Are you feeling burnt out from one-on-one sessions? If you’ve ever wondered how to shift into something more scalable and freeing, this episode is for you. In this episode of The Traveling Therapist Podcast, we dive into one-to-many offers with Carolyn Robistow, who shares how she transitioned from a packed private practice to life on a boat, while building a business that lets her serve more people in less time.
Carolyn breaks down her framework for creating group programs, including the exact steps therapists need to follow before building a funnel (hint: it’s not step one!). Whether you're curious about adding a new income stream or completely shifting how you work, Carolyn’s insights are a goldmine.
In This Episode, We Explore…
Connect with Carolyn:
Website - https://thescalabletherapist.com/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/carolynrobistow
Brain Unblocked: The Brainspotting Podcast
Connect with me:
Instagram: @thetravelingtherapist_kym
The Traveling Therapist Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/onlineandtraveling/
Signup to learn more about life as a Traveling Therapist: https://www.portablepracticemethod.com/free-training
Revolutionize Your Private Practice with AI Course: www.kymtolson.kartra.com/page/ai
Bill Like A Boss Insurance Billing Community: www.kymtolson.kartra.com/page/blab
Subscribe to the Podcast:
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Transcript:
[00:00:00] Kym: Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Traveling Therapist podcast. I'm excited to have our guest today. We were just chitchatting and she's got a super interesting story. Carolyn Robistow is here with us.
[00:00:11] Carolyn, welcome. I'm so excited for you to just start out and tell us how'd you go from being a traditional therapist to the traveling therapist that you are now.
[00:00:20] Carolyn: You know, I was a teacher in a former life and that has weirdly come around full circle for me now in a way that I didn't expect.
[00:00:28] But in the meantime, in the, in between there, I did all the thing like, you know, got my LPC started a private practice. I had a six figure private practice that I was running in Texas specializing in anxiety and OCD, and I loved it. And then we thought we had dealt with you know, like we'd done a bunch of family planning, tried starting a family.
[00:00:48] I don't like when people say starting a family actually, 'cause it implies that we're not a family, but just for, this is how we talk about it. uh, So we dealt with a lot of things that just didn't go our way necessarily. And then at a certain point there was kind of this like, well, no. Then why are we doing this like suburban private practice corporate thing?
[00:01:08] Like we actually can do whatever the heck we want. And Mike, my husband, he'll tell the story. He is like, of all the things. 'cause so I, I lean pretty risk averse. We'll just say, just to put it nicely, like I am not an adventurous person.
[00:01:23] I moved onto a boat so that I could read more books, not so that I could go, you know, sail through the storms. And, we would like to circum circumnavigate for sure. but so we, we just kind of started playing with this idea and thought, okay, like in five years. we'll be kind of pet free. We figured by that time because we had, we had three pets and we'll be pet free and we'll be able to like, save up our money and get things organized.
[00:01:47] And then there'll be just this really neat plan. And about a year and a half after that, we bought a boat and moved on board. So the five year plan went straight out the window and we thought, why the heck not, let's just go for it. but the biggest question really was, well, what do I, like, i'm not moving onto a boat to spend eight hours a day in a cabin in sessions.
[00:02:06] And at that point I actually was really nervous about my license and moving with it because it's one thing I think to move to a spot and figure out what do I need to do in this spot to see clients. But when you're, and as you know, like when we're pinging around, it's there, it's kind of a different.
[00:02:23] It's a different situation. It's not just, oh, do I wanna get licensed in this new state I'm in or this new country I'm in. And so, I actually shut down my private practice. I went on indefinite leave of absence referred out all my clients and told them I will be gone for at least a year. And this was kinda the story we told everybody.
[00:02:39] It was like, we're gonna go do, it's called the Great Loop. So by boat, you know, you can get all the way up the East coast, you can get through the Great Lakes, through the, like the Erie Canal, and then you can pick up through the locks in Chicago, you can pick up the Midland River system and you can go all the way down the rivers and it spits you right back out in the Gulf. And then you circle back around to Florida. So there are
[00:03:01] Kym: that. Oh my gosh.
[00:03:02] Carolyn: are people who do this. they just live on their boat for a year and they do this trip. And we thought, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna go ahead and do this trip for, we're gonna tell people we'll be gone for about a year, but you know, we don't wanna draw any hard lines.
