Fully Booked Without Insurance, Burnout, or Regret: Erin’s Story (Episode 21)
What does it look like to go all-in on your private practice—without lingering in agency life or taking insurance? In this inspiring conversation, I’m joined by Erin, a second-career therapist who made a bold transition from the world of marketing analytics to a thriving private-pay therapy practice.
Erin shares how she filled her caseload within six months of launching, the mindset shifts that helped her stay the course, and the systems that supported her along the way. You’ll hear how she used her business background (and support from Confident Copy!) to build a website that truly speaks to her ideal clients—and how she leans on local Facebook groups to keep her practice visible.
If you’re early in your practice, or feeling discouraged by those who don’t “get” your vision, Erin’s story will remind you that it is possible to do this on your terms—and see success.
Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:
1️⃣ How Erin went from new grad to fully booked in six months (without taking insurance)
2️⃣ The quiet mindset shift that helped her ignore the naysayers and stay focused on her goals
3️⃣ Why a clear, client-centered website + local Facebook groups became her go-to marketing strategy
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Hey there. Welcome back to Marketing Therapy. Imagine what it would be like to launch your practice fully private, pay from the beginning and be ready to lease a full-time space within six months because you're getting the clients you need.
Your caseload is full, and you're hearing from people who are ready to work with you.
That is Erin's story.
Erin is a second career clinician, so if you are one of those, I think you'll really resonate with this. But anyone who is early on in their private practice journey, especially if you feel like the people in your world maybe don't think this is the best choice, are gonna get a lot out of this one. I think you'll be incredibly inspired by what Erin has created for herself, the mindset and habits she uses regularly in order to continue seeing success and the systems that are ultimately serving her as she grows her practice in the Nashville area. Alright, enough for me. Let's get into it.
Erin, welcome to the show. Will you tell us a little bit about you and where you're located?
Yes, absolutely. Um, hi Anna. Thanks for having me. This is exciting to be with you. So I am located in the Nashville area, so just south of you here in Franklin, Tennessee. My practice is in Franklin. I have a Master's in Marriage and Family Therapy.
Been in practice for about two years now.
Okay. Um, what were you doing prior to
launching your practice? So this is a second career for me. I was a consumer data strategist which is, doesn't really say anything. Um, I worked for an agency and our clients would hire us to look at their data and to kind of make sense on how they could use the data that they have better to market to their customers and kind of improve some of their ROIs.
Interesting. And then what led you to decide to. Totally change gears and move into therapy.
Yeah, it's a great question. Um, because it is so different. I think that I was experiencing some burnout prior to COVID. You know, there was a Surgeon General's report that talked about basically our kids are not okay, and this was, uh, pre COVID and I really wanted to do something in that space.
You know, I, my role was to find people market to them in a. Bigger, better way so that they would spend more money with the brands that they were already spending money with. And it started to feel a little bit like, eh, do you need another lipstick? I'm not sure. Um, maybe but also maybe not. So I wanted to get out of the commercialism space and I felt like that made so much sense.
I had a young daughter at the time and I was just, was very protective of that space. In my clinical internship, however, I started to work with kids and it was just like, whoa, where are the parents? Let's have a conversation with the parents. Yeah. And so I really be drawn to the parents. And so that's a long way of saying second career for me, you know, wanted to get into this space, but then immediately kind of learned like, no, I, I really, I really wanna be with, um, more of the adults.
Interesting. So I didn't realize that, that you had started thinking you would serve children and then shifting into adults. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so today, what, what is your
niche? So today, um, I help adult women and couples, who are feeling disconnected and stuck to help them feel less anxious, more connected and able to kind of reengage in things that make them feel kind of.
More alive, more like themselves.
I mean, I imagine some of those are parents of those children you imagined that you would see, but some not too. They are.
Yeah. I, I actually have some parenting, um, modalities that I'm trained in and have been able to leverage that within the work. My, my primary group is, it's probably 70% adult women from the age of 35 to 55 is, is typically where I serve.
And so those are women who are dealing with all kinds of things. Perimenopause, life transitions. Parenting marriages, things like that. So, um,
yeah, there's it. That's a rich season of change and need. Certainly it is for that demographic. No doubt about it. Yeah. Yeah. So you decided to shift gears into this career and then you decided to open a private practice.
Um, and you did that pretty readily. It's not like you were hanging out in agency life or group practice land for a while. You got straight into this, right? I did get straight
into it. You know, luckily I was in the marriage and family fair therapy track, which allows clinicians to, to hang a, a shingle.
