I often talk about the benefits of producing content, you know, blogs, podcasts and video. But what actually can you expect? Today, I'm going to talk with Sarah Dosang about the tangible effects that she's experienced through producing content for her YouTube channel and how it's opened doors for her. So if you'd like to open a few more doors yourself, then take a listen. Welcome to the Grow Your Private Practice Show, where I inspire counsellors and therapists to attract more clients more easily using content marketing. I'm your host, Jane Travis, and I'm thrilled to have you here. Welcome back, and if it's your first time here, I'm so glad that you found us. And this is actually the second part of a conversation that I had with Sarah Dosang about her experiences with content marketing. Now, Sarah has not only got a successful YouTube channel, which she's had since 2019 and she's got over 45,000 subscribers. So yeah, pretty cool, right? But she's also the co-host of the Life After Diets podcast, which she runs with another therapist called Stephanie Michelle. So in the first part of this two-part miniseries, she talks really candidly about how much she earns from YouTube, the ways that producing content helps listeners, how she handles any uncomfortable comments, and why she increased her prices. And it's probably not why you think it is. And today, we're going to be talking about the tangible impact that this has had on her own private practice. How exactly has this helped her to grow her practice, to get more clients, and ultimately be more successful and get more money? So let's dive in. I just want to ask you a little bit more about the wider view of creating content. Now, I'm really big on creating content. Obviously, I've got my podcast, but I love blogging. I've always loved blogging. To me, creating content is the marketing strategy that therapists forgot. I think there are so many therapists out there with all of this knowledge and passion, and this is a way of getting out there, sharing that, and growing their business because of it. And there's a snowball effect, like you say, it's not like you just put a video out there or a podcast out there, and that's it. So, you don't get loads of phone calls immediately after you post something. But you have this, this, oh, God, what's the word? I do this all the time. I can't remember the world. A cumulative. Yes, a cumulative effect. Thank you. There's like this cumulative effect of you start doing it, and then everything adds together. So that, plus your social media, all work together, and then things can start to happen. And I'm just wondering how this has helped you in other sorts of ways in your business. How, you know, what doors does it maybe open for you? Well, by putting things on social media, even in the early days when my platform was much smaller, I started getting invitations to do things. So I was invited to speak at this big conference of 3000, 300 attendees for this nutrition course, and been invited on other podcasts as well, other YouTube channels, all of that kind of thing. It starts to neck, by putting yourself out there and creating something, people who see it and then resonate, start inviting you to do things, and that's just been a really fun part of it. I love it when I get a message in my inbox, someone say, "Do you want to come on my podcast on my YouTube channel?" I'm like, "Yes, please." I get to meet a new person, I get to talk about the thing I really love, and, you know, I might reach more people as well that way, too. And I mean, the BBC contacted me and I did the BBC Breakfast program, they did a segment on binge eating, and again, my YouTube channel was quite small at that time, that was two and a half years ago, something like that now. So it does start opening opportunities when you put something out there. Yeah. So you were on the BBC radio and you were on BBC Tele, I mean, that's pretty cool. I know not everybody listening to this is thinking, "Oh, I'd really like to go on the BBC." A lot of people will be thinking that's like my idea of hell, but it really does open doors. I mean, you've started, you've written a book, a book called Help, I Can't Stop Eating. So you've written this all about binge eating, so you've got a book as well. I think that producing content gives you so many more ideas that it makes you think I could write these all down in a book, and I know that's what happened with me. It's like all these ideas could go into a format of a book, and it then can become something that's a really good companion. Yeah, and writing that book really helped me to verbalize how I think about this, what I really think does help people, and it changed, I think, my content creation. But just by doing content creation, you crystallize how you see this stuff, and it's okay to have opinions as well, because I think sometimes, because we know as therapists, we're not generally giving direct advice to our clients. So therefore therapists think that they don't know stuff, or they don't want to put things out there, but even sometimes the videos that have done the best, I've not even offered any solutions, I'm literally just describing something in a way that perhaps people haven't heard it described before. You will get the comments then with people going, "Well, what do I do about it?" Yeah, just tell me what to do. So this is obviously, you obviously really enjoy it, you're obviously getting loads out of it, but it all goes