360: What I Learned from Creating a Course for CEUs with Matthew Bierds

Melvin Varghese:

dcasting course, which was in: 2015

Matthew Bierds: Thanks Mel, great to be here and thanks for this invite. I've really been looking forward to it.

Melvin Varghese: Oh my gosh. First of all, I'm so grateful that you sent that DM on LinkedIn. LinkedIn's a pretty amazing place in a very surprising way. I feel like it's like social media, but it's got the kind of the barriers with, because it's more of a work professional kind of vibe. So I don't know. It's been, it's been really nice. And I'm so grateful that we've been able to connect. You're doing amazing stuff in the world with both what we're going to talk about today, as well as the clinical work that you're doing in the world. And yeah, just incredibly grateful that you reached out and looking forward to our chat today.

Matthew Bierds: Yeah. Yeah. Thanks again. I will have to say you're a monster on LinkedIn. The amount you post and the feedback you give is really insightful. You can tell that you really do Read what people are writing and take time to really give some good feedback instead of just like cool post man or something like that So I really that's why I reached out because I thought you know the information you offer and provide and the feedback is is really Quality, so I appreciate it. Thank you

Melvin Varghese: Oh, you're so welcome. Yeah, it's been, I mean, it's been nice. And I think, uh, as with most things I've done over the past 14 months, I've developed a system. So I, you know, there's basically like 10 accounts that I engage with every day, but then I try to put like, and 30 minutes is kind of where I set, but it's been, but I tried for that, for what you just explained. Cause I see so many of like these sort of general comments and I was like, you know what? Like somebody is taking the time to post this. Let me actually like write a little, you know, thoughtful comment here, but allowed us to connect. So, you know, my first question is, one of the things that you mentioned when we were direct messaging on LinkedIn, you said it this way, I learned the hard way that selling general continuing education courses online is pointless and a waste of time and money. I was wondering if you could expand on this, because it's funny to hear it, but I think there's so much wisdom underneath it.

Matthew Bierds: Yeah, I appreciate it. That maybe sounds harsh, but it was my experience without a doubt. You know, when I started doing continuing education, it really started for me almost 10 years ago. Like I was telling you, I met a person who did a similar process with online continuing education with massage therapists. And she was explaining her process and making six figures a year. And this was, you know, 10 years ago. selling online courses. And so once you put the course out there, it was a fully automated process. And I thought, this is amazing. I want to do a similar process for therapists for continuing education in Texas. And so I went through this entire process of having a full website developed through WordPress, and it was fully customized with a web designer. with all this back-end software to allow for people to take a course and get their certificate. It was, I'd say, probably $8,000 in web design alone. And then you have to create courses, which takes a lot of time and energy. And these were just generalized courses to meet in Texas. You have to do 24 hours of continuing education every two years. So I was just creating generalized information that was a downloadable PDF that they would read the information, do a quiz, take the survey, get their certificate. But these courses were being charged at you know, $70, $80 a course, or maybe cheaper for a shorter course. And a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of investment. And then it dawned on me, you go on to like CEUs by net or all these other websites that are generalized continuing education courses for counselors. and you pay 50 bucks for a subscription for the entire year, and it's unlimited CEs of whatever you wanna do, all NBCC certified. So you've got the national certification, so it's approved across the board, and you can go through and do them all online for 50 bucks. So why in the world would somebody pay me 30, 40, $80 for one course, for the same kind of general information that you could get online for 50 bucks, do as much as you want. That's kind of where that came from is the reality check that providing general CEs for people online who, for the most part, if they're doing that, they're looking to get their hours as fast and efficient as possible. It did not work for me. For me, it was just not a good idea to do something general. So I learned the hard way pivoting into something very specific and niche that provides a very real service, something that you're more of an authority in can definitely be not only more beneficial to your people, your participants, but also it's a better product for you because that's what you know and it's really what you're good at rather than just trying to like put all these random things together to sell courses.

