TTE 32: Getting Your Name to be a Household Name in Your Community Through Free Workshops
Working with your local community centers to offer free workshops is how you get your local community to know, like and trust you. Dr. Carleah East has used that as a springboard into building a thriving private practice where she speaks at local events, national events, and hosts online webinars.
Dr. Carleah East has built a thriving private practice by actively engaging her community and her niche through speaking engagements.
She shares with us how nervous she was during her first speaking event, how she got her first few local events, how she has graduated into national events, and how she is now transitioning into also offering webinars.
Best Marketing Move for Business
- Speaking engagements
Links & Resources Mentioned in This Episode
Thanks to Shane for joining me this week. Until next time!
Transcript
Click here to read the TranscriptCarleah: Yes.
Perry: Alright. Well, so excited to have you here. Dr. East is a native of St. Petersburg, Florida. She’s a clinical psychotherapist, licensed mental health counselor, and certified zumba dance instructor. She attended the University of Central Florida in Orlando for her bachelor of arts and psychology with a minor in sociology. She obtained a master’s of arts degree and mental health counseling from Argus University and obtained her PHD in general psychology from Capella University. For the past seven years Dr. East has been operating her own private practice called SMILE, solving and managing issues with love and enrichment. And is a psychology professor at St. Petersburg College. In her spare time she enjoys writing poetry, shopping, working out, volunteering her time as a member of Zeta Fi Beta sorority, and spending time with her family and friends. She is also someone who would go above and beyond the call of duty in helping youth and families in their community. Carleah, I gave a little overview of you there but why don’t you take a minute, fill in the gaps from that introduction and tell us a little bit more about you personally and about your practice?
Carleah: Okay, not a problem. I will start out with personal. I’m a very wide open book type of individual and so the fact that people are drawn to me has been something that I’ve been dealing with my entire life, even as a child. So with that taking place I’ve always had this feeling or need to help or serve my community or serve those that are around. Especially those that have a cause or that are put into a box because they may not necessarily fit into society’s views of not being accepted. So those are kind of core things about me and I use a very straightforward approach because I feel like as society we sugarcoat a lot of things and we whitewash things that need to just be very blunt, so that people can move on and progress, and get some aid out of them. So I try to make sure that I come across as clear and candid as possible when I’m dealing with anyone in my line of work. As far as my business is concerned, it took me a second to finally realize that’s really what I wanted to do. I worked for a myriad of community organizations, going in and out of the home, and I finally realized that kind of having my own brain and bringing my own personality to the forefront without rules and regulations of how that needed to be executed was something that I definitely was more interested. And that’s pretty much where the birthing of a private practice came from. As you said earlier, I used the acronym SMILE, solving and managing issues with love and enrichment. The reason for that is because often times when people think about the therapeutic process is not necessarily something that they smile about. And one of the things that I try to make sure is that I use a lot of humor and laughter in my sessions with my clients. I try to make sure that when they leave my office, no matter the situations that they came through the door with, they’re leaving with a smile. So I try to use that acronym to state that my job is to love my clients and to enrich their lives, and to find value into the person they are speaking so that they find value in themselves and then ultimately are able to live more with happy lives, be smiling.
Perry: I love that. And you know, I find it so effective for individuals in private practice when they name their practice something that– They take the time and the energy to really think about their branding. And it’s so clear that you have done that. And I think that works really well, and you can incorporate that branding and messaging throughout your entire website, throughout all of your marketing materials. And more importantly, it gets people a sense of who you are and what their experience should be like when they attend a session with you.
Carleah: Absolutely, it does. It gets me out of box of your standard mental health practice. It causes some intrigue with a lot of clients as well. They say, what’s that smile about and I get a lot of, are you a dentist? Because they think of a smile, they think of teeth. And I say, no, I want to see you smile. And they’re like, oh, nice. And it’s something that’s memorable and something that’s memorable is something that’s going to be talked about in casual conversation. So word of mouth in this particular field is at the top of the list as far as I’m concerned in maintaining a balance in your career.
