Calling BS on the Coaching Business Myths Flooding Your Instagram Feed Right Now [Ep 63]

Welcome to the Thriving therapyneur Podcast. The show for ambitious therapists who are ready to unapologetically make more money, scale their impact and build their dream coaching business. I'm Carly Hill, therapist turned coach turned CEO of a seven figure online business. I created the Thriving Therapeutic Podcast because I'm obsessed with helping big hearted therapists outgrow the office and build successful and sustainable online businesses. So if you are wondering how you can continue to make an impact without sacrificing the life you love, welcome therapreneur. This is exactly the place for you. Think of it like the business school we never had. I am so excited to dive in with you. Let's get started. Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Thriving Therapy Podcast. Today's episode might ruffle a few feathers, but it's something that needs to be said this There has been a big trend online lately where therapists are being told the only way to scale their business is to either add therapy intensives, run a group practice, or just double down on private practice. So I wanna break this down honestly and kindly. Because while each of those paths can work, they are not the ultimate solution that so many therapists are looking for. And in my opinion, they're often just new ways of packaging the same problem. Which is burnout. So if you've ever wondered, should I add intensive? Should I run a group practice? Should I just keep growing my private practice? Should I start a private practice? Should I start coaching? What do I do? This episode is going to give you clarity on the pros and cons of all of these avenues and I'll be real with you. What sparked me recording this episode is that I've seen some people in the space actually shitting on coaching, saying things like coaching is just another burnout model or you don't need to become a coach to make more money. And here's the kicker. Many of those same people are literally running coaching programs themselves. They are therapist business coaches. Many of them have actually been through my Therapist to Coach accelerator program. Funny enough, their Instagram handles even have coaching in the name. They're benefiting from the coaching model while simultaneously telling you it doesn't work. Now, I'm not here to name names, start drama, but I do want to point out the lack of integrity in that messaging and more importantly, just clear up the confusion for you, the confusion it can create for you as a therapist who's just trying to figure out the right path forward. Because the truth is, it's not coaching that is the problem ever. It's how people are building their coaching businesses. A little bit about my own journey. I've had a private practice, if you didn't know. And in many ways it was wonderful. It gave me independence, it gave me the ability to work with clients that I loved. It was my very first taste of entrepreneurship. But it also left me very burnt out. I was doing back to back sessions all day long. My energy was drained, my income was capped by the number of sessions I could physically sit through each week. And even if I raise my rates, there was always that ceiling of time. At one point I did have clinicians under me. We did a 6040 split. And while it worked financially, I always had this nagging fear if they were seasoned enough to provide the level of care I wanted for my clients. Many of them were still interns and they didn't yet hold a license. Now I'm not saying a group practice is bad, some people love it. But for me, the stress of being responsible for my clinicians skill levels plus just admin of managing them, payroll overhead, it just wasn't the freedom I was looking for at that time in my life. So while private practice is absolutely a valid path and it did serve me well in many different ways and honestly, it's much easier to build a private practice than it is to build a coaching business. I've built both, but the reward just isn't as big. And I'm just a go big or go home girl. I am all about chasing the freedom. So let's switch gears and talk about intensives for a second. I get it. Intensives sound amazing on paper. Longer sessions, premium rates. I respect this model, I really do. Because in many ways it's a step toward packages instead of single sessions. In fact, I did intensives myself when I first started started moving into the coaching space. I offered nlp, breakthrough sessions, VIP days, all of that. But here's the problem. At the end of the day, it's still trading dollars for hours. It's just a bigger chunk of dollars for a bigger chunk of hours. Energetically, you're holding space for those long transformational sessions. It's draining. It's not something that I could see myself building an entire business around so sustainably. So while I respect intensives as a stepping stone, I don't see them as the ultimate solution. One of my therapist friends is actually pregnant right now. She has a private practice and because she's waiting until after her baby is here to fully launch her coaching business, she's been working behind the scenes on it. She's Just going to do intensives as a bridge and I think that's smart. It's just a bridge, but it's not the end game, it's not the destination. It's because of the sustainability and still trading dollars for hours. Hey there. Did you know we give away one of our incredible digital products every single week? All you have to do is leave a review for the show, then submit proof using the link in the show notes and you'll be entered to win. Prizes include amazing resources like our passive income course, the license protection bundle, top business trainings, my bestselling book, and so much more. It's super simple and your review helps us reach more listeners just like you. So take a moment to share your thoughts, enter to win and maybe you'll be our next winner. Now let's move on to coaching. I advocate so strongly for coaching. Clearly why? It's what I teach, it's what I preach, it's what I use in my own business. I advocate strongly for coaching, specifically coaching done right because it allows you to step into the one to many model. We're breaking out of the one to one model. We're moving into the one to many model, the group model. It allows you to create group programs, courses. So now you're leveraging technology, digital products, and that isn't dependent on how many hours you can sit in a chair. This is where the freedom comes in. You can work with clients all over the world also, not just in your state that you're licensed in. You can design offers that feel exciting and aligned. It's an extension of you. There isn't limitations and you're not boxed into 50 minute sessions or a few hour intensive. You can build a business that grows without your hours having to grow. You can reduce your clinical hours and increase your bank account. That's the goal. Coaching isn't burnout. Coaching is leverage. The burnout comes when you take your therapy model back to back