[ALISON]
You are listening to the Grow a Group Practice podcast. Whether you were thinking about starting a group practice or in the beginning stages, or want to learn how to scale up your already existing group practice, you are in the right place. I’m Alison Pidgeon, your host, a serial entrepreneur with four businesses, one of which is a large group practice that I started in 2015. Each week, I feature a guest or topic that is relevant to group practice owners. Let’s get started.

Hi, I’m so glad you joined me today. Thank you so much for listening. We have a great interview show for you today. I interview Dr. Kathryn Esquer, a Licensed Psychologist, MBA graduate, and founder of the Teletherapist Network, which is a consultation community for the next generation of therapists. In the interview, she’s going to talk about how she came up with the idea and how she created it and a little bit about the logistics of how it works. She’s really passionate about eliminating isolation and burnout in the field of mental health and she really enjoys bringing together forward thinking therapists to achieve big goals in work in life, through the Teletherapist Network. It was so fun to talk to Kathryn and hear about all the things that she did and how she started her business new in the middle of the pandemic and I hope you enjoy this interview with Kathryn Esquer. Hi Kathryn, welcome to the podcast. I’m so happy that you’re joining us today.
[KATHRYN ESQUER]
Thanks Alison. It is wonderful to be here.
[ALISON]
So maybe we could start out by having you introduce yourself. I know you have multiple businesses, so maybe you can tell us about all the things that you do.
[KATHRYN]
Absolutely. So I am Kathryn Esquer, I’m a Licensed Psychologist and I am a recovering business consultant. I actually went to graduate school. I did a dual degree program. I did a Doctorate of Clinical Psychology and it was integrated into a Masters of Business Administration. So I specifically sought this graduate program out because I thought, and I did love working within organizations, large. I specifically worked with healthcare organizations offering organizational consulting, leadership development, executive interventions, those kinds of things. I loved it, but I didn’t necessarily love the lifestyle. The work was right on point for me, but when it time to think about a family and less travel prior to COVID, I decided to pivot my career and I was really grateful that my education allowed me to go back and do another residency or postdoc position in clinical psychology. So now I work full time as a clinical psychologist in my rural hometown of Pennsylvania, which I love serving.

Although consulting work is still my, my first love clinical work is my love of lifestyle. It’s just such a great blend of serving my community, flexible hours and being able to be really present at home. So that’s a little bit about my career trajectory. In the middle of COVID, I was, obviously with everyone else switching to telehealth in the clinical field and even though I had a background in telehealth, I started seeking out extra education in it prior to COVID serendipitously, but when I had to switch, I felt really alone. I didn’t have a lot of colleagues in my area to consult with and so I created the Teletherapist Network, an online clinical consultation community for the next generation of therapists.

We support therapists growth both clinically, professionally, financially, but also creatively. We’re taking a lot of new offers and spins on like you do like creating a podcast or a creative outlet or a marketing outlet, or perhaps starting a blog or a course offering. So really supporting that new generation of therapists who think outside the box in terms of what they want their career in life to look like. I wish I had it when I was in graduate school. So it’s busy, but it’s great.
[ALISON]
Awesome. So what was your, kind of just diving in a little bit to like how you started the Teletherapist Network, like, what was that process like for you or how did you figure out how to do it, because obviously, maybe for you, it was easier because of your business background, but I’m just curious how all of that came to fruition.
[KATHRYN]
That’s actually a great question. I’m not quite sure about this? I went looking for really intimate or close-knit communities specifically for clinical consultation. Last, I would say May and June, so about a year ago I found a lot of great Facebook groups but they were absolutely ginormous and a lot of them didn’t support what would be appropriate clinical consultations. So given that we couldn’t meet in person anymore, I didn’t really have that clinical consult that we are so brought up to seek out when we’re in private practice. In graduate school, we’re told, always have a clinical consultation group, seek out clinical consultation. It’s the best quality control for your clinical services. And here I was and I didn’t have one and I started like shaking my head at myself and saying, “How did I get to this point not having a consultation group.”

So I couldn’t find one out there that didn’t involve a large Facebook group or reserves taking over my inbox, because obviously I’m a member of the APA. And the process of creating the Teletherapist Network was really just looking around and saying there wasn’t something to meet my needs. I was looking for a community where I can actually get to know the other members, not just see their posts, where I can have live events with them, where I can feel confident in the HIPAA-compliance and really secure in this as a community just for therapists, members that are vetted. So when I recognized that there was a need, because I couldn’t find it and I needed it in my practice, I then kind of went about looking for how to create this and I kind of dove into what else was out there in terms of other professions.

