Episode 211 | Incorporating Additional Streams of Income with Megan Gunnell

Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Group Practice Exchange Podcast. Um, today I have a guest on Megan Gunnell, and she is the founder and director of Thriving Well Institute. She’s a therapist, she’s a speaker and a writer. And she also hosts international retreats, one of which I’m very excited to be attending next month.

So without further ado, say hello to Megan. Hi, how are you? Hi. I’m so excited to be here Maureen. Thanks for having me and thanks for coming on. I just, you know, not too long ago actually got to know who you were from, a mutual person who introduced us. I’m just so happy that he made that introduction because I am gonna be able to officially meet you in, um, actually a month from today.

I will be out in Costa Rica to say, oh my gosh, to get your conference. Oh, it’s so exciting to have you there. I cannot wait for the Thrive Summit. We’re really looking forward to it. Got a lot of exciting things planned in Costa Rica and it’s just gonna be a great combination of learning and fun. Yeah, and I mean, as someone who loves Costa Rica,, I just know that it’s the perfect environment to not only learn but also feel.

Like you can relax at the same time. I think a lot of conferences and retreats, depending on where they’re at, can feel not relaxing. And I already know just based on the location, that your body is gonna be forced to feel relaxed even while you’re learning. So I’m so excited. Yes. That is actually a point that I’d love to bring up too because I really, have trouble when I attend conferences or summits and they’re kind of overscheduled with the workshops and training.

I really need that downtime. I feel like I really want to be able to, you know, make it more restorative when I go on some of. Trips for conferences or CCEs and learning or coaching workshops and things like that. I just really wanna be able to like, I don’t know, spend some time at the spa or lay by the pool or, you know, be able to do yoga or have a little excursion.

And when I was looking for that out in the world, I didn’t see it. and so I decided to build it because I thought we probably all want that. Yeah, and I think, you know, it is something that we’re gonna be talking about with today’s topic where our topic is on how to design and build and facilitate additional streams of income, cuz that is Megan’s specialty.

But one of the things that we were talking about right before we hit record was feeling like we need to undo anything that we offer. Like if there’s a conference every year that you have it. , there’s this feeling like it needs to be better in some way, bigger, more every time. And eventually, that’s really overwhelming.

And it also goes against this idea. There’s this assumption that. We need to continue, continue to wow people. Mm-hmm. to make them continue to come to an event or a, a speaking engagement or a conference. But also on the flip side, as you’re saying, and I’m 100% in that same category, I don’t like conferences that are overfilled with education where it doesn’t allow for relaxation.

But as someone who facilitates things, you assume people don’t wanna pay to rest. Mm-hmm. or to like not to learn. And so there’s this like, Two ends of the pendulum where we feel like, you know, we need to provide a lot of things, education or training, while also knowing that we ourselves value having some of it while also having some free time and, and rest time implemented into that.

So I’m excited to talk to you about diversifying income, and alternate ways of making money, while also just. What that feels like to actually implement, because I think ideas and then implementing them and, and seeing what that looks like when it comes to fruition. Sometimes there are two different things and we need to pivot and, uh, you know, figure out what lessons we’ve learned from it.

And you and I both have. Multiple streams of income. So I think this is gonna be a really good conversation. Yes. No, you bring up a great point. And I think, um, I try to think a lot in my own work and personal life about the concept of thriving because it’s such a big part of my brand and I like to think about that balance point.

And I do feel like I get a lot of pressure, probably mostly internal, but also from society. The next thing has to be bigger and better, and that’s not always necessarily true in terms of success or the outcome that we’re looking for. So in this conversation, I would love to kind of pin that idea for your listeners around, you know, what does success look like for you?

Does it actually have to mean bigger, better, or more? You know, I don’t think that’s the case, and I feel like when I help therapists learn, for example, how to build retreats, which I do quite often, the problem I see is that so many therapists end up overscheduling. Yeah. And so, you know, you find yourself feeling like you wanna bring tons and tons of value to the people who spent a lot of money, you know, to come to one of your retreats or a summit or conference for example.

