Perry: In this episode of the therapist experience, I’m speaking with Margaret Thompson from the Salt Lake Marital And Family Therapy Clinic. This is The Therapist Experience episode number 12. Welcome to The Therapist Experience. The podcast where we interview successful therapists about what it’s really like growing a private practice. I’m Perry Rosenbloom, the founder of Brighter Vision, and I’m excited to introduce our guest today Margaret Thompson from the Salt Lake Marital And Family Therapy Clinic. Margaret, are you prepared to share your therapist experience?

Margaret: Oh, I’m really looking forward to it. I’m just really excited to be here.

Perry: Awesome Margaret. We love the enthusiasm and we’re so excited to have you on the show here. Margaret is a licensed clinical social worker and has been in private practice since 1980. She has always worked in a group practice and at one time operated four clinic sites with over 15 clinicians. Margaret’s initial specialty was eating disorders, then child and family therapy, and now couples. She has taught at her local graduate school and has trained hundreds of newly graduated therapists. She has a great deal of expertise at blending the clinical and business aspects of a therapy practice. And she currently offers training for therapists who want to incorporate an attachment based relationship focused therapy approach into their practice. Margaret, I gave a little overview of you there but why don’t you take a minute and fill in the gaps from that intro, and tell us a little bit more about you personally and about your practice?

Margaret: Well, I’ll tell you a little bit about how I ended up specializing in couples. I had worked with children and families and always been trained in attachment to theory in therapy. But it became very frustrating because so many of the clients who were calling for appointments really didn’t want therapy anymore. They wanted some kind of litigation comment so that they can bring to court for a divorce or a custody situation. And almost always it ended up in some kind of adversarial position with one parent or the other. So I thought this just isn’t therapy anymore. And I hadn’t really specialized in couples. I have worked with couples but I started realizing that couples, when they come in, really are presenting with some kind of trauma. So they traumatized each other, they’ve triggered each other, and I was really curious about why they were getting stuck in these places. And what I did was I connected their history of trauma with what’s happening in their current situation. As I thought about that I thought, “Well, if I can think about couples work as trauma work, I can do that. I work with trauma all the time.” That’s how I got excited about it, that’s how I started thinking about wanting to work with couples more than kids and families.

Perry: And Margaret, how long were you working with kids and families before you transitioned into working with couples?

Margaret: About 15 years. At the very beginning of my practice I started in eating disorders and basically I didn’t have any clients. And I thought, “Well, no one really knew in 1980 about eating disorders.” So I put an ad in the university paper close to my clinic and I had hundreds of people respond do it and all it said was, “Eating disorders? Call!” It had my name and phone number.

Perry: Haha. Wow. So did you go right into private practice from graduate school?

Margaret: Well, that’s a different story. I had my very first job. I worked at a local insurance company, and they had two therapists. Me and the other therapist who was licensed. And together we saw hundreds of clients. And they were really understaffed, they didn’t care about the mental health’s department. After about nine months I think I had over 400 clients, and I just panicked and thought, “Something’s going to happen. Someone’s going to get hurt. I can’t see all these people.” That was on Friday. I went on Monday and resigned and what worked out great for me, it was terrifying, but I had almost a full practice from people who wanted to follow me. So they followed me into a practice.

Perry: After you went into private practice did you put that ad in the newspaper regarding eating disorders and trying to gather up business that way?

Margaret: Well, although I had full practice in the beginning I knew it wasn’t sustainable. So just kind of as a lark I thought, “Well, let’s just put this notice in there.” My friend and I, was another woman, and we were interested in it because of course, there’s self-esteem issues. You’re working with young women, we were young women. We thought it would be interesting and had no idea how difficult it would be. And I don’t think any people knew very much about eating disorders at all at that time. So it was actually kind of exciting but we were inundated with referrals.

Perry: And what did you do after you got hundreds of calls from just one ad?

Margaret: We put together a program as quickly as we could. We found as much supervision as we could and we traded in a way to asses eating disorders, and a way to think about them, a way to work with families, and a way to work with individuals coming in. So we just really pretty much just worked our tails off.

Perry: Yeah, seriously. How long did it take you to put all that together?

