Meet Aleta Storch

[00:00:00] Linzy: They like you and you want the people who like you a lot to pay money to actually get the full help that you’re offering inside the membership. So Aleta, what are you noticing with this approach?

[00:00:12] Aleta: I definitely feel a little less overwhelmed and anxious in just kind of like that screw it mentality. It feels less like a Hail Mary, and more just like first steps.

[00:00:22] Linzy: Welcome to the Money Skills for Therapists podcast, where we answer this question: how can therapists and health practitioners go from money, shame and confusion to feeling calm and confident about their finances and get money really working for them in both their private practice and their lives? I’m your host, Linzy Bonham, therapist turned money coach, and creator of the course Money Skills for Therapists.

[00:00:49] Hello, and welcome back to the podcast. So today we have a coaching episode with a grad of the first round of Money Skills for Group Practice Owners, Aleta Storch. Aleta is an anti-diet dietician, therapist, and a certified body trust provider. She specializes in providing anti-diet value-centered body liberation work to folks who have disordered eating, a history of dieting, autoimmune conditions, and or ADHD.

[00:01:15] She also has an online membership community, Nourished, to support these folks, and today we get into a conversation about this bind that Aleta feels that I think a lot of us have been in before where it’s like you want to be investing in your business beyond the one-to-one work that she does.

[00:01:32] She wants to be investing in her membership community, but also her one-to-one work is how she makes money. So how do you shift into investing in the membership site, in her case, and having the energy to grow the membership site when her energy is going towards the one-to-one work. So we dig into this question today.

[00:01:52] The conversation takes a little bit of a turn. We end up talking about ways that are within reach even right now that she has to make money without investing, and we talk about where we can fall into the trap of wanting to invest. Lots of ground we covered today. Here is my conversation with Aleta Storch.

[00:02:24] Linzy: So Aleta, welcome to the podcast.

[00:02:26] Aleta: Hello, so happy to be here.

[00:02:28] Linzy: So happy to have you here. We were just chatting off mic about how it’s so nice to see each other again, cause it’s been a little while, like three, four months now, since we worked together in Money Skills for Group Practice Owners… I know! So it’s nice to be able to reconnect, and I’m excited to hear where you’re at and what’s going on in your business, during our conversation today.

[00:02:48] Aleta: Yeah, yeah, thanks for having me. I loved that program so much, and I’ve just been missing it.

[00:02:52] Linzy: Yes. Awesome. Okay. So, for today, what would you like to dig into during our coaching episode?

[00:02:59] Aleta: So I… just like thinking about my business structure, one of my offers is one-to-one services. But I am feeling really burnt out on that. And so I’ve really, in the last year, I’ve been focusing on offering a group membership program, so that I can have a wider reach and it’s more affordable.

[00:03:18] And so now that I have my financial picture a little more worked out, thanks to that program, I feel like I can put a little more time and energy into building this program. And I do feel like it could be really lucrative and could open a lot of doors for doing other things.

[00:03:34] But I’m in this place where I’m feeling stuck because if I see fewer clients, then I’m not bringing in as much money. And if I don’t have money to invest, then I can’t grow the program. And it just feels like this vicious cycle of what do I do with that?

[00:03:50] Linzy: Mm hmm. Yes. Okay. So, I mean, my first question is when you’re thinking about growing the program, what specifically are you thinking about investing in?

[00:03:58] What do you need money for?

[00:04:00] Aleta: Yeah, and maybe that’s part of where I’m feeling stuck is I’ve never been in a position where I’ve had money to think about investing, and so I’ve never really thought it through.

[00:04:12] But I know I need more help. I’m working way too many hours. I’m exhausted. I have a practice manager, and she’s really lovely, but she’s not like a marketer.

[00:04:22] She doesn’t really have that knowledge or skill set. So I think more support around the back end of things like funnel building and advertisements, marketing, and then also, do I even invest in advertisements? Do I need that? Yeah, just the stuff I’m not good at and don’t really like doing.