There’s a really rate community called the snout school for women in veterinary science and they are a membership community for consultations for business building. They’re just for women in veterinary science and it really kind of inspired me to create something for the mental health field, the mental health clinicians of the next gen. So I am a recovering, also perfectionist, so my process was very much just challenging myself to one stay present in this mission. So every day, just show up in very small ways in the creation of the Teletherapist Network. Just the consistency was one of my first I guess, tenants of creating it. And secondly is progress over perfection, putting things out there into the universe or into the world, into the business space that are not perfect. And I fully admit and embrace that they’re not perfect and being open to change.

So I created an Instagram account with plenty of typos, I’m sure, if you go back to some of my first posts and I just started connecting with other therapists and asking what they needed and what they were looking for, if there were to be a private community for them. And just showing up in perfectly consistently, excuse me, is kind of how I started it. That’s not a step by step formula, but more of a mindset shift for me.
[ALISON]
I think it’s such good advice because a lot of us, I think can be perfectionists and we want to wait until it’s all perfect, but then we never do it because first it’s never going to be perfect. And I found that to be true as well, just taking those little baby steps every day, even if it’s just like 15 minutes of something. That moves the needle forward and is so important. And I think too, when you’re building a community, obviously the people involved want to see that you are being consistent and showing up in doing what you say you’re going to be doing. So yes, I think that’s all super good advice.
[KATHRYN]
Thanks. Yes, and it’s a difficult advice to follow.
[ALISON]
It’s very hard to be consistent.
[KATHRYN]
Yes, consistent and imperfectly consistent.
[ALISON]
Yes. So I’m curious about the platform that you’re using, because obviously, like you said it’s really not appropriate to do clinical consultation in a Facebook group because we all know Facebook is insecure by any means. So how do you kind of manage that with the platform that you picked and that type of thing?
[KATHRYN]
So we use Mighty Networks, which is a software-as-a-service and they provide very breadth and depth of community building platform services. So we host our community. It’s completely secure on Mighty Networks, which means that they create all the infrastructure around creating a really great community experience that facilitates and encourages interactions and relationships among the members, not just knowledge sharing, but actual interactions and discussions. So it’s very much set up like on the surface, sort of like a Facebook group where you have your news feed with posts and polls and discussions, but they also have and support courses and HIPAA-compliant video conferencing integrated into this community so that we can host not only daily discussions with, you know, “Hey the discussion today we had was how many hours of sleep are you getting on a regular basis?”

We do a lot of self-care and holding each other accountable for practicing what we preach and just really fun discussions like that on the network asynchronously. But we also have at least weekly, usually biweekly live meetings with members, whether they be a consultation or we were so lucky to host you on the network last week to share about how to add a VA to your practice. So we do a lot of master classes to fill the gaps of graduate school, for those of us going off to try and start a private practice. And social hours, we aren’t connecting as much as we used to with our colleagues because we’re not in-person. And a lot of us are not in group practices right now. So hosting those social hours over lunch or coffee chime is a great way to just stay connected me.

I mean, it’s so incredible that I went from having colleagues just in central Pennsylvania and my former graduate school classmates to, I feel like I truly have colleagues in California. I have a ton in Texas. I have some over in Europe and I feel comfortable picking their brain about whatever clinical consults I need or even business building or laws or legislation going through in their states or countries. Expanding that social circle of colleagues has been incredible and we do it through this all integrated platform that allows us to connect on a personal and professional level securely.
[ALISON]
That’s great and so important to have that community, especially if you’re in solo practice and isolating, especially now when everybody’s working from home. I’m curious about your experience of using Mighty Networks to run the membership community, because I know there’s other practice owners who are looking to maybe start another business or a side hustle or whatever you want to call it. So do you feel like that’s been a good experience using that for that purpose?
[KATHRYN]
Yes. I absolutely think that the future of our online presence is going to be in these niche or high end communities. Facebook opened the door for community building online, but I think as we begin to be very mindful about where spend our time online or how we spend our time online, I really believe it’s going to be in the interest that we have passions for and the rewarding community environments over the breadth of the community members. So I think that if private practice owners or just people in the mental health field are looking to at side hustle, I really do believe in the future of paid membership communities for any variety of different interests or personal building or practice building. I think it’s going to be in that area. So Mighty Networks I have found to be the most comprehensive and community focused out of all the other platforms out there.

