you click the link, it'll open it up in a tab and then, when I end the meeting, that tab will stay open. You can fill out your information, and if your name is different from what's on your screen and is different from your registration, there may be some hangups, but just be patient with us and we will get you that certificate. All right, so come on burning questions. Any burning questions for Mark about networking. By the way, that's what we're doing right now. This is actually.

Speaker 4:

Yep, yep, and I'm going to now and I'm going to use it because there's going to be people that are going to reach out, or I'm going to need to reach out and and you're going to be like, oh, I remember he talked to us.

Speaker 2:

Oh, do you have a link right now?

Speaker 4:

You can just do I know it's long, I apologize, mark at Real Counseling Texas.

Speaker 2:

Dot com Right. So Real Counseling Texas.

Speaker 4:

Dot com Mark at Real Counseling Texas dot com.

Speaker 2:

First I'm going to put the link in so people can grab it. Then I'm going to put Mark at.

Speaker 4:

Okay, well, I have you here and I don't want you to give away secrets, but I've heard so much, I'll tell you all the secrets. I have heard so much about. Well, the board now wants you to do in face-to-face CEUs. Have they decided if there's a difference between face-to-face and asynchronous? Do we know if they're going to require certain in-the-building CEUs versus online?

Speaker 2:

Nope, If it's right now. This is face-to-face.

Speaker 4:

You heard that right. Everybody heard that. That's the hot tip. This is face-to-face right here. I bumped into two therapists at our last networking that said, oh my God, I got to sign up for all of these conferences right now. And I said why? Well, the board is going to require us to do face-to-face training and I thought that doesn't sound quite right and I thought that doesn't sound quite right.

Speaker 2:

No, this is face-to-face, we are not right. So good job everybody, Good face-to-face.

Speaker 4:

Love it. You guys are awesome.

Speaker 2:

Mark, thank you so much. Thank you for being here. You're awesome. I love your energy and we need to do this again. This is I may have to swing through San Antonio.

Speaker 4:

Whatever you know, what launch on me when you do.

Speaker 2:

You guys heard that it's recorded. We hit the recording button.

Speaker 4:

That's right.

Speaker 2:

I hope everybody saw. Our expert for next month is Dawn Brunkenhofer. She's going to talk about how to create an effective will for your practice. We have lots of good stuff coming up. Mark is in the badass group. You can tag him with questions. In fact, he was in there answering questions before we hopped on. Thank you guys so much for giving us an hour of your time. Go you way to go, go eat dinner now, go have happy hour. I will see you guys next month and take care.

Speaker 4:

Love.