[00:03:15] And so I referred out all my clients and I had been up until that time, working on some one-to-many offers where I could just do more group work and not be, you know, so tied to my one-on-one clients. So yeah, so we, we left out and here I am. I do have my private practice back now.
[00:03:33] Kym: oh, you do? Okay. So how long have you been on the boat? Because I, I'm sure everybody's like, how long have you been doing this?
[00:03:37] Carolyn: Yeah. Yeah. So two years.
[00:03:39] Kym: Okay,
[00:03:40] Carolyn: two year boat anniversary.
[00:03:42] Kym: So did you do the whole loop or are you still like in the process, like are you taking your time with the loop or how'd it go?
[00:03:48] Carolyn: so we made it all the way up to Vermont. We got up into Lake Champlain to visit some family up in Vermont, which is not technically on the loop. It's a side trip, but we thought, yeah, we're just gonna go visit family. And then we reached the point where it was like, okay, if we're gonna finish the loop this year, we gotta get, hoof in it because the, you know, the lakes start to freeze over and the locks will start closing.
[00:04:09] And we just weren't ready to leave. We were really happy where we were and we, we just kind of had the sit down and I said, we're not loopers, we are liverboards. Like this is now, this is our home. We don't need to finish the loop in a year. Like most of these, most of the people who do the loop, they finish it and then they kind of go back to their land life.
[00:04:28] It's just this kind of like a sabbatical, if you will. And so really stepping out of that, like no, this is not just a temporary fun trip we've taken, like we are living on this boat indefinitely. And so we decided just to hang out up there the whole summer. And then we came back down the East coast and now we're making tracks for, you know, The Bahamas, the Caribbean, Florida. At least we're meeting, we're meeting my family in Florida for the holidays. That's our next major
[00:04:53] Kym: fun. Oh my gosh,
[00:04:55] Carolyn: yeah, we may or may not finish the loop. Who knows?
[00:04:58] Kym: So do you take the Intercoastal down then? Is that what you'll do now?
[00:05:01] Carolyn: Yeah, yeah, we do, we do in this boat. Yeah. So that's part of the loop. So we're in a motor vessel. It's not a sailboat yet, but we're looking to get into a sailboat next, which you can do the loop on a sailboat, but it's you have to take the mass down for certain portions and bridges and, you know, we'd, I think we're kind of at the point where we'd rather just get gone.
[00:05:18] Kym: Yeah. That is amazing. So were you boat people already or was it like, let's buy a boat?
[00:05:23] Carolyn: well, okay, so he, had experience on boats and in 2020 we bought our first boat together and we were on a lake. And we would go up and spend weekends on the Lake, lake Conroe, just north of Houston, Texas. And I was so panicked on this boat. We'd be driving across the lake and I would just burst into tears. I was so afraid I had just these like really irrational fears about like, the boat bursting into flames or like capsizing
[00:05:51] Kym: Oh, I feel like I would be like that. Yeah, totally. Get
[00:05:54] Carolyn: I, I hated it. And so then when he was saying like, what about this? And I was like, oh yeah, let's do that. He's like, okay, but like quick pause because you are like, we cannot settle your nervous system.
[00:06:06] You know, for anything on this boat, like, what's that gonna look like? But it, in hindsight, like the boat we're on now is so, first of all, it's a lot bigger, right? But it's so much slower. Like we go at a snails pace on this vessel. It is a slow cruising vessel.
[00:06:22] So I'm just so much more relaxed and I'm so thankful that it's not like we're not in, it doesn't feel like we're in a hurry to get anywhere anymore. So yeah. So it was, my second boat, our second boat together, but the, the first one was, not my favorite thing in the world.
[00:06:36] Kym: Now, do y'all know how to sail? Will you go to a sailboat or you think you'll always keep it with the motorboat?
[00:06:40] Carolyn: No. We would like to get onto a sailboat. Yeah. I'm so excited. About learning, learning to sail. I understand the mechanics of it more or less. I've done a lot of reading on it. I love like practicing my knots to tie the lines, so I've really been gearing up for it. But I've not ever actually sailed a boat by myself or, or with just us.
[00:07:01] Kym: Oh my gosh. That's exciting. everybody always wants to know this when we're talking about boats. How do you get the internet? Like what do you do for the internet?
[00:07:09] Carolyn: We have starlink. There's satellite internet on the boat.
[00:07:12] Kym: Perfect. Perfect. Does it work pretty well?