Perry: I agree wholeheartedly. So speaking of memorable, how else do you stand out? Do you work with a particular niche of clients that you specialize in this particular industry or particular market?
Carleah: Yes I do. I’m actually a LGBT advocate and so I work– Predominantly a lot of my time is spent with LGBT affiliates, family members, so forth and so on. In my neighborhood there’s not a whole lot of therapists that specialize in that particular area so that is one niche that I kind of try to focus on, as well as I deal with a lot of couples therapy. Just helping people to be able to communicate with each other because communication is key. Seems to be a lot of barriers when it comes to that. So I kind of focus on those areas too. So those would be my main counter points. And what helps me kind of stay in the know, so to speak, with these particular groups is that I stay on the scene. So when there are any events that are taking place, LGBT related, I try to make sure that I’m there, I’m a member of several LGBT organizations within my community and nationwide. So I try to make sure that I go to conferences and speak engagements. With any population that we’re trying to not only be immersed into but become a part of as a family member, as a friend, you want to contribute, you want to invest in that organization so that they will then turn around and invest you.
Perry: Absolutely. I could not agree more with that. Any kind of business that you’re building. For us, working with mental health professionals, it’s sponsoring local events, going to national conferences, creating this podcast to help educate and give back to the community. So you go to a conference and you talk about speak engagements. The speak engagements, you actually participate in a speak engagements and you’re a speaker, is that accurate?
Carleah: Yes.
Perry: And are those at more national events or more local events or both?
Carleah: I do both. I do both. I go to national conferences and I try to speak and present information. Basically on what’s going on in my neighborhood, my state, my city as far as LGBT rights or couples communication, practices, or what have you. Whatever that genre that I’m speaking to at that point. But I also make sure that I am here, on the scene in my own community because a majority of my clients are going to come from my community but I make sure I go nationwide because as a e-therapist as well, I try to make sure that I keep that window of opportunity open for other clients that may come from a different setting.
Perry: The questions are just so numerous that I have for you here. I think you have so much great value to add here. Alright. So let’s talk about speaking engagements before we move into the e-therapy. How has that worked as a– Obviously from a perspective of giving back to the community there’s a lot of value there, and just being a part of the community, but also from a marketing perspective. That’s certainly typically a very effective marketing tool. How has that worked for your private practice?
Carleah: Honestly, I’ll probably say the speaking engagements have been far most the strongest stand point or selling point for marketing. Definitely being part of different psych websites and those things are great but you are, how can I say? Eye to eye with your public. You’re eye to eye with your potential client, with the aunt, uncle, mom, or dad, or cousin, or sister of your potential client. It makes you a person. And often times when people see titles and names they kind of separate you from the regular population. I don’t want to be separated, I want to be a part of that population. So when I do speaking engagements, not only does it allow me to interact directly with potential clients but it also allows me to tell them my story. Tell them example of my struggles and triumphs that I’ve had in my lives which many people can relate to, that’s just human. So by me presenting myself and positioning myself to be just a regular girl. A human being, someone that you say hey across the street, then that definitely invites people to my door because they’re like, wait a minute, I don’t feel like I’ll be judged by her. Or I feel like she’s really down to earth and she has a great personality, or she’s not afraid to fight for us. And so that definitely brings in a numerous, numerous amounts of phone calls. Than it just would be a picture and a profile on a page, so to speak.
Perry: Do you remember your first speaking engagement?
Carleah: I do.
Perry: Tell me about it?
Carleah: I’ll tell you I was nervous as a wreck. I really was. I was nervous because everything was about getting it right. The perfect execution, the perfect pitch. Make sure you mention your address, make sure you notice all these things that I finally had to kind of get out of my own way, so to speak. Because I wasn’t being authentic. I was trying to follow a script or a regiment of what I though will be my selling point to the key terms that I thought I wanted to make. And when I realized that these folk just want to hear me say hello and get to know me. And so I remember starting my speech with a queue card or cards for that matter and just toss them to the side. And I remember tossing them and saying, man, forget those cards, let me just talk to you all. Can I talk to you all? And they were like, yeah, you can talk to us. And I love that. So one of the things that my clients often pitch me as is therapy and color. They use that a lot, it’s a hashtag that I use as well. Because they know they’re not going to get you hums on black and white, ‘how does that make you feel’ type therapy. They’re going to get, ‘were you pissed off when that happened to you’ or ‘I know you were mad girl’. That’s what they’re going to get when they come to me. So that real life therapy in color vivid. All the senses are being taken into account, it makes a huge difference.
