August 15, 2025 • 14 mins
Get your step by step guide to private practice. Because you are too important to lose to not knowing the rules, going broke, burning out, and giving up. #counselorsdontquit.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Hey, I'm Dr Kate Walker.
Welcome to your Tuesdaycoaching, and the title of this
is kind of weird.
I said Mission Impossible Makeyour Courses Profitable.
And I probably should have puta question mark at the end of
Mission Impossible, because it'snot impossible.
It's totally possible.
So let me get everybody in.
(00:33):
Who's in our waiting room?
All right, we've got everybodyin, welcome, welcome.
All right, we've got everybodyin, welcome, welcome.
Let's see.
Yes, we're going to record themeeting and yes, we're going to
take some notes.
So if you're brand new, I willgo over my topic and feel free
(00:56):
to chime in.
Just know that if you chime in,you will be on the recording.
So if you're good with that,then I love it.
When you ask questions, or youcan also type things into the
chat, and it would help if Iopen my chat.
(01:17):
So let me do that.
There it is.
So type it into the chat,unmute or wait till the end and
I will hit pause and then youcan ask me anything you like.
Remember you don't have to juststay on our topic.
But our topic is oh wait, letme fix my microphone.
Gosh, I got all kinds of thingsI'm messing with today.
(01:39):
There we go.
So the topic is how to make youronline course profitable, and
that's been the theme thissummer, because summer we
generally have time, because ourclient loads slow down, and
which gets our brains working.
We're thinking, oh gosh, do Ineed another stream of income?
Or maybe you're the person whohas a course you've been sitting
(02:02):
on for a long time and you'relike I've got to get that out.
I've got to push this out intothe public, and we talked last
week about what makes what aresome good topics.
And you know me, I say startwith your customer right.
Start with something that youknow is gonna sell, and I
compared that to what I considermore passion projects.
(02:24):
And it's the same thing.
If you're writing a book, right, you're going to write a book
in a genre that you know sells,or you're going to write
something that's closer to you,like your life story.
Or maybe and I don't mean youdon't have a fascinating life
story because you might and itmight be wonderful and
everybody's going to buy it.
Life story because you mightand it might be wonderful and
(02:46):
everybody's going to buy it.
But if you don't start by doingsome marketing research, you
may end up spending a lot oftime, a lot of money, a lot of
energy and going down a lot ofrabbit holes, so today is
continuing that theme.
Don't forget, though, members,you guys have a built-in
intensive.
I'm going to do this more withour membership, because you guys
(03:08):
are doing a great job ofletting me know what you're
interested in.
So our Teach Train Get Paidintensive is July 23rd.
That's two hours, it's live,it's two CEs.
If you can't make it, don'tworry, you get the replay as
well.
Everybody else has to pay, sothat's included in your
membership.
And then everybody.
(03:29):
You have a webinar with JennyMelrose July 17th, where she's
going to go in detail intodetail about things I've been
talking about in the Juneintensive, where I talked about
getting booked solid, and Ithink I blew everybody's minds
because we talked about opt-ins,we talked about newsletters,
(03:49):
all of those things.
Well, jenny Melrose is mybusiness coach and she's going
to talk about that more.
And then we've got KimberlyParker on July 24th, another
free webinar, and she is goingto help us get our NBCC provider
designation, which is a greatthing to have if you plan on
selling courses across statelines.
(04:10):
So those are free for members,but you still got to sign up,
just remember with the freeexperts.
So let's move into our topic.
So it's not a missionimpossible.
It is incredibly possible tomake your online courses
profitable.
I am living proof.
I see practically zero clientsbecause of my course, the online
(04:35):
40 hour training to become anLPC, lmft or social work
supervisor in Texas.
In Texas, it's been wonderful.
It's allowed me to slow mypractice, my clinical practice,
down no-transcript.
(04:55):
So three things, because youknow I love odd numbers.
For your online course to beprofitable like if you've
already done what I told you todo last week and you've done
your marketing research now youneed to make this easy to find,
easy to search and part of abigger marketing plan.
(05:16):
So I've introduced the idea ofa funnel to you guys and if
you've gone to any sort ofmarketing coach or marketing
anything, you know a funnel isabsolutely vital, especially
when you combine that conceptwith the pumpkin plan, which
Mike Maklowicz talks about.
(05:36):
That book, one of my favoritebooks, because it talks about
this idea of using your thingsand I'd like to say the things
that don't sell.
That was our podcast episodelast week.
You make them breadcrumbs tothe big thing that you're going
to sell.
