Badass Therapists Building Practices That Thrive
Welcome to Badass Therapists Building Practices That Thrive, the ultimate resource for mental health professionals ready to step into their power, grow their practices, and create a career they love. I'm Dr. Kate Walker, a Texas LPC/LMFT Supervisor, author, and business strategist who's here to show you the path to success.
Formerly Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses, we’ve rebranded because, well, we’re way too big for Texas now! This community of badass therapists is growing nationwide, and we’re here to help you create a career and practice you love, no matter where you are.
Every week, you'll get practical advice, proven strategies, and motivation to help you build a thriving practice—one that gives you the freedom to live your life on your terms. From mastering marketing to designing scalable systems and becoming a clinical supervisor, this podcast is your roadmap to leveling up without burnout.
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Badass Therapists Building Practices That Thrive
126 Harnessing the Power of AI: A Guide for Elevating Your Professional Goals
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.
Thank you. Hey, I'm Dr Kate Walker. Welcome to your group coaching for the week, and we've got a lot of people in the waiting room today, so let me go ahead and let them in, all right. All right, so if you are joining me live, go you, because you're making room in your day to do something that will get you uh, what is that? It's asking me something. All right, it will get you further down the road in 2025. So go you. And if you're listening to me on a replay, go you as well, because you're not just going to sit in the car and wait for your kids practice to be over. You're not just going to walk through the grocery store staring at the people, staring at the people in the produce aisle. You're doing something awesome and I am talking while I get my screen readjusted. I'm also going to open up the chat because you know, if you join me live and you decide to contribute to the conversation, which I hope you do, you will be part of open the chat, thank you. Why is it making everybody? You're having to agree that I'm recording this and AI is giving us a summary, so if you see that pop up, it's OK to click agree, because you're going to get a recording anyway, because you're a Step it Up member and you will have the replay in your profile. But this is something new, so I'm just reading that in the chat. Interesting. So read, stop or disable or okay. Anyway, here we are All right. So here's to a great 2025.
Speaker 1:Today is part of it's going to be part of our February share the love series, and this is another tough love sort of a day. So a lot of us hit the end of January and we are looking at our goals and we're already tired of them, or we've already gotten back into our bad habits, or we're still wondering okay, is this a good enough goal? Is this a goal or a smart goal or a KPI? And what was that thing? Kate said, and I don't really know the difference in all the things. So I'm going to play off of dovetail from things I've said before. I'm not going to leave you in the dark, though I'm still going to explain it, but if you are, if you are in doubt, go back to the training, right? All of these will be in your profile in February, so let's take a look today.
Speaker 1:What are we talking about? Oh, we're talking about goals, tasks, action and accountability. And I am I'm kind of flustered here because we've got so many people joining us live today. This is amazing. I'm so proud of you guys. So, goals we all know what goals are. I talk about goals all the time specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, trackable goals. Right, so check, you've done that. Then we have tasks. This is where we get tripped up and this is where we're starting today.
Speaker 1:So, if you remember my homework for you and don't worry if you don't I told you to start using chat GPT or one of the AI to get an idea if what you're doing is actually moving the needle toward your goals. So how do you do that? Well, you tell chat GPT a little bit about you. You say, okay, here's my business, here are my goals, here's where I see myself in five years. This is where I see myself the end of 2025. And it's okay if you're not thinking that far ahead. But you're helping chat GPT understand what you want from your business Type, type, type, type, type, key in, key in, key in. Then you give it an idea of what you're actually doing. So, for example, if you're a business and you hire a few people, you would say this is my business. These are my duties during the day. These are the things I get done during the day or the week. This is what Jane gets done during the week. This is what Fred gets done during the week. This is how I delegate those tasks. I mean, we're talking several paragraphs for both of those things, for your vision, your goals and what you do in a day. Then you ask chat GPT, the magic question is what I'm actually doing moving the needle toward my goals? And that's the tough love that I talked about last time and I even shared when I did this exercise myself. One of the first things chat GPT popped out was Kate, you're traveling too much. Now, it didn't do that. It didn't say my name, which would have been weird, so it, but it literally said you know what you might want to cut back on your travel if your goal is two. And then it put the goal. In my words, this is what you said you wanted, kate, but here are the things you're doing that might not be moving the needle. So it was wonderful I was able to kind of readjust, course, correct, but this is the next step. So then we say, okay, well, then tell me what to do. Chatgpt Break these things down into daily, weekly and monthly tasks, right, and it does that.