But the problem is they also just want to be there. They also need that break. And like you said, the environment that you’re selecting is gonna support their body in relaxing, which is also very. Yeah, I was gonna say, one of the things when I hosted my first conference, to my surprise, the thing that people, and now, you know, years later, it’s not a surprise, but, uh, initially was, was that what people found the most valuable of having a group practice owner specific conference?

Wasn’t all of the amazing speakers, which obviously was great and the training was great but was the fact that there was a space where they could connect and collaborate with other group practice owners. And it was like that free space, then, it was the mixer beforehand. It was the moments in between the presentations where they got to chat and, and mingle as they crossed over to the other, you know, side of the hotel.

That right was the. Valuable for them and it’s something, you know, I think it’s hard to, as someone who wants to create something to remember that that is actually really important and valuable financially. People will pay to just have connections with other people. Right? They’ll have that free space to connect.

That connection, that networking is so valuable for people, but so is the rest. I always tell this story, this is kind of funny. I’ve been running retreats for 20 years. I started them as little retreats in Northern Michigan and now I’m taking people across the globe. But it is so funny because there was one time when I had a guest arrive at a weekend retreat in northern Michigan and I didn’t know her.

Well, she came kind of referred by someone else. She wasn’t like a client on my caseload. And she arrived and she went right to her room and she got herself all setup and then she came to dinner the first night and then we did not see her again. Until the final closing breakfast. And when she came down the stairs, she was like, I just slept for 24, like 48 hours and I feel like a million bucks.

And we were like, oh my gosh. I mean, she did text me and say, I just think I need to rest. And she never attended anything and we like didn’t talk to her at all and she was like, I’m so happy I came and I felt like, oh my gosh, I didn’t give her anything. What we really gave her was permiss. You know you bring up a really good point when building something like a conference or a retreat or workshop is trying not to put in what our expectations are for other people or what we think that they should get out of it, right?

We should have some sense of what, you know, there’s gotta be some direction in there, in what we’re building. But not to assume what is valuable. In our heads about, what we’re building, it’s gonna be what they find valuable. There might be the small things in between the connection part or the rest part, or the permission or the actual training or the excursions.

Right. Maybe someone in Costa Rica, uh, next month when we’re there, is gonna say that the thing that they love most was the cameraman ride that you have. Exactly. Exactly. That’s it. Yeah. Who? Yep. And you never know, but I think you make a really good point about listening to the audience in front of you.

Mm-hmm. , because when I started building the Thriving Therapist community on Facebook, I didn’t really know what it was gonna be, and I didn’t really know what those people in that audience were gonna want from me. But as I started to ask them more questions and really listen to what they were sharing and understand more about their gaps in knowledge, Then I was able to start to build these additional streams of income for that audience.

And so that’s, I think, point number one that I would love to cover is listening to the audience in front of you. I was literally going to, as you were talking, my A D h ADHD brain was like, when, as soon as you get to the end of the sentence, I have something good to say was that that is the, I think the most important, or at least the first step that everyone should take if they’re thinking about diversifying their services is.

To necessarily feel like you have to have an idea. Before looking at what your audience wants, I, in a very simplified way, have an experience within my group practice with my employees. When I first started, my group practice was offering, the first benefit that I offered was retirement matching.

Assuming everyone was gonna use it because that’s something I valued. I thought it was something my hair is flying up for those listening. You can see me as my hair is standing straight up. But Pete, you’re beautiful. Right? I assumed because it was very important to me and, it’s a money mindset thing from my upbringing with my old parents of like making sure you’re, you know, set up for, for retirement and that you ha that you can, you know, be able.

Retire at some point I assumed that that was gonna be something that all of my employees would value. And also, you know, that money can grow without having to even put more into it. So I had this assumption that everyone’s gonna love this benefit, and at the end of the day, there were so many people who didn’t even engage in it because they would’ve preferred something else.

And so it goes to this point of like, you need to have an audience. Before, assuming that what you think is a great offering is actually a great offering. It probably is a great offering, but it might be the wrong timing. You might not have the audience for that specific thing that you wanna offer, and the audience you have actually wants something different.