I didn't realize going into this that, you know, you, you couldn't do that in other tracks. And I, I did kind of look around at a couple of different practices in the area and while they were lovely. The, the idea of. Giving away 60% of your income as you've just come out of, you know, paying for your master's and not getting paid for clinical internship.
And, you know, the, the financial gravity of it is I think real. So for me personally, I needed to be able to have the work life balance that I, I really was looking for. And. Be able to pay my bills, quite honestly. Sure. Private practice for me was always the direction that I wanted to go in. I did do about six months at a group practice here in Nashville.
Which was a just a great, um, arrangement. You know, he's super supportive, um, person. But, um, you know, always with the intention that really where my heart is, is building my own practice along the way. And he was very encouraging and, and helping me to do that. So, after about six months, I took on full lease space and really.
Shifted fully into the private you jumped realm. So yeah, it was, it was, it was quick and slow all at the same time.
Yeah. One thing I have always appreciated about you, Erin, is you decided ahead of time that you were gonna make this work. Like it, it was a non-negotiable. You, you leased the space, you opened, you hung the shingle, and it was time to go.
Um, and I, I think that there is so much to be said for that attitude, and I, I know it served you well in a lot of ways. When you think back to those early days, what challenges, if any, did you, did you face or kind of have to work through or overcome? You know, honestly, the, this
is. I think the biggest challenge was really with a few notable exceptions.
Um, there was not encouragement for a new graduate to go into private practice, and I understood those concerns. It was interesting to me though. It was never the, the message was never about skillset. It wasn't about readiness as a clinician, it was about, well, business is hard. You need support and community, you know, as if you're just going to do this on your own.
So I think that, that was really the biggest challenge was kind of getting over that I idea of like, people don't seem to think that I can and I should. It just was not the right decision for me to, to do anything else. And that's not to say that everybody is ready to go into private practice.
I mean, there are a lot of things that come with it, but being that I had spent, you know, almost 25 years in a, in a separate career you know, I had invested a lot in, um, advanced training. I had really worked to kind of cultivate that support system. Not just from a networking standpoint, but you know, I work with multiple.
A-A-M-F-T approved supervisors. I have a peer group that I meet with regularly, so, uh, you know, the, the challenge was really getting over the idea of like, wow, people really don't think I should be doing this. Um, again, there were some notable exceptions and, and people that I really trusted and, and felt like I had their support and so they, they kind of helped smooth that over, but it was just that mental idea of like.
Am I doing something I shouldn't be doing? Sure. You would be
silly not to, to second guess yourself if everyone around you is sort of indicating that maybe this isn't a wise idea. So you had some sort of marketing background, you had a kind of a business mind, it sounds like, in some regard. How do you feel like that served you as you got started?
You know, it's interesting. I think that it, it did and it didn't. I mean, it did in the sense that it gave me some level of confidence. Like, I kind of understand what a, what the goal is. Maybe how you think about getting there. I mean, obviously marketing and, and therapy is very different, but we're talking about building a practice and so there's, there are some similarities and I understood generally what SEO was.
I didn't know how to do it. That's not what my skillset was. Um, so there, there were some things that that definitely helped. But in terms of building a website and branding and those types of things it, it was very different for me. And obviously then there's that whole component of like, now I'm marketing myself, now I'm putting myself out there.
And that Yeah, it's a different ball game than lipstick. Oh yeah. Very. Yeah. So very different. So in some ways I think there, it, it really did help kind of create this idea of like, I can go figure this out. It's just how, what are the things that I need to do in order to figure it out?
Interesting. And how, do you remember how you first discovered Walker Strategy Co.
Or Confident Copy? I don't recall that that part of my memory is, is gone. I don't know how we met originally. Do you
mine too? Mine too. I think Anna, what I did is. I recall looking at your website during actually one of my last classes in my final semester, and it was a MFT professional class where they were kind of going through all the things you could do as an MFT and um, I think I was just researching and came across your, maybe it was like your intro video, and I watched that and there was something about.
The messaging that resonated. It just it clicked for me. Like, I was like, okay, I got it. I, we think the same way I, this would make sense to me. And then it was the idea of this very curated experience. This, this, the approach felt very comforting to me. So when I think about like, what I didn't have in order to go do this, it was like, oh, okay.
This is how, these are the things that I find that then. Fall into place so that I can actually, you know, go along this, this path to put things live and in order and like ready to go.
Yeah. Um, as you think back on your time at confid Copy, which has been a, a handful of years since then, what stands out to you about, you know, the experience you had, the support the tools, anything that really stands out to you as you reflect back on that?