So making something easy to findon your site should be jarring
(06:01):
many of you right now, because Iget this question a lot.
Should I have a second website?
And I'm like, unequivocally yes, absolutely right, and I know
you're like.
But websites, I mean, tell me,tell me the reason you wouldn't
do this right.
Are they too expensive?
No, can you get the domain name?
Yes, right, so setting upsomething that's easy to find
(06:24):
doesn't mean burying it on yourclinical site.
Now there will be an exceptionto that when I get to number
three.
But if your course is not easyto find, you're going to have a
problem, and I've faced this.
I mean, I've had so manycourses and I would have a
navigation bar button, that's adrop down menu.
(06:46):
Then you got to click anotherbutton, then you got to go to a
thing and I still have that.
But I had to make a decisionabout okay, what am I going to
make easy to find on my site?
Hands down, it had to be the40-hour training.
So when you go to my site youcan find the 40-hour training
(07:10):
not exactly above the fold, butit's pretty close.
It's pretty much in the firstscroll space.
Now I have other courses thatare free and again, I'll talk
about that in a minute.
Those are the free webinars andthat is absolutely, in the
first view, above the fold.
(07:32):
So making it easy to find maymean that you have to get
another website, another domainname, so I'll look at me like
spitting water everywhere.
Okay, the next thing easy tosearch.
So that goes back to our SEO.
(07:53):
Right, if you have a clinicalwebsite that has been optimized
for the people in your practice,the topics that you counsel,
then you're trying to giveGoogle hey.
By the way, I do this thingover here.
That's going to be veryinefficient.
Do this thing over here?
That's going to be veryinefficient.
So making it easy to searchmeans not only SEO and the
(08:17):
Google machine, but alsoconsider YouTube.
Right, I mean it's, and I mayget a little pushback on this
but when you sell a course,really what you're selling is a
quiz and a certificate, and I'mtalking about asynchronous
courses here.
So if you already have atraining that you've produced
(08:40):
and you want to put that videoon YouTube, you may say, but
Kate, I don't want people toaccess it for free, well, why
not?
I mean, if you let them accessyour course for free, but then
you say hey, in order to get theCE for this, you have to come
to my website, take the quiz andthen I'll give you a
(09:00):
certificate for that.
Meanwhile, youtube who's likebesties with Google is going to
be directing traffic to yourwebsite Extremely searchable.
Seo is a little bit different,but Jenny Melrose can talk more
about that Now.
Also, and vice versa, you canput these YouTube videos on your
(09:23):
website or, if you're like meand you use Podia, podia will
host that YouTube video.
Now you've got this nicecross-referencing thing going.
You've got people finding youon YouTube, clicking over to
your website.
They're going to your YouTubepage and they're like oh look, I
just got referred to anothervideo that she made.
Oh look, there's another course.
(09:44):
So it's a wonderful way to makesure that both search engines
are working in your favor.
Okay, so here's part of thatplan I told you a minute ago,
like, if you decide that you'regoing to not have a dedicated
website, well, the way I havefound counselors, therapists,
(10:09):
doing this really, really well,if they want to incorporate
courses into their clinicalpractice, make this something
that you want your clients totake before they ever come see
you, so it, or alongside, so itcould be.
I always use play therapy as anexample, because I just think
it's amazing If you can have aparent who's on your waiting
(10:33):
list, take a course on how touse play therapy, or title the
course something like you know,if you don't think you can get
in, or gosh, that would beterrible.
Something like better than playtherapy, right, make it very
catchy.
You do a course where they haveto pay.
Then they get to see how you doyour work and if they do get in
(10:56):
to see you, great.
If they don't get in to see you, you have created a raving fan
who's going to refer people backto you.
And if this sounds familiar,that's because that's exactly
the philosophy behind the10-minute consultation.
If you do the 10-minuteconsultation, right.
If you do the 10-minuteconsultation script, you're okay
if they don't book, becausewhat you have done is you have
(11:18):
created a raving fan who was soimpressed by your ability to
help them that they are going totell friends and neighbors all
about you and chances arethey'll try to come back and see
you themselves.
So when you make your coursepart of a bigger marketing plan,
you may not charge sort of thebig pumpkin price, right?
(11:43):
You may say well, my coupletherapy session is actually the
big pumpkin here, but myschedule is so tight and I would
really love it if my couplescould at least have an idea of
what Gottman says, or Imagocommunication styles or what Sue
Johnson's you know demondialogues are all about.
So I'm going to make this quickcourse and it's super.
(12:06):
It's much cheaper than mytherapy session.