[00:07:14] Carolyn: Absolutely. And my clients and my groups too know that if I freeze, I'll be right back. We have plans in place for that and, but yeah, it's fantastic. It.
[00:07:23] Kym: Oh, that's so, so cool. So I heard you say. You were kinda like, I got rid of the private practice, but then I think I heard you say that maybe you've got the private practice back a little bit right now or are you kind of back in it? I'm just curious, like for people listening, when did you make those decision points?
[00:07:37] Like I'm gonna do the sabbatical kind of thing. You get rid of everybody and then like when do you decide to bring people back in? what was that like for you?
[00:07:44] Carolyn: It was tough for sure because it was, it was tearful when I first left, for my clients. I mean, there was grief on both ends, you know, especially because it wasn't like I wasn't not gonna be a therapist anymore. We just weren't sure if and when I would, and so, it was last summer, so it was about a year on the boat before I was like, okay, it feels doable.
[00:08:10] I feel like I could take a small handful of one-on-one clients and just pick it back up pretty minimally, because truly my focus now is the one-to-many work. And so I can spend one to two hours make the same amount of money or more than I was making, seeing, you know, six to eight clients a day. And so I still just keep, a very niched, very small population of paying clients that are fine with seeing me online.
[00:08:35] Kym: Private pay, or do you do insurance? Okay. Nice.
[00:08:38] Carolyn: No, I, I was always private pay. I got licensed back before interns in Texas, which are now called associates. We weren't able to work in private practice, so I went into a private practice with a supervisor who did not find me clients.
[00:08:51] So straight out the gate, I had to find my own clients and build my own book of business. So by the time I was licensed, it was kind of like, well, why would I even change that? Like it's working. And so I've just always been private pay.
[00:09:01] Kym: great. I mean, that gives you a lot more freedom, I think. Yeah. and you have a specialty too, you wanna share about that. I know you're obsessed with your specialty, so maybe you could share what you do.
[00:09:11] Carolyn: Yeah, yeah. Well, so my, specialty, I guess it's one of those, like, I think I'm, like you were, I've just got so
[00:09:16] Kym: You've got so many, you're like, which
[00:09:18] Carolyn: so many different things. Yeah. I'm like, I'm like, help me
[00:09:20] Kym: The therapy, the brainspotting.
[00:09:23] Carolyn: Yeah, so, so, and what's great about brainspotting and like, good luck, now you've, you've said the magic word and now you'll have to like, figure out the, the safe word to get me to stop talking about it is I actually use Brainspotting in my group offers too, so
[00:09:35] Kym: Well, you know, when I was
[00:09:36] Carolyn: clients and with the groups.
[00:09:38] Kym: I was reading your bio, it's like I almost, it felt like you were inferring that a little bit, that you can use it in both places, and I've heard people say that, that it's not necessarily just for clinicians, like you don't have to be a clinician to be able to use brainspotting in these other offers. Yeah. Okay.
[00:09:51] Carolyn: Yep. Yep. brainspotting is our, our kind of saying is there's no territory on healing. And the more the merrier, the more people we can get using this modality in really, you know, ethical and effective ways, the better off we're gonna be. So back in 2019. Ish, I think is when I first got trained in brainspotting.
[00:10:08] And it was a game changer. It just changed my world. It has made being a therapist so much easier saved me from burnout in COVID for sure. Like, I don't know how I would've gotten through 2020 if it weren't for brainspotting and then the time that we got to spend on the water with that first boat.
[00:10:24] The basic premise is that and actually I have a podcast called Brain Unblocked. It's the Brainspotting podcast, so people can go listen to that, where I really geek out on it. But it is effectively what we're talking about is using eye positions to tap into the midbrain, to unlock whatever's stuck in there, whether that's the trauma or the you know, unhelpful thoughts or even physical injuries actually, I have a physical therapist I work with for, for menopause that is a, a brainspotting physical therapist. And that has just been a game changer for me. My posture's so much better.
[00:10:59] But yeah, so it's just, we're using eye positions to, tap into the midbrain and it, it's actually really simple. There's a couple of really important basic tenets, and once you get those down, it's just really opens a whole new world.
[00:11:11] Kym: That's so cool. Yeah. I had a friend, a clinician friend that was getting trained in and she's like, I need Guinea pigs. And I'm like, me, because I hate public speaking. I hate it. I've always hated it, but I have to do it for this one-to-many kind of model. And I definitely did, I think met with her like eight or nine times and, and did it.