back to the fact that you are still a therapist, you see private clients, you see people through groups as well. So I guess this directs people to you to become clients. Yeah. And I don't say on any of my, I don't think I say in any of my videos, "Oh, if you want to be a therapy client, message me," or anything like that. I think it's a good idea to do it if you're building a practice, so by all means say it. I just have, on the YouTube, that's the other thing as well, which you can't have on Instagram, you could have a video, but you can't have any clickable links in the description, whereas on YouTube you can. If someone likes your video, they're going to look at the description, and there's my website, they can go to my website and send me a message. I deliberately create a couple of obstacles, because I don't really want to attract and bivalent people who are not ready. I want people who've seen my videos and gone, "I really want to do this work, and I'd like to work with Sarah." So I don't make it that easy, but you absolutely can make it easy, and if you're building up your practice, I think that's a really good idea to just, you're just mentioning it. Marketing is just letting people know that you're there and what you're offering. And if they want it, they will come and send you a message, and not doing any persuasive sale tactics or anything like that, because it just doesn't ... I don't like it, I don't think it's good. Yeah, absolutely. I hear so many people say, "I don't want to be salesy," and it's like, "You really don't have to be ... We just don't have to be ... You just let people know who you are and what you do and how you help them." And they all then think, "Oh, that sounds interesting, and check you out, so you don't have to be salesy." Yeah. Thank God. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And the other benefit as well, I think of content creation is the clients come to you already trusting you. Yes. You know, there's so much in the therapeutic alliance. You often are spending those early sessions building that trust with the client. I love it. And occasionally I'll get someone come to me who's found me on Google, hasn't watched any of my content, and my heart always syncs a little bit, because there's often more work to be done in terms of that. So the relationship begins before the therapy begins. Yeah. And that is strange times we live in, that that's even a thing there. Well, it's phenomenal, isn't it? So from the point of view of somebody wanting to access therapy, they're able to choose somebody and see that they've got the right fit. They can see that I know talking to Sarah, "I will feel comfortable. She will understand me." I feel that she's the sort of person I can share stuff with, and they can do all that. I mean, when I was back in the day when I first started therapy, basically got something in the yellow page. It's about a counselor. That's all you had to go on. There was no way of deciding, you know, finding someone that was going to be a good fit. You just found somebody close by, and that's who you went to, and it was, "Look at the draw." Yeah. It was location, location, location. When I was in London, pre-pandemic, it was all about location, finalize, that was the only thing. And now, of course, we live in a very different world with so much stuff online, too, that being able to put something out there, I think, makes all the difference. Got one more question. I'm just going to ask you one more question, because I think it's interesting. You produce all of this content. Has that impacted the amount of money that you charge your clients? Yes, it absolutely has. And also, I charge a higher fee than most therapists, because it gives me, then, a bit of time and freedom to be able to create content for free for people who might benefit from content. It's not the same as therapy, but there's a lot of benefit people can get from content as well, of value people can get to. Yeah. And also, it slows down the inquiries, because otherwise, when I was charging less and things started to take off, I'd be getting, like, 10 messages a day. Yeah. It doesn't matter if you put there, I'm full, I don't have space to seek clients. People would still message me. And I can't leave a message unanswered, and it was exhausting from an admin perspective. So actually, increasing my prices means the inquiries are a little bit slower, as well, at a more manageable rate, but still enough. And it also means that I just seek clients Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday mornings. Monday, Tuesday, all day, Wednesday mornings. And then I have the whole day, Thursday, so Thursday is my content creation day. So it's YouTube in the morning, it's podcast in the afternoon. It takes a whole day to do that. So therefore, people who can afford it to work with me, they are, the money I get from that gives me the freedom to be able to have a day on Thursday to create content. Because as you know, the podcast itself doesn't pay you any money for having a podcast. So yeah. Yeah. So the fact that you have this content as has increased the prices that you charge, which means that your clients are kind of getting a good version of you, because you're not so exhausted, you've got the energy to go in there with your full energy, rather than feeling like you're having to do so, you know, giving too much. Yes. And I have different levels. So one to one is obviously my most expensive group is