Margaret: I can’t even imagine. Months, years. I don’t…

Perry: So you had those hundreds of calls and you wanted to get all these different parts of your practice put together. I’m curious how you handled that workload that came in, because you didn’t have all those materials in place to start with. You still had a growing private practice or somewhat sustainable one from when you left your job and all of your came with you. So how did you manage handling those calls, scheduling appointments, getting people in there? Did you have to turn people away? What did you guys do?

Margaret: Well, actually that’s kind of an interesting question because one of the things we did do is we ended up advertising for a free information session on Wednesdays at noon or something like that. So if people were interested, rather than call and talk on the phone. I mean, not every single one of those phone calls were potential clients. Many of them were family members, partners, roommates, whatever. But people could all come to a group in person meeting. So we just offered this for years. Maybe three years, where one of us would run it together. Sometimes we did, but somebody would be there to accommodate whoever just walked into the clinic. That’s actually a way that we really connected. Because when you have a client come in, or a family member, and they meet you, that connection starts.

Perry: So was this sort of just like an initial consultation essentially but in a group setting?

Margaret: Not even that. We called it the eating disorder spiral. So what we did is give an educational piece on, at what point does person that you know or you– Are you in a spiral? Are you at the beginning of a spiral? Are you at the tail end of the spiral? And based on where you were that’s what kind of therapy may be the most helpful to you. Some people of course were in denial and thought, “Nope, I’m just thinking about this.” to, “I’m fully ready to be admitted to a hospital.” Anywhere between. So we would really want to educate people at which point they were and give referrals based on that.

Perry: So let me– I just want to make sure that I’m fully understanding you here for our audience as well. So you put this ad in newspaper, you got hundreds of calls and you basically said, “Okay. We are going to be hosting a free seminar to go over eating disorders, and what they are, and figure out where you are. What the eating disorder spiral is.” And from there people were able to assess whether or not they wanted to work with you, whether or not they needed treatment or what kind of treatment they needed. Is that correct?

Margaret: Exactly.

Perry: It’s essentially like taking the modern day webinar approach to draw up a business and start a business. But you did it in person. It’s, “Hey, let me provide value. Let me put an ad out, get people interested, provide value and education, and then people can go out and make their own educated decisions as to whether or not they want to do business with you or need to do business with you. Or where they need to go to help themselves.” Do you feel like that’s pretty accurate analogy there?

Margaret: I think that’s perfect. We also do it with couples too so remind me to tell you about that.

Perry: Tell us about it!

Margaret: Oh, right now?

Perry: Yeah, why not?

Margaret: Well, one of the things that we get a lot of people who call and are interested, either somebody has said, “I’m done!” And their partners calling, saying, “Oh my gosh, we need an appointment.” Sometimes the other partner doesn’t know that they’re making this appointment. When they find out they don’t want it. And any variations. So what we do is we tell people over the phone that we offer a four session assessment. And in that time we see people together the first time. Each alone one time, and then together again on the fourth. And it’s kind of a maybe a long webinar approach, but what happens is we can get to meet them, they can meet us. If you’re going to sign up for marital therapy you want to like your therapist, right?

Perry: Oh yeah.

Margaret: And if you’re going to spend that much money and that much time, and take the one thing that’s so important in your life, you don’t want to just make a mistake. But if you think about it most people don’t really know how to get a referral. They’re not going to ask a family member because they don’t really want people to know. So many people look online for couples therapists. We’ve got our picture, we’ve got our bio but they still don’t know you. So people are so relieved when they don’t have to sign up for the full on therapy process. They can just come in and meet us, and go from there. Sometimes people only come in for one session, but what happens in that four session assessment is prices that they’re calling about is contained for a minute. And they can kind of slow down and together we can get a lot of work done on those four visits to figure out what to do.

Perry: And how do you get them in? Are you buying ads on Google? Do you have really good search engine ranking organically? How do you get those eyeballs to your website?

Margaret: Honestly, I think it’s because– How many people do you know who actually specialize in couples therapy? So many therapists offer it. But to actually specialize in it is really rare, I think. So that’s our specialty. If you look on our website you see that everywhere. You see our assessment process, the kinds of couples issues. Everything we do is around couples therapy. So I think we get about 80 percent of our referrals just from our website.