sessions, overbooking, undercharging, still seeing clients one to one and just slap the word coaching on it. It doesn't work like that, right? But when you build coaching with intention, with scalable offers, with group programs, with digital products, with courses, it becomes the vehicle that then creates both freedom and impact for you. So if you're seeing people online saying coaching is unsustainable, I really want you to pause for a second and really look at what they're doing. Are they actually running a coaching program themselves? Are they benefiting from the very model they're telling you doesn't work or if they're pointing to people who have struggled with coaching, it's not because coaching doesn't work. It's because those people weren't focusing on the right things. I see it every single day for people who have tried to DIY it. And then they come into my mentorship programs. They weren't focusing on the right things. They weren't prioritizing revenue driving activities. They didn't choose a niche that was both viable and marketable. Their messaging wasn't powerful enough to convert. It was landing on deaf ears. They tried to do everything themselves instead of learning to delegate. So let's be clear. The problem isn't coaching. The problem is when coaching is built without strategy, without clarity, without a roadmap. And listen, I'm not going to sit here and pretend that building a coaching business is easy. It's not rainbows and butterflies. There are a lot of moving pieces. It can feel overwhelming, especially when you're trying to figure it out all on your own. But when you execute with strategy and precision, when you build the right foundations and focus on what actually moves the needle forward, the reward and the freedom are higher than anything you'll ever find in private practice, group practice, or therapy intensives. And this is exactly why I believe in mentorship so much. Because you don't have to throw spaghetti at the wall. You don't have to waste years guessing and hoping something sticks. A mentor can guide you, help you avoid the mistakes, costly mistakes, and get you to that freedom faster. Another big myth I see floating around is that you have to have all the fancy things in place to succeed as a coach. Things like funnels, automated webinars, live launches, paid ads. I have podcast episodes on all of these things, actually. But ironically, the same people shitting on coaching for being, quote, unquote, too complicated are actually running their coaching business with all of those things. They have funnels, they have ads, they have launches. They're just framing them as a burden instead of what they actually are, which is tools. The reality is you don't need any of that when you're first starting off. I sure as shit didn't have any of that when I first started off. I didn't even know what a funnel was, other than the one in my kitchen. So you don't have to overcomplicate it. You can start simple, you can start small. I started without a website. I didn't have paid advertising. I just did organic marketing. And you can land high ticket clients that way, through your network, through building relationships, through having conversations, through creating powerful content. Yes, there's a strategy behind it. And then as you grow and you want to scale, that's when you start adding in the funnels, the ads, the live launches. And when you view them for what they really are, their lead generation tactics, it actually makes business way easier, not harder. You can turn up the dial or turn it down anytime you want to get clients. That's a beautiful thing. The power is in your hands. Another point that critics like to throw out is, oh, all these coaches bragging about 100k months, like they're not actually making that much. Their expenses are so high they're barely walking away with anything. They're managing a big team. Here's the truth. I run a multi seven figure business. I consistently keep my profit margins at 40 to 50%. I take pride in that. If I have $120,000 a month, that means I'm walking away with $60,000 cash in my pocket. I'll take that any day. I'm okay with that, especially because of the freedom I have and how I run my business. Yes, I manage a team, but it's not overwhelming because I've built my business with structure. I have SOPs in place, I have managers overseeing my. I use slack. I can just literally voice memo necessary action items while I'm doing tummy time with my baby. It's very feasible. It supports my lifestyle instead of taking over my life. You don't need to let people scare you away by painting coaching as unprofitable, as complicated. When you set it up strategically, coaching can be wildly profitable and very, very freeing. Yes, it's going to take some time. Yes, it's going to take some work. Yes, there's a lot of floating pieces. Again, I'm not trying to make coaching seem like rainbows and butterflies, but if you're willing to put in the work, the reward is so high. So let's wrap this up. I just want to say that private practice, group practice, therapy, intensives, they all have their place. And I will never tell you that there's only one right way to scale. But from my personal experience, having done private practice, having run clinicians under me, having offered intensives and VIP days, my absolute recommendation for the most freedom is adding coaching with a one to many model. That includes group coaching, course creation, digital products, that's where you stop trading dollars for hours and you start building something that truly scales. And here's the truth, you don't have to do it alone. Like I said earlier, mentorship is what will collapse the timeline for you, help you avoid those wrong turns, get you to that place of freedom without burning yourself out in the process. And quite frankly, that's exactly why I created the Therapist to Coach Accelerator program. It's where I help therapists like you build a coaching business with strategy, precision, support a very intentional coaching business. So you can skip that throwing spaghetti at the wall phase and just go straight to building something that is sustainable and profitable and freeing. I want that for you. I'm proof that it's possible. My clients are proof that it's possible. I'm cheering you on. My love is with you as always. And if this episode resonated with you, if you're ready to build a coaching business the right way, I want you to check out the show notes. There's plenty of mentorship options where you can work with my team and I and we will show you the way. Thanks for tuning in today and I'll see you in the next episode. Thank you so much for listening to the thriving therapyneura podcast. I hope that this episode has inspired you to reduce burnout, work smarter, and see the freedom potential you have as a therapist. We would love to have you inside the Therapist to Coach Accelerator Facebook group where we have live trainings and cheat sheets on all things marketing, sales and adding coaching ethically and legally. I am here cheering you on and I'll see you around. Sam.