But when they grab the course,they have opted in to your
newsletter, so they purchasedthis maybe 20 to $100 course
something cheaper than yoursessions.
But in order to get that courseand remember, if you're using a
(12:27):
platform like Podia, they justclick that button and they're on
your email list, especially ifyou have integrated Podia with
something like Kit so it used tobe called ConvertKit so they
click, they purchase.
No, you haven't made a ton ofmoney from the course.
But now you have someone whoit's better than attraction
(12:51):
marketing because they are goingto be looking for your
newsletter.
They're going to be looking foryour email that says there's an
opening.
They're going to be.
Oh my gosh, when does theirnext video come out?
This last one was so helpful.
You have raving fans and nextthing you know, somebody at the
school is going to be invitingyou to speak, because your
(13:12):
videos have become so popularand so helpful in your community
.
So it's a little bit of a shift, because we're not making the
course the primary moneymaker.
Your sessions are still themoneymaker, so this brings up
another point.
I didn't even write this down.
Once you decide to build courses, it doesn't have to be an all
(13:37):
or nothing thing, right?
Creating a course and you'relike I'm going to make this my
big pumpkin, I'm going to makethis my absolute big moneymaker,
and then it flops.
You know, you can still do both.
Right, you can take that courseand chop it up into smaller
things.
You can take that course and dowhat I just said make it part
of your you know, biggermarketing plan.
(13:59):
So you can do a mix of both.
It's not like, okay, I got togo out today and buy the domain
name for my course site, right,you don't have to do that name
for my course site, right, youdon't have to do that.
The main thing to make coursesprofitable, though, is to
understand it's possibly amoving target, right?
(14:19):
You don't know.
You're just going to have toknow your KPIs.
Make sure that you have anumber in mind, and I've always
used kind of this arbitrary$10,000, right, once you make
$10,000 profit not net, not justincome, I'm sorry, not just
gross net profit then move on tothe next project.
(14:41):
Right.
But if you're doing numberthree and you're like Kate, I'm
not even making a profit on myclinical practice, courses can
absolutely help your marketingand then if you see yourself
making that $10,000 profit onthat session, then you might
want to spend more time, makebigger courses, bigger pumpkins
(15:03):
out of that.
So anybody want to unmute, askme questions, anybody want to
type anything into the chat or Ican just hit pause If I can
find it there.
Hey, I'm Dr Kate Walker.
Welcome to your Tuesdaycoaching, and the title of this
is kind of weird.
I said Mission Impossible Makeyour Courses Profitable.
And I probably should have puta question mark at the end of
Mission Impossible, because it'snot impossible.
It's totally possible.
So let me get everybody in.
(00:33):
Who's in our waiting room?
All right, we've got everybodyin, welcome, welcome.
All right, we've got everybodyin, welcome, welcome.
Let's see.
Yes, we're going to record themeeting and yes, we're going to
take some notes.
So if you're brand new, I willgo over my topic and feel free
(00:56):
to chime in.
Just know that if you chime in,you will be on the recording.
So if you're good with that,then I love it.
When you ask questions, or youcan also type things into the
chat, and it would help if Iopen my chat.
(01:17):
So let me do that.
There it is.
So type it into the chat,unmute or wait till the end and
I will hit pause and then youcan ask me anything you like.
Remember you don't have to juststay on our topic.
But our topic is oh wait, letme fix my microphone.
Gosh, I got all kinds of thingsI'm messing with today.
(01:39):
There we go.
So the topic is how to make youronline course profitable, and
that's been the theme thissummer, because summer we
generally have time, because ourclient loads slow down, and
which gets our brains working.
We're thinking, oh gosh, do Ineed another stream of income?
Or maybe you're the person whohas a course you've been sitting
(02:02):
on for a long time and you'relike I've got to get that out.
I've got to push this out intothe public, and we talked last
week about what makes what aresome good topics.
And you know me, I say startwith your customer right.
Start with something that youknow is gonna sell, and I
compared that to what I considermore passion projects.
(02:24):
And it's the same thing.
If you're writing a book, right, you're going to write a book
in a genre that you know sells,or you're going to write
something that's closer to you,like your life story.
Or maybe and I don't mean youdon't have a fascinating life
story because you might and itmight be wonderful and
everybody's going to buy it.
Life story because you mightand it might be wonderful and
(02:46):
everybody's going to buy it.
But if you don't start by doingsome marketing research, you
may end up spending a lot oftime, a lot of money, a lot of
energy and going down a lot ofrabbit holes, so today is
continuing that theme.