Perry: And you know Margaret, we hear that so often with successful therapist that we interview on the Therapist Experience, that they have specialized to focus on one area. Whether that’s eating disorders, whether that’s couples, whether that’s mediation. Regardless, you have an area that you specialize in. A niche. And you can go out and you can do a lot of different things with that. One, people want to see a specialist, they don’t want to see a generalist. So if someone’s looking for a couples counseling they want to go to someone who specializes in it. Because you’re a specialist, you’re able to communicate your authority and people are going to know, like, and trust you more just from that. Plus, being a specialist you get to charge generally a higher hourly rate than if you were just a generalist. Do you find that true as well for you?

Margaret: Yes, I do.

Perry: Can you maybe tell us a bit more about your hourly rate? What is your current rate to see clients and share with us your journey to that rate? Because we find that therapists really struggle with pricing themselves well. So we’d love to hear it from the expert.

Margaret: I think it’s really important to make true decisions as you are in the journey of your practice, and if you’re working with couples. First of all, many therapists don’t want to specialize in couples because they’re terrified of couples.

Perry: Why is that?

Margaret: If you ask a typical therapist, “Do you want to work with couples?”, “Well, sure. But what do I do when they fight in your office? Or they’re so difficult.” Or they’re just scary to them. That’s one of the things that I work through with people who are interested in learning that because once you understand what to do, it’s not scary at all but most people don’t actively seek out that special team. Marriage and family therapist too, but many therapists will add that on and tack it on to their practice and the sad thing is, I think about 80 percent of therapists will seize a few couples in their practice, but only 20 percent of those have had any kind of formal training at all. Like, even one class in couples therapy. So many therapists try to do kind of a variation of individual therapy which is what they primarily do with couples and it just doesn’t work. But once we can get people to think about specializing in couples and really not being afraid of doing that, then you’ve got the world out there that’s just so excited because you’re really not competing with very many people. That niche is really unique and people are– If it’s your marriage, if it’s your relationship you’ll want to find the best person and you will do anything to make it work. So what we find that our clients are really motivated, they’re educated about the process, they’ve looked through and read all these biomes. They want their marriage to work. They are terrified because when you think of the cost of not being married–

Perry: Haha. I can’t even imagine.

Margaret: And that’s the emotional cost, but financial– What I find is that when people come in they’re not concerned about the cost for the most part. And especially that’s just a four session assessment. But I’ve come to the point where I charge 150 dollars for a 45 minute session. And we have people also give us their credit cards on file so that if they miss an appointment then we have that. And one of the important things is that when I make a commitment to work with somebody. I commit to be here with you, you commit to be here with me, this is very serious work, and we find that we have very little no show rate, people who just cancel at the last minute, people take this really seriously. So charging more, people take it more seriously. If you pay more for a therapist that you really believe and trust and think is going to help you, you will show up and do your homework and be ready to go. So in so many ways it makes it easier financially but you also have better outcomes because the clients are really interested in getting better and following through. And really, when people are kind of desperate in their marriage they’ll do anything you say.

Perry: Understandably.

Margaret: It’s great follow through. But it’s been a journey to get there because the other thing is we do not bill insurance for couples work. And I notice it’s a little bit– I don’t know if it’s controversial, is the right word, but I’ve had two local insurance companies say to me, “If you bill individual therapy for couples, we will yank you off our panel.” And pro status because I think they know that it’s kind of a common thing, and I’m pretty friendly with insurance panels in town or used to be. So I was pretty careful about separating that out because if I’m going to specialize in couples I don’t want to have any problems ever down the road with my records, diagnosing more than a situation really needs, and all that.

Perry: Is that common that insurance companies would yank you off a panel for working with couples?

Margaret: Well, I’ve got one here that’s through the Universities of Utah, and they know me personally. And I think they hand-picked therapists for people who call in. So they know what’s happening in these cases and they– Personally I think it’s a way for them to not pay for it but in the meantime I’m the on at risk, right? They’re not and the client isn’t. So they don’t have to take that risk. But I think many insurance companies probably don’t care as much. But just to be sure, for example, if you bill for an individual session and your notes are about couples work then that doesn’t really reflect what you did. So it’s not accurate billing. Just to be careful I explain that to people and pretty much couples already know and don’t think that is to cover benefits. So they’re for the most part pretty okay with that. It’s been an easy transition to a cash practice as well.

