[JOE SANOK]
This is the Practice of the Practice podcast with Joe Sanok, session number 635.

I’m Joe Sanok, your host, and welcome to the Practice of the Practice podcast. I am so excited that you are here today. We have some exciting things going on in the Practice of the Practice universe. Make sure you’re headed over to practiceofthepractice.com regularly. We have all sorts of amazing checklists and helpful tools over there for you, articles, podcasts. We manage 17 podcasts, not 17 individual shows of mine in regards to just like episodes, 17 different shows that we actively manage. So over at practiceofthepractice.com/network, you can check out all of those shows, all of those that are in the Practice of the Practice podcast network.

Today, we have of an amazing question that I just love. It’s all about diversifying revenue streams and Jeanette from Wise Mind LCSW asks the question about how do I diversify revenue streams? I think this is one of the most important questions that therapists can be asking because most therapists in the world are spending their time showing up doing counseling and then going home and getting paid. If they get sick or their kids are sick, or if they want to go on vacation or take time off, they just don’t make money. So that vacation, instead of costing a couple thousand dollars to go on vacation, then also costs you a whole week of income. So really we want to start with a couple things. So the first thing in regards to diversifying your income is we want to walk through the first method.

The first method is something that I walk through in depth in Thursday is the New Friday. but we want to walk through this whenever we’re looking at increasing our revenue in any way. So first we want to look at the fruit, the low hanging fruit. So what are the things that are easy? What’s already happening? So if we think about, okay, we could expand our counseling practice and add 1099s or W2s, if you haven’t yet done that, it’s super easy to do it. Even if you’re adverse to being a manager or supervisor or big group practice owner, just having a handful of 1099s or W2s can make things so much easier.

I had three 1099s while I was still working my full-time job. So we had four people in my office throughout the whole week, while I was increasing my income during my full-time job. I was working maybe five hours a week there. So I would do probably three counseling sessions and then like do two hours of maybe marketing and writing checks and just building systems. So it’s not something that you need to have 40 hours dedicated to building these group practices.

Also thinking about your clients, what would a step down for them be that you could still make money in? So is it an e-course, is it a group that you run for people that are ready to step down from working as intense with you? Is it a membership community that you offer to go beyond just your area? So say you’re helping parents that have a child that’s on the autism spectrum. Why not start a membership community where people pay 50 bucks a month to have a few webinars and have access to resources and experts? If you get a hundred people, that’s going to be a lot of money that you’re bringing in in addition to it. So where’s that low hanging fruit for the step down?

But then also if someone wanted to step up, if they wanted to do something more intense with you, what kind of intensives could offer, what sort of courses could you offer for people that want to move faster? So you want to always be thinking about if someone wants to work less with me, but still stay connected, what kind of products can I offer there and then stepping up what are products that I can offer there?
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[JOE SANOK]
All right, so in the first method the I is to inflect. So you’re inflecting where you are headed. So when I was writing Thursday is the New Friday and doing the 200 plus media appearances in the lead up to that October 5th release, I studied what New York Times bestselling authors do. 40% of their interview is typically research, 40% of it is storytelling and 20% of it is here’s the main takeaway. They do over 200 media appearances. They hire PR companies. So I’m inflecting and acting how I want to eventually be a New York Times bestselling author. Does that mean that I’m lying saying I am one? No, of course not. I’m not going to do that, but if you show up as an equal to the people that you want to be around, that’s much different.

I know that, as I started to get to know John Lee Dumas or Pat Flynn or Jamie Masters, these people that for years were my idols, I mean, people, I looked up to into the podcasting world when I first started. Then to start to get to know them as people outside of that, it was because I showed up as an equal. I remember Jamie Masters said to me once, “Joe, you are so different than most of my consulting clients. I don’t feel like you look up to me in any way. You’re just here to learn. You feel like an equal.” That was such a compliment because I don’t want to show up and always be below someone else. I want to show up as an equal, even if maybe financially or in my numbers or whatever I’m not yet there, I want to be able to say, I can pull my own weight. So the I’s were going to inflect.

The R of the first model is that we’re going to reinvest. So the way that I view things in regards to diversifying income is when my plate is full with energy and time, that’s when I’m going to start reinvesting in the company to make sure that we have systems and people that can take things off of my plate. So I can aggressively say, why am I doing this? So for example, this whole book tour thing, going on 200 plus media appearances that was a huge push that there was so much that went into that. There’s going to be a lot in my plate in the months afterwards. So then I need to say, what can I hand off to my director of details? What can I hand off to the Sam’s? What do I need to maybe hire new people for? What do we need to eliminate and say that wasn’t a good use of Joe’s time? So taking those things off of my plate to reinvest in the system.