Melvin Varghese: Yeah, absolutely. So much like wisdom and everything that you shared. I wanted to like go a little bit deeper. So one, I feel like for many of us, when especially I think any sort of domain beyond just therapy, right? Like, I don't know, creating courses or podcasts, whatever it is, right? When things don't work out, I think there's always this tendency to be like, well, forget about it. You know, I'm just going to go try something else. Or what made you So if we can almost get a glimpse of Younger Matt, who is realizing there's all these websites that exist where people can pay for a year and then he's got a course, right? What made the Younger Matt say, I want to niche down versus I want to give up?

Matthew Bierds: Yeah, good question. I think part of it is just the entrepreneurial spirit in general. It's another creative format and probably as therapists, we tend to have a little bit more of that, you know, those creative outlets just in it's what's in my nature for sure. And then the entrepreneurial element just really, you know, that didn't work. So I thought, well, what's next? Let's try some other things because, you know, even back then I saw, you know, this, the internet and engaging in continuing education and learning. It just made sense that that's the direction it was heading. So for me, it was just common sense to say that's not working. What is working? Start researching and looking at what people are doing that is not only financially beneficial but offering a quality product. So, I started looking for my avenue to really provide a very focused product rather than a generalized continuing education site. And that's what led me into the path of doing the LPC supervision continuing education courses. Because that's a very specific product, a very specific course requirement that in Texas, all LPC supervisors are required to do six hours of LPC supervisor refresher courses every two years. So you have to do it. It's a very niche-specific thing people are looking for. had some experience in developing courses, knew it was something I still wanted to do. And so when I found that right opportunity, it was just easy for me to jump on it and try to do a little bit more efficiently this time.

Melvin Varghese: Yeah, beautifully said. So, I mean, I love it like on multiple levels, right? Like, I think one of the things I think a lot about is when you're creating a course, create it for a specific person in a specific situation, right? And so if we're looking at like, specific person could be all therapists, which is what those websites are usually catered to. right? But you niched it down to LPCs, which I think is where most people would stop. But then you started thinking like, within LPCs, how can I sort of slice this even more nuanced, right? And got to LPC supervisors, and then in a specific situation, right? Usually, I think when you figure out that population, you can sort of make the leap of like, what are they doing? And they need these six hours every other year. So I guess back then, what were people doing? Were they going to in-person trainings?

Matthew Bierds: Yeah, I think a lot of it was just finding in-person trainings and then really seeking out one or two options that were available, but it was really, and it's still, in my opinion, is fairly limited in this market, which is quite amazing. There, I think there's over 6,000 LPC supervisors just in Texas. So it's a small market, but it's a big market and it's ever growing. And there's just not a lot of people providing these kind of online services. So a lot of people, not only back then, but still are looking to in-person CE courses. And so I think that there was just a huge market here and there's not a lot of people that were doing it. So I just jumped in and thought, well, I can do this. So yeah, I think that's what happened was I saw this need. I saw this market. Nobody was really doing it. Not many people were. So it just made sense.

Melvin Varghese: Yeah, you know, you've been a supervisor, right? Which I think that's the other part of it. It's almost like creating a course that addresses the pain point for you or speaks to a younger version of you, right? Like I could imagine there were times where you may be traveling or going to like, try to get these CEs. You're like, this will be so much easier to do this online or, you know,