Perry: And you’re primarily cash practice because you just work with couples or do you see other patients as well?

Margaret: I would say that probably three quarters of my practice is couples only because I’ve been in practice so long I had individuals who kind of came back over the years. I’m still on a couple of insurance panels because I’ll see them just for that reason. Other than that none of the therapist who work in my clinic can go work from here in any insurance panels, they’re 100 percent cash.

Perry: That’s really amazing. To hear you go such a thriving cash only private practice. Margaret, you’ve had quite a journey to this point. But when you left your full time job you had a thriving private practice right from the ground up. But then you knew, “Hey, I need to grow my practice. I can’t just rest on my laurels here.” And you made a great marketing move with that add in the newspaper. But there must have been a time through your entrepreneurial journey here that things weren’t always up on the high. All of us as entrepreneurs, we have these ups, we have these downs. That’s what the roller-coaster is. That’s what we signed up for. This entrepreneurial journey. So let’s go back to a point in your career in private practice where you were just as low as you could possibly be, where you encountered a major point of adversity or a major struggle, and you were ready to call it quits. Share with us that moment and then share with us how you overcame that struggle and persevered through it?

Margaret: Well, Salt Lake City is a fairly small town and I had a really great reputation in town. I was proud of that and I received referrals from so many sources. But most of them, and I still don’t get those kind of referrals, were discounted services. So for all those crime victims, they’d think they reimbursed that 65 dollars stone. I was on insurance panels. I won’t say what some of the other companies were but they reimbursed anywhere between 60 and 80 per session. And when everything else is going up, other medical specialties, their fees and what they collect rises but now health stays the same or even is lowered. It’s really discouraging. So I ended up having this child and family specialty and we’d get these referrals. And I love the work but so many of it was at discounted practice. So I was doing lots of sessions for, you know, 60s. And it was also very difficult work, it was hard work and there was a higher notional rate back then with those kind of clients. And it was also adversarial so it was kind of like, “I want to say yes to this referrals because crime victims is referring and this person here, and that doctor, or this clinic, or this client, or whoever it was.” But really I was accepting and had almost all of my clients at a very reduced rate. So everyone was getting exhausted. Not getting any younger over the years. So I could work more and more and keep going but, you know– And that’s if insurance did pay, or if the clients really did have insurance or lawyer would refer and promise something, but whatever the promises were it didn’t happen. So I really had to take a leap to be able to say no to this other sources and say, “I’m not going to accept those insurance panels anymore.” I had to say no to referral sources, to clients, to potential clients who I had always been proud of open to working with them. But it was killing me and I thought, “Is this selfish? Am I being– I’m a therapist. I’m a social worker. I need to give to people.” But I thought, “I’m just going to make this leap because you should do this, everyone talks about it.” If there’s any time I’m ready to starting work with couples and in marriage counseling, this is the time to do it. I made that leap and basically never looked back. It’s such a relief to have that.

Perry: Leap being to niche, specifically to working with couples?

Margaret: No. To not accepting insurance payments and to not accepting discounted fees and charge a fee that I feel comfortable with.

Perry: So you knew what you were worth, you knew your value. And as a licensed clinical social worker you felt like you needed to provide value to these people and help them because you could. You’re trained to help them but at some point you had to say, “No. I need to take care of myself and I need to help people that I can help but also be able to help myself.” So you made that leap, and what was the reaction once you did that?

Margaret: Well it’s really moving from a position of scarcity to abundance, and certainly we want to teach that to our clients, right? Our value and their value. So it was interesting, clinically the reaction is, if I valued my time and I didn’t discount my rate and I expected them to be there, zero rate of no shows, then they valued me so much more. If people only had to pay 10 dollar or co-pay they didn’t value the session as much really. So I felt more valued. We had better outcomes, better results, and overall it was a great experience. It was all in my head, this fear of, “I won’t be able to offer enough to enough people out there.” And the funny thing now is, without having to worry about insurance billing, and co-pays, and deductibles, and getting on panels, credentialing, and all that, you can really spend more time preparing for your sessions. You can spend more time reading about things, getting training. And you can still put in as many hours. But I’m not running around just raged trying to fill out all this paperwork. I’m actually doing the clinical work.