Honestly, it was just,
You know, play on words, right? But it. It was that it gave me the confidence to do the work. And again, the way that it is set up from the modules just felt very attainable to me. And so then it's like, okay if I feel good about doing it, it's clear to me what I need to be doing.
Then you think about the support, not only of your team, but then also of the other people that are kind of going through the process and hearing this real time discussion. Was very helpful. And so it, it just kind of made all of the pieces fallen together.
Yeah. It's funny you say that because I, I did name confident, copy mindfully.
There is, you know, the confident element, but I hear that so often from alumni that they, uh, that they emerged more confident and yet on the front end. No one's looking necessarily, they're not buying a program because they want confidence. They're buying a program 'cause they want clients. But the confidence is that prerequisite, that is this intangible that once you have it, you know it, and when you lack it, you, you, it's hard to know what's missing.
Yeah.
Does that resonate
with you? It does. It does. And I, you know. I think again, it's like we, there's this big idea of there's so many things that are needed in order to have a private practice. How do you even start to figure those things out? It's like, well, this is it. This is, this is the thing that shows you.
And so there were things that I, you know, obviously knew I would need a website and copy and things like that. But the way that, you know, you, you kind of explain and take people into different tools in order to not only look at data, but how do you even think about what are people searching in my, in my zip codes and the places that I'm serving?
It really did kind of make the work more attainable, make the work, you know, you just, you, you felt like you were very much guided in what you're doing. And if you got, you had resources.
Yeah, absolutely. That is, that is our hope that you're not on an island doing that alone. It's interesting you came into Confident Copy as a quote unquote new clinician.
So what was the process like for you, especially of defining a niche? 'cause that is a huge part of confident copy, it's a huge part of excelling in the private pay space, which you have been from the beginning. So what was that like for you as someone who was earlier on in, in your career as a therapist?
Yeah. So if I think back about the timing of all of this, and I probably brought the program before I even graduated or maybe it was within weeks, right? So I had obviously completed my clinical internship and I did know generally who I wanted to be working with. The problem in, in terms of the niche that I had, was.
I felt like I was trying, and I, and I still do sometimes think, like I'm trying to pull too many things into the statement, right? Parents, couples, adult women. And so when I pull that back at thinking about just speaking to the adult female and the couples still feels like kind of a, a broad umbrella, but new from the internship from that clinical experience.
Who I felt really good within the room and the people that I resonated with and the things that they were experiencing and the words that they were using. And so all of that really just rolled right into the templates and the, the, you know, the path that you provided to say like, yeah, when I meet with somebody who I just feel great with at the end of the session, even if it's been hard, right.
What are the things that are coming out of that dialogue and how do I incorporate that into my marketing messaging, because that's ultimately who I wanna be working with. And so, you know, we think about some of those words that you know, apply to adult females or couples and what's that grounding source and, and how do you kind of speak to both?
Yeah, I remember, uh, you as a student had such wonderful insight into those clients and their needs and those specific, as we say, sticky examples and things like that. And I know you've gotten feedback from clients about what you've displayed there. That's really, that's, that's really wonderful to hear.
So you go through confident copy that is at the very, you know, kind of onset of your practice. You launch your website, you launch your practice. What happened then?
So I. Actually went back and looked at some of the data, you know, from the anticipation of this call. And I, I launched my website, I believe it was in October of 23.
I graduated in August and had a couple clients that had come with me from my, my internship experience, but really launched the website in October. It was by February that I said I need to be leasing space full time. And part of that, as you know, we get random snowstorms and, you know, I had two days a week at a place and we had a random snowstorm come in and it just wiped out that week's entire worth of revenue, which, which was small at the time, but it was enough to say, still meaningful if I could put them into another date at the end of the week.
I would be able to recoup all of that. And in having done that, I would've paid for the rent, right? So it was kind of one of those things like, okay, now you just gotta go. So, launched the website in October leased the space in February, and you know, not sure where you went head with all of this, but by like April, may, I was pretty much at my revenue goal.
Amazing. Amazing.
And had left the private practice that I was working at, you know, right around February or so, and yeah. Um, transitioned fully into, to MySpace and my work.
Cool. And so you've been in that kind of full ish, you know, there's ebbs and flows no doubt, I'm sure. But, um, you've, you've held steady there, essentially for going on a year and a half now.
That's correct,
yeah. How are your clients most often finding you these days? I do
a bad job of, of asking this, right. I think that the biggest driver of getting people to my website right is, um, responding to the Facebook groups that I am in the local Facebook groups, and I can, you know. Look at the website data and the traffic, and I see exactly what happens when I respond to one of those requests.