[00:04:41] Linzy: Okay, yes, because you have administrative support for the group practice side of things, so that is taken care of, but yeah, like all these other skills that are not your area that you’re looking for support with. Yeah, because that’s the first thing I was curious is are you looking to bring somebody on board?

[00:04:56] Are you looking to learn these things yourself? Hahaha.

[00:05:02] Aleta: I’ve tried learning, and I just, yeah, I don’t have enough hours in the day. I can’t pay myself enough to do all of those things, right, so…

[00:05:10] Linzy: yeah. Cause do you have specific strategies that you’re thinking about trying to grow your membership site? Are you thinking about Facebook ads? Are you thinking about social media? What are you thinking about?

[00:05:21] Aleta: Yes. Yes. So right now we mostly do Instagram. I have a Facebook group that has quite a few members. It’s pretty active. And I feel like that’s something that we could harness, to create more interest in the membership. But again, like I just… I don’t have the time and resources to do it. And so I think that would be a really good place to focus.

[00:05:44] And then email. Like the email audience I think would be another really great place.

[00:05:49] Linzy: How much are you selling the membership? Like how often are people hearing about it and getting the opportunity to join?

[00:05:55] Aleta: Yeah. So Marcy sends out, once a month she sends out the calendar with an invitation. And then, partly through the month, she’ll send out an announcement for, we do like guest workshops. So that’s like another opportunity in email. And then inconsistently we post in the Facebook group.

[00:06:11] Like if someone has a question, right, we’ll say Oh, this would be really great to bring to the Nourished program. And then on Instagram, again, just here and there, and in stories.

[00:06:21] Linzy: Do you launch?

[00:06:23] Aleta: We did initially. I guess, yeah, do you mean, because it’s like an evergreen program…

[00:06:28] Linzy: Yeah, Yeah. But do you do… Do you ever do like big sales where everybody knows the difference? Okay. Tell me about the face you just made.

[00:06:34] Aleta: Because that feels really overwhelming, right? Because I had a three month group program before this, and I loved it. Yeah, it went decent every time I launched, but it was so exhausting, and so the idea of putting together, right, a funnel, and like, all of the materials, it feels like too much, so I just have popped it out, I guess.

[00:06:55] Linzy: Okay. Yes. And it is a big project. There’s no question about that. you can build evergreen funnels that like, give folks the experience of being launched to with all of the emails and videos and all that stuff. automated, but you have to build out that structure.

[00:07:09] It’s a project. It’s a project I’ve done several times in my own business. And yeah, it definitely is quite consuming. I guess as I’m thinking about this, Aleta, like I’m hearing there’s dietetics work that you do, right? Like your direct work that you’re doing with clients. There’s the membership site that you wanna grow, but marketing is clearly not your first love.

[00:07:31] You would be very happy to outsource it. I guess Something that I’m curious about is like, how big do you want the membership site to be? Like what do you want your days to look like? what do you want the balance between this one-on-one and your membership to be?

[00:07:42] Aleta: Yeah. Yeah. That’s a great question. I would love to get down to a maximum of five clients a week. And then be able to spend like the rest of my time on content creation and community engagement, and connecting with people who could potentially do workshops. And that’s where I find the best.

[00:08:02] I feel really energized working on that community. But after seeing four clients in a row, there’s just no, no energy left, nothing left to give.

[00:08:13] Linzy: Yes. I’m hearing that kind of teaching work is very energizing for you.

[00:08:18] Aleta: Yeah.

[00:08:19] Linzy: Yeah. And as you say, it does feel like a bit of a bind when we’re trying to make a shift like this, because it’s like, you need to make money to pay people to help you.

[00:08:26] But you also, if you’re working so hard, then you don’t have any bandwidth to actually work on it. So, something that I’m thinking about for this in part… I guess there’s two ways that we could think about this. One is what could a runway look like for you where you’re working? Maybe your days don’t change very much in terms of your one on one work, but you are working towards a goal.