That’s what I really like about it is that the Teletherapist Network and just me in general, I value relationships and connections and networking and social support. And that’s what the primary focus is of Mighty Networks. They have courses, but their courses are not their primary focus. There are other platforms, if a course is your primary focus, but in terms of community building and making connections, Mighty Networks, that is their focus. And I haven’t found any other platforms out there that that is their primary focus. And that is where all of their tech and resources are going to support. They are coming out with new features every quarter. It’s so exciting to have been a part of it for the past year where they have been introducing like hosting of videos. So your videos are now secure in the courses so that they can’t be copied or downloaded.

And just seeing all the new things that they are putting their time, money and energy into to rolling out that we then get to benefit from is incredible. I’m very happy, very happy with Mighty Networks and I think that if you are looking for a membership community, whether it be a professional building community or a mental health support group of sorts where perhaps everyone working on a certain issue can come together, then this is a platform that can support that for you and your ideal clients, which is incredible. And they do have an app, which is also, is really useful to keep your community in your back pocket as well. So web-based and app is really nice.
[ALISON]
Nice.
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[ALISON]
I’m just curious, how long did it take you to get the community launched and what was the response from therapists when you launched it?
[KATHRYN]
Well, I’ll start with the second part. The response was, I launched it in July of 2020, so we were already a couple months into the lockdown pandemic in telehealth and the response was incredible. I opened the doors for two days and got over a hundred applications to join and I had to close it very quickly because like I mentioned, the community’s about quality of connections, not quantity of connections. So we quickly closed the doors so that we can really develop a good sense of culture and getting to know each other. We kept the doors closed until October so that we could really have a solid relationships with each other before bringing new people into the fold, rather than a group where people come and go as they please. It’s very similar to group therapy where you want to have consistency and you want to have reliability of the people you’re interacting with as opposed to people who flight in and flight out. So we really focused on that from July until October.

How I started it was literally, I just started asking colleagues I knew, other psychologists I was in contact with, really anyone who I liked their energy or their vision for what they saw the practice of mental health to look like in the future and just invited them to join. I mean, I maybe should have put more thought in planning into it but like I said, I was challenging myself to show up consistently and imperfectly, even incomplete. So I made bare bones Mighty Networks, I filled in expectations for membership and rules and guidelines, which we are very, very open with and I just invited people to join and let the connections built from there.

We didn’t have any live events at the beginning. We didn’t have any master classes at the beginning. It was all about just bringing together people looking, clinicians, looking for connection from peers. So it really started very, I would say very nothing compared to what we have going now, but there was a need and people embraced it and were willing to give me the grace and the room to grow it into what we needed. It was a really, looking back I guess I haven’t looked back on what we looked like in July of last year. We have a lot of founding members who are still with us and I’m sure that they will tell you it has grown tremendously because our members and myself have been open to growth. We just started somewhere and it wasn’t much, but it was a start. So really embracing that.
[ALISON]
That’s amazing. I wonder too, is the community made to be sort of an ongoing resource? It’s not like you come in for a year and then you’ve sort of done everything you need out of it and then you go? It’s sort of this is just something you’ll always kind of need. Obviously clinical consultation is something you really could be a part of for a long time.
[KATHRYN]
Yes, that’s our goal. I mean, I hate to say it, but the APA does not meet my needs in terms of being a private practitioner. I’m a member of various divisions and that professional organization, I don’t find to support the next generation of clinicians who are online, who are thinking outside the box in terms of different levels of service for their ideal clients. And my goal is to be that professional organization for clinicians looking for something different, looking for more support in what they’re going after, not necessarily the traditional APA, ACA, AMFT. Those organizations serve a different crowd perhaps. So we’re looking to be that ongoing resource where if you have a need, I have created so many different offerings where members have come to me and said, “Hey, I need an EMDR specific consultation group,” and we set it up and make it happen. We’re totally open to serving the members first. I always say I’m a member first and the founder second, because if I need it, then I’m going to make it happen. If another member needs it, we’re going to make it happen because more than likely someone else out there needs it too.
[ALISON]
Yes, and I think, just commenting on what you said earlier about, like, you kind of went looking for this thing and didn’t find it, I mean, I think that’s so smart that, obviously, you have that entrepreneurial mindset of, “Oh, I need this thing. I have this problem I need to be solved. Oh, it doesn’t exist in the marketplace. Oh, I could create it.” And then you actually did, which is good.
[KATHRYN]
Thanks. I will have to say that the lockdown helps because I suddenly had more, I shouldn’t say more free time, but there was definitely more downtime that. And this is a constant struggle for me to able to feel worthy and value within myself while not being productive. I didn’t necessarily feel that. I was trying to overcome feeling, not productive and not bringing enough value in a lot of areas of my life during the lockdown with creating this. So that is my second or third or fourth journey of being able to feel value with sitting and doing nothing, which I did not feel last year.
[ALISON]
Right. Yes, that was quite a shift, I think, for a lot of people. I’m curious how much time you spend, like working on that business as opposed to doing clinical work and do you make a point of spending a lot of time trying to facilitate connections and things within the group or do you kind of look at it as, “I’ve created this space. Now you all have to sort of find your people.”
[KATHRYN]
Ooh, yes, that’s a great question. I would say, so I work on the Teletherapist Network two days a week and then we do a lot of consultations on evening and weekends. So I would say, I probably spend, I don’t know, probably about 20 hours a week working on it. But I shouldn’t say just working on it. I also get a lot of benefit from it. So it’s kind of a blend of being a member and then also working on the business side of it. So 20 hours a week in professional development and business building, I would say. In terms of facilitating connections and that blend of having the members take ownership for their own, seeking out the benefits of the network, I would say I try and walk the fine line of doing a little bit of both.