[00:11:28] It was very cool. Yeah, I really was like, I could see how this helps because I'm EMDR trained so I could like, you know, understand the, where you look and all that stuff. It's really cool.
[00:11:38] So I love that you're using that in your practice and also in your one-to-one or your one-to-many models. can we dig into that? 'Cause like you said, you are a lot like me just from reading your bio. You've got a lot of little irons in the fires kind of thing that you're doing out there.
[00:11:54] So maybe we could just talk a little bit about how you got to that place, because people listening to this, they're always like, you know, how do I get out of this one-to-one model? It's killing me. And then like, tell us what your offers are and what you're doing and how you're implementing it, and all that good stuff.
[00:12:08] Carolyn: So I think when I hear people saying, oh, like just tell me how to do it. This one-to-one model is killing me, right? Here's where the hitch in the get along is 90% of the time, if not more. And this is my specialty, which is building a funnel is the fourth step.
[00:12:23] But we're out there getting told, well, you start with a funnel, you build a lead magnet, and then you put it to an email. You know, you get a website, sales page, nurturing emails blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That is step four. Funnels are step four. If people don't remember anything else from this conversation, I want them to remember funnels are step four.
[00:12:39] So going back to how I got into it. I did what I was supposed to do. I invested in the coaches who were teaching me how to create a lead magnet and how to build a funnel, and I made, a $30,000 plus mistake by continuing to invest in different types of funnel building thinking well, I guess it was just that funnel.
[00:13:01] Or I would invest in messaging help. Okay. I guess it was the messaging around my offer and I needed to better the messaging in my funnel, but because the funnel is step four, I had missed these really critical steps. And once I figured out those three steps, those three like steps one through three,
[00:13:19] everything came together and doing the the one-to-many offers is so much easier, so much more fun. I'm getting paid to play with my ideas, which is really a dream come true. Right? especially people like you and I, and I'm sure you know our listeners, which is. There's so much more to us than just I, I tell my clients in my, in my group offer hourly out of office. I tell 'em, you don't need a niche. Your offer needs a niche.
[00:13:46] You don't need an ideal client. Your offer does. Each offer needs an ideal client and a niche. And it is true that there's something to be said for we don't want so many different offers across a vast array of niches. 'cause then we're effectively running multiple brands and businesses, and not that it's not doable, but we don't need to start there.
[00:14:04] The end goal of working with me is build a funnel and automate it, you graduate from working with me. And then you go somewhere where you're gonna build a a funnel or an automation where you know that you have an offer with proof of concept, you've got a proprietary framework,
[00:14:19] you know exactly what to say to call people in 'cause you've already called them in and they've paid you for it. I call it beta data dollars, like we just get these beta tests. I love a good science experiment. And so the way it kind of was born into this, this really succinct process, going back to I was a teacher, right?
[00:14:36] So I've got a bachelor's degree in how to take really complex things and break 'em down into bite-sized chunks. I taught kindergarten was the longest thing I taught. So I can really simplify some stuff. And so what I started doing, my very first one-to-many offer was for people who wanted to quit drinking.
[00:14:52] And I got certified as a coach to do that offer. And, and the number one question I always get from people is like, can I do this under my license, can I not? And I say, just depends on what your offer is first. We gotta figure out that again, that's. Like you've jumped ahead a couple steps. We gotta figure out what you're trying to do before we even figure out does this need to be under your license?
[00:15:10] Does this need to be a separate business? Does it need to be a separate LLC? Is this a coaching? You know, what else do you need to be within your scope? But we have to pick an iron to throw in the fire first. And so I, the iron I threw in the fire first was, okay, I just wanna help people quit drinking with brainspotting.
[00:15:25] 'cause I had used it on myself to quit drinking. And I was like, oh. This is so fantastic. everybody needs to know this because to have that moment to go from what I call Groundhog Day drinking which is after the 1992 Bill Murray movie. 'cause if there's one thing I love more than a science experiment, it's like a good nostalgic movie
[00:15:42] Kym: Yes. I love that movie.
[00:15:44] Carolyn: But so good. But, so I was on this Groundhog Day drinking cycle of shame and I brainspotted it and I like never have wanted to drink again. And I say that and I worry about saying it right, because I'm like, that just sound, people are like, okay, let's like, let's not. Let's not false advertise some stuff.