[00:08:45] There’s money that’s being put aside for a reason, for a specific plan. That’s one version, which is where you’re planning to make a change. The other way to deal with this would be to start to make incremental change and starting next week, you’re starting to open up more space.

[00:09:02] What makes more sense for you and what you need?

[00:09:04] I feel more drawn to the second one. Just because I feel like, again, like so much excitement about the program. Yeah, and following that energy and that spark. And that’s certainly what I have found is like when you’re excited about something, it is easier to do that work. Like the work has more levity to it. So if we think about this piece then, because what I am hearing is the equation that’s in your head is like,you’re not going to work, but you’re going to need money.

[00:09:28] And I think part of what I’m curious about is is there like a middle road here where at first you start taking your time, and applying your time to marketing. And this is why I was asking about selling because something that I notice about the kind of program you’re talking about which is like a membership, and you’ve had a course before, and that’s a very similar business model to my own is like you can do all the marketing in the world actually, but if you’re not selling, nobody has the chance to buy.

[00:09:51] And if you’re not selling enough that people actually hear about it… Because we always think we’re annoying people, right? Like it’s easy for us to be like, Oh, but they already hear about this, like once a month. But if you think about how often people actually open your email, if you think about how busy they are, if you think about how often people are like, “Oh yeah, I do want to join Aleta’s membership.”

[00:10:07] And then they got distracted, and then they like walk off and like never come back, which I think also for your audience is going to be particularly relevant… Sometimes we have to be waving the flag to say “Hey, I have this great thing!” a lot more often than we might want to at first for anybody to even actually hear your message.

[00:10:25] Right. And it does make me wonder, are there ways that you can be selling to start to generate more money to feed the membership business thatwork, or that you know how to do already that you wouldn’t be creating something from scratch.

[00:10:39] Aleta: I guess I’m confused about the difference between selling and marketing.

[00:10:42] Linzy: So marketing is like great content. Like I’m Aleta. I teach eating for folks with ADHD. Here’s some great tips for you. It’s like giving folks value. It’s building your brand. And so people know who you are, right? That’s marketing, right? It’s creating awareness. Selling is you have until Friday to buy the course.

[00:11:01] Here’s why you should buy it now. Come join the course. The way that I can really help you is if you’re in the membership or the course. That is selling. Like selling is where you’re actually asking somebody to make a decision. Do you want to buy or not right now?

[00:11:15] Aleta: Yes. Yeah. And I think we don’t have a lot of creativity with that. it’s repetitive and yeah, I don’t think we’re doing a good job with that part.

[00:11:25] Linzy: Yes, that selling piece like I’ll share with you like I have a business friend who has a similar size audience to what I have. We have similar size email lists. We have similar size Instagrams. I think I actually did a bigger audience than her. She’s making a lot more money than me because she sells all the fucking time.

[00:11:42] She’s always selling. She’s willing to do that right, and like I don’t love the work. And so it’s something that I find I like to spread out my like times when I’m really like, “Hey, the doors are open. Come join Money Skills for Therapists, or come join Money Skills for Group Practice Owners. She launches every single month.

[00:11:57] Every month she does some sort of event, like a five day workshop series, like some sort of… Yeah, something where folks get value, but then they also get the opportunity to join her course. And there’s some sort of urgency, some reason to join right now, like a discount or a bonus or…

[00:12:10] And, doing that, her business is now at $700,000 a year. She has a smaller team than I do. She has a smaller audience, but she’s just willing to sell. Right? And because she sells. People who are interested get a chance to buy, right? And I’m curious about, if you are going to start selling a little bit more, or bring a little bit of the spark that you have for teaching to selling, if there’s folks in your audience who are already waiting to join your course who’ve just, not gotten the message that, they can join now, and this is why they should join now and not wait till the summer or not wait

[00:12:43] till the fall. Yeah. Like, how do you prompt people to get in the door?