Perry: Absolutely, you’re human. They don’t want to speak to a robot, they want to speak to a human.
Carleah: Exactly.
Perry: So where was your first engagement?
Carleah: My first engagement was actually in the community. I did a presentation at local recreational center here. They were holding a summer program for youth to motivate youth to stay in school and stay focused. So they had a sideline speaking engagement for the parents because it starts there. So once you get the parents involved– My job was empowering parents to use positive reinforcement and empowering parents to not be their kid’s friends. That’s okay, they’re not supposed to like you. So that was my first speaking engagement.
Perry: And how did you go about in getting it?
Carleah: Basically what I did was because I grew up in the area I knew quite a few of the rec centers and honestly, I didn’t do cold calls, I did cold popups. And I mean, I popped up. So I literally just drove around to different rec centers and said, hey, this is me, this is what I’m about. I gave them a sheet that basically them a little bit about me, like a bio. Told them that I offered my services for free because that’s the key lots of times when we jump into this field. We really want to make money. Yes, we want to provide a service but, you know, we want to make money as well. But when someone doesn’t necessarily know you while you don’t have a brand or your name is not familiar to the community, the key is to get it to be familiar. To get your name to be household. So you do that by offering free workshops. I offer free workshop at this community center, it looks great for the community center because they’re meeting some of the expectations that the city standards has for them as far as servicing the community they’re not paying any money. But what’s also happening is that while I’m there I’m making connections with people for free. I’m getting out my business card, I’m, as you would call in the business world, up-selling them to my product or to my service that I provide. So if I get three or four phone calls out of maybe 50 people sitting there, to me that’s huge because those are repeat clientele that are going to then speak my name highly in the community, so absolutely.
Perry: And they’re also pre-sold on you. You’ve positioned yourself as an expert in your field and in your niche by speaking in your field and in your niche by speaking to them, and they already know, like, and trust you.
Carleah: Exactly.
Perry: And you also do e-therapy. What do you use for your e-therapy solution?
Carleah: Well, I use a hypo-compliant Skype component for that but I also use emails as a part of therapeutic process as well. And that’s one that worked out pretty well, especially for people that have very busy schedules. I’m especially dealing with my LGBT community. Not everyone is quite ready to come out, so to speak, in the community. Especially with transgender family. So while they’re going through that transitional phase when they’re trying to figure things out, they’re very uncomfortable in the skin that they’re in clearly, and it’s difficult for them to walk into an office. They don’t want to be judged. So via Skype or email messaging gives them that anonymity that they require, that safety, that safe place, that safe environment for them to ask those questions and get the help that they need. And many of my clients appreciate that I offer that opportunity for them.
Perry: I’d like to take a step back here. Your practice is thriving, you’re speaking in your community and across the country but you’ve been at this for 7 years in private practice. Let’s take a step back because it wasn’t always such a thriving private practice, or maybe it was?
Carleah: Sure it wasn’t. It was not.
Perry: It’s a journey, right? There’s ups and downs, highs, lows. So let’s go back to one of your lowest points in private practice and can you share with our audience what was going on, what that struggle was like, and then more importantly share with us how you persevered through that struggle and came out successful on the other side?
Carleah: Absolutely. Well, I remember it like yesterday, I had taken on quite a few of government contracts because to me that was the simplest and easiest way to start working as a private practice is to have contracts. They give you what you need, the clients come or not, you still get paid. I’m like, win-win. Well, it wasn’t until I needed to take some time off to having my first child, that I wasn’t able to maintain the contract. So I took about maybe six weeks off and upon my return there were suddenly no contracts available.