Don't forget, though, members,you guys have a built-in
intensive.
I'm going to do this more withour membership, because you guys
(03:08):
are doing a great job ofletting me know what you're
interested in.
So our Teach Train Get Paidintensive is July 23rd.
That's two hours, it's live,it's two CEs.
If you can't make it, don'tworry, you get the replay as
well.
Everybody else has to pay, sothat's included in your
membership.
And then everybody.
(03:29):
You have a webinar with JennyMelrose July 17th, where she's
going to go in detail intodetail about things I've been
talking about in the Juneintensive, where I talked about
getting booked solid, and Ithink I blew everybody's minds
because we talked about opt-ins,we talked about newsletters,
(03:49):
all of those things.
Well, jenny Melrose is mybusiness coach and she's going
to talk about that more.
And then we've got KimberlyParker on July 24th, another
free webinar, and she is goingto help us get our NBCC provider
designation, which is a greatthing to have if you plan on
selling courses across statelines.
(04:10):
So those are free for members,but you still got to sign up,
just remember with the freeexperts.
So let's move into our topic.
So it's not a missionimpossible.
It is incredibly possible tomake your online courses
profitable.
I am living proof.
I see practically zero clientsbecause of my course, the online
(04:35):
40 hour training to become anLPC, lmft or social work
supervisor in Texas.
In Texas, it's been wonderful.
It's allowed me to slow mypractice, my clinical practice,
down no-transcript.
(04:55):
So three things, because youknow I love odd numbers.
For your online course to beprofitable like if you've
already done what I told you todo last week and you've done
your marketing research now youneed to make this easy to find,
easy to search and part of abigger marketing plan.
(05:16):
So I've introduced the idea ofa funnel to you guys and if
you've gone to any sort ofmarketing coach or marketing
anything, you know a funnel isabsolutely vital, especially
when you combine that conceptwith the pumpkin plan, which
Mike Maklowicz talks about.
(05:36):
That book, one of my favoritebooks, because it talks about
this idea of using your thingsand I'd like to say the things
that don't sell.
That was our podcast episodelast week.
You make them breadcrumbs tothe big thing that you're going
to sell.
So making something easy to findon your site should be jarring
(06:01):
many of you right now, because Iget this question a lot.
Should I have a second website?
And I'm like, unequivocally yes, absolutely right, and I know
you're like.
But websites, I mean, tell me,tell me the reason you wouldn't
do this right.
Are they too expensive?
No, can you get the domain name?
Yes, right, so setting upsomething that's easy to find
(06:24):
doesn't mean burying it on yourclinical site.
Now there will be an exceptionto that when I get to number
three.
But if your course is not easyto find, you're going to have a
problem, and I've faced this.
I mean, I've had so manycourses and I would have a
navigation bar button, that's adrop down menu.
(06:46):
Then you got to click anotherbutton, then you got to go to a
thing and I still have that.
But I had to make a decisionabout okay, what am I going to
make easy to find on my site?
Hands down, it had to be the40-hour training.
So when you go to my site youcan find the 40-hour training
(07:10):
not exactly above the fold, butit's pretty close.
It's pretty much in the firstscroll space.
Now I have other courses thatare free and again, I'll talk
about that in a minute.
Those are the free webinars andthat is absolutely, in the
first view, above the fold.
(07:32):
So making it easy to find maymean that you have to get
another website, another domainname, so I'll look at me like
spitting water everywhere.
Okay, the next thing easy tosearch.
So that goes back to our SEO.
(07:53):
Right, if you have a clinicalwebsite that has been optimized
for the people in your practice,the topics that you counsel,
then you're trying to giveGoogle hey.
By the way, I do this thingover here.
That's going to be veryinefficient.
Do this thing over here?
That's going to be veryinefficient.
So making it easy to searchmeans not only SEO and the
(08:17):
Google machine, but alsoconsider YouTube.
Right, I mean it's, and I mayget a little pushback on this
but when you sell a course,really what you're selling is a
quiz and a certificate, and I'mtalking about asynchronous
courses here.
So if you already have atraining that you've produced
(08:40):
and you want to put that videoon YouTube, you may say, but
Kate, I don't want people toaccess it for free, well, why
not?
I mean, if you let them accessyour course for free, but then
you say hey, in order to get theCE for this, you have to come
to my website, take the quiz andthen I'll give you a
(09:00):
certificate for that.
Meanwhile, youtube who's likebesties with Google is going to
be directing traffic to yourwebsite Extremely searchable.