[00:12:45] Aleta: Yeah. Right. Yeah, that makes me think about, over the last six months, we’ve talked about raising the price because there’s so many more resources available, and so using that as a push: get in now, lock in your price. And then we are experimenting with something where I’m doing, a free webinar, or a free workshop, and I am afraid that we’re not going to leverage that in a way that is going to create more revenue.

[00:13:12] Linzy: And so if you’re afraid you’re not going to leverage it, how can you leverage it? How can you turn this event that you’re already excited about into an opportunity for folks to like actually work with you and actually get the full help that you can provide for them? How do you make it a funnel?

[00:13:26] Aleta: As you were talking, a light bulb went off where I was thinking, would it make sense for people who attend the workshop to maybe get a discount on their first month or, have some kind of incentive after offering them free knowledge and support, just to keep that momentum up, and that wouldn’t require that much the back end.

[00:13:47] Linzy: Basically you need to think about how can you pitch people at the end, right? And this can be really uncomfortable and I’m sure for a lot of folks listening like a lot of therapists and health practitioners that are like,

[00:13:55] [panting breath]. Because like selling is like not what we do, but like a phrase that I do find helpful to remind myself of is “selling is helping.”

[00:14:04] Because if you don’t sell, if somebody doesn’t buy the thing that you actually do that helps them, then they’re not actually getting the help that you have to offer, right? It’s like we think we’re doing them a favor by being small and not bothering them and not being annoying, but like you know the effect that your membership has on people and like just to ground yourself in that, what do you see happening for folks who are in your membership community?

[00:14:26] What’s the value that they’re getting out of being there?

[00:14:29] Aleta: Yeah. I mean, I think just, feeling seen and heard and having a safe space where people can show up with a neurodivergent brain and not have to mask, and then also a space where we’re not talking about diets and we’re not… Right, like talking about body sizes and it’s, yeah, it’s just a very like safe community, and I think that’s helpful for people.

[00:14:49] Linzy: Absolutely. Safe community is very valuable, and many people don’t have that.

[00:14:54] Aleta: Right. Yeah.

[00:14:56] Linzy: So if you think about that, like that value that you’re giving folks, because I’m sure you’re also giving them a lot of information as well, and like all these other things you take for granted because this is your zone of genius… I’m sure if I joined your community I would learn a ton of things that I don’t know…

[00:15:09] Aleta: Right, that’s right. Yeah, that is true.

[00:15:11] Linzy: Yeah, just to flesh out that other part of what you offer.

[00:15:13] It’s not just a cuddle puddle. It is actually education that they’re getting. If you think about that, can you use that to help you actually make sure that people know they should join you in there, that it’s worth it for them to pay what is the membership price right now?

[00:15:30] Aleta: It’s only $57 a month.

[00:15:32] Linzy: Okay, that they should pay $57, are you thinking about increasing that to a specific number?

[00:15:37] Aleta: Yes, and I don’t know where to start. I feel like I should know… But I don’t know what makes sense or kind of where to start with that.

[00:15:47] Linzy: Yes. And with pricing, like there’s a lot of pieces that go into pricing. There’s always going to be this kind of element of price elasticity is what they call it, where as you raise your price at first, like if your sales stay about the same, you’re going to be making more money, but then there’s going to be a certain price where less people buy, and you’re like evening out because you’re making more high value sales, but less sales. Like there’s some play and experimentation to happen there, but like something that makes me think about is this saying that I heard recently, which is a ship in motion can change course, right? But it’s getting in motion is very hard, right? So it’s like you do have a ship in motion, but I think it’s like a little slow right now because I think you’re a bit afraid, maybe, to like really be like, “Hey, get on my boat!”

[00:16:30] Aleta: Yep. Yes.

