In this episode, Marisol talks about the significance of having a niche as it relates to getting more clients. Also, having a niche can improve your SEO results. For Marisol, she enjoys having sex therapy as her niche. We talk about her journey to becoming a sex therapist and advice for people who are venturing into this space. Later, we chat about the importance of outsourcing when it comes to saving time and money – plus, it can even make you money in the long run!
Meet Marisol Westberg
Hi, I am Dr. Westberg and I am a sex therapist and couple’s counselor in Portland, OR.
I am a board-certified sexologist (ACS), certified sex educator (AASECT), and a licensed couple’s counselor (LMFT).
I am a former Professor in the Marriage, Couple, and Family Therapy Program at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. I coordinated the Sex Therapy Track and supervised students in their clinical training. I have offices in both Portland and Seattle but am doing only virtual sessions at the moment.
Sex Therapy As A Niche
Marisol says that the sex therapy niche landed on her lap rather than looking for it. It just started because she was teaching a course on sex therapy. Marisol had never done one case of sex therapy. Interestingly, she began teaching as she was starting out her private practice journey. As soon as she started to focus on sex therapy, her practice started to flourish. With a sex therapy niche, Marisol had a lot more people contacting her; she realized creating that niche was really a way to grow her practice.
Sadly, there’s a lot of stigma and shame and all that kind of stuff around the sex therapy niche. When we’re training, or when we’re going to school, they do teach us a minimal amount of what we should do with human sexuality. Most of the courses in person or online on sex therapy still continue to expand on the human sexuality piece. However, they don’t really focus on the therapeutic part, like how we get people to move through their issues?
Moving To Telehealth During Covid
Marisol is a fan of the business side of things. She likes to expand on different aspects of her private practice. So when Covid hit, Marisol saw that everything was going to Zoom and telehealth. So, it made business sense to stop paying rent. Marisol decided to cut her costs, leave the city, and live on a beach. If you do go out of the country, you save yourself from paying a lot of the income tax because the income you’re getting is from a different country. It’s $100,000 that you don’t have to pay income taxes on.
Making Sex Therapy Effective
It is a complicated piece in sex therapy to address sexual desire. All the interventions presented out there are counter-therapeutic. Actually, it creates more of a problem. Sadly, the solution creates more of the problem. For example, some people with low sexual desire say you just have to push yourself more. They think you just have to find ways to increase your sexual desire and just go do it.
The reality is that these solutions are mostly very gendered. Women are constantly pushing themselves to be more sexual. However, that’s just not how desire works. When women push themselves, it creates trauma. In reality, a lack of sexual desire is affected by being tired and being stressed. To solve the problem, women should work on being less tired and less stressed. Women can light candles and do yoga. Slowly touching your partner will also help. Make sure there is nothing forceful going on.
Outsourcing SEO Work
Marisol saw a significant shift in the private practice world with outsourcing. She does all her own website design and social media. However, when she hired somebody to do the actual SEO stuff, that pulled her up in the search results. Some people are just straight out of school and haven’t had a lot of time with their website. Yet, they are still number two in Google. There’s a lot more to website work than some people can even imagine. A little money will go a long way when it comes to getting your website found. When running a business, it’s important to recognize when you can bootstrap and when you can outsource. Sometimes, outsourcing will save you a lot of time and money. Plus, in the long run, it can even make you money!
Marisol Westberg Gordon Brewer Thank you. Thank you for having me. Gordon Brewer Marisol Westberg Gordon Brewer Marisol Westberg Gordon Brewer Marisol Westberg Gordon Brewer Right, right. Gordon Brewer Marisol Westberg Gordon Brewer Marisol Westberg Gordon Brewer Marisol Westberg Gordon Brewer Marisol Westberg Gordon Brewer Marisol Westberg Right, Marisol Westberg Gordon Brewer Marisol Westberg Gordon Brewer Marisol Westberg Okay. Yeah. Gordon Brewer Marisol Westberg Gordon Brewer Marisol Westberg Gordon Brewer Marisol Westberg Gordon Brewer yeah, just starting now. So Marisol Westberg Gordon Brewer Yeah, I Marisol Westberg Gordon Brewer Marisol Westberg Gordon Brewer Marisol Westberg Gordon Brewer Marisol Westberg Gordon Brewer have a great day. Gordon Brewer
Hi, I'm Marisa westberg. I am thrilled to be on the practice of therapy and helping to talk about how to create a niche in your practice in order to increase the number of clients that you have.