[00:16:01] But like you said, you know, you did some brainspotting for public speaking and you thought, wow, this is really powerful. I don't know if that for you meant you've never felt nervous to speak again, or you've
[00:16:10] Kym: No, definitely not, but it definitely decreased it a little bit.
[00:16:14] Carolyn: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so for me, with the alcohol, it decreased it enough that it wasn't even like a desire anymore. It was just like, oh, I have that option. But I didn't want it, it decreased the desire so much that it just was an option that existed.
[00:16:28] so I built a group to help people quit drinking. And what ended up happening was so many people would come to me and they would say, but after this, once I'm done with this, and it was a lot of therapists would come to me and say, okay, I wanna quit drinking, and then after this, I want you to tell me how I can build a group like this one that I'm participating in with you.
[00:16:46] And so, kind of organically, I was like, oh, okay. Like, now I can tell you how I broke down those steps. So that's what I do now is I show therapists and coaches how to take one day of one-on-one off their schedule and replace it with one group so that they can have the rest of that day off.
[00:17:01] Kym: So you said step four is the funnel. What are steps one through three in case anybody listening is like, what are those steps?
[00:17:08] Carolyn: Right, right. Good job. Menopause sometimes eats things out of my brain and I forget that I've like dropped a
[00:17:13] Kym: I get it. I'm in perimenopause, I'm on hormone replacement. I'm like, feel like I'm losing my mind every day, but yeah.
[00:17:19] Carolyn: Yep. I am losing my mind every day. So step one, and I actually do walk people through this when it like personally for whatever their idea is. I do that in a group also, and I'll at the end, or whenever I can tell people how to get the invite to the next thing for that.
[00:17:35] Kym: Yes.
[00:17:36] Carolyn: Actually, I'll just drop it real quick. If you just find me on Instagram and DM me the word travel, I'll know you're from this podcast and I'll get you the next invite where we can do this together. But so step number one, I call these three steps, the pre-funnel Playgrounds, and the first pre-funnel playground is the niche nest. And in the niche nest, we turn on what's called an enrollment engine, which is this like machine where you just put in one piece of information that like you put, we said your iron in the fire.
[00:18:03] You just take that iron and you like plug it into this machine and it goes through a series of invitations, conversations, and then we build your limbic language library, which is that thing where I know what to say, to speak to my clients like embodied language, not even the way they say it. So a lot of people will tell you, listen to what they say and say their words back to them.
[00:18:27] But there's a level even under that, and it's what are like, how are we speaking to their experience of that thought? So it might be, one thing I love to say is like, we're looking for that first class leg room kind of money and a wait list that the IFS would drool over.
[00:18:42] So. Those are just ways, right? Like see even that, like you get a little tickle out of it versus like you want an offer that has a strong waitlist. So just being able to add that, like limbic language that a system will have that genuine, authentic reaction to.
[00:18:55] And so we're doing that all in the niche nest. And that's where we get to like play with different ideas 'cause here's what happens too, and it happened to me, is that we think we like a niche. And then if we're going straight to step four, we're building a whole funnel. We're automating it, and then we get the people in and we're like, oh, I don't like it.
[00:19:13] I don't wanna do that. So with the niche nest, we get to say that was fun. Those people paid me to like, play around a little bit, figure out ways to help them and support them. And now I know that those are not the people that I wanna keep helping long term.
[00:19:25] So I didn't waste my time because I did get paid for the time I spent in it, which helps. And after the niche nest, we say that the, the result of the niche nest is like date night money. So it's like I got a couple extra bucks or maybe I got enough to make up for the time that I took off of one-on-one work for that. You know?
[00:19:40] And then we move. Once you have a niche that you like and we spend a lot of time in the niche nest, we are not rushing through the niche nest. Once you have a niche that you like, we move into the next playground, which is Offer Factory, which is where we really fine tune, like, what are your methods?
[00:19:54] What are the tools you have? How do we name the tools? Proprietary naming is a big one because I don't know about you, but there's so many people out there selling these things that I'm like, I don't even know what that means, but it's all this like jazzy speak.
[00:20:08] Especially when ChatGPT is writing it for people and we're like, oh, that sounds so sexy, and the alliteration is so good, but like, I'm not quite sure what it means.
[00:20:14] And so an offer factory, here's the thing that, my clients tell me, my therapist clients in hourly out of offices, they'll say, but it's so individualized what I do, I don't know how I would put it into a repeatable process for someone. And then I go back to my kindergarten teacher skillset, and I say, actually it feels very individualized because you have a process for how you individualize it.
