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Today’s show takes on a very niched perspective, but the information and wisdom are useful in many aspects of our work as clinicians and business owners. We are specifically discussing how to move from an online course to a membership model. Maybe you’ve wondered about these components of your practice and how to make the transition. Join us for expert advice!Our Featured GuestJennifer McGurk, RDN, CDN, CEDRD-SJennifer McGurk is a registered dietitian in NY whose specialty is helping clients with eating disorders. She made the transition from an online course to a membership model, so she is sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly of such a move. I hope our discussion will be helpful to you if you’re considering a similar transition. WebsiteYou’ll Learn:● How membership sites can help a clinician accomplish career goals● Details of Jennifer’s journey in private practice from an online course to a membership model● The benefits to therapist and client of a membership model over a one-time course model● How imposter syndrome can crop up when creating a membership site● How it’s helpful to see others reaching their goals in transitioning from an online course to a membership site● Common mistakes in this transition● What the business gurus DON’T tell you about your online course as a passive income stream● The components of Jennifer’s membership site: Dietitian Business School● Jennifer’s advice to a clinician either launching an online course or making the transition to a membership siteToday's Podcast Sponsor: We do not have a sponsor this month. TRANSCRIPT Melvin:Hi Jennifer,welcome back to Selling the Couch.Jennifer:Hi, Melvin; thankyou for having me. I'm so excited to talk to you.Melvin:I really enjoyedour last conversation. I'm so grateful that you reached out, you are doing justso many neat things in the world, so many out of the box things. And I'm justgrateful when you reached out and then two, just to hear about the journey andshare all the lessons and all those things that you've learned.Jennifer:Yeah, thank you somuch. I'm so grateful for your work, too. We were talking before we hit recordabout how mental health is so needed right now and therapists are doing such anawesome job. So anyone out there listening, thank you for your work too. It's atime where people really need mental health services.Melvin:Yeah, absolutely;I do feel so grateful to be part of this profession. I don't know who couldhave imagined something like this. But I think one of the things that's reallybeen on my mind, especially through this pandemic, I think it was there beforebut it's kind of accelerated it is this question of like, what do I want mycareer to look like? And where do I want to focus my energy?And one of thethings that I've kind of realized is, I actually want to eventually justcompletely pull back on one on one work or if I have to it's kind of morehigher-priced and it's very limited. And I think one of the ways that you cando that is through online courses and membership sites. I think there's like alot of information online about how to do these, all of that kind of stuff. ButI wanted to hear from you, because you had an online course, you transitionedinto a membership site, you're actually doing it and yeah, I'm just sograteful, I think for this conversation.Jennifer:Yeah, thank you so much for letting me to share my story. Yes, I did have a course and I was inthe same situation that you have just said, I was seeing clients and I had beenseeing clients at that point for probably seven years or so in private practiceand even more before that, before I started my private practice, and I did getto the point where- I was going to say burnout, but I just wanted to dosomething different because I specialize in eating disorders.I felt likeeveryone's story is very different in a way. But I was seeing the same thingover and over again and I just thought to myself; I really want to work with Dietitians,as well to teach them all of the knowledge that I've learned over the years, fromworking with clients and my own supervision and just everything that I'velearned about business.So that's when Istarted my second company pursuing private practice. And pursuing privatepractice really was for Dietitians to start and grow a business. So long storyshort, it started out as a book series, it turned into a DIY course, and thenit kind of morphed itself into a group program/business coaching, hot seat,stuff Facebook group, and it just got way too big for a one time purchase and Ifelt like I was coaching forever.So I turned itinto a membership and that membership Dietician Business School has really doneawesome in the past six months since it's been open, and I've been able tobring on team members and really help Dietitians in a way that feels so good,because I'm giving them so much support. And I'm not burnout, because it's amembership versus a one-time course payment. So I'm happy to talk and elaborateon that process, because it was a journey to transfer it from a course to anactual membership.Melvin:Yeah, I know. Itis quite a bit of a journey. So for those of you guys are listening, I had