Matthew Bierds: Absolutely. One of the things that really helped me in this journey is in Texas, you have to do a 40-hour training to become eligible to be an LPC supervisor. You have to have five years of full licensure plus this 40-hour training. So to do it, especially back then, you either went in person for 40 hours, which was a huge time commitment, A lot of them had transitioned into this part-time where you did 20 hours of home study, 20 hours in person. So, for example, I went to one of those where I did 20 hours prior to just at home, and then I went and had to pay not only for the course, But then I had to pay to travel to Dallas, and I spent an entire weekend sitting in a little conference room doing the other 20 hours, which actually was a great experience. And I met some really cool people. And the teacher of the course, Gilbert, is still somebody I email all the time and talk with. So I built some really good connections, which I love, but I left there thinking there's people out there that want to find a more efficient way of doing this, where it can be all online, all self-paced, and cheaper. Because if you're paying the same price for a course that you're attending in person as online, But I'm not paying for a weekend's worth of travel, hotels, and all those extra expenses. This is an avenue that really wasn't out there, and there's not many people doing it. And I thought this is another avenue for people who maybe don't want to go and travel and do the in-person part. They want to do something that's more at their own pace and in their own home or environment. That was really what triggered this process of transitioning, and then it led into not just doing the 40-hour course, but then also the refresher hours as well. So then you get that repeat customer, because every two years, they've got to do it again. And once you build trust as an LPC supervisor in Texas, You know, they know me, they can see me, they've taken some of my courses. And I think that's really important where I'm not just some random website. I'm a person they can reach out to, ask questions. And I think when you build that trust in something that's required to do every two years, it really does help build this repeat customer where you hope to see them again every two years.

Melvin Varghese: Such good stuff there. So I wanted to kind of break down a little bit more. So I think the first part I kept thinking is force that helps people save time and money, right? That's usually just even beyond courses, right? Just generally, I think those are two great things. And especially if you can link them both together, I feel like it's very powerful. The second piece, which you just alluded to, the credentialing every two years, two hours, that would be crazy. So were you thinking about that when you first started? Okay, so you were thinking out of the 40 hour and then realizing there's potentially some recurring, right?

Matthew Bierds: Absolutely. For me, it was to build something that is ongoing, that's something that I can continue to provide that service for not just a one-off, but for having repeat customers was really important to me because if you're going to invest time, money, and energy into creating something, one-offs just didn't make sense to me. So really did immediately think, okay, I've got to take a six-hour course every two years. Every other LPC supervisor in Texas has to do this. I looked around and was seeing what was available and thought I could create an efficient, affordable process to obtain these hours and provide that service that is needed. And so for me, absolutely, right off the bat, I was thinking how to create a product that's repeatable and customers will continue to come back every two years. And that's a lot of scale because not only are you getting repeat customers, you're getting new people also through my own 40-hour course where they're joining and they get to know me. So I would like to think they come back for those two-year refreshers. But you also get more and more people just in the field. As Texas grows, it's a huge state, more and more supervisors. So it's a very, to me, it was a very scalable type of course, which was appealing, for sure.

Melvin Varghese: Yeah, absolutely. It's such a different way of thinking about it than, you know, most of us as clinicians, I think, are either trained or even taught, right? Most of us are sort of taught like face to face, time for income, like that sort of model. And this model of scale, especially now with so many, especially just online, right? It's just, it's a different way of thinking about it. So like real serious respect for you, like for even thinking about that 10 years ago, right? Now we can talk about it and be like, yeah, that makes sense. Right? So this started with a 40 hour, let me just make sure. So this started out with a 40 hour course, right? So you recorded 40 hours of content.

Matthew Bierds: Yeah, it was a process. So actually, it kind of worked out where it started with the idea of the 40 hour course. But in the process of doing that, what I learned is, is I was building out six hour chunks of refresher courses. So I started promoting the six-hour courses throughout the process in building the 40-hour training. And then as I did that, I kind of got that 40-hour course developed. I offered some of it as refresher courses. And as I got that ball rolling, that also allowed me to then start creating new content specific for refresher. But it is a big commitment to create

Melvin Varghese: Hey there, it's Melvin. I hope that you're enjoying today's session. Just wanted to take a moment to thank the team over at the American Psychological Association for supporting today's podcast. You probably know this, but APA actually has a bunch of stuff for beyond for just psychologists. And one of the things that they actually have is a psych careers service. So if you are a mental health professional, a psychology professional that is thinking about your next career move, maybe you are a therapist in private practice and you want to supplement income, or maybe you are in a season where you're ready for that next new challenge, The APA PsyCareers blog actually has a listing of over 400 jobs that are available. If you go to sellingthecouch.com forward slash APA, you can create your free account, upload your resume, set up job alerts, and submit applications. Again, that's over at sellingthecouch.com forward slash APA.