So 2021 has been a huge reinvestment year where we’ve switched from AWeber over to Convert Kit. We’re moving Next Level Practice from just being a Facebook group into a circle, which is a much more robust system and finding those systems that can help us be even more effective and save us time and money that reinvestment then frees up my energy and my time to then put into something bigger. So I’m going to be spending the next three or four months dreaming about post book launch, what’s next for me? Is it continuing to push the book? Maybe. Is it going to be that I just kind of have that more on cruise control and then I go after something bigger, like a TV show or something like that?

I’m going to start to brainstorm and look into what is that next level thing? So for me always thinking about how do I have some gamble that I’m working on that if it works, it’s going to multiply the business by 200%? I’m not talking five or 10%. I’m talking gigantic jumps and if it doesn’t work okay, I’ve wasted some of my time. But all the regular stuff is on my plate. Okay, so that’s the r of the first.

So the S is to specialize, to continue to specialize in deeper and deeper. I mean, you think about, when people pay me for consulting, which depending on the package is usually $1,500 to $2,500 a month to do one-on-one consulting with me, so that level of package people need to feel like, I am a specialist in a particular area. So to continue to grow in my skillset so that it’s worth it, I want people to leave saying, holy crap, I can’t believe he only charged me two grand a month for that. That was insane. That was like drinking out of a fire hose. So being able to over and over and over kind of build that skillset specialize deeper and deeper.

So in the learning I’ve done around launching a book of what it takes to get top level keynotes, what does it take to consult with huge companies like Nissan Infinity, Canada, to go through that process and to specialize more and more helps me continue to level up. So initially it was okay, the average private pay person maybe is making $200 session. So if they’re going to hire me as a consultant to learn how to do private pay, it’s probably going to be at least double that. So $400 to $600 per consulting hour.

Okay, now then we look at, if I’m going to teach people to podcast and to scale and to get to the level where they’re making $20,000 a month in passive or active income, okay, that’s going to be a much higher price point. Now, if we’re talking, you’re going to get a traditionally published book and you’re going to enter into this area in keynote speaking for big companies, we’re going to go national or international that then raises my specialty individual consulting rates over time. So people are getting less and less access to me and paying for that access. So, as you specialize in more and more, you only need a handful of people that say, oh my gosh, I want to work with you because you’re the one stop shop for everything that I need. So the S of first is to specialize.

Then the T is its time limited. These five year goals, I am a different person than I was five years ago. Things from 2021 have hit the fan in my personal life. I am a different person. I think different. I am born again into a new life in so many different ways. So if I had made a five-year goal, I would’ve played way, way too small. So that’s why six month to 12 month goals are so dang important in regards to leveling up and diversifying your income.

So first follow that first method then what we’re going to do is we’re going to follow the methods we talked about from the how to become a consulting podcast that I did years ago. That’s that you’re going to grow a specialty, grow an audience, then grow an income. I walk through the three questions to ask in Thursday is the New Friday. This isn’t just a pitch for that, but it goes so deep into it, that if you first grow your specialty, then you grow your audience, then you grow your income. Instead of saying, I’m going to create this e-course and then squeeze people into it, that’s just not the way to do it, you’re going to start by growing that specialty and that audience, getting that audience, surveying them, talking to them about what they want, and then they will reveal to you exactly what it is that you need to sell them.

In Podcast Launch School, we talk all about that. We talk about it in Next Level Practice. We go through in depth in all those communities.

So those are the very first steps for diversifying your income. So excited that you are hanging out out with me here today. Today’s sponsor is our new sponsor. Blueprinthealth.com/joe is the website. Blueprinthealth.com/joe. So over at Blueprint they help deliver excellent mental healthcare and give clinicians the enhanced client outcomes through the power and promise of digital measurement-based care. It is amazing. You’ve got to check out Blueprint Health over at blueprint-health.com. It’s amazing to see all of the things in telehealth that they’re doing to help people to be more effective in their counseling with their clients. So head on over to blueprinthealth.com.

They are a brand new sponsor of the podcast. I’m so excited about how in the world we’re seeing just the digital access and the tools for therapists to be more effective, better outcomes coming out in digital health through Blueprint. It’s just so amazing. So check them out.

Thank you so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Have a great day. I’ll talk to you soon.

Special thanks to the band Silence is Sexy for your intro music. We really like it. And this podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. This is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.