And particularly last summer, you know, somebody in in our area would say that they were looking for recommendation for a therapist. And, you know, I would try to put a little blurb in there about like, this is what I specialize in. Here's more about me. Go to my website. Um, and I would consistently see traffic go up in the day.
And, and following days of responding to one of those posts, I consistently had consultations and 99% of the time a new client after having done that and I, I would have clients say. That they saw me on that, on the, on those groups. So even though they weren't the original poster that my name was still, you know, in, in that thread mm-hmm.
They were, and it was still driving traffic.
That's one of the coolest parts of, of using Facebook groups as a strategy. And you're such a wonderful example of this, that one person is, is sitting there writing the post and asking for a referral. Hundreds are watching. Right. And so the, the same woman that also is looking for a couple's therapist, 'cause her and her husband are like roommates.
Yeah. She's, she's looking at that. She may not have written the post, but she has the need. And I, it's, it's one of the really cool ripple effects of that strategy. And
I think that it, you know, in using that strategy, going back to your term sticky words, right, it's really important to know what those are because if you can incorporate that into the response, then.
That other woman that is reading that response it's, it's resonating with her. Yeah. And I think that that's what I found probably more often than not, that those are the people that are coming in that maybe weren't even looking in the beginning, but there's something about those sticky words.
There's something about the way that it's communicated. It's causing them to go to the website and then they go to the website and the, the feedback that they're providing from the website is just really, really powerful. So.
I remember getting a message from you that you'd booked another private pay client who had said, like, I read the intro paragraph on your website and I knew I wanted to work with you, or something like that.
I've had several people say like, wow, it's like you're speaking to me, or this is exactly what I'm looking for. And it's so, so that has been, you know, talking, going back to that confidence, right? Like following that program, thinking about it in a way that. Brings that dialogue into the copy was just so impactful and you continue to hear that payout.
I love that. That's really wonderful. And you have never taken insurance, right? You've been private pay from the start.
Yeah,
I've
never taken insurance. Yeah, it's just, it's not been something that I've wanted to do. Or even some of these other conglomerates that are kind of coming into the space now.
It's unfortunate. I, you know, sometimes I wrestle with that, but at the same time you know, our market can sustain it, at least for right now, at least in the, the time period that I've been there. That's been something that I haven't had to, to look at.
Yeah. Um, I'm curious, one of the narratives that we've heard a lot so far here in 2025 is things are hard.
No one's paying for therapy. I, my caseload is, you know, my referrals have slowed down or dried up or whatever. Um, that's obviously not the experience of every clinician. You're a good example of that. But what has been your observation? Um, or do you have any comments on that trend that some clinicians are experiencing?
Yeah. I've experienced it as well. I've had, you know, again, it's number one thing I've had people that have gone from weekly to biweekly simply 'cause they don't feel like they need the, that level of support. Um, which is great. I've had people say that they are watching, you know, their finances and that they, you know, are limiting because of that.
And at the same time I guess it was last week, I had to. Two people you know, come on. Um, again, full pay, private practice, no insurance, types of, like, it's not even, it's not part of the dialogue really. Do you take insurance? And of course on the website, I, I, I talk about that and I'm very clear about my rates and that I can provide a super bill.
But so it's interesting. I do think that, you know, I, looking through my own lens, summers are hard. I know my kids' schedule changes every week to try to put something else on top of that feels like I can't even think about it. So I think that that's playing into it as well. And at the same time, last July was my biggest, July and August were my biggest months, you know, one of the, one of the biggest time periods also.
So that ebb and flow, it's just, people felt it last year. I didn't feel it last year. I'm feeling a little bit more this year. I've also had to cut back my availability this year. So it's hard for me to really say what's, what's true, at least in my experience. Yeah, it's a little bit of everything, but, um, it has been a bit of a, a slower, a slower period.
How do you manage the anxiety or unease that can so naturally pop up in those times?
Yeah, I, it's, you know, one of the things that we talked about previously was like, what's the mindset, right? Like what's. How do you, how do you think about these things? And um, I just kind of go back to that saying like, not to spoil the ending for you, but everything works out in the end, you know, and, and just try to say like, if it's slower I, you know, I'm actually gonna take a vacation.
I'm taking a week off, you know, this month. Good for you. I was too nervous to do that before and now I am. And so it is just kind of understanding that yes, there are ebbs and flows and you know, I think back about my corporate experience. During COVID, nobody knew what was gonna happen. And so like, there's no security anywhere is is the reality.