Well, hello again, everyone, and welcome to the podcast. And I'm so glad for you to get to know today, Marisol westberg. And so Marisol has really developed an interesting niche. And I think you're gonna love hearing about this from her. But welcome, we're so glad you're here.
Yes, I'm glad you glad we, we stumbled across each other and glad you reached out for the podcast. Because when I started looking at, as I said, kind of your story and in seeing what you've been doing, it's, I think people are gonna find this pretty fascinating. So as I start with everyone, why don't you tell folks a little bit about your private practice journey and how you've landed where you landed?
Yeah, I think it's a little bit unusual, because I always say that the sex therapy piece kind of landed on my lap rather than me looking for it. And it just started because I was teaching a course on sex therapy. And I never had done one case of sex therapy. So then I had to get on this. And what was interesting is that as I was starting out my private practice, too, but as soon as I started to focus on sex therapy, because I had that need, my practice started to really flourish. I had a lot more people contacting me, and so that I realized that creating that niche was really a way to grow my practice.
Yes, yes. And then I can imagine that that is one that is a niche that people would latch on to our just remembering. I'm a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, and remember, graduate school, we just barely, barely touched on the subject, you know, I think it was kind of like, we're gonna we're gonna say something about it, but then we're gonna move on to something else. So there's probably a lot of stigma and shame and all that kind of stuff around that whole niche.
Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that. Because I think in when we're training, or when we're going to school, they do teach us very, very little amount on what they do with human sexuality. And I think most of the courses actually out there, whether it's in person or online, on sex therapy, still continue to kind of like, expand on the human sexuality piece. But they don't really focus on the therapeutic part, like how do we get people to move through their through their issues, it's more about, you know, this is what it looks like defining things, your breadth of what you're comfortable with. And so a lot of behavioral cognitive type of information. And so I had to learn it on my own. All the books was not in there. They weren't enough. They didn't teach me much of anything. So yeah, I think I think what I do is a little bit more comprehensive.
Right, right. Well, I know, one of the things that we were just chatting about a little bit before we started recording, when COVID here, you really decided to go full on remote. And so tell folks a little bit about that. And, and because I think that's pretty fascinating.
Yeah, well, you know, I like the business side of things. And I like to expand on different things. So when COVID hit and I saw that everything was was going to zoom. I just made business sense to me. I'm like, why am I paying rental? And I knew it was going to be here for a while. Am I going to continue to pay rent for a year or 2am? I going to continue to live in an expensive city. And why not just cut my costs? And live on the beach? No, right?
Yeah. And, yeah, I think he had shared with a year in the Dominican Republic, which would be an awesome place for me to be right.
Yeah. That's great. That's great.
be interesting for your listeners to know that if you do go out of the country, you you save yourself from paying a lot of the income tax because your income is you're getting income in a different country. So I think it's the $100,000 that you they don't have to pay income taxes on. Oh, wow. That's 100,000 Yeah.
Wow. Well, yeah, that's a that's a big motivator, I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. So As you have built your practice, I guess maybe tell us a little more about how you got interested in really developing sex therapy as a niche. And, and just how it developed for you?
Yeah, well, like I said, it was something that I had to do because I teach a class on it. And then I started to read everything that was out there on sex therapy, and start to incorporate some of the stuff that I had, I had read, because what we learn is very little in our graduate school, but it wasn't working. It just, it wasn't clicking for me, it wasn't really moving, moving the therapy forward. So I have to kind of like draw in from other places and kind of like, start to mess around with all the different theories out there that we typically use, like for couples therapy, and integrate it into the sex therapy. And I actually had to develop, I developed my own model, because there was nothing out there that could help me do this. And I actually I call it the fuck sex model.
Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh, that's great. So yeah, so what, as you develop that what I know, you've been putting together some courses and all of that, and so, yeah, how to how has all of this evolved for you?
Right. So after I was doing, I was, you know, refining this model, and practicing and practicing, practicing, I had all this knowledge. And like I said, I like to do different things. So I said, and people were asking me to can, you know, and I was teaching it as well. So I decided to just put in a video format, so just to have it there available for everybody, and not have to like teach a class over and over and over again. So I had to learn all there is to know about creating courses and video taping and all that stuff. And what I do is I present that model as to how did everything you need to know as to how to do sex therapy, in a comprehensive way, in an effective way.
Right, right. Yeah. So I'm curious, what are what are maybe some things that you've found that are maybe kind of some of the outside the box kind of ways of thinking about six therapy that you're finding effective?