Perry: Oh boy.
Carleah: Who are you telling? And so it hurt. And I remember being devastated, I remember crying. I remember being very frankly pissed off because I’ve put so much time and energy into this. And in the midst of that storm something said to me, girl, it’s time for you to do your own thing, your own rules. And I remember taking that very seriously and kind of stepping out of that. And it has been a slow pace to becoming the type of private practice that I want to be, it hasn’t been easy. It started out with me just having maybe two clients a week honestly. But I loved those clients and I nurtured them, and then what set me apart was that I’ve began to focus on my brand. I stepped away from the vista prints and those types of things and hired someone and invested. I can’t say it enough, I invested in myself. I invested in my business. I spent money that I hadn’t made yet in my business. And to have my own local, my own bran, my own worrying, my own hashtags. These are all things that I invested in, because when you see my business client and when you see smile, I don’t want you to ever look any place else and see that same business talk. I don’t want you to ever relate me to anyone else but Dr. East. So I had to really kind of take 10 steps back and start all over again and build from scratch. And there were some nights that I was scared and nervous, and praying that clients would come. And you know what? They did and they are. So it really is about us using the same concepts that we tell our clients every day, about overcoming triumph and turning negatives into positives. I had to practice what I preach and use that. And instead of remaining a victim in my situation I flipped it and became a survivor, and now I’m a thriver. So there you go.
Perry: You know, I think that’s one of the reasons why therapists can be such effective entrepreneurs. Because you know the skills that you need to have to be successful. And often times the only thing holding ourselves back are ourselves.
Carleah: Right. Our own fears and intimidations, absolutely.
Perry: And you know, obviously you have to go through the ups and downs, you have to be an entrepreneur, get your feet wet, figure out how to market, which I think is often the biggest struggle that we hear therapists facing is how do I market myself? I’ve been in private practice for a year or two, I got a few clients, my website is getting some clients, Psychology Today is getting some clients. But I don’t know how else to market. So would you mind sharing with us what you feel is the single best marketing move that you’ve made for your private practice and why do you feel like it’s working so well for you?
Carleah: I will probably say I’m going back to the local events and webinars because that again is about leverage and building your leverage in your private practice. So let’s say that I initially have my logo, I have my brand, right? I’m ready to go. So I start doing little workshops in my community for free. Little things, no more than an hour, hour and a half, okay? And I thought doing those workshops, at those workshops somebody passing out pamphlets that say, if you want more information, you want detailed information, here’s my private practice, here’s my webinar that I’ll be providing next Wednesday, my live webinar. So they go to that, that may cost 15 dollars for their webinar but they’re like, hey, I already heard her speak. I want to invest in that. Then from there they start coming to the door, they start asking you questions. This is the thing. Never be afraid to showcase yourself, to showcase your talents. You are your best marketing strategy. Your personality, your niche, your populations. Not necessarily pigeonholing yourself into one group but saying, okay, not only do I do anxiety or mood disorders or adolescent issues, I’m the LGBT advocate. Wow, okay, I got that. Oh, I’m a women’s rights advocate. Oh, okay, awesome. So it’s really all about selling yourself, providing them with something that they can really be sucked into you by. It’s kind of like you go to a restaurant and you have a really good meal, you’re probably going to go there again because of the service and you connected, and the food is great. I’m the same way. I want you to recognize the service. I want you to recognize that I’m a humble person. I’m here to just help you, then once I bring you in, now you’re buying into who I am. You’re invested. And then I can up-sell you or provide you other opportunities for individual things or corporate meetings or groups training. All those types of facets.
Perry: So how often do you run webinars?
Carleah: I am actually in a process of reporting all of my new webinars now because I realized that those needed to match my brand. With your brand the quality of what you present to the world has to be different. Normally I would run webinar about once a month because I was already doing some social engagements as well, and community engagements. So it’s kind of like they got a two for one type of special.