[00:20:36] And so we have to like unlock your little brain and pull at and like tease out, you already have a proprietary method. We just have to put some language around it that matches your client's limbic language library. And that's fun because then we're beta testing little parts of it. So for example, I beta tested the niche nest all by itself once, and then I beta tested offer factory once all by itself.
[00:20:59] And then once we get through the offer factory, we've got the more like, I don't even remember what I call it right now. Menopause just ate it. But then we go into validation station after that, which is where we do like a, if you think of like, a dress rehearsal for theater or like a soft launch for a restaurant where we're gonna run it open to close curtain, up to down full program with people paying for it.
[00:21:21] But this is where we're working out the bugs and we're saying, where did I miss this? Where did they get stuck? And what do I need to build in? Then you're done, that offers leaves the pre-funnel playgrounds and you can go tweak it. You can automate it, you can toss it if it turns out you didn't love it, but thank God you got paid while you figured that out.
[00:21:39] It's great. That's when you graduate to like you know, the, Amy Porter fields and the, the really like funnel experts. that's where I send you is go see them.
[00:21:47] Kym: Amazing. What a cool program. Yes.
[00:21:51] Carolyn: I love it. I just geeked out on it for a while.
[00:21:53] Kym: I love it. And then you talked about hourly to out of office. Is that part of that, scalable therapist series?
[00:21:59] Carolyn: So the scalable therapist is a summit, it's an audio series that I run. Yep. So we just had, we just closed out the first season, which was such a success. I'm so excited. And all the money made from the upgrade kits went to one of my favorite nonprofits.
[00:22:12] I don't make a penny off of it. So we had just a really great time. Season two is gonna be spring of 2026, and it is where I bring in experts who I have like a real great set of skills. I don't have all the skills. So I bring in the experts for the skills that I don't have ,
[00:22:28] and then we beef up what a person, what a therapist needs when they're, so the goal of the scalable therapist is for a therapist to answer two questions. One is a one-to-many offer the right step for me right now. And two, if that's a yes, what the heck do I need to do to get this going?
[00:22:43] that's what the scalable therapist is. It's a fun week of just geeking out together. I keep it super small because. We're busy. We got one-on-one clients and we don't have time for a whole bunch of podcasts or videos we gotta watch at the end of the day. So super short.
[00:22:59] Kym: That is amazing. So cool. And then hourly to out of office is the, Building the
[00:23:04] Carolyn: It's the group.
[00:23:05] Kym: talked about. Okay. Gotcha.
[00:23:06] Carolyn: Yeah. It's the three pre-funnel Playgrounds.
[00:23:10] Kym: That's so cool. So, how do you help somebody that's got a million ideas, like you and I are both talking that we've got a bunch of different irons in the fire, but how do you help somebody niche down? Are you just pick one and say, like you said, let's just go with this and see how it feels. And if you don't like it, we'll pick something else, like that kind of thing.
[00:23:26] Carolyn: It is kind of like that, but let me differentiate for that, right? Because it's easy for us, not, not you and I, us, but it's easy for humans to think, okay, I'm just gonna pick one and then I'm gonna go. But what happens next is we then overthink which one to pick because we feel like. I just have to pick one, but like, which one?
[00:23:43] But like, what if I pick this one? Well, what if it was supposed to be this one? And then we overthink the one we're gonna pick. And so by way of, so the invitation to the thing that I said, if you just DM me the word travel on Instagram, I'll send you my next invitation.
[00:23:54] That's a group is a free group where we just come together and I will help you figure out how to pick the one to plug in to these prefrontal playgrounds, if that feels right for you, but really, like before you're even like, we gotta, we gotta figure out what to pick.
[00:24:10] the way that we pick is in a sense it's just pick one, but it's not pick one to see all the way through. It's pick one to to plug into the enrollment engine and then the engine itself will spit back out if you need to change it or not.
[00:24:23] And it's pretty quick turnaround so that we're not all the way through all of these stages before we realize like, oh, I'd rather do this one. Or, oh, it turns out that's not the one I want. And I run, I run all of my ideas through these pre-funnel playgrounds. I'm about to run my fourth idea through it.
[00:24:39] So I ran hourly out of office through it. I ran my program for people who wanted to quit drinking through it. I've just done a group brainspotting train specialty workshop that I'm working to get approved so I can offer it to the Brainspotting community for brainspotters who maybe don't want the help from hourly out of office.