Speaker 1:We call those KPIs key performance. Actually, we call those tasks. Then we look at the numbers at the end of the week and the month. Those are the key performance indicators. Don't worry, I'm going to give you an example. So, for example, if one of your tasks for the week is to answer every single incoming email and then track the number of first appointments that actually show up, then at the end of the month you have two key performance indicators you can count the number of contacts you've had and you can count the number of first appointments that actually showed up. It's a really good indicator.
Speaker 1:So if you can tell in January that if your phone calls went way up and your first appointments that actually showed up went way up, then you know your conversion speech is doing well. You know and I'm talking phone calls here, but that works with emails and texts as well. So what you're saying is oh my gosh, this is a great indicator that me connecting with my clients using this conversion speech maybe you're using the 10 minute consultation script that I give you guys is actually working. Remember, I think I mean this is one of those things that I say test me on this using the script to help clients either become your actual client or a raving fan that's going to tell you about, or tell their neighbors and families, family and friends about you. All right, so we have goals. Now we have tasks. Now we have the tasks related to a key performance indicator.
Speaker 1:Here comes the tough love. So it's time to get honest, right? We're almost to the end of the month and if you're looking at the numbers and you're like Kate, my phone calls did not go up. My first booked appointments didn't go up. I booked, or I booked, lots of first appointments, but I had a ton of no-shows. Right, don't worry, that's actually good news. That means that you have something to adjust. Right, you have something to tweak. You have a job to do in order to make sure those numbers go up and become what you want them to be.
Speaker 1:So the first part is to get honest with yourself, right? What are you avoiding? So you know that I preach the phone call and I talk to business owners all the time that have multiple ways for clients to email them, text them, and then they're on their phone all the time. Right, they're checking, they're checking, they're checking, they're checking, they're playing email tag, they're playing phone tag. And I'll ask them. I'll say why are you doing emails and texts and tag instead of phone? And they'll tell me well, this is just easier. Y'all, I'm a therapist. When you tell me something's just easier, you're going to get this. Look from me, right? So I want you to get honest with yourself.
Speaker 1:If something that you're doing isn't giving you the results that you want, right, it may be because the thing that will work is something you're avoiding. And I'm using phone calls as an example, because it's so outdated and yet it works so well, because when you can actually speak to a client, you have an opportunity to hear their fears, hear their pain points, hear from the people who have never had counseling before. How are you going to help them become comfortable? And if I'm talking to a big practice owner and you have someone who handles that incoming information and they're juggling phone calls, texts, emails and they're trying to make sure they're answering and doing all the things, so they're playing chase instead of convert, then getting honest with yourself and saying, okay, what am I avoiding here? Am I scared of just having one avenue for people to contact me. Am I scared of getting rid of texts? Because then I'm afraid the clients that I do have will be mad. And these are all okay things. It doesn't mean you have to give anything up. It's just understanding, starting with what are you avoiding, might help answer the next question.
Speaker 1:So, the other thing I wrote down that you might be avoiding are you avoiding creating content? And if you're wondering, well, what does that have to do with anything? Go back to our trainings, where we talk about how Google loves content. Right, google and Bing, they're just giant butlers. Right, they're just trying to bring the person on the end of the keyboard, the thing that they're asking for. Right, and they won't know to bring them.
Speaker 1:You, if you haven't created content for Google, bing, all the things to crawl, right. So content can be your website copy. Content can be your blogs. Content has to be on the website where the crawling happens, and you have to produce it pretty regularly for Google to think that you're fresh and new and relevant. Well, that's daunting, right, that's awful for those of us who hate to write.
Speaker 1:So maybe you're like oh, I'm not going to do content, but I'm going to do a bunch of reels or TikTok video. Oh, shoot, they took down TikTok. You mean they can take down social media that fast, yes, and not just TikTok. I think TikTok's back. I have no idea. But Facebook shuts down pages all the time. Right, you get put on some kind of a banned list and next thing you know, this group that you've created that's got 4,000 people in it gone. You can't find them, you can't recreate it, it's just gone. So get honest with yourself. If you know content works, but you're avoiding it and you're telling yourself, well, it's just as good if I make Instagram reels, and right, get honest with yourself. Right, creating content is going to give you more bang for your buck, because that's where the butler lives. The butler doesn't live on social media. Google's not crawling your Facebook posts and your reels and your TikTok dances. Maybe your TikTok dances, I don't know. I don't know the relationship with anyway. So are you avoiding creating content? Um, oh, how about this one? Or you do create content.
Speaker 1:You are a blogger, like you blog and you blog and you blog. But you have a lousy call to action, right? I mean, somebody reads your blog and they are drawn in and they are like, oh my gosh, this person gets me. How do I contact them? What do I do? Oh, wait, let me go back to the homepage. Wait, I can't find how to contact them. There's a phone. No, there's not a phone number. Forget it On to the next therapist.