cheaper than the one to one, obviously. And then I also run a Connect and Recover group, which is every month I run a group for up to eight people. It's always brand new people every month. And it's a three hour group where we explore, we go through a lot of this stuff is very interactive and we people put together like a recovery plan. And then I do monthly free support meetings the last Sunday of every month. So somebody can come for that three hour workshop and then basically have like, there's no time cap on that, they can just come for like unlimited support meetings after that. They don't have to pay a penny extra and that's 75 pounds plus that. So for 75 quid, they get a three hour group and they get free ongoing support as well. So I think there's absolutely opportunities as well to offer therapeutic support that maybe therapists don't think to we've been taught this model one to one therapy, but the groups, you know, the groups are more lucrative financially than the one to ones for me. Because for the amount of time, I make a bit more money on the groups and I just really love running the groups. They're much more admin heavy there because you've got seven people in the group and then people are leaving and you're onboarding all the time and I've got four of them, but they are an absolute joy, whereas some people might find groups draining and then that's just not for them. And that's fine. But for me, it's energizing if I were just doing one to one, I think that would take more energy from it. Yeah. Well, you're an extrovert. You thrive being around people, don't you? I do like people. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, that just goes to show, doesn't it, that you can turn your business into whatever you want it to. But if you're going to do content, we do have to devote time for it. It takes time. There's no getting away from it. And if you do, if you've never done it before, it's going to take you a bit more time until you get used to it. Yeah, I've really enjoyed hearing more about your business, looking at all the different sort of intricacies of how it all fits together. You've got so many different things you do and it helps you to get seen and heard. And I also, what I really love about you doing this and producing content full stop is so many counsellors, they do have a thing going, I really want to help as many people as I can. But I have to charge them because that's the way of the world. I think producing content is that middle ground of you don't have to pay me for private counselling. But I am going to be able to help people in a different kind of way, therapeutic support as you put it. And that can feel really good. And I know I get that out of, I get that out of doing my podcast because then it helps people, people that have to pay for my podcast, hopefully they'll want to come learn more about what I do. But I don't expect that, you know, I do this because I do this and I suppose it's the same for you. Yeah, exactly that. And with the podcast, we have a community. So people can join that community for £10 a month and there's a monthly call on that as well. Yeah. Plus the support being in and out of the Facebook group and that kind of thing too. So there is such opportunities to actually, somebody who's paying £10 a month for a community who can't afford 50, 60 quid a week for therapy, they're able to have at least a space where they can post and the group's very active so they support one another as well. And they can come along to a call and they can bring whatever it is and we can support them in that too. Yeah. Yeah, I just think because therapists have such great skills in this area and it's just being used in the one to one a lot of the time. Yeah. And I think they're probably therapists out there who like the idea of expanding it and it just feels a bit overwhelming. So because we move much more towards video content now even on Instagram and all of that, start off small. Before I did my YouTube channel, I was just creating two minute videos on Instagram. This was before it was reels now, ideally you want to make it less than a minute. And I was just doing that and that helped with the practicing of speaking to camera. I was also, if you look at my really early videos, I was really serious as well because I thought I had to be really serious when I was talking, really earnest and serious. When I watch them now and I cringe, I'm like, you're talking so slowly and so seriously, surprise anyone was like able to get past this. Whereas now I just, I chat, I always do on an empty stomach, I have a coffee, so I feel a little bit energized because the other thing as well about video I had to see other day and it makes sense to me is that whatever your energy would normally be is to kind of increase it by about 50% on a video and that will kind of bring you down to like a normal level. You'll think you're too, too much and you're doing too much. And so, and that's absolutely true because when I do my videos, I feel like I'm all hyped up and then I watch them and I actually look really calm and quite measured, but it brings a little bit more energy into it. Yeah. Yeah. I love the way that you've got this like a spectrum of help for free to full on one to one and even talking, you know, you do talking gigs and you get invited to all sorts of things. I just love the fact that you've now got this business that's not just one thing. It's got this whole different range and I guess