I really believe that if I over facilitate, I don’t want the members to become, I don’t want the Teletherapist Network to become dependent on me. I am certainly a face of the Teletherapist Network, but I am not the Teletherapist Network. The Teletherapist Network is so much bigger than me, and it is so much more valuable than what I can offer individuals. So I really think of my role as just a facilitator of connections, as opposed to the value deliverer,, if that’s a word. So I love making connections with other members. Personally, I love making connections for myself, so just by naturally being that extrovert and that connector. I remember when certain members are from different states or have certain areas of clinical interests or perhaps have children around the same ages. So when a member asked something and I know another member who maybe hasn’t seen that post yet would be a really good fit for helping this person out I definitely make that connection.

I’m like, “Oh, hey, so, and so. You’re going through a similar transition, any thoughts?” So I make those connections, but from there, it’s really on them to be able to either continue chatting in the forum or make that connection outside the network. I encourage members to, we have a lot of members who realized, oh, like you’re in a town over from me. Let’s get together for coffee. Or now that restrictions are being lifted, like let’s collaborate on different areas of our interest. So the connections extend well, the most rewarding connections extend well beyond just the platform form of Teletherapist Network. And I think that that really is the ownership of the members to make the most of their membership. I’m really confident in the value we can provide, but I can’t get you to, I guess, incur or seek out that value myself. You have to do that on your own.
[ALISON]
Yes, I think that that’s such a nice way of going about it, obviously on both sides, your side, because you don’t want to necessarily be in there every single day kind of facilitating every single interaction and then they probably take more ownership over making those connections too.
[KATHRYN]
Yes.
[ALISON]
Yes, I feel like we try to, we have a couple of different membership communities and we try to do the same thing. We’ve created this space for you and we can help connect people, but ultimately at the end of the day, it’s up to you how much you want to connect with other people and how involved you want to be.
[KATHRYN]
I would highly recommend the book Buzzing Communities by Millington. It’s a really great, it takes a really great approach to community building. I believe it was written in the early 2000s, so it’s quite, it’s a little outdated in terms of what platforms they referenced and whatnot, but the concepts behind creating the connections and the data driven community building process was really helpful for me to have kind of a guidebook of what would be helpful long-term and what would not be helpful long-term.
[ALISON]
Oh, cool. I have not heard of that book and now I want to read it.
[KATHRYN]
It’s a good one. And I am a big numbers person, hence the MBA. So I love being able to use both sides of my brain and looking at numbers to reflect quality of relationships. Obviously it’s not going to capture the whole picture, but having the numbers part of this is really helpful too.
[ALISON]
Yes, for sure. Cool. One thing I’m curious about, if someone else had an idea to start a membership community, obviously, of a different specialty or niche, do you have any advice for them now that you’re almost into it? If they were going to start this year, what would you recommend they do or not do?
[KATHRYN]
Great question. I would recommend you definitely do it. I do think the future of our online time is going to be in these communities. Absolutely do it. Be an early adopter of the community movement. Especially coming out of the pandemic, I think we all recognize how important connection and social support is and we also recognize that we now have the technology to be able to make this connection and social support across time zones and distances like we’ve never before. The pandemic really forced us into doing that and it’s not going to go away. So definitely if you’re thinking about it, start exploring it. I hate to sound like a broken record, but showing up consistently was the biggest thing I did for myself and for the community. There were weeks and months where if you ask my family, I was ready to throw in the towel.