So you bring up a really great point of using the people you have around you and watching what questions they’re asking, you know, what things that they’re, they’re looking for. and use that information to look at what next thing you can build, and obviously make sure it aligns with your vision and your values and all that.

Very true. I mean, when I think back to the very first thing that I started to build in my own private practice, long before I arrived at this spot in my life and career, I was listening to a lot of women in my caseload saying the same thing over and over again. I had a lot of busy working moms. Who were you?

Situational depression, life transitions, a little bit of anxiety. You know, those kinds of clients were really in front of me. The majority of the time that I was working in my one-on-one caseload. And many of them said what I wouldn’t do for a day for myself, like what I wouldn’t give, you know, for just like a day, just for me.

And they were so fed up and like resentful of all of their over extensions in their lives that they were like, I’m always giving, I’m always thinking of every. I’m always putting my family first. I’m always doing something for my work. Like I’m just never taking care of myself and my own needs, and I’m never really like giving myself permission to be in front of the things that I really need in terms of mind, body, spirit, restoration kind of stuff.

Mm-hmm. and I kept hearing it over and over again, and then I thought, Okay, I hear you. I’m gonna definitely try to build my first retreat offering. Mm-hmm. and in a hot minute, it sold out. Yeah, because I was listening so carefully to what people were asking me to build, and then I built something that really spoke to them.

problem. And I talked about the results they were gonna get from that experience based on what I knew they really needed. Mm-hmm. and I designed something also that I was joyful in designing and that’s the other part that I think really works. Right? Yep. And it kind of ties, you know, it reminds me of something I recently did, which is closing one of my Facebook groups down.

Realizing that just because it works, if it doesn’t bring joy if it doesn’t fill a bucket like it’s not something you should be doing. Just because it works or is successful doesn’t mean that it’s a good thing to do. And so I’m glad you bring that piece up too, is like, it needs to bring you joy otherwise.

You’re gonna get burnt out. You’re not gonna do it with the same fervor that you would if you were really into it, and it’s not gonna be as successful no matter how easy it feels to build. Right, right. Have that, that heart for it. So I love that point as well. I wanted to ask you, I, as someone who’s, you know, done, I don’t even know how many retreats and things like this, for those who maybe have an idea, they know that their audience or their clientele or the people.

Know who they are. I want this thing. What are some pieces of advice or first steps or things to think about? I’m kind of going really broad here because I feel like there’s probably so many, you know, nuggets of information you can give. And I don’t wanna go in too deep because it’s probably a. 20-hour of training for people to actually learn how to do something like this.

But what are some of those first things that maybe you didn’t realize, but after having built them and done them, maybe are pieces of information that most people wouldn’t anticipate or think about when they’re first starting off with diversifying or adding an additional income stream. Well, I think like in general, adding additional income streams, you know, you really do have to think carefully about listening to the audience that’s in front of you, and also like, who is that audience?

Where are you nurturing that audience? Because if you’re nurturing that audience on an email list, for example, if it’s. Like you’re in private practice right now. You have a bunch of clients on your caseload. Do you send them a newsletter? Do you have an email list going or are they following you somewhere on social media?

For me, I had an email newsletter going, you know where I sent it out maybe twice a month, and I was blogging and sharing a lot of value and information and good content and resources and quick tips and all kinds of things in my email. People were opening them and really getting a lot of value out of it, and then I would offer something else.

So sometimes then I would. I’m gonna start a group, or I’m doing a one-day workshop, or I’m doing a music meditation. I mean, I was a former music therapist, so some of the joy for me was like bringing my heart back to my office or doing a drum circle or doing something really cool with mandolas or mask making or something really art, you know, making kind of related.

So that was really something that I always wanted to get back into. And my clients were craving that too, and many of them came to me because they saw that. Part of who I was, I did shamanic journey work and meditations, and I was teaching people all kinds of cool things about progressive muscle relaxations and guided imagery that came from my first career.

So, you know, listening to that audience, nurturing that audience, and then giving them tons and tons of value generously. You know, supporting that audience is gonna serve you well because then when you have something that you are offering them, whether it’s an online course or a retreat, or maybe a coaching package or you know, a training or a one-day workshop or whatever it might be, a group therapy group for example, or group program.