Seo is a little bit different,but Jenny Melrose can talk more
about that Now.
Also, and vice versa, you canput these YouTube videos on your
(09:23):
website or, if you're like meand you use Podia, podia will
host that YouTube video.
Now you've got this nicecross-referencing thing going.
You've got people finding youon YouTube, clicking over to
your website.
They're going to your YouTubepage and they're like oh look, I
just got referred to anothervideo that she made.
Oh look, there's another course.
(09:44):
So it's a wonderful way to makesure that both search engines
are working in your favor.
Okay, so here's part of thatplan I told you a minute ago,
like, if you decide that you'regoing to not have a dedicated
website, well, the way I havefound counselors, therapists,
(10:09):
doing this really, really well,if they want to incorporate
courses into their clinicalpractice, make this something
that you want your clients totake before they ever come see
you, so it, or alongside, so itcould be.
I always use play therapy as anexample, because I just think
it's amazing If you can have aparent who's on your waiting
(10:33):
list, take a course on how touse play therapy, or title the
course something like you know,if you don't think you can get
in, or gosh, that would beterrible.
Something like better than playtherapy, right, make it very
catchy.
You do a course where they haveto pay.
Then they get to see how you doyour work and if they do get in
(10:56):
to see you, great.
If they don't get in to see you, you have created a raving fan
who's going to refer people backto you.
And if this sounds familiar,that's because that's exactly
the philosophy behind the10-minute consultation.
If you do the 10-minuteconsultation, right.
If you do the 10-minuteconsultation script, you're okay
if they don't book, becausewhat you have done is you have
(11:18):
created a raving fan who was soimpressed by your ability to
help them that they are going totell friends and neighbors all
about you and chances arethey'll try to come back and see
you themselves.
So when you make your coursepart of a bigger marketing plan,
you may not charge sort of thebig pumpkin price, right?
(11:43):
You may say well, my coupletherapy session is actually the
big pumpkin here, but myschedule is so tight and I would
really love it if my couplescould at least have an idea of
what Gottman says, or Imagocommunication styles or what Sue
Johnson's you know demondialogues are all about.
So I'm going to make this quickcourse and it's super.
(12:06):
It's much cheaper than mytherapy session.
But when they grab the course,they have opted in to your
newsletter, so they purchasedthis maybe 20 to $100 course
something cheaper than yoursessions.
But in order to get that courseand remember, if you're using a
(12:27):
platform like Podia, they justclick that button and they're on
your email list, especially ifyou have integrated Podia with
something like Kit so it used tobe called ConvertKit so they
click, they purchase.
No, you haven't made a ton ofmoney from the course.
But now you have someone whoit's better than attraction
(12:51):
marketing because they are goingto be looking for your
newsletter.
They're going to be looking foryour email that says there's an
opening.
They're going to be.
Oh my gosh, when does theirnext video come out?
This last one was so helpful.
You have raving fans and nextthing you know, somebody at the
school is going to be invitingyou to speak, because your
(13:12):
videos have become so popularand so helpful in your community
.
So it's a little bit of a shift, because we're not making the
course the primary moneymaker.
Your sessions are still themoneymaker, so this brings up
another point.
I didn't even write this down.
Once you decide to build courses, it doesn't have to be an all
(13:37):
or nothing thing, right?
Creating a course and you'relike I'm going to make this my
big pumpkin, I'm going to makethis my absolute big moneymaker,
and then it flops.
You know, you can still do both.
Right, you can take that courseand chop it up into smaller
things.
You can take that course and dowhat I just said make it part
of your you know, biggermarketing plan.
(13:59):
So you can do a mix of both.
It's not like, okay, I got togo out today and buy the domain
name for my course site, right,you don't have to do that name
for my course site, right, youdon't have to do that.
The main thing to make coursesprofitable, though, is to
understand it's possibly amoving target, right?
(14:19):
You don't know.
You're just going to have toknow your KPIs.
Make sure that you have anumber in mind, and I've always
used kind of this arbitrary$10,000, right, once you make
$10,000 profit not net, not justincome, I'm sorry, not just
gross net profit then move on tothe next project.
(14:41):
Right.
But if you're doing numberthree and you're like Kate, I'm
not even making a profit on myclinical practice, courses can
absolutely help your marketingand then if you see yourself
making that $10,000 profit onthat session, then you might
want to spend more time, makebigger courses, bigger pumpkins
(15:03):
out of that.
So anybody want to unmute, askme questions, anybody want to
type anything into the chat or Ican just hit pause If I can
find it there.
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