Perry: And you charge for those webinars?
Carleah: I do. I charge for the webinars, like I said, maybe 15 dollars, 12 dollars to join a webinar. Which people are like, oh, that’s not a problem because I already got all this for free from her. Because what she realizes is that when you come to a social event where I’m speaking, not only am I talking to you about a specific situation I always provide those that come to me with a little parting gift. And what may be my parting gift is it may be a basic pamphlet with tips on how to handle anxiety. I may give them a packet that has local resources if I know that I’m dealing with the community that’s low social economic status. So again, I provide little tips, little tools for them to carry away with them depending on the genre, and from there they’re willing to invest back.
Perry: So these webinars, what software do you use for them or were you using and what are you using now to record and then–? So you’ll be selling the webinars sort of like an on-demand kind of thing, is that accurate?
Carleah: Well, yes. What’s going to happen is I’m still in the process of working that out. Before, honestly, my webinars were going through a Youtube handle. Honestly, because I didn’t know. And so you would kind of click there and we’ll all have a designated time when we all were there. Right now I’m still in that marketing process of creating lead pages and followers and talent to get that strategy going. Honestly, I don’t have that worked out yet. That’s something that I’m still trying to figure out. But they will be actually– Some will be live, some will be recorded professionally, and right now it’s just to attend to get access to the webinar. And then the webinar leads them to my private practice of services that I’m provide in that department.
Perry: Absolutely, and this is ironic timing and I had no idea that you were utilizing this strategy. We’re actually about to start doing the same exact thing here at Brighter Vision. We have I think now 5 webinars scheduled out, basically weekly webinars with other professionals. We’re going to add value to our audience, and then we can add value to their audience. And we’ll be doing them on demand and then we’re actually not going to be charging for it in the future, but just emailgating them or what that means is someone has to enter their email address and then they get access to the webinar.
Carleah: And that’s how you build your list.
Perry: Absolutely.
Carleah: Because if I have someone clicking on my lead page it’s going to be their first and last thing they give their email address, then let’s say that next speaking event that I’m doing that’s not for free, then I can market that speaking event, or group event, or training to those particular emails because they’ve always shown interest in my product from the get go.
Perry: You know it. I mean, that’s the way to grow a really strong, effective, national brand in business. And that’s been proven time and time again to work. So Dr. East, you get business, it’s very clear. You’ve built a thriving business, a thriving private practice, you understand how marketing works and the value of marketing and investing in yourself. And you went to school to become a therapist and you invested a lot of time and energy and money into your education but you never got your MBA. What’s the one thing that you wish you would have learned at school about starting your own business?
Carleah: I will probably say the power of the word of mouth I think was something that I learned through trial and error. That necessarily school doesn’t always teach you. They teach you how to provide a service when it comes to mental health, and they teach you how to market and pitch campaigns and those types of things. But they don’t teach you about the word of mouth and how powerful that is in the work that we do as therapists. There’s tons of therapists that are out there, and yes, my brand can be different, and yes, my website can be amazing. Well, it is amazing because of Brighter Vision, are you kidding me? But seriously, the power of the word of mouth and being a human person I think is something that the schools don’t teach you as far as business. And the fact that it’s okay for you to invest in yourself and building this particular practice, because we have to do that. And so being original I think is important, not a carving copy as I was mentioning before. Make your own logos, hire someone to do that for you, to create your own star. But just the power of the word of mouth is huge, it’s huge.
Perry: And I love your logo. I mean, it’s just so powerful but yet simple. It’s everything that you want in a logo, I think it’s really tremendous. And of course, for everybody listening to this, we’ll have links to this week’s show notes at Brightervision.com/session32 and of course there will be a link there to Dr. East’s website which– Her logo’s great and, you know, we think our website’s great too. Alright so now Dr East, we’re going to move into the final part of our interview, the part we like to refer to as Brighter Insights. And you provided so much immense value in the first 30 minutes or so of our chat but now what we’d like to do is really distill down your experiences and your advice into little sound bites and quick answers so that our audience can use this part to help motivate and inspire them in growing their practice. Are you ready?