There are just so many different ways we as therapists can diversify our income streams and offer more things. But I really think it starts with that fundamental piece. Who’s this for? How will they find out about you? Are you nurturing them or are you just trying to sell? Because I think a lot of mistakes that I see in therapists that I do a lot of coaching with is that they have these great ideas, but they haven’t started to build that platform.

And if you haven’t done that yet, that’s really the first step in my opinion. Yeah, I was gonna say that my piece of feedback would be around assumptions on how quickly you can build the financial side, of that service. And depending on the thing, it could be quick. Like you said that the first retreat that you did for moms, it’s sold out immediately.

It was quick. Build and financially you were able to, you know, meet whatever goal you had if you sold out. But depending on the service or the thing that you’re offering, it could, it’s important to think about what’s the realistic timeframe that it would take to actually build that thing. A lot of services aren’t, you have an idea and you can implement it next month and sell out and just make money.

Um, exactly simple. My, in my group practice, I have someone who’s in. Of what we call Well-being at Work. It’s a program that we offer to corporations that, and business owners that have lots of employees that, uh, helps focus them on the mental health of their employees. And for us, we set a timeframe up that, cause I was, you know, Saling an employee to build this program.

And we had set up that the first year we knew we were gonna make a zero. I was gonna be in the red in that program. Cause I was gonna be paying her while having to have her spend time thinking and building and the technology that went behind it to have that stuff, you know, actually physically get billed once she.

Spent that time thinking about it, and then also growing that audience because we were going, not working with our own client, but actually working with businesses, trying to mm-hmm. work from a more preventative space. And so we knew that it was gonna take time to actually build relationships. So I had said a one-year timeframe.

Of, we did not need to make any money in this program. And then the second year we had set up that we were gonna get to break even. Mm-hmm. , the cost of running all of that, paying the employees to run that we were gonna get to break even. And then the third year on was gonna be incremental profit set up. But I think a lot of people assume when they come up with this idea that this is gonna just like explode and Yes, and it’s gonna, so depending on the service, it could be that you have to just ensure that you have a realistic expectation around how quickly it’ll build and the well that’s investment and cost.

Totally. I mean, the very first retreat I ever hosted internationally was in Costa Rica in 2012, and it was not a great time economically for us, but we decided to do it anyways because my colleague and I felt very confident that each of us could attract 10 clients to come. Mm-hmm. , and she would have 10 and I would have 10, and we would sell it out at 20.

And we did, but we also agreed that we were comfortable breaking, even like you said, we just wanted it completely full. That was our goal. We paid for a professional photographer to come with us. Yep. I still, to this day, 2023, use some of the images that were taken in that 2012 retreat. I was gonna ask, so on your website, are there some of the pictures, like the pool pictures and things like that, are those the, I tell you this, Now that you bring it up.

Cause I totally forgot about it and when, as soon as you said, I was like, I wanted to tell her about this. That was one of the things that I felt really provided a lot of value to me when I first got to know you and then was asked to speak I went to the website and I saw those pictures and I just thought, this is a real thing.

Those pictures just really made an impact on me. I felt like this wasn’t. The random new thing that I wasn’t sure was gonna be valuable to the the people that it was serving. The pictures really just told me there’s been a lot of time and effort put into this thing and I wanted to be a part of it. So I’m glad you brought that up.

Cause I remember when I first saw it, you know, last year I was like, these pictures are doing it for me. See, and it’s, I always tell people, you’re making an investment. Mm-hmm. on your future self. Right. So when you take a professional photographer, which now I have a staff photographer that follows me wherever I go, whatever company offering I’m offering in the world, cuz my husband and I run culinary retreats in Tuscany and France and we always bring a photographer, you know, with us there too, because what I’m envisioning is not.

The offer that’s right in front of me. I’m thinking about my five to 10-year plan, and I’m thinking about maybe is this gonna turn into a coffee table book. Is this gonna be a pitch to Netflix? Is this gonna be something bigger? If I did get an interview somewhere that was a little larger, would I have a nice portfolio of, you know, information, photographs, recipes, or whatever with regards to the culinary tours that we could offer, you know, to show the legitimacy and professionalism of what we’re doing?