[00:16:31] Linzy: To extend the metaphor in a way that it’s not meant to go. But it’s if you do this launch, do you want to sell at 57? Do you want to try a different price and see, or do you just… What’s your priority right now? Is it to get folks in the door, or is it to test a new price?

[00:16:46] Aleta: I think it’s probably to get people in the door because members, yeah… there just hasn’t been a lot of movement in number of members.

[00:16:55] Linzy: Get that energy flowing. Beautiful.

[00:16:57] Aleta: Yeah.

[00:16:57] Linzy: Then it’s thinking about, with this workshop that you’re already planning, and I don’t think you actually need to pay somebody to do this. You can. We’ll talk about that in a minute. But you already are creating this event where there’s going to be this energy.

[00:17:08] Folks are going to get value from you. They’re going to, like, get a sense of your vibe. They’re going to see how you teach. They’re going to feel seen and heard. At the end, how do you want to be inviting them into the membership? What could that look like that is a natural,

[00:17:22] And next, if you want more from me…

[00:17:24] Aleta: Right.

[00:17:25] Linzy: Do you do an email launch?

[00:17:27] Are you going to announce it on the webinar? Do you want to give them a reason to join now? You mentioned maybe a discount, maybe… sometimes people will join now and your first three months is only this much money… what makes sense to you knowing what tends to work for your folks?

[00:17:41] Aleta: Yeah. And maybe a mix of all 3, right. Just like with ADHD, multiple exposures.

[00:17:46] Linzy: Just hit all the buttons.

[00:17:47] Aleta: Yeah, talking about it, right, on the webinar saying, you’re going to get an email with the discount code. Here it is as well now. If you want to, if you have that impulsivity and you want to do it now, and…

[00:17:57] Linzy: Maybe don’t say it quite like that, but yes.

[00:17:58] Aleta: Right, right.

[00:17:59] Totally. Yeah.

[00:18:00] Linzy: Don’t pathologize it while you’re talking about it, haha.

[00:18:02] Aleta: Let’s be impulsive. Go with your gut.

[00:18:06] Linzy: Yes.

[00:18:07] Aleta: Yeah. And then following up maybe with multiple emails. And I think right now I just have one that’s set up after that doesn’t have a discount code. It’s just: Come join the community. Cool. And that’s it. And I wonder if maybe even sharing an experience or two from some of our members about what’s been helpful. Yeah. And why.

[00:18:27] Linzy: Yeah. I think if you’re going to do, is it going to be just a one time workshop, or is it a series?

[00:18:32] Aleta: We’re testing it out.. yeah. So right now it’s just one. We’ll see what happens.

[00:18:36] Linzy: So it’s one workshop. You do your best; you teach your heart out. Right. and then at the end you segue into I want to tell you more about how I help people with this long term. This is my community. I’m really proud of it. This is the kind of experience that people get out of it.

[00:18:50] This is what this person shares. This is what this person shares. This is what it includes. And because you’ve been here for this workshop, and you’re part of my community, and you’re going to know if this is, I really want to make it a no brainer for you to keep doing this work together, and making real change in your relationship.

[00:19:03] Here’s a discount code. If you use it by next Friday, you save this much money.

[00:19:07] Aleta: Mhm.

[00:19:07] Linzy: I cannot wait to continue this work with you. I’ll see you inside the community. You’re going to be hearing about this over email. Like, when I say this, I’m making this up, but you get what I’m saying. How does it feel in your body if you think about selling as helping?

[00:19:20] Like really owning the value and like really putting out that value to the folks who are at that workshop?

[00:19:26] Aleta: It feels really good. It feels less like slimy, I guess, when it is, yeah, here’s what I offer, and like you’ve actually seen it, and felt it and experienced it. 