Well, you know, there's two, two prongs to it, one of them is to know what to do with specific issues. And so that is definitely a part that you I mean, you, you try to apply couples therapy without knowing exactly what to do with these issues wouldn't really work. But the other prong is, my way of working with couples therapy or individual therapy is to look at, you know, different categories and the wounding in those categories, and then healing the wounding in those categories. So whether it be and so I work with the behavioral, the cognitive, emotional, the relational, and also the trauma. And there is a lot of relational trauma as well, when it comes to sex therapy. So a lot of trauma work, a lot of wounding work and healing. And so you do stuff like, you know, child work, and parts work, and and then the other, you know, so that combat, then I found that there were, especially with low sexual desire, that is a place where people talk a lot about but they have, it doesn't seem like they can move the needle on it's very, very difficult piece in sex therapy to address sexual desire. And it's because all the interventions that are presented out there are counter therapeutic, actually, it creates more of the problem, then. Yeah, the solution creates more of the problem. Which the solution? So for example, with low sexual, you want me to go into detail?
Yeah, sure. Because I was getting rid of my curiosity.
Yeah, for example, some people with low sexual desire, say, well, you just got to push yourself more, you just got to find ways to increase your sexual desire, you just got to do it. There's one woman that just use it, the Nike logo, just do it. But what happens is that they don't, you know, the, the reality is that when this is mostly very gendered, by the way, it's mostly women, although it happens to men, but most of this is is is gendered in that way. So what they don't realize is that these women have been trying to do exactly that, you know, pushing themselves and trying to do and having sex when they don't want to, but and so more of that, it's just more of a problem. And so I take a different approach, which is to realize that people that, you know, women are forcing themselves to have sex because that's, you know, they want to make their partner happy, they want to be a sexual person. And, but if they keep on pushing themselves when they don't want to, then it creates a sort of like, you know, a sort of violation, you know, and that just creates some trauma around that and it's just, you know, I have anything else, the more that the Less, the more you don't want to go into that space, the more you won't go in there, you know, and the more or less less you go in there. And the reason that that happens is because, you know, people get together having lots of sex. And then after a while women sexuality is very different than men's. As far as today, I hope that changes. But um, you know, their sexuality is affected by being tired by having too much to do by being stressed out. And so they, their sexuality starts to diminish. And that's okay. And most, most people, most partners are okay with that temporarily. But what happens if it becomes repeated, then that person starts to get upset, and that upset, and this then leads to the person wanting to, to please them when they don't really feel like it?
and to make sure that they don't get upset or make sure that they will withdraw or punish. And so that issue so that the approach of like pushing or trying to encourage more, let's find your sexuality, let's light some candles or do some yoga or stuff like that. None of that stuff works. Or since it focus is a big thing in sex therapy. I think everybody, every couples therapy kind of throws that out there. And it doesn't work. Because Yeah, so let's slowly touch. But it's more of the same. Let's let's put you in this position where you have to force yourself.
Yeah, yeah. So does it? Do you find that people that are, are struggling with low sexual desire? Is it require more focus on the individual work? Or does it tend to be more couples?
Yeah, I would say 70% is the couple's relational dynamics, and maybe a 30%? Is individual dynamics, for example, sexual abuse or body issues? or? Yeah, those two things, basically.
Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I would have guessed. So as you build your practice, what, what did you find was helpful in just marketing it and starting to get referrals? I would, you know, my hunch would be and you, you can tell me if my hunch is correct or not would be is that there are not too many people advertising is sex therapists. So when you do a search for it, those that are there tend to go to the top of the list.
Right. So I think a lot of people search for what they need, you know, and so you have an adolescent that's depressed, you're gonna say, therapy, adolescent depression, you know, so whatever comes up, and whoever is specializing in that, I would rather go to somebody that specializes, if I had another person that was depressed in that, then going to a therapist, that's just general, you know, like it right away, I would feel that would increase my sense of confidence and trust in that person, and their expertise. So the same thing happens with sex therapy. However, in the place, it's a little bit more than that. Because, for example, you could be in a place where there's lots of sex therapists and where i, where i, where my practice is in Portland, Oregon, and I was teaching in a sex therapy program, there were, there's tons of sex therapists, but then there are a place where they're not so if you you're competing with other therapists, you have to do a little bit more than just specialize in sex therapy, you definitely have to do some SEO, you definitely have to make sure you're on Google on Google My Business on the maps you have to make sure you're writing content and your your site is fast and that it's an all those things and that you have links to your site and all those things are going to increase your standing on Google or you can be in a place where you know it takes it takes a while to develop all these things the SEO and I don't know what you call the other things about content marketing or Yeah.