Perry: Which is what you went to school for. It’s why you wanted to become a therapist in the first place.

Margaret: But it is very hard. I mean, I have therapists who come in when they start and they bill 130 dollars as a new person, whether they’re licensed or not. We have that. And it’s really hard for them. And kind of as a joke I’ll say to them, “Well, if you want go ahead and whatever you think you’re worth, I’ll pay you that. I’ll just keep the balance.” And they’ll go, “Very funny.” But the whole point is they like charging that much because the clients really don’t mind and they think it’s important, and they value the therapy and therapists love to feel valued. So I really do a lot of mind training in aligned work with the therapists in terms of your value, what you’re worth. You can still be present and care for plans without worrying about if you’re going to get paid for that session.

Perry: And when you say work with therapist are you referring to the therapist that work at one of your practices?

Margaret: Yes, yes.

Perry: And how many people work for you right now?

Margaret: Right now I’ve got four people.

Perry: And max you had 15 once, is that right?

Margaret: Okay, imagine this. Imagine I had 15 people. There were four different disciplines. So we had psychologists, social workers, marriage and family therapists, and psychiatric nurses. And because of that we were on different insurance panels. We’re in like 12 different insurance panels. So you can imagine the billing issues.

Perry: It must have been a nightmare.

Margaret: It was a nightmare. A nightmare. And it was hard to just find someone who even wanted the job really. But that was back in the day. We really wanted to have a lot of exposure back then. We did a lot of work with kids and families again but once I made the transition to couples it made sense to kind of have a smaller group and live in a more calm life.

Perry: That’s why you as an entrepreneur, you’re building a business so that you can enjoy the calm as well. You don’t always want to be running around. You want your business to work for you. Not you work for your business and that’s why you got off those insurance panels and why you stopped taking insurance. That’s been of huge value to you and allows you to grow into a thriving practice. You niched down to work just with couples, get rid of insurance, get rid of paperwork, and you’re a better therapist because of it.

Margaret: I’m sure you’ve talked with therapists who’ve been in a cash kind of practice scenario. And I think for the most part I might be different because I used to be in a lot of panels, and then I removed myself from them. Many young therapists are not even signing up for panels at all. And I don’t know what the percentage would be but for the most part I think people are pretty happy with that.

Perry: A lot of the therapists that we’ve spoken with on this podcast, on the Therapist Experience, are just cash pay only. There have been a few that are on insurance panels but it remarkable how many that we’ve spoken with are just cash pay, and don’t take insurance. Margaret, I’d like to talk about the word marketing with you for a minute. We often find that therapists really struggle with marketing their business or they feel that marketing and sales is kind of like this dirty word. That I got into therapy to help people, I don’t want to sell, I don’t want to market. But there’s no way that you could have grown this amazing brand that you have today without marketing your practice. Whether it was that ad in the newspaper, whether it was figuring out what you want to specialize in and going after those niches. So share with our audience what you feel is the single best marketing move that you made for your practice, and why do you feel like it worked so well for you?

Margaret: Well, first of all, I love marketing and that doesn’t mean– I love sales, I love to sell, but selling doesn’t mean manipulation, doesn’t mean you’re trying to talk somebody into something or trick them into something. I think a lot of people think, “Oh sales, you’re trying to trick me.” What you’re trying to do is present your information so that your clients can find you. And you have a gift. You’re out there to serve your gift to your clients and you want them to know that you’re there and if they don’t know then they can’t benefit.

Perry: Exactly.

Margaret: So really want to have a presence where they can easily find you, they can figure out what kind of service do I want to see and have access, and have ease in finding that person. So really that’s what I think marketing is and it’s really being helpful. It’s being available to people, to answer questions and give information, and to be present in your community or your area so that people have access to you.

Perry: So what was the best marketing move that you feel you made?

Margaret: Well, besides sent one ad in a newspaper?

Perry: Hahahaha. I mean, that could be it.

Margaret: That’s like– Well, you weren’t born then but that was crazy back then. But I think the number one thing, and I’ll tell you over and over, is website, website, website. First of all, I’m addicted to websites. I love working on them and I love having them. But I think that’s what people– That’s where they are. They’re online and that’s where people get information. And many people, most people find their medical providers online.