avery similar process, I guess back in like 2018, where I had my health casterspodcasting course and then it was a single payment. And then I got to thispoint where for me I hated doing these launches, and I hated the like you saidthe one off kind of payments. And then I just began to think about how I thinkthe question that you just or the statement that you said, of thinking about yourown personal health and how do you sort of scale this while preserving thataspect, right?Jennifer:Yes, definitely. Ithink courses are great, and for anyone out there interested in even doing acourse I think courses are really great for information, and really awesome tostart someone on a journey. But let's face it; a lot of times the businessgurus out there that are teaching people how to sell courses are basicallysaying, “Oh, it's passive income, create once and sit on the beach and watchyour money roll in.” Which I absolutely hate; I feel like it's diet culture in whatI do, I'm an eating disorders dietician.So I feel likeit's this false message of hope. But yet, the reality of it is that your peopleare going to have questions, they are going to need to process and theinformation, and they are going to want to bounce ideas off of somebody, and youcan provide more than just the information as a course. But if you do thatyou're probably creating a Facebook group or you're having people come to groupcalls. And that in my opinion, I have learned kind of the hard way like, that'sa membership, that's not a course.So I was doingthis one time course all the way up until I probably knew I needed to changeJanuary 2020, before the pandemic, but once March hit, what happened to me wasjust, “Oh my Gosh, my people need help.” So I added extra group calls to mycourse, I added more prompts in my Facebook group. I added so many differentworkshops and things like that. And I saw that my Dietitians were getting somany results from it, they were actually doing better.And this was whereCOVID was really starting to hit our at least in the United States, like inMarch was starting to hit our country and people with eating disorders werereally struggling. So the Dietitians are really struggling and no one reallyknew what was going on. So I felt like all the support that I gave my Dietitiansin my course, was so helpful and I could see the results happening I could seepeople making better connections and I almost created a little bit of a mockmembership in that Facebook group and group calls. And then I decided likeokay, this is working, but I need to really officially change my businessmodel.Melvin:Yeah, that's cool.So a lot of really great information, I want to like break it down here. Sopractical kind of tools; the group was on what? Was it on Facebook? Or was iton? Where was the group on?Jennifer:The course startedout as information in teachable. I use teachable and I really like teachablealthough you can use whatever platform you want. I did information in teachableand then we had a Facebook group and we had zoom group calls once a month justas a quick QA and it was great. It was awesome to connect with people.But I personallydon't feel like that's enough of a connection for a lot of people like peopleneed constant reminders, people need to feel supported, people need to process.So once COVID hit, I really stepped up to the plate and I said my people needme. And granted meanwhile, Melvin I know you know what it's like to havechildren at home. My two kids were home. We lost our babysitting for a couplemonths. But looking back, I don't even know how I did that. But I did it. Butyeah, we were meeting over zoom with a group call. So you would see in my oldcourse site, it was literally like 15 group calls just one after the other.That's not a course that's a membership.Melvin:Yeah, it's such agood way. So you notice, like you looked at the practical schedule, and youwere like, “Oh my Gosh, this isn't sustainable.” You said it so clearly,though. But like, this is not a course this is a membership; was it as clearcut in your mind? Or was this like, “Oh my Gosh, I'm going to betrayed mymembers, or like all of that?Jennifer:It was clear cutin my mind. But how do I say this, it was not clear cut in my heart, maybe inmy soul. My brain knew that I needed to switch. But my heart had a really hardtime with it. Because I felt like I was going betray the Dietitians that hadsigned up for my course and I had a little bit of imposter syndrome, like “Whoam I to run a membership program for Dietitians in business?” Because I feellike everyone has imposter syndrome when they start something new.I really just feltlike, “Oh my Gosh, what if people don't like it,” that scary type of feeling.But then I thought to myself, and there are so many parallels, in my opinionwith running a business and eating disorder recovery, which is what I focus onin my practice. My clients do hard things all the time, they really battleeating disorder thoughts, and behaviours and feelings every single day, likesometimes even every single hour, and to think about all the clients that I havehelped and I've said to them, “You can do hard things.”I kind of said tomyself, I can do hard things and I can make decisions from