that's what keeps you interested as well. Mm hmm. Oh, I mean, exactly that, exactly that. And doing the podcast has been a joy because having, doing it with somebody as well and so there's every reason why if, if I don't know, a therapist wanted to start a YouTube channel, something like that, why don't you team up with a buddy, do it together, make some videos together, support each other. Don't do it all on your own because your head will spin out about this stuff. You'll judge yourself, all of that and have a sounding board for each other. I think it would just be just be great. Yeah. Fantastic. That's absolutely fantastic. Actually, I'm going to just ask you one more question. If it's, if it's not too much, I know you've been talking a lot, what's one piece of advice you'd give somebody who's thinking of sort of producing content is one, start small. So if you want to produce videos, make really short ones to begin with. Don't go saying to, oh, I got to do a 20 minute YouTube video or something like that unless you feel particularly inspired to. And I know you said one, but I'm going to just offer one other thing as well that I had once and it really helped is you need to get willing to put your B minus work out there. Yes. Yeah. You just got to. Most YouTube videos when I'm editing them, I'm like, oh, I could have done this a bit better. And that's okay. It has to be. So everybody wants to be good first, but unless you're willing to kind of put stuff out, it's not going to be great. But when you think about like that, like I just need to put things out that's not great. Yeah. Because the amount of time people have come to me and I've offered them like a lot of help with stuff and then they've never done it. So now I heard somebody else say that they did this and this is what I'll start doing. If someone comes and they want advice with go and create five short videos and then we'll talk because then I'll see if there's somebody who's actually able to get themselves to just make something doesn't have to be good. If they can't do that, yeah, I was offering like all this, like giving a lot of energy to this and then it wasn't going anywhere because the person was frozen and stuck. Well, it's a mindset thing. We all know this. Mindset is the biggest block you'll ever have. It's nothing to do with how much you know or don't know. It's not even tech. You can learn tech. It's mindset. Isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. The people who are like big and out there in their fields or whatever is not necessarily they're the best in their fields. They're just the ones that were willing to be visible and to be able to like make mistakes, get it wrong, fumble, not do the best, all of that kind of thing about the thing that will get you out. So if anyone listening to this struggles with perfectionism, that's the piece that I think needs working on because it will never happen. Yeah. It will never be perfect. There's no such thing as perfect content because what's perfect for one person, it cannot be perfect. So that's stop it. Stop that. Just stop it. Stop it. Yes. Sarah, look, thank you so much for coming to talk to us. I've really enjoyed it. I think it's fantastic, like I say, learning about this fabulous spectrum of different things that you do. It sounds so interesting. So thank you so much. Is there anything you want to sort of add or? Oh, I always know. Whenever people say that, it genuinely throws me into a panic because- Oh, sorry. Because there's suddenly this pressure to say something really profound at the end. Yeah. You just think of a quote, so you could just bring out- Yeah. It's just insert something profound. Whatever the listener is, whatever their favorite quote is, insert that here. Well, I'll share my favorite quotes then. It's a C.S. Lewis quote, and it goes, "Isn't it funny how day by day nothing changes?" And when you look back, everything's different. Yeah. That's fantastic. I've not heard that one before. God, he's clever. Yeah. Exactly. Sarah, thank you so much for giving this time to us, and I'm sure that it's been really helpful. I'll share with all your details in the show notes, but if you want to go and find Sarah, just check out the binge eating therapist and you won't go far off. Thank you, Jane. All right. Cheers. Now, I don't know about you, but I loved talking to Sarah about the success that showed up for her, and it's been so natural, and it's because of the power of producing content. And remember, you can expect those kind of results too. Yes, YouTube and podcasting is a great choice, but blogging is also extremely powerful. Now, I'll share details of Sarah's YouTube channel, her book, her podcast, et cetera, in the show notes, but if you search for her just searching for the binge eating therapist, you'll not go far wrong. And in the show notes as well, I'll have some details of other ways I can help you. If you want to start writing your own blogs, it's something I love, and it's something that I help people in in my Grow Your Private Practice membership. So if you do need some extra help, come and join us, you'll be very, very welcome. So remember to subscribe to the Grow Your Private Practice show so that you never miss an episode. And thank you so much for listening, and I hope to see you next time. Bye bye. Thank you so much for joining me this week, and if you're ready to take action to grow your practice, check out growyourprivatepractice.co.uk, bye for now.