But I will say, With regards to the culinary tours, this is kind of funny. I was thinking of this the other day, how it all started, and where we are now. Many years ago, my husband opened a little bakery and cafe outside of Detroit here in Gross Point, and he ran that for about 10 years. And when he was running it, he also had a big extensive like executive chef history and had done lots of stuff with, you know, cooking and high restaurants and all that stuff, and he missed that.

And so he said, I have this dream. Once a month we should turn the bakery into a white linen five-star restaurant and have like a really cool chef’s table experience for just 44 guests. And we’re gonna set like gorgeous crystal and beautiful plates and like we’re gonna have really cool five-course pop-up dinners.

And we’re gonna have three chefs work on this and it’s gonna be like a surprise menu. And we’re. Create all this buzz and we’re gonna do this thing. And I was like, okay, and it sounds like I’m gonna be your waitress and dishwasher that’s it. And I did it with him. And we did popup after popup after popup.

And we did ’em every month until we realized, oh my God, now this is the platform we can actually take and create the culinary tours we’ve always dreamed of. Host in big, beautiful villas in Tuscany or prevents. And so when people look at where we are today, I. Like easy for them to say, wow, how did that happen?

And how, like you said, how fast can people get there and how can you monetize something really quickly? It doesn’t happen overnight. Yeah. And I will tell you that that’s like, you know, sometimes they say like, success is a what, 10 years? I mean it’s like its an overnight success is 10 years. I mean it, and I really get that now because it took us that long to really get to the point where we could essentially be working with pretty large-scale budgets on these things and bringing a team of.

You know, internationally bringing our staff photographer with us and like really hosting luxury experiences for people. But we didn’t really start from nothing, you know, when you think about it. Yeah. And I, I think that reminds me of another, maybe a third point in all of our talking today is that aside from making sure that you have realistic expectations around.

Like what success means for whatever this service is that you’re wanting to offer, is that, do you have the ability to not putter out if it’s not growing at the pace that you anticipate? Can you pivot your expectations? Or sometimes we might assume something will take a certain amount of time, and if it’s not meeting that, It doesn’t mean that it’s not successful.

It might mean that our, uh, original assumptions about its growth or trajectory we’re just off. I don’t know. I just feel like a lot of people look at maybe things that you’re doing or what other people are doing and assume, you know, same with group practice ownership. They see a large group practice and they think, well, there are so many people doing it.

What’s, why haven’t I gotten there? I’ve had this group practice for two years now, and. two years is really nothing, uh, in the scheme of like business ownership. That’s the very little amount of time really looking inward at what our own expectations are and being able to. , you know, if you have the privilege to, which you did, and I did as well with my own group practice, being able to take the profits that we had when we first started and investing them back into the business.

And I know not a lot of people can, not everyone can do that. Mm-hmm. Um, but I think those that are listening, we’re talking about diversifying services, additional streams of income, and hopefully, people aren’t looking at additional streams of income who are listening if their original income streams are not.

In a good space. Right, right, right. I don’t think it’s smart to start diversifying services while your original services are not doing well. It’s really unless it’s time to pivot and so what the beauty of being an entrepreneur, in my opinion, is you can for sure make a pivot. So I agree with you that you do wanna have a good, strong foundation.

You wanna have good footing when it comes to like standing on something to build something else. But I do think this is the beauty of the entrepreneurial mindset. Mm-hmm. Which I think, uh, many, many psychotherapists don’t consider themselves an entrepreneur. Right. But we are in private practice or group practice ownership.

Mm-hmm. Essentially our own CEOs. And so we really do need to adapt more of a CEO e o mindset where you’re evaluating. Really important decisions about the growth and expansion of your business. Mm-hmm. and where it’s going next. And so every once in a while I’ll look at my own business and say, let me look at numbers, but let me also intuitively feel right what’s working.