Carleah: I’m ready.
Perry: What or whom inspired you to become a mental health professional?
Carleah: My mother. My mother inspired me. My mother is a professional as well on her own right and I remember her coming to me as a little girl and saying, you have an ability to just help people and that people will flock to you. Make sure you use that, it’s a gift. So that’s what really made me realized that I have this aura and people are drawn to that. So that’s what inspired me, because I’ve seen my mom motivate. She’s an educator, a doctor of education and I’ve seen her educate people who love her because she provides them with a skill set that they can take and use in the world. And I wanted to be just like her of course. And she told me that I have the gift of gab and have the ability to heal people. I said, okay, mama said so. And that was my motivation.
Perry: Did you call it the gift of gab?
Carleah: I did.
Perry: I love that, that’s great.
Carleah: Yeah, I can talk for sure.
Perry: But you also can listen and obviously both are so crucial in this industry.
Carleah: They are.
Perry: What is it that you do to clear your head and get a fresh start in your day?
Carleah: Oh, I laugh. Oh my gosh, I laugh. Let me tell you something, the world is so cynical and negative, right? We’re constantly being sent all these subliminal messages, and one of the things that I– First of all, I turn the news off. Let me tell you that, just turn it off. And then next thing I do is I find something that makes me laugh, that makes me enjoy life because laughter I think– Between laughter and love, those are your healing assets that we have that no one can take away from us. So I find a funny movie or I have a funny conversation, or I play with my 15 month old. Anything that allows me to laugh because it gets my brain out of that negative place and it allows me to just kind of escape for a few minutes. So laughter equals positive energy equals motivation, so that’s what I try to focus on.
Perry: I love it. 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 for you?
Carleah: Okay. I’ll probably say some of the tools that I used are Leadpages, as I discussed earlier. Offering Leadpages gives me the opportunity for my potential clients to not only get to know me a little bit but it also allows me to lock in their email addresses and their identifiable information, which from there allows me to create a list of clients where I can advertise.
Perry: And how do you manage that list? Do you use a tool for your email list as well?
Carleah: No. Well, they all come through a funnel system and then that comes directly to my page through– My Facebook has a lead page that comes directly through the chart that I use through Google. So that kind of lines up all of my email addresses and things of that nature. And I also use a scheduler which is nice, Goodtherapy.org offers the schedules for membership, like three months rate. So I use a scheduler as well because what that does is allows me to put my appointments then, but it also sends the reminders of appointments, things of that nature, without me having to worry about.
Perry: Great. And another tool that I want to recommend that you take a look at, that I think would really help you, is a tool called Getdrip. It actually ironically enough about a month or so ago was acquired by Leadpages and so it integrates with Leadpages really well. I don’t personally use Leadpages with Brighter Vision. We use a tool called Unbounce but for anybody listening to the podcast Leadpages– And aren’t familiar with Leadpages and Unbounce, they allow you to create quick landing pages that you can send targeted website traffic to, and then they can click to subscribe, click to download, you can get their information so that you can market to them. And what drip is or Getdrip like Getdrip.com, it’s a email marketing automation tool. So if you’re starting to build up a list, you can create email courses on there. We have a few different email courses at Brighter Vision, with popups on your website. You can create marketing automation funnels. So if this person opens this email send them down this path, and if they did this do that. Really complex stuff that’s pretty straightforward to setup. Very visual, very user-friendly. So definitely check that out, I think that would be really helpful for you Carleah with the way that your business is moving in the progression of your business, what direction you’re moving in.
Carleah: Sure, definitely, thank you.
Perry: What’s a quote that you hold near and dear, something that has helped formulate your perspective on life or has inspired, motivated, or provided guidance for you?