[00:24:55] Like they already know how to market a group and they have a group they just wanna bring brainspotting into it. So that one, I've run through it and now I'm working on one with my husband that we're an offer that we're running through these pre-frontal playgrounds.
[00:25:09] So. It is actually a lot of fun and most people run multiple ideas through it, so it is kind of like a just pick and we can change it later, but it's not pick one, see it all the way through, and then when it graduates, you do the next one. We can be running multiple ideas at different stages because each playground requires a different set of skills and attention. And so as long as only one offer is in one playground at a time. It's easy to keep from getting overwhelmed.
[00:25:38] Kym: That's amazing. I always like to ask this just for people listening 'cause a lot of people don't realize you can do these things different ways. Would you call it like a time sensitive kind of thing where it's just like a six week or six month kind of thing and then it closes, the cohort closes?
[00:25:52] Or is it more of an open-ended kind of thing where people just stay in it? And is it more like considered like a high ticket or a low ticket? 'cause I think those are, when I work with people, they always ask those questions, like, how, how do I do this? open enrollment, closed enrollment, high ticket, low ticket. So I'd love to hear just like your strategy around that.
[00:26:10] Carolyn: I keep it pretty small because even inside our lead out of office, we are doing group brainspotting. So things like, oh, I still can't pick. Great. Let's brain spot that or now I have visibility things like, I'm ready, I've got my message. But the thought of going on a podcast and, and talking about it, I just, I can't even pitch myself on a podcast.
[00:26:29] Great. Let's, let's brain spot that. Let's bring the community together. So I do keep it small and by way of it being small, it is a not-low ticket is what I would say.
[00:26:38] The way that I like to price it is I keep a couple of spots each. Every once, like I have a certain number of spots that are available at x price. And then there are spots that are higher price. And so depending on if you can grab a spot when it opens, you can get in at a, I would call it mid ticket, between two and $3,000 for the year. And so it is a time sensitive in that it's a year, but it's because we need time to play in these.
[00:27:04] And since we're getting paid anyways through the whole process. There's not a rush to get through it. it's more like, it's like a crockpot rather than a microwave. Like let's just, it's the goodness is coming from sitting in these playgrounds, having the fun and really fine tuning it. So by the time it leaves, like I, I love all of my group offers.
[00:27:25] I do not love every group offer i've run through the process, but the ones that I have made it through the whole process with. I've done that because I love them so much and I just, like I, you can't get to shut up about 'em. So it's this idea of let's get in the crockpot because the goodness is happening in the crockpot.
[00:27:43] We don't need to zap it and immediately eat. We can sit here and like smell it and taste it while it's going and things like that.
[00:27:50] Kym: That's an amazing, amazing analogy. That's really cool. And I would imagine these, these cohorts are pretty tight knit. Like you become pretty tight knit with the people and get the feedback and all of that in the community piece of it.
[00:28:01] Carolyn: Yeah, that's something I'm actually really big on and is a huge part of the group brainspotting community too that I lead is we talk about trust, transformation, and takeaways as the three steps every group has to go through. And so you kind of go through it in this overarching piece and each time you get together, we have to do this trust transformation and takeaway piece or else people get stuck.
[00:28:23] And so that trust piece, we know this for one-on-one, right? As therapists we're like, oh yeah, rapport, duh. But then we get in these group programs where there's, you know, maybe a recording and I'm not knocking online courses. This is just not how I run it.
[00:28:36] And it's not how I get supported. So that's why I do it the way I do, is I need someone to know me and my business. And so I do best when I know my people and their businesses, and I know which idea they're working on and which playground it's in, so that I can follow up with them and say, how is this going?
[00:28:54] What happened when you tweaked it this way? Did that work for you? If not, try it this way. Like, I really wanna know my people. So it is a very tight-knit community even without it being a cohort, it still just is a very tight-knit community.
[00:29:09] Kym: That's amazing.
[00:29:10] Carolyn: my people.
[00:29:11] Kym: So what's your ratio now with like the one-to-many versus the one-to-one? How are you balancing that right now?
[00:29:18] Carolyn: Hmm. Ooh, what a great data question and don't I just not have the numbers on that. So, let's see. Well, we're coming off of the summer slowdown with clients and then the fall and people's HSA cards are starting to kind of get full up. So I've got multiple clients on the therapy side who are scaling back, who historically will, something will happen and they'll come back in and we'll pick back up.