Perry: Whether it’s a Google search, whether it’s Psychology Today, whether it’s goodtherapy.org, whether it’s Facebook or LinkedIn. That’s where people are going.

Margaret: Right. That’s where people are going, that’s where they spend their time. And of course, I didn’t grow up with that so that’s been a transition for me, but for many people that’s just what they know. That’s how they communicate and they don’t have newspapers where they look up things anymore.

Perry: Not anymore, no.

Margaret: And even if they just type in, couples therapy Utah. So you don’t necessarily have to be on with some kind of directory, or listing, or panel. And you’re really just getting the word out there and having that special team in. Once they can find the website and read about you means most people say, “I read every single word on your bio and we picked you because of bla, bla, bla…” And once they’ve picked you, they’ve picked you.

Perry: They ready your bio to get to know you. Once they read your bio they liked you, and because you specialize in couples they trust you. Know, like, and trust. We say that all the time. People do business with those that they know like and trust. And that’s the same with a private practice.

Margaret: Think about it. I mean, single therapist is pretty terrifying. And especially with couples. First of all, you don’t know– If you go for individual therapy, you show up and you can tell the therapist anything you want. You go to couples, you have no idea what your partner’s going to say about you.

Perry: Hahahaha. That must be terrifying.

Margaret: Well, it’s terrifying because it’s like, “Oh my gosh.” And this is very vulnerable. The other thing I really find is that if a therapist isn’t trained in knowing how to work with couples, it can be really discouraging. If you don’t know what to do and they argue, they fight, when they get in that deadlock position then you can start feeling hopeless. You can feel stuck and start thinking, “We tried this, we tried this approach. This kind of therapy. You guys just aren’t making it. So maybe you should consider a separation or even a divorce.” So often I think the therapist, when they get discouraged, there’s nothing else that can be done. Not necessarily the case. Because clients again, are really vulnerable, and they’re really discourage, and– They’ve had this problem for about six years before they call.

Perry: Oh my goodness.

Margaret: So that’s a long time to be suffering. To have that disconnect in your main relationship. So they’re really, really scared and really vulnerable. So to connect with a website that feels friendly, that feels caring, that feels like there’s expertise and this people know what they’re doing. And just the way we handle our phone calls, our intakes, our first sessions. We really are sensitive to that and I think people really appreciated that.

Perry: Margaret, you’ve got a really great innate sense of business. From every step along the way here, everything you shared with us has really been like you get business. You understand it. You love marketing, you love sales. Your approach to sales and marketing is the same one we take here. Education, you’re not convincing someone to do something they don’t want to do. But you went to school and you went to school to become a therapist, not to get an MBA. We hear so often from therapists that, “Man, I wish graduate school would have taught me about business. I wish they would have taught me about how I manage my books.” What’s the one thing you wish you would have learned in school about starting your own business?

Margaret: Well, it makes me sad because when I was in school they actually discouraged you from going into private practice.

Perry: Gosh, we hear that too.

Margaret: They would say, “You’re supposed to go into the public sector. You’re a social worker.” And if you wanted to even talk about going into a private practice, it was really discouraged so we kind of hung our head in shame. We wouldn’t admit it to people. It’s kind of crazy when you think about it now. I don’t even know if they offer those courses. I think it’s more common now. I think online there’s a lot of coaching available for new therapists to have a more business sense and a business mind. So I think it’s certainly more progressive now. I think they should absolutely teach those kinds of things because so many therapists do end up going into a private sector or they can still use those business skills to enhance your clinical approach.

Perry: And Margaret, you provide that kind of coaching as well, is that correct?