Carleah: That would be probably be, “My tears don’t compromise my strengths.” That’s a quote that I live by and I share it with everyone because often times we’re taught how we’re supposed to feel. You know, oh, you’re in mourning, or, you’re dealing with grief, or, you should be past that, it’s been a year now. And I tell people, honey, stay in your feelings as long as you want to. Your tears don’t compromise your strengths. Tears are powerful things, they’re a way for our bodies to get rid of toxins that we don’t need. They’re a way for us to get things out of our eyes that we don’t need, and they’re a way for us to get rid of negative emotions that we don’t need. So that’s what tears, it doesn’t make me less strong because I know how to express myself appropriately. I feel that your tears are your strengths because through our tears come our ability to overcome obstacles. So that’s one of the quotes that I definitely live by, “My tears don’t compromise my strengths.”
Perry: I love it and that’s one of my favorite questions that we get to ask everybody. Because every single time I ask that question and I hear someone’s response, it takes a solid 30 seconds or more for that quote to fully sink in for me and really understand it and grasp the full weight of it. And that’s a really great quote and I really love that one.
Carleah: Thank you.
Perry: If you could recommend one book to our audience what would that book be?
Carleah: A blank journal. I always say a blank journal, this is why.
Perry: Haha. You know, I almost asked, who’s that written by?
Carleah: Right, exactly. It’s written by you, that’s the point. There are tons of books that are out there that we can look into for guidance, from the Bible to other options. But I will tell you nothing’s more powerful than a journal. No story is more powerful than your own story, your own triumphs. Your trials and tribulations, you overcoming obstacles. Journals, and that blank page gives you the opportunity to just kind of put it all out there, all the grit and the grind and the frustration and the curse words, and the love words. And all those things are at one page or several pages and you get it out. And it’s a place for you to heal, it’s a place for you to reflect. Because as you go through this process called life you go back and you look and you say, oh my god, I’ve overcome this, and that, and that motivation is going even harder. So honestly, the book that I recommend is a blank journal.
Perry: Love it. Alright, Dr. East, last question. If you moved to a new city tomorrow and you didn’t know a single soul there, and all that you had with you was your computer and 100 dollars to start a new private practice, what is it that you would do on your very first day?
Carleah: On my very first day, I would probably create a flier, one going virtual and one that I can put on the wall to offer a free workshop.
Perry: Love it.
Carleah: I would totally do that.
Perry: And that’s definitely in the theme of this episode and I think it’s a really fantastic marketing tool that people should be taking advantage of.
Carleah: Sure.
Perry: Any parting advice for our listeners?
Carleah: Sure, don’t be afraid to charge what you’re worth, and I think that’s sometimes scary for us to kind of step out there and provide services and be afraid to hit the mark. I remember I started out at like 50 bucks an hour, and went to 70 and now I’m at a 100. That was an hour for individuals and up for couples and families. Don’t be afraid for your worth, for your value. Because people pay for what they need and they pay for the things and the goods and the services that they want. And you are a good any service that is up a value to your community, so don’t downgrade your value.
Perry: Great, Dr. East, where can our listeners find you to connect and learn more about you?
Carleah: Well, you can check my webpage, it’s www.dreast-smile.com or you can also check me out on Facebook under Smile Counseling Services. And I’m always there. Or give me a call at 424 341 3278. All of the above. Haha.
Perry: Awesome. And of course we’ll have links to all the great resources that Dr. East mentioned in this week’s show notes at Brightervision.com/session32. Dr. East, thank you so much for being so generous with your time, your expertise, and your knowledge. I know that I speak for our entire audience here that we really appreciate all the great advice you provided, and the therapist experience that you have shared.
Carleah: Thank you so much, I appreciate the opportunity and look forward to future opportunities with you.
Perry: Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you have a question for us you can email it to us at [email protected] and, of course, if you’re interested in a website that can brand you and market you effectively don’t hesitate to reach out to us. Brighter Vision is the worldwide leader in custom therapist website design. For less than two bucks a day we’ll build you a website that’s as unique as your practice, provide you with unlimited tech support, and give you complementary SEO so people can find you online. To learn more go to Brightervision.com and shoot us a note. That does it for today, thanks again for listening and we will see you next week.
Tina east says
This interview with Dr. East was amazing