Want to diversify your psychology practice’s products and services?
Jan 07, 2023We know it makes sense, so why do we tend to neglect the power of the group?
There can be a tendency amongst psychologists to imagine that getting one on one help to create psychology products and services is going to be most useful to you. You get someone’s undivided attention on you and your product. Your hand is held as you take those steps to making your dream a reality. You have a guru who’s been there, done that, to point out the bear traps and the special ladders to success.
That seems to make sense on the surface, but it’s not the right learning and development approach for this activity of diversifying your practice for several reasons. Before I go into the detail of why, though, let me explain that I’m saying this from a place of experience *and* expertise.
I have been a learning and development specialist for 25+ years. I’ve been developing programmes and products for international businesses since I started my own corporate practice in 2003. That’s another 21 years selling products and courses to corporates.
I also have a huge passion for applying my experience and expertise to helping psychologists in private practice and, through The Psychology Practice Accelerator programme we’ve supported many practices in diversifying, innovating, and growing too.
The perspective I share here is hard won and it’s coming also from a place of frustration as I see my colleagues spending hard earned cash and investing their dreams and aspirations only to have them fall flat. We deserve more.
In the past, I have accepted people for long-term coaching when they’ve said, ‘I think things are really busy and so I’m just going to go with coaching because I’ll be able to make progress in my own time and still get your help.’
But the reality is that often the thing getting in their way is their busy-ness. It’s often reflective of missing clarity on their strategy. It can be because they’re trying to make things different whilst still taking the same decisions that have got them stuck in the first place. It’s frequently because of an underlying fear that they can’t make their dreams for a diversified practice a reality.
Now, coaching *can* address those specific issues when we can eventually name them (see ‘when does coaching work?’ below). But the reality is that coaching is not the place where you can learn the knowledge, skills and habits to create profitable products and services in a sustainable way to grow your practice, especially whilst avoiding those underlying blocks.
When does coaching work?
Now, coaching *can* address those specific issues when we can eventually name them (see ‘when does coaching work?’ below). But the reality is that coaching is not the place where you can learn the knowledge, skills and habits to create profitable products and services in a sustainable way to grow your practice, especially whilst avoiding those underlying blocks.
When does coaching work?
In the run up to participating in The Psychology Practice Accelerator some people benefit from individual coaching sessions with me, often where they are coming from a place of having been burnt out or even traumatised by their previous work experience, they know they want something to be different in their practice but they’re not sure what, or they know what they want to do but there’s some Parts of them holding them back from taking those positive steps to implementation.
That is when people need me to hold space for them and to support them through questions, helping them connect with their Parts who may hold beliefs, burdens, or blind spots about moving forward.
Within the coaching space, it’s possible to start moving from feeling blocked to developing clarity. It’s why we also built some individual coaching into The Psychology Practice Accelerator, as well as resources and activities to help you connect with and work through those blocks.
So why am I no longer accepting long-term coaching clients who want my help diversifying their practices?
Firstly, Coaching is not Teaching: When it comes to diversifying your practice, there’s a lot of learning involved and, it may sound obvious to say it out loud but coaching is not teaching. If we want to be profitable and to help our clients, we need to develop and test products through an iterative process known as Life-centred Design Thinking.
I wrote several masterclasses on life centred design thinking for psychologists that are included in The Psychology Practice Accelerator programme. Many psychologists we work with are experts in their respective fields but they need support turning their skills and experience towards developing new products and services in their own practices. So, there’s some up-skilling to do. It’s all good – but the best way to up-skill is not through coaching.
Like It or Not, We Need Strategy: Strategy means that we understand how these potential products and services fit with our company and where we want the company to grow in the long term. We all know how our psychologist training includes very little on how to run a business. Even in businesses, leaders can struggle with developing strategies.
Like It or Not, We Need Strategy: Strategy means that we understand how these potential products and services fit with our company and where we want the company to grow in the long term. We all know how our psychologist training includes very little on how to run a business. Even in businesses, leaders can struggle with developing strategies.