[00:19:37] Linzy: I always feel great when I’m selling and I know that I’ve just like given something really valuable, like that there’s no question. And like I also like selling when somebody’s had a real experience of me because I don’t want somebody to join my community who’s like I don’t like her face or we have totally different politics, and like she’s grating and terrible. You want it to be the right fit, and you’re giving them an opportunity to actually get an experience of working with you and knowing if they want to keep working with you, right? Which is like a beautiful kind of gift and also almost like an assessment session that you’ve had together.

[00:20:09] And then they get to decide if they want to keep going, and you’re going to make it easy for them to keep going.

[00:20:14] Aleta: Those are the people we want in the community as well, like people who are going to show up, who are excited.

[00:20:18] Linzy: Yes. So we had started talking about investing, and putting into the business. So, and you had talked about wanting to take this road kind of gradually, putting more energy towards this other business. So I’m curious, Aleta, like if you think about the work that it’s going to take to build out this pitch for the end of the funnel, build out some emails, think about what is going to be the best offer to create some like real urgency so people are really getting rewarded for making like a decision.

[00:20:45] How much time do you think you need to build out this extra part to the workshop that you’re already planning to do?

[00:20:51] Aleta: Yeah. Some of it’s already done, which is really helpful. I think even if I just spent like a couple hours a week… It’s on the 28th, so three weeks away… I mean I feel like in six hours I should be able to get a lot done. yeah, and then I also do have, right, the help of Marcy, and so maybe figuring out that I can delegate.

[00:21:12] Linzy: Making a project. Do you have a project management tool for your team?

[00:21:19] Aleta: We just meet once a week and kind of make a checklist for each of us. Yeah.

[00:21:24] Linzy: So I would think about I mean, for us, when we do a launch, when we’re selling like this, we have a pretty visual team. So I always make a schema of: they start here, they come to the webinar.

[00:21:32] Then from there, they get five emails and all of the emails lead with little arrows to the sales card that has the special code. And it just helps my team, like us all, to visualize and understand. Also, who’s building what, like what color code things, too, of this is your thing, this is my thing, So like just, with Marcy, working together to think about what exactly are we building, focusing on building that thing, because something that I will reflect to you is this is something that is essentially free for you to do, right?

[00:22:00] Like you already have a cart tool, I’m sure, that you use, and you already have a course, or a membership, I should say, you already have a membership.So what you are giving up, so to speak, is a couple hours of time. Do you think… do you need to give up session time for this? Or is there like administrative time?

[00:22:15] Aleta: No, probably not. And yeah, I mean, there are probably things that I’m doing that aren’t as urgent, or aren’t maybe moving me towards, right, that kind of growth that could wait.

[00:22:27] Linzy: What would be your goal for sales coming out of this workshop?

[00:22:31] Aleta: Like number wise? Or, ooh, that’s a good question.

[00:22:35] I would love even to get like minimum of 10 new members would be amazing. Yeah. Right now I think we, we have 17 paying members.

[00:22:49] Linzy: Okay. Great.

[00:22:50] 10 new members, you’d be growing your team.

[00:22:52] Aleta: I don’t know if that’s a lofty goal…

[00:22:52] Linzy: Yeah, well, you’d be growing your community by almost a third. So something to consider is how many folks do you need to show up live to the webinar, thinking about realistically how many people will jump from there into the course.

[00:23:07] And then from there you can build backwards, right? If I need to have this many people show up live, and generally speaking, 50 percent of people tend to show up to an event that they book for, that’s my experience, maybe even a little less, then how many people do I need to get to register?

[00:23:19] And then you can actually start working towards, using the metrics

[00:23:23] Aleta: I have that sheet that you [gave in the course], those metric skills, which has been so helpful!

[00:23:26] Linzy: Yes, right, because now you can actually quantify it to be like, okay, our goal is because we want to make 10 sales, and we think that maybe we’ll be able to make 20 percent of people who join the webinar will buy, right?

[00:23:39] That means that you need to have 50 people join the webinar. to have 10 people by, right? So how many people do you need to have sign up for the event?

[00:23:49] Aleta: I need a hundred.