Speaker 1:So at the end of every blog, you got to give the reader something to do, to give them more of you. Right, it's an emotion when I'm reading a blog, when I'm seeing or maybe you're a YouTube or video creator. Google loves YouTube or you're a podcaster, you're creating content because you love to do it, but without a call to action, and you're like, oh, I just don't know what to do. It's a form and then I have to send it to my web designer and it's a widget and it's too complicated. I'm not a technical person. Ooh, if you catch yourself saying I just don't do technology, put that in our list here. Right, you must become someone who does technology. I will help you. I will walk you through it. There are people in this group who will help you and they'll do it for free. Like, I'm not going to now sell you something. Let's figure this out together so you can give people something to do after they read your amazing emotional content. Or this is my last one. It's not my last one.
Speaker 1:Your call to action leads to that phone email text chase that you're in, right, email me here. And then you look at your inbox and you've got 800 unread emails and you just close the lid and get back on Facebook. Right, if you are creating a call to action that overwhelms you, you might as well not be doing it at all. Right, because it's just, it's not fit, it's not fitting your style. I'm not saying it's bad or it's wrong. If you are somebody with zero unread emails in your email box, I mean that's perfect. But make sure the call to action fits what you are able to do, or you won't use it, and that's personal, right. So your call to action might just be download this resource. Your call to action might just be download this resource. Here's a PDF checklist of five things you can do to make sure that you're doing all the things you need to do when it's a gray day outside and you're feeling sad. And then, when they download that, there's the letterhead on your PDF, there's the phone number on your PDF and they can call you or email you or text you, right, so some way for them to contact you, all right.
Speaker 1:Next, what are you doing too much of but you're in denial about? All right, and don't forget, I can see myself when I look into this. I'm talking to me too. There's only one way to fix this. I don't care if it's social media or Wordle or words with friends, or you're an avid worker outer. You go to the gym all the time. You run marathons. Set a timer. I'm just going to be honest with you. Set a timer and track it. Write down the number of minutes of the thing you do too much of, whether you know it's bad and you shouldn't be doing it, or you're like but it's awesome, I'm really good and I need to do more of this. Set a timer. We are not going to vilify any of it. I promise you we're not going to say, oh, this is bad, don't do that.
Speaker 1:This is about turning a volume knob. If you need to turn your volume down on your daily four-hour workout so that you can create content with a call to action that works on an effective interaction, so you can convert it to a first session that actually shows up, then yay, you right, you've got data. Now you can do some adjusting. Now you can move closer to your 2025 goals. So set a timer and track it.
Speaker 1:I'm just going to be such a CBT therapist right now, right, that's how you combat things that you may be in a little bit of denial about. Again, I'm looking at myself right here. Right, too much traveling, all right. I got to do less, all right. Finally, tell a friend and check in.
Speaker 1:So if there is something that you are doing too much of, if there's something you're not doing enough of, tell somebody. I mean, it doesn't have to be something big and personal and you know a five-hour coffee, right? And if you don't want to tell anybody, then at least write it down and post it somewhere. Right, I have a board over here with the things, my goals, the things I want to do, and it's funny, I made a vision board and I don't often do one. I usually do one online, and that took some effort to find.
Speaker 1:So I actually made one and I can see it, and there are a lot of nature pictures, but everything on it is no, this is what your business needs. This is what your business needs. This is what Kate needs, right, this is what my family needs. So, yes, nature is always going to be my, my background. It's always going to be where my love is. It's always going to be where I'm rejuvenated.
Speaker 1:But if I make that a goal, that's not a great place for my business, right? And I'm not saying it's not great for you, but for me and my businesses. If I have too much nature travel, I'm not going to do enough of what I need to do for my business, right? So, setting goals, asking ChatGPT to help you with those tasks and literally you ask ChatGPT, okay, if my goal is to have 15 clients weekly and I'll need that by the end of March and I've told you what I do on a day-to-day basis, and you've told me what I need to do more of or less of, create a KPI for that, create a key performance indicator for that, and tell me what I need to do daily, weekly and monthly to achieve my goal, all right.
Speaker 1:So, goals, tasks, action right, because then you're going to do those things. Accountability, because at the end of this first quarter, when we get to the end of March and we start regrouping and we start saying, okay, how did we do? Are our tasks actually leading to the thing that we want? Is it taking us further away? Then the accountability comes in, because if it ain't working, we got to figure out why. All right, so I am going to hit pause and let's toss some things around. Ask me questions.