Diversifying our practices means creating a new function and cost centre in our business – product research and development. In big businesses, there would be discussions about how such a cost was going to propel the company towards its goals and then the required resources would be outlined, budget would be allocated, and people would be recruited into the new part of the company.
In our psychology practices, WE are the one who’s going to make those decisions AND we are the ones who will be doing all the work and we’re going to be spending, probably, our own money.
In our psychology practices, WE are the one who’s going to make those decisions AND we are the ones who will be doing all the work and we’re going to be spending, probably, our own money.
When we are working in our new role as 'Head of Product Research and Development' (and looking forward to your incoming role as Head of Marketing for New Products) we need to be confident that this investment is, indeed, propelling our practice in the right direction.
Strategy helps us to have that confidence but it’s often an area where psychologists struggle alone. Your confidence around defining your strategy also emerges over time as you see what works for other psychologists in different sectors. We learn vicariously.
The development of successful products and services also requires iteration – as mentioned above, course/product creation is an inherently iterative process.
Strategy helps us to have that confidence but it’s often an area where psychologists struggle alone. Your confidence around defining your strategy also emerges over time as you see what works for other psychologists in different sectors. We learn vicariously.
The development of successful products and services also requires iteration – as mentioned above, course/product creation is an inherently iterative process.
We will try and fail and try and fail and then try and win and so on and so forth. Here’s a keynote by the CEO of Ontraport, himself a successful serial entrepreneur, where he lays this reality out for us all. You must be able to test and iterate to develop products and services without bankrupting your company.
Same for Landon Ray, same for us.
There’s even a whole industry – known as AGILE product development – that is dedicated to the reality of the iterative process. What can we learn from AGILE that helps us in our practices?
Core to the iterative process is failing fast – learning what doesn’t work is arguably as important, if not more important, than learning what does work.
Same for Landon Ray, same for us.
There’s even a whole industry – known as AGILE product development – that is dedicated to the reality of the iterative process. What can we learn from AGILE that helps us in our practices?
Core to the iterative process is failing fast – learning what doesn’t work is arguably as important, if not more important, than learning what does work.
As Landon Ray says, there is no one person, no coach or guru, out there now that can tell you that the product you’re working on is going to be successful or not. When you are learning about creating your own products and leveraged services, we must learn about what doesn’t work and that’s where the power of working alongside a small group of people you trust comes into its own.
When you work with a single coach, you get one perspective, one set of experiences to learn from.
When you work with a group, suddenly you have many more perspectives, and you learn from their experiences too.
When you work with a single coach, you get one perspective, one set of experiences to learn from.
When you work with a group, suddenly you have many more perspectives, and you learn from their experiences too.
We can all learn more quickly, together.
Social learning is one of our human superpowers – and yet we so often disregard the power of the group in favour of ‘individual attention.’ Perhaps a reflection of the individualist times in which we live but I can assure you that group learning is powerful. The AGILE industry knows this too since AGILE product development is also based around small group learning.
I built small group learning into my programmes, not on a whim or by accident, but by design. Small groups are a superior context for learning through iteration because they harness the superpower of social and vicarious learning.
Social learning is one of our human superpowers – and yet we so often disregard the power of the group in favour of ‘individual attention.’ Perhaps a reflection of the individualist times in which we live but I can assure you that group learning is powerful. The AGILE industry knows this too since AGILE product development is also based around small group learning.
I built small group learning into my programmes, not on a whim or by accident, but by design. Small groups are a superior context for learning through iteration because they harness the superpower of social and vicarious learning.
You will learn more quickly, and you will learn more effectively. Don’t do yourself a disservice by eschewing the power of group learning in favour of ‘personal attention.’
It's also accepted and understood that being part of an entrepreneurial 'ecosystem' is vital to the development of those businesses. Our practices develop more effectively when we join such an ecosystem of entrepreneurial practices.
Putting Time Aside to Work on your Practice Not In It: There can be a resistance to joining a programme that has regular time slots where you need to show up when we are busy working in our practices and thinking about how products and services can help us get off that treadmill.