[00:23:50] Linzy: A hundred. Yeah. A hundred people to sign up. And then it’s okay, what actions do you have to make to get a hundred people to sign up for this workshop?

[00:23:58] Right? And like with that you have a goal to work towards. So it’s: send an email. Okay, that email got seven people. Okay, let’s make a Facebook post. Okay, that got two people. Let’s make another Facebook post, right? It’s like… it really is like something that now you have an actionable goal… or a goal to action towards, I should say.

[00:24:13] And then you get to also experiment and be curious. What gets us the biggest impact? Where do our people sign up from? What kind of language resonates the most with them? Is it about urgency? Is it when we talk about pain points? Is it when we talk about the picture on the other side, the pleasure picture, right?

[00:24:27] Like the transformation. What gets them the most excited? What do they respond to?

[00:24:31] Aleta: Yeah. That’s super helpful to think about. I don’t need to put a ton of money and investment in immediately. It might be helpful to try some things first and then use that information to put money where it’s going to have the most return.

[00:24:47] Linzy: Because I think sometimes when we… When we want to spend, but we don’t actually know what we want to do yet, sometimes I think it’s an impulse. We want to buy our pain away.

[00:24:56] It’s well, if I put money towards this, then I’m fixing it. Right. But if we don’t actually have a strategy, and we don’t know exactly what we’re doing and why?

[00:25:04] Then we can end up just throwing money in a pit.

[00:25:07] Aleta: Yes, which has been historically my experience, for sure.

[00:25:12] Linzy: And What I have found with business in general, but certainly with this kind of thing like marketing and selling is like I said, a ship in motion can change course, right? But you have to get in motion.

[00:25:21] So it’s kind of like that fail fast, do something, and you’re like, cool. That got me literally zero signups. Okay, so what was that about? Was it like the wrong time of day? Was that subject line really boring? Did people even open that email? But it’s only when you take action that you start to get information that you can use to inform your strategy,

[00:25:39] to let you know what actually works for your audience, right?

[00:25:41] And most of the time, nobody notices what you’re doing anyways.

[00:25:45] The internet is a loud place, right? Like their inbox is super crowded. So if you get an email and nobody opens it, it actually just means they didn’t even realize that you sent them an email. So send them another email.

[00:25:56] Aleta: Right. Right. Make it more fun to open. Yeah.

[00:26:01] Linzy: Yeah. That’s it. Right? Like it’s data. And I’m curious… Can you take that attitude that we talked about, like in, Money Skills for Group Practice Owners of taking it in as data? Could that help you in this project?

[00:26:11] Aleta: Yes. Yeah. Definitely. Rather than this is the be all and end all. If this doesn’t work, then, I’m screwed.

[00:26:18] Linzy: Yes.

[00:26:19] Aleta: Yeah, which I think is how I have been approaching it.

[00:26:21] Linzy: And that is like something that…

[00:26:23] Aleta: An experiment.

[00:26:24] Linzy: Something that my very first coach, when I built my online sales funnel, which I’ve had for five years now, that’s something that she talked about that stuck with me upfront. And it’s helpful for therapists to hear, even though it’s like, this is the kind of thing we help other people with all the time, right?

[00:26:38] But she was like, it’s not about you. You can’t make it a story about yourself. If you do a launch and nobody buys, if you do an ad and somebody says something mean about you, if you put something out there and nobody cares, like it’s just data. And if you can put it on a spreadsheet

[00:26:52] even, and treat it like data, it’s even better because then you start to be able to also collect those things that work, right? But it’s only when we’re in action that we can get feedback. And what I’m wondering as I said, with you, I wonder if you’ve got a bunch of people who want to buy. They just haven’t been given enough urgency to buy or enough of like a notice to realize oh now is a good time to buy,

[00:27:13] but they’re waiting because you’ve already done a lot of work of building a community and audience. And I don’t think it takes a lot of people to get you 10 new members.