Unfortunately, and I know that there are things that I can do that can help. Um, I haven't really chosen to do those things this summer because again, I've been a little limited. But optimizing what I have, going back to networking, going back to, you know, looking for what's out there in those Facebook groups that I can respond to.
Yeah. Uh, I feel like those are things that I can do in order to kind of help mitigate that. And, and I actually did that in the beginning of, of the month and it, it did pay off. So I try not to pull those levers unless I have to. Um. So I, I know that there's more that I can do and, uh, I, I trust that those things work.
Yeah. I kind of go back to what I know.
I think even just knowing that those levers are there, even if you don't have to pull 'em, but to know if you're sitting there in a time where things feel slower, there are things I can do if I need to. Uh, I think that's, that's huge. What I also really appreciate about you is you don't, you trust yourself to figure it out.
It's not, you're not putting your trust in the economy or in anything else. It's like Erin's it and Erin's gonna figure it out and that's why spoiler alert, everything's gonna be okay at the end of the day, you know? And I think business owners, regardless of industry, can sure learn a lot from that.
That if you fundamentally trust your own capability, everything will work out in the end.
Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a lot of truth that you can't keep chasing and you can't keep switching. Like the consistency I think is important. Otherwise, you're just trying to serve everything and everybody, and you lose.
You lose the impact.
Yeah, yeah. Um, looking ahead, I know we, we talked about before pressing record that you're looking forward to some structure. What else are you excited about next, either personally or professionally, when it comes to being a practice owner and doing this, this great work? Honestly I think just
taking a minute.
I'm kind of looking, I'm, I'm nearing the, the end of my licensure process and, you know. I really came out of the gates investing in myself and what are the, you know, support mechanisms that I need? What are the advanced trainings that I need? You know, what are the systems I need? All, all of the things that I needed to have in place.
And you know, my hope is that we get back to school. Client hours tick up a little bit. Complete the licensure process, and then I can just kind of see what feels good next and, and to not be on this thing that I'm like, I've gotta go, I've gotta do this. And it's been a, an amazing experience. It's been terrific.
But I am looking forward to a little bit of a. Of a pause, if you will. Yeah. A
little cruise control maybe. Yeah,
cruise control sounds really good right now. Yeah.
Yeah. Uh, understandably so. Erin, I know that many people are sitting here listening and resonating with parts of your story. Maybe they are second career clinicians, uh, or maybe they're just new in the private practice space.
Um, maybe they're deciding what to do next, right. In order to grow their caseload. What would you say to them?
I mean, honestly, and the, the biggest thing is to have a strong website and so whatever you need in order to do that, obviously my success came through the Confident Copy Program and that really did provide me with what I feel to be a really strong website.
And so my job then becomes driving eyes to that website. So I think it's really about. How do you have that good, strong foundation in place and what are the tools that you need in order to do that? And once you have that, then you can figure out how do you layer in the leverage that we talked about.
Thank you for that. I don't know, I don't know your answer to this. If you could go back and talk to Erin two years ago, so about to graduate, you know, finishing up your last couple classes, what would you say to her?
Um, well, other than everything works out in the end, I think that. You know, we, we kind of joke in this industry of like, trust the process.
Right. And I think it really is about trusting the process, not in the therapy context that we usually use that, but it's, it's, you know, it goes back to that, you know, trust investing in yourself. I continually ask myself that question, if you couldn't fail, what would you do? Mm-hmm. What would you do next if you knew that failure wasn't going to happen?
Then what would you do? Because trying to get out of that fear mindset is really important when you think about spending a lot of money on top of money that you just spent. So I think it's really about thinking if I take fear outta the equation, what happens? And for me it was trust that process.
Yeah.
If that's what you wanna do and you know, failure's not an option, then what do you do? What do you, how do you, how do you get there?
I love that. Trust the process, trust yourself and everything will work out in the end. Yeah. Awesome. Thanks for being here today, Erin. We really appreciate you. Yes. Good to be with you.
Resources & Links Mentioned:
The Walker Strategy Co website: walkerstrategyco.com
Erin's website: https://truenorthtn.net/
Join the Confident Copy waitlist: https://walkerstrategyco.com/waitlist
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Marketing Therapy is the podcast where therapists learn how to market their private practices without burnout, self-doubt, or sleazy tactics. Hosted by Anna Walker—marketing coach, strategist, and founder of Walker Strategy Co—each episode brings you clear, grounded advice to help you attract the right-fit, full-fee clients and grow a practice you feel proud of.
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