I was saying, this is pointless. I was saying this is not bringing value to anyone. Why am I even wasting 20 to 30 hours a week on this? And my family really supported me and just, “Hey, take a break for the rest of the day, take a break today and just show up again tomorrow. Just keep showing up.” And it was a big learning curve and it was also a big expectation curve. I expected after our initial push for membership, a hundred people in two days, then I was expecting this to grow rapidly. And it did not when we closed the doors and then opened again in October. It was really a difficult expectation shift for me, but I knew deep down that the quality over the quantity is where it was at.

So forcing myself to, of let go of those expectations of growth and profitability over the first year, and just focus on the outcomes of rewarding relationships and connections and consultations was really difficult. And just forcing myself to keep showing up was how I did that. So I would say get your expectations and maybe lower them a little bit or shift them a little bit. Focus on the outcomes as opposed to the profitability at first. What’s the transformation you’re looking for your members and focus on that before you focus on profitability, because if you create value, the finances will follow, the profitability will follow. So giving yourself grace to make mistakes and showing up every day in small ways is going to to be where it’s at when building a community. It’s still a challenge for me to do that every day but I’m so grateful I hung in there and stuck with it and I give myself grace to make tons of mistakes every day. So it’s been a professional journey, but it’s also been so such a personal journey. I think of who I was last year and who I am this year and it really has shaped a different outlook on myself.
[ALISON]
I feel like owning a business always does that to you. I feel like it’s always amazing how it affects you. You know it’s going to affect you professionally, but you don’t realize how it’s going to. It’s going to affect you personally as well. Very cool. So I know you have a giveaway for our audience. Do you want to talk?
[KATHRYN]
Sure. If any of you are listening and are saying, I want to join the Teletherapist Network, which I would love for you to join. We are going to give you 50% off your first month using the code Alison A-L-I-S-O-N]. You can use that code and join us on the Teletherapist Network, by going to wwwteletherapistnetwork.com. You can see all we do there, all of our consultations, our master classes, our book club, we have a lot of fun stuff going on there and we would love for you to join us.
[ALISON]
Awesome. Thank you so much.
[KATHRYN]
Yes, of course.
[ALISON]
So what is the best way for people to get a hold of you if they have questions? Should they go to that website or do you want to give us your email?
[KATHRYN]
Yes, well, so our website is a great starting point, and if you still have questions, definitely reach out to me. My email is kathryn K-A-T-H-R-Y-N @teletherapistnetwork.com [[email protected]. We’re also super active on Instagram. Our handle is teletherapist.network and you can connect with me. I’m always available on Instagram throughout the day. I love it. And I’m always making connections inside and outside the network. So I would love to hear from you.
[ALISON]
Awesome. I saw that you liked some of my stuff yesterday.
[KATHRYN]
Yes, those flowers looked gorgeous from your backyard.
[ALISON]
Yes. I’m trying to be more active on Instagram. I don’t know why I always kind of forget about it, but, and then yes, but anyway, thanks for liking my post.
[KATHRYN]
I would like to like your backyard. It sounds gorgeous or it looks gorgeous.
[ALISON]
Well, thank you so much, Kathryn, for taking the time to talk with us today. I really appreciate it.
[KATHRYN]
Absolutely. This was great. And thanks for, I guess, encouraging me just to reflect on my own journey over the past year. I haven’t had a chance to, so this was really great for me.
[ALISON]
Thank so much again to Brighter Vision for being our sponsor this week. They are having their special fall into cash event. Definitely check that out over at their website, brightervision.com. And if you want to get the promotional offer they’re running right now to get a new website for only $49 a month for the whole first year, go to the special link they’ve set up for us, brightervision.com/joe.

If you are looking to join a community of like-minded group practice owners, be sure to check out Group Practice Boss, our member community for practice owners who want support and help with making their practice even better. You can check out our page at www.practiceofthepractice.com/grouppracticeboss.

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This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. This is given with the understanding that neither the host, Practice of the Practice, or the guests are providing legal, mental health, or other professional information. If you need a professional, you should find one.