Margaret: Yes, I do. One of the things that I’ve always wanted to do is teach couples therapy online. So I started kind of a coaching business a year and a half ago and I’m in the process of switching that right now because what I really have found is that one of the ways that I’ve been successful with couples is to be able to really understand the individual, and I’ve been trained in attachment therapy and object relations background. So after years of doing this individual work and transitioning to family and couples, I think having that understanding is really helpful. Because when you’re working with a couple you want to know where each person is really coming from. So what I wanted to do is really teach basically how to add an attachment based approach to your entire practice because I think that’s the way of the future. It’s kind of the new cutting edge therapy right now. And if you think about the new therapies that are coming out, whether it’s emotionally focused therapy with Dr. Sue Johnson, or Dan Siegel and his work in neurobiology. There’s so many therapists now that have an attachment base in their therapy that they’ve developed. So I think a lot of people might take some of these trainings but what I want to do is really add that foundation so that people can then have a better stance of what to do beyond what they’ve been taught, let’s say at a training or something. And I find that that really helps solidify you as a therapist. You get better results and you just have a general guideline for what to do with a tough client.

Perry: And Margaret, where can people find out more about your coaching business if they’re interested in learning more about it?

Margaret: They can go check out one of my many websites. Haha. This one is www.margaretthompsonlcsw.com.

Perry: And of course Therapist Experience listeners, that link and all the other great resources Margaret has provided will be in this week’s show notes which will be at brightervision.com/session12. So Margaret, we’re going to take a quick break here and get our weekly website tip from one of Brighter Vision’s lead developers. When we get back, we’re going to move into the brighter insights lightning round. So stay right there Margaret, we’ll be back in about a minute.

This week’s website tip comes from Will Portice. A lead website developer at Brighter Vision, the worldwide leader in custom therapist website design. For more information go to www.brightervision.com/session12.

Will: SEO, or search engine optimization is pretty basic at its core. Write good content and make sure the search engines can understand what your site and your content is about. Occasionally we have clients writing to our support desk asking how they can rank higher. The number one thing you can do to rank higher in the search engines is to write. Blog regularly. Write detailed service pages. For example, if you specialize in adolescence and teenagers, write content about that. Write content that is relevant to your target audience. Then give a call to action at the bottom of the article. For example, if it’s an article on teen depression and you work with teens in Boulder, Colorado you can say, “If you suspect your teen is suffering from depression and would like him or her to speak with a professional, please contact me in today. I specialize in working with teenagers in Boulder, Colorado.” If you do that the search engines will understand your content, your location, and it will allow you to rank higher in the search engines.

And now back to our conversation with Perry and Margaret.

Perry: Alright, Margaret. Now we’re going to move into my favorite part of the interview. The part we like to call brighter insights. It’s kind of a lightning round here where we just do a Q&A style and our goal is to distill down your advice into short little tidbits and sound bites so that therapists can use your advice and your guidance to motivate and inspire them in their day to day. Are you ready?

Margaret: I’m ready.

Perry: What or whom inspired you to become a mental health professional?

Margaret: Well, I was pretty lost back in the day in college and so I took a course in identifying what your talents were and what your interests were. And my results were clinical therapist, school social worker, medical social worker, dean of a social work school, social work, social work. And I didn’t know thing about social work so first I took a social work class and it was me all over the place.

Perry: I mean, if it’s just telling you left and right like, “Hey, this is what you’re meant to do!” You got to listen, right?

Margaret: Isn’t that silly? Yes, that was years ago and I’m so glad I took that course.

Perry: What do you do to clear your head and get a fresh start in your day?

Margaret: One of the things I do is I go in my office, I close the door and I take five minutes to really just get centered. I give some deep yoga breathes and I think, “Okay, what is getting me off track here? What do I need to do? What’s getting in my way, what’s my block?” My block will then appear, since I’ve done this a lot, and then I’ll talk to it or try and figure out what to do. Thinking, “Why am I nervous about this next case? Why am I avoiding this situation over here?” And once I figure it out then I get the job done and go back to my day.

Perry: What are some tools that you’ve used to leverage the power of technology in your private practice, so that technology is no longer a hurdle but instead an asset?

Margaret: I love technology. Beyond the website we have online scheduling, we have online notes, we’ve got course that I offer online. I do webinars. We have things that we like to show that way. So you can really get so much information out there and quickly, and lot of information that you just couldn’t give before.

Perry: What’s a quote that you hold near and dear? Something that has helped formulate your perspective on life, or has inspired, or motivated you?