[00:27:20] Aleta: I hope not.

[00:27:22] Linzy: But you’ve got to give them the chance.

[00:27:24] Aleta: Yeah, that is true. And just like getting out in front of them and… Yeah.

[00:27:27] Linzy: Yes. They like you. They like you, and you want the people who like you a lot to pay money to actually get the full help that you’re offering inside the membership.

[00:27:35] Aleta: Totally. Totally.

[00:27:37] Linzy: So Aleta, what are you noticing with this approach?

[00:27:41] Aleta: I definitely feel a little less overwhelmed and anxious in just that screw it mentality. It feels less like a Hail Mary and more just like first steps. So that feels really good. And I feel like I have, yeah, kind of like a clear… next steps forward, I guess, of what I’m actually doing.

[00:27:59] What needs to happen?

[00:28:01] Linzy: I’m curious in terms of mindset, like what would be helpful for you to remind yourself of or what is the belief that you need to hold to be able to do these things that are not natural for you at this point?

[00:28:12] Aleta: Yeah, I mean, I think, what you were saying, right? if I don’t put it out there, like I’m doing a disservice in a way, that it’s not annoying to share what I have to offer with people. And if they don’t like me, they can unfollow or unsubscribe. 

[00:28:32] Linzy: Exactly. Yeah. Like your program changes people’s lives, right? And you need to do the service of letting them know that it is available for them. Because what you’ve built is also so specific, it’s so niche that for the folks who are fit, they’re going to be like, “Oh, thank God I’m here.”

[00:28:42] Right? And that is like a real gift that you don’t want to be denying people who are going to be the right people for your program.

[00:28:48] Aleta: Totally. Totally. Yeah, so helpful. Thank you.

[00:28:52] Linzy: Welcome. Thank you. Thanks, Aleta, for coming on the podcast. 

[00:29:10] Linzy: The conversation with Aleta brings up for me something that I see a lot and I feel in myself, too, which is where we have a pain point in our business. And so we just want to make it go away by spending money. I think we all do this to some extent. I know I certainly do. And I have a lot of students who come through Money Skills for Therapists who identify as course junkies, who are just constantly signing up in that case for training, constantly wanting to do training for how to use Instagram, and do training on this new modality, and do training on, I don’t know, supervision.

[00:29:41] And constantly doing these things and putting money out, and it can feel like spending money is an action in itself because after all we’re investing when we’re spending money, but we’re only investing if we’re actually doing something that is strategic and that we’re actually going to have the energy to put in to get the value out of, and especially when we’re spending money on outsourcing, as Aleta was thinking about doing, we want to make sure that we’re actually making an investment and not just spending money to try to make a problem go away, right?

[00:30:09] And in this case, as we dug into it with Aleta, my sense is that she has a community, and from knowing her, I know that she has a community that she’s built. She’s like really honed an area of expertise and there’s probably low hanging fruit right there of opportunities to make money and grow her membership site without actually paying somebody else to do anything because she already knows how to sell.

[00:30:32] It’s just putting the energy in, and collecting the data, and those pieces that we were talking about towards the end. So I’m very excited, to hear from Aleta how her launch goes, and, yeah, just to have her taking action, and that’s what we all need to do is it’s very tempting sometimes to pay somebody else or to want to kind of sit

[00:30:49] on our hands around the things that are uncomfortable. But, as we talked about, it’s in taking action that we actually learn what works and learn what doesn’t, and figure out how to actually make the business work and build the business that we want. We do that through action. You can follow me on Instagram at Money Nuts and Bolts.

[00:31:05] And if you’re enjoying the podcast, please take a few minutes to leave a review on Apple Podcast. It’s really, really helpful. It gives folks a sense of what the podcast is about, gives them a sense of the vibe. And it’s the best way for other therapists and health practitioners to learn about the podcast and be part of these conversations.

[00:31:21] Thanks for listening today.