A practice development programme where we are part of a group means we get into the habit of taking regular action and putting time in our diary where we’re accountable to others.
This regular action is key to you being able to grow your practice.
That’s because it will make you put time in your diary and organise the rest of your practice around both working ON as well as working IN your practice. It means you will gain the habit of being accountable to a small team of people, like you might have around you in a larger organisation. The different perspectives will challenge you more than a single perspective.
When we try to fit the strategic and developmental work of growing our practice in the margins around our current practice, this growth doesn't happen. I’ve seen this. Life takes over.
When we try to fit the strategic and developmental work of growing our practice in the margins around our current practice, this growth doesn't happen. I’ve seen this. Life takes over.
If you want your practice to be different in a year’s time, you must make the right space for it. I wish I could tell you different. I wish this was not the case. I wish I could just send you a bunch of webinar links, tell you to watch them in your spare time (what’s that?) and then fit in some conversations with me in your spare time too.
But that’s not what leads to a transformation in your practice.
Overall, practice development requires a blended learning approach because our practices are multidimensional.
Overall, practice development requires a blended learning approach because our practices are multidimensional.
Our vision, ideas, systems, confidence, understanding, perspective, and network all need to grow.
If you want to grow beyond your current circumstances, you need to connect with psychologists coming from different sectors and even from different divisions.
Diverse outcomes need diverse learning approaches. Hence, a diverse, blended programme.
The Fundamentals: There are some basic realities that go along with moving from working 1:1 in our practice and developing a more diversified practice if we want to grow and become or remain profitable.
- Such a pivot requires you to rethink your practice’s strategy. You are altering the way in which your practice will operate now and in the future. You will need to make different decisions about where and how you allocate resources – time, money, people – and a clear strategy helps you make those decisions in a way that leads to growth not costs. If you don’t want ‘course content creator and marketer’ to become yet another job that you’ve added to your enormous To Do list, you will need to make decisions about the resources you’ll need to bring your ideas to life. It’s better to make those decisions in advance rather than when you’re even more snowed-under and burnt out.
- Developing a diversified practice is a social pursuit, not a lone pursuit. You can super-charge your learning and growth by hearing others’ experiences of what works and what doesn’t work. We are social animals. You don’t have to do this alone, and in fact, developing your practice alongside others has many benefits. You will go further, faster, with others on a similar journey. You will go even further when you’re connecting with people from different sectors, different countries, and different backgrounds as psychologists. Take advantage of the diverse group!
- Many of the general programmes for ‘passive product building’ or ‘passive income building’ out there have no understanding of the realities of today’s psychology practices. When you ask, ‘will this work for my psychology practice’ and they reply ‘YES, it works for every type of business’ please remember these people are mostly coming from a place of not truly understanding psychology as a profession. They have no understanding of the ways in which it possibly won’t work. You do.
That’s why your gut instinct led you to ask the question in the first place. I’ve worked with people who’ve spent hundreds and thousands of pounds/dollars on these ‘six and seven figure’ programme sellers and coaches and within our first coffee chat, I’ve identified the thing they’ve been taught that absolutely doesn’t work for psychology practices. I’ve explained why it doesn’t work for us and our clients, and I’ve explained the way it can work instead. The sense of relief, the sense that ‘ah it wasn’t me after all’ and the new flow of ideas and possibilities now that block has been relieved, is palpable.
Please take this post as a rousing call out to all of you psychologists and therapists out there, who might be interested in diversifying the services and products you offer, or already do.
Working with a group will accelerate your learning. It’s often more cost effective overall than private coaching and more fun too. The relationships and connections you make across different domains of psychology are **invaluable**, especially if you’re looking to work beyond your current customers.
It enables you to extend greater choice to your customers and is almost guaranteed to help you create something far better than anything you could have come up with working on your own.
Remember the saying: 'If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others.'
The Psychology Practice Accelerator is opening its doors again in February 2025. Follow us to learn more details.
The Psychology Practice Accelerator is opening its doors again in February 2025. Follow us to learn more details.