Margaret: Spend 10 percent of your time figuring out what the problems are and spend 90 percent of your time trying to solve them. And I can get really stuck in just diddering in the problem. “I can’t believe I have this problem. Why do I have to always have a problem. Here’s another problem.” And now I can hopefully connect with, “So what? It’s a problem. Solve it! And if you can solve it as quickly as possible, life’s so much better.”

Perry: It really is. If you could recommend one book to our audience what would that book be?

Margaret: Well, in one of my coaching programs somebody mentioned this book, I had never heard of it. It’s called The Four Spiritual Laws of Prosperity and it’s by a woman named Edwene Gaines and I just love this book because it really talks about four different steps of being a successful entrepreneur. It’s written by a woman so I kind of could relate. I think a lot of women could relate to this book but the four points are really work from the position of prosperity, not scarcity. Have clear cut goals and really work on your own issues, your own self-esteem and what you’re worth. Because our own attachment issues, we’re just like our clients, right? So we have our own feelings and problems with that. And then finally know what your purpose is because once you know your purpose that can be a guide for your whole life, for your whole practice.

Perry: And of course, we’ll have links to that book in the show notes which will be at brightervision.com/session12. Alright, Margaret. Last question. If you moved to a new city tomorrow and you didn’t know anybody there. And all you had was your computer and 100 dollars to start a new practice. What is it that you would do on your very first day?

Margaret: Build a website.

Perry: And how would you– Would you do that yourself? Do you build all your websites yourself?

Margaret: I know how to do them myself now. Took a while to learn. If not I would hire somebody who could quickly do one for me. I think websites are the number one source of information and referrals for therapists everywhere. And in my program, that’s one of the requirements. If you want to join my program you have to have a website already. Because if you’re trying to figure out how to get one during the program you’re going to be way behind.

Perry: And I completely agree with you there being a website design company for therapists. Obviously we think it’s one of the most important pieces of your marketing materials as well.

Margaret: Yes. It absolutely is. And I’m not saying that just because you guys do websites. I love sites and I’m saying that because it is true. And, yeah, one of the things when I’m teaching my course and I want people to learn these ideas I want them to get clients ASAP so we figure out ways that they can start getting clients from their website within the first week or two. Of course, if you’re in a new city you’d have to have a place to practice so I don’t know about that one.

Perry: Haha. Well, it was good advice. You’ll figure that out, right?

Margaret: Hopefully.

Perry: Any parting advice for our listeners?

Margaret: If you have ever been afraid of couples, don’t be. We need couples therapists and really if you think about it, so much of mental health and working with clients is really an attachment based approach. That is the new wave of the future. Most client symptoms, whether the relationship issues or mental health symptoms are connected to early attachment issues, which really attachment therapy is really a trauma therapy. So if you work with trauma, and I know so many therapists say, “Oh, I had training in trauma. I like doing that. I know that.” Then you can work with couples.

Perry: Margaret, thank you so much for all the great advice you have shared, where can our listeners find out more about you to connect and follow up with you if they have any questions?

Margaret: They can contact me at www.saltlakemaritalandfamilytherapy.com or my other website www.margaretthompsonlcsw.com.

Perry: Great. And of course we’ll have all that in the show notes at brightervision–

Margaret: Oops, I forgot my email.

Perry: Yeah, fire away the email!

Margaret: Okay, it’s [email protected].

Perry: And again, we’ll have all those resources, links to Margaret’s email, her website on the show notes at brightervision.com/session12. Margaret, thank you so much for being so generous with your time, your expertise, and your knowledge. We appreciate all the great advice you provided and the therapist experience that you have shared. Thanks again.

Margaret: Thanks, Perry. It’s great meeting you.

Perry: Great meeting you as well Margaret. Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you have a question for us you can email it to us at [email protected]. We’re trying to do a good Q&A episode here so please email us your questions so that way we can have a great few episodes of your questions that our team can answer. And, of course, if you’re interested in launching a website don’t hesitate to reach out to us. Brighter Vision is the worldwide leader in custom therapist website design. For just 59 dollars a month you’ll get a website that’s as unique as your practice, unlimited technical support, and complementary search engine optimization or SEO so people will find you online. To learn more please visit us at brightervision.com and drop us a line through one of our contact forms and we’ll be sure to follow up with you within one business day. That does it for this week. Thank you again for listening and we will catch you next week.