[00:29:40] So I try not to book those spots when I have that information. 'cause I don't wanna then end up with too many one-on-one clients. Like, that's my big thing is I just, I don't wanna have too many one-on-one clients.
[00:29:54] Kym: gotta find the balance.
[00:29:55] Carolyn: Yeah. Yeah, it's like the crisp of a salad and the mushy, gooey straight outta the oven, chocolate chip, a cookie. Like that's the balance. We have to have both worlds. And so, yeah, so I keep, quite honestly, I just don't advertise my private practice.
[00:30:10] When people send me referrals, it's because they know what my skillset is. It tends to be their friends. It's like a lot of my therapists send me their friends. And so those are, that builds my private practice caseload plenty.
[00:30:22] I don't need to do any more of that. And when I do, I have a couple of places where I post, Hey, I've got some openings, and they come pretty quick. So balance wise, I just don't put a lot of marketing energy into the private practice.
[00:30:35] The most of the fun I have is in finding the therapist who are ready to do these, these first three steps before they get to the fourth step, which is the funnel. I cannot say that enough.
[00:30:46] So that's how I balance it. We do a lot too of. Well, when we're underway, I try not to be on calls because the internet is less reliable underway. So we, I plan it around kind of our travel schedule too, where, you know, we've got some friends who are, we might head down to The Bahamas to meet up with for something.
[00:31:06] And so it's kind of like, okay, it's nice to have a light enough schedule to where I only have to move a few things, or like my group I can see while I'm there. It's not a huge deal. I'm used to seeing 'em underway anyways, so just really trying to be conscientious of if we were to up and move to a new location on that day, would I hate the me who made that schedule or not?
[00:31:28] Kym: Yeah. Oh, I've had lots of those days. It's like, why did I schedule that on that day? That's so crazy. I don't know what I was thinking. Yeah,
[00:31:35] Carolyn: and it's funny too, like, I don't know, I found that, and so this is, this is a, a hot topic on this, this vessel is that I have, because I have group members and clients not therapy clients, but group members. And coaching clients in other countries, people in Australia like, so I'm, I have groups that I run in the evenings and my husband's always like, you work so late. I'm like, yeah, but I didn't start till four.
[00:31:57] I had this whole day off. And so just realizing that it's okay to step out of that like nine to five model and build the schedule in a way that works with what I like doing and not feeling tied to that. There's just a lot of old narratives that are stuck in there, especially as a teacher, like eight to three and working after three is like working after hours. Now I just don't even start until four or five some days. So it's been a lot of fun figuring it out quite honestly.
[00:32:24] Kym: Yeah. I love that. I love that. Yeah. Some days I find it exhausting and other days it's like, this is the coolest thing ever. It's like a puzzle. It's like, okay, we're gonna be moving here on this day, but I've got this, so we gotta make sure this fits. Yeah. Or have wifi that day. Yeah, totally.
[00:32:39] Carolyn: Yep. That is the nice thing about boat life is that everything I need moves with me. I don't have to pack up and move it. Like I can work underway if I want. Um, I
[00:32:48] Kym: Super. That's super nice. We are, I could tell you we are tired of packing up and moving from Airbnb to Airbnb.
[00:32:57] Carolyn: yeah. Yep. I just take my house with me.
[00:32:59] Kym: Yeah. That's so great. Oh my gosh. I love it. so where do people find you, you mentioned your Instagram, but I don't know if we said the name of your Instagram account, did we?
[00:33:08] Carolyn: Just Carolyn Robistow, and I imagine you can drop that down in the links, but the thing to do is not go follow me. I don't even care if you follow me or not. I'm hardly ever on socials. What I care about is you DM me the word travel so that I make sure to get you the invitation to the next conversation about let's get an iron for you to put in the fire.
[00:33:25] That's the actual step. 'cause just following someone is like, it's fun. And you might see me post something funny and see like, you know, a video of one of my pets on the boat. But that's not gonna help you be a traveling therapist. You gotta send the word, you gotta DM me the word travel if you want that.
[00:33:40] Kym: I love it. Yeah. That's great. Well, thank you so much for this conversation. It's so fun hearing about what you're doing and offering, and I think anybody listening is going to jump on this. It's really interesting.
[00:33:52] Carolyn: Thank you. I really appreciate it. This has been fun.