Yeah, it's a yes that is that you're exactly right is really just making having enough quality content on your website so that Google really pushes it towards the top of the list is really kind of the way at least that I think about it is you want to have number one quote good quality content but also a lot of it so yeah.
Yeah, and I think there are people that specialize in this like for example, I saw a big a big shift and I know all this stuff I you know, I do all my own website, design everything and but once I hired somebody to do the actual SEO stuff that really pulled me up and I know because I know that there are some people that just straight out of school, haven't had a lot of time with their website. And they're they're like number two In the Google and so I'm like, there's a little bit more than just, you know, time and content. And yeah, there's something there that I don't know. And so why not hire somebody to figure that one out? Right,
right. Yeah, I did. You bring up a good point, Marisol, because I think in the on the business side of things with running a practice is really recognizing the point at which is really more valuable for you to outsource, rather than try to bootstrap your way through it. Yeah, yeah. And I know, a lot of times people will try to try to do that to save some money. But you can you can really end up creating more problems for yourself than actually outsourcing it.
Yeah. So I mean, I do this stuff, because I like it. And know, anything that I'm not good at, or I don't like I just I go on Fiverr. And it's super easy. Super, I think, worth the money. It's not expensive. And Mm hmm. Yeah.
Right, right. Yeah, that's a that's a good, you bring up a good point in terms of outsourcing. resources. And we'll probably maybe put some links in the show notes on this is just a couple that come to mind are Fiverr and Upwork are two places that you can find people for specific jobs that you want to outsource. And typically, they're more short term. So yeah, I know that that's been a valuable service. For me. It's really how I found quick shout out to Rachel who does the podcast editing for me. That's how I found her. And so that's been really a great a great thing. So. So yeah, so Marisol, tell folks a war about the courses that you're offering. And in for those that want to get more training in sex therapy, and, and, and that sort of thing.
Yeah, so I have one master class sex therapy course. And it's actually accredited by the Association, the sex Therapy Association that everybody belongs to, for 12 credits, and I'm sure other people find, you know, in their see us find that that all apply to whatever organization that they're they belong to, but the course just focuses on the model that I developed. And it goes to the most prevalent things that you'll see in sex therapy, how to treat it and not in a different way that you're going to read out on, because that's what I had all the stuff that was out there wasn't very effective for me, so I had to develop something else. And it's all video format, so you can take it at your own pace. And, you know, it's about 12 hours. Wow.
Wow. Yeah. So curious, what platform Are you using for your courses? LearnDash. Okay, all right. Yeah,
it's like, you know, you start in you, you hear other people using other stuff, but for now, LearnDash is okay for me. Yeah.
Yeah. And that's, that's an important piece is to be able to find what what works for you? is, you know, absolutely, so, yeah. So um, yeah, I want to be respectful of your time, aerosol. But what are some other things that you would want people to know just about how you've built your practice, and, and the things that you think would be important for them to know?
actually developed a guy like a 10 step, everything that I did to increase the amount of people that were contacting me, and so I have a whole bunch of information there. And it's some of it is, is stuff that people don't really talk about, I think, what my my advice to everybody would be to talk personally with other people that done it, because some of the information that you read on the internet is it just misses some of the stuff? Mm hmm.
Yeah. Yeah, I think, Yeah, go ahead.
No, that sometimes it's it's maybe difficult to talk about in the web like format.
Mm hmm. Yeah, I think it's a you're exactly right. I think it's one of the things that I think is important to do when you're thinking about growing or expanding your practice or whatever is, is finding resources and also mentors that can can can walk you through the process, because there's a lot of people out there that are, have done it before. And they can really kind of give some good guidance on those kinds of things. So yeah.
I think we can supervise supervisors based on their knowledge of therapy, which is great, but also to think choosing supervisors or mentors that are also very savvy when it comes to the business side. Have it.
Mm hmm. Yeah. So well, Marisol, as I said, like to be respectful of your time, tell folks a little bit about how they can get in touch with you and find out more about your courses.
Yeah, so I'm at Garcia westberg calm. Hopefully you'll have a link to that as well. And right there, everything's there.
Okay, good. Yeah, we'll have this in the in the show notes and so people can access it easily. So well, thanks again for being on the podcast and hopefully, maybe we'll have some more conversations in the future. Yeah, also,
Okay, you too. Okay. Bye bye.
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