Because sometimes things that we really want to bring forth just are not clicking for whatever reason. Right. And that’s when we can maybe, You know what? We tried to build a course, but nobody bought it, or it doesn’t really seem like people are finishing it, or it doesn’t seem like people are, I don’t know if it’s what they really wanted or it’s not converting.

Is it the landing page? Is it the content? Is it the timing? What is it? Is it the pricing? There are lots of things you can do to kind of comb it over and see what’s working and what’s not working, right? But what’s really great is to be able to say, I’m gonna park the course and actually move this into like a live coaching thing, or I’m gonna move this into a retreat, which is where my passion is, or.

Whatever it is that you’re trying to build, that’s actually a really, a smart, um, A smart concept too. It’s like balancing, knowing when it’s time to pivot versus if you have an original offering, like a group practice owner. People listening here, right? They have a group practice. If they’re wanting to diversify that service and add another income stream, whether it’s coaching, consulting, business building.

Adding a well-being workplace offering that if you are keeping your group practice, making sure that that’s stable because when you start to shift your focus onto a whole nother service, it is almost like a new business, even if it’s within that original one. Just making sure that that is steady so that you can shift your focus and be able to focus on this new thing.

But also, yeah, being able to know if something that you’re offering isn’t working. that it’s okay to scrap it. It’s a lot right now with group practice owners who are losing a lot of therapists and then decide, you know what? I’m actually not loving being an employer, like employing people, and I’m just gonna go back solo and diversify my services in other ways.

I think takes a lot of insights and strength and courage to be able to make decisions like that too. Mm-hmm. , I wanted to end, I know we’re getting close to the end here. Do you have this retreat coming? In, uh, a month, I think from today, end of February. Um, but it looks like it’s pretty much sold out.

Mm-hmm. . But you do have another one coming up in the fall. Can you tell people about it? Yeah, so twice a year, I do two offerings for the Thriving Therapist community. I offer a small group retreat with just 20 people, and I also do large. Scale summits, the one in Costa Rica is gonna have 130 guests and 20 speakers.

Um, so it’s more like a conference-style retreat slash summit. But the one that I have coming up in the fall is really exciting because as I mentioned, my husband and I travel quite a bit to Italy to host the culinary retreats than tours that we do there. And we decided I would stay a little longer after our fall culinary tour.

And I rented another villa, and I’m going to bring people to one of my very favorite places, which is near the Luca, Italy location. It’s gonna be gorgeous, and we’re gonna do an entrepreneurial small group mastermind retreat. So it’s really for people who are interested in building and scaling, mostly scaling into additional streams of income and learning really.

And bolts on how to do that. But we also have some super fun things planned. Like we’re gonna be going to a world-class day spa and just enjoying a thermal bath and steam, you know, sauna and all kinds of wonderful spa treatments that day. And then we also are going to do a group excursion to Chink Mu, and we just have some really fun things planned and my husband is gonna be the chef, so it’s another fun way that we get to collaborate together and kind of build on ours.

And the joy of creating something really meaningful for, you know, therapists across the globe. So I’m hoping that we can also pull some people from Europe for this because a lot of people from Europe who are following thriving therapists say they have trouble kind of coming to my other offering. So it’ll be kind of a nice new location for us to offer something in Italy.

When is this? You said in the fall, Zach? December. It’s gonna be October, um, seventh through the 14th. Awesome. And then how can they, if anyone’s listening, want to know more about this, where can they go for that? Thriving well institute.com. Awesome. I really appreciate you coming on and spending some time, especially knowing that you are in the thick of it in this last month of preparing for Costa Rica.

So I appreciate you taking time outta your day to talk with me and my audience about. Some of the things that are just really important to think about when it comes to diversifying your services and adding additional income streams, so I appreciate it. Oh, it’s my pleasure to be here. Thanks so much for having me.

Yeah, and I’ll see you next month. Okay, sounds good. Thanks for listening to the Group Practice Exchange podcast. Like what you heard. Give us five stars on whatever platform you’re listening from. Need extra. Join the Exchange, a membership community just for group practice owners with monthly office hours, live webinars, and a library of training ready for you to dive into.

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