a place of where Iwant to be, and almost by making that decision, I hope to inspire other peopleand other business owners that they can make those hard decisions too. And noteveryone is going to like your decision and that just goes without saying evenif you were to stay in the same exact model, some people are not going to likethat decision. So you have to almost make a decision based on what's best foryou as an act of self-care.Melvin:How do you dealwith that part? Because that's the part I often struggle with, which is knowingthere's going to be a percentage of people that will be upset by this.Jennifer:Yes. Oh, my Goshyeah. And honestly, I don't know if I have a great answer with that, because Ifeel like some people are more sensitive than others. Some people are moreempathetic than others. Some people just feel other people's energy. But Ithink what I said to myself is, you are going to have some people that are not goingto like this decision, but you have to think about what's best for you becauseif you burn out, there's going to be no online business. And you really want todo this; this is your passion. This is your calling, I almost felt like I knowthat it's a little Woo but I love it. Like this is my calling and his is what Iwant to do. And I think also to seeing other people's memberships, and not inlike a comparison type of way. But seeing other people's memberships reallywork and being a part of other people's memberships. It helps casters includedbecause I was a part of health casters for a long time; I saw that people weredoing it and I saw that other people are turning their models into memberships too.So that was really helpful to see other people reaching goals that I wanted todo as well.Melvin:I think that's areally good point. And I would say for those of you guys are listening, onething that was really helpful for me, I don't know that I thought about it, andit but I feel like there's a common overlap between our two courses in that Ithink there's some wisdom, even if you want to start with an online course.Initially, I thinkthere's some wisdom in just thinking like, is the content of this onlinecourse? Is it possible to move it or scale it into a membership model? Like,can you add things like, I don't know, I can't think of a tangible example ofhim where that wouldn't be beneficial. But I don't know. Just asking thatsimple question, I think was really helpful for me.Jennifer:Yeah, definitely, Ithink it also depends on your content and your mission too. And for me, I teachDietitians, especially non-diet dietitians, which is like anti-diet, eatingdisorder recovery, intuitive eating, and weight inclusive dietitians like I'min a very special, specific niche.Jennifer:I teach dietitians how to run abusiness from that lens. Diet Culture is everywhere. There are mixed messageswith marketing everywhere my people need to process, they need to experiment,they need to try, they have questions on not just business stuff, but clinicalcases. We all need a lot of support, especially my dietitians; we need acommunity and a lot of support sometimes, because we're battling against dietculture, which is so normal, especially if we're recording in January,especially this time of year. So it's important for them to feelsupported. And I just felt like I couldn't give the amount of support that Iwanted to give in a onetime course. I almost needed to hold their hand withmore group calls and more accountability, more team members, more people otherthan me, which I couldn't really afford to do when it was a onetime thing. NowI can bring on a lot more people, which is really awesome.Melvin:That is really awesome. What are thecomponents now? What were the components when it was just a one off course?Like it was the course the community and then a monthly coaching? What is itnow?Jennifer:Okay, so I'll tell you my mistakewith the course, which for anyone listening, you can totally learn from mymistake. The mistake with the course was that it was just a course and peoplewere paying for a course. And then I added Facebook group, I added the groupcalls. So they didn't expect it almost at first. And again, my course startedin 2017. Once it grew, and I was launching over and over again, I would talk toyou about these things, but that was my mistake to kind of just do that just,here you go, which I love doing. Don't get me wrong, I don't regret anythingI've done. Now a Dietitian Business School is,well, first of all, when I decided to revamp the course, I should say this isimportant. I decided it was time for an update because that's another thingthat a lot of the business gurus don't tell you. They say make a course andrecord once, and then you're going to be making money in your sleep and you cango on vacation all the time, you don't have to work. And that's like totallynot true. So you have to really record your information in a course. I don'tknow what you would say, Melvin every two, three years, maybe like things aredifferent, things are updated.Melvin:Yeah, it's a great point. So for me,at least with health casters, and just being completely transparent, I don'tthink I have done as good…
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