Matthew Bierds: 40 hours worth of content.

Melvin Varghese: I have lots of questions. So you're thinking, okay, I've got to get 40 hours, and then dot instead of just doing this in one fell swoop, let me break these into six hour chunks. And I could imagine also, it's probably more palatable for LPC supervisors to do a six hour versus like 40 hours with a guy I don't know, you know.

Matthew Bierds: Oh, so even in those 40 hours, the LPC board requires it to be broken out into specific sections and chunks of, you know, like 12 hours for this, 6 hours for that, 3 hours for this. So, I already kind of had a format of how to break out the material to provide and meet those requirements. So, it just naturally worked out to have it in these chunks. So, for example, the 40-hour course, when a person signs up, it's broken into multiple modules. So, they take each module at a time to meet those criteria for that 40-hour course. And as they go through those modules, they do an assignment that's attached to each one, a quiz, a writing assignment, it depends on what it is. And then through that process of completing all the modules, at the end, that's when they get their certificate. But all of those modules are really, if they didn't take my course, I can take that same material and use it as a refresher material. For example, one of the requirements is to educate supervisors on the different models of supervision, different strategies, and kind of like theoretical orientation for therapy. This is models of supervision, so how we want to address our supervisees. That material is required as part of the 40-hour course. But it's also a great refresher to give a seasoned supervisor insight and ideas and reminders of what kind of models you could utilize. So, you kind of get a twofer when creating that material.

Melvin Varghese: Yeah, that's very cool. So, when you started creating this, like, I don't know, this is just me, maybe it's just, and I would be like, oh gosh, is the board going to have some issue with this? Like, me creating any of this? Like, am I stepping on any toes? Did any of that stuff come up? And if so, how did you navigate that?

Matthew Bierds: Absolutely. The biggest worry is not doing anything that will get you in trouble with your licensing boards, without a doubt. And in Texas, we've had a lot of changes over the last few years with licensing and rules and a new entity took over our license. And so lots of changes even with how you can get your continuing education, the supervisor requirements. So you really had to be on high-level awareness of what those rules stated. And because, you know, you also deal with challenges when you're doing these kind of courses where if a rule within the LPC board changes and you already have a course based on the old rules, now you have to go back and modify all that stuff. to be updated to the new rules. So, yes, that is one of the biggest stressors when you're doing specific courses related to continuing education, is making sure it's congruent with current licensing requirements. But it's not that hard to do. It's not a big deal. It's just, you know, you're always having to go check and be aware of what the new rules are.

Melvin Varghese: I'm so glad you pointed this out because I think this is something I notice just generally in anything, whether it is private practice, online courses, writing a book, doing a podcast, starting a YouTube, whatever it is, right? Starting on LinkedIn, whatever. I think there's a lot of emphasis on like, this is the easiest way to blah, blah, blah, right? But I think doing all of these different things now, I feel like they're all hard in their own way, right? And inevitably, like, there's no like easy path to them. And it really is. It's not like just about like resilience, but it's just, I think it's more realizing there's no situation where you're going to have a hundred percent like, like clear sailing kind of thing, you know?

Matthew Bierds: Every time I've tried to take that easy path, the cliches are there for a reason. It usually doesn't work out. I mean, if it was that easy, everybody would do it, and you'd be inundated with people who are offering the same things. So personally for me, The hard part is content. Especially when you're running a full-time practice and you have family obligations and every other part of life, to be able to create content that meets these specific criteria is an additional time suck. I think that's probably where most people have to decide if they're willing to do it or not because you put all the work up front. Yeah, at that point, it's out there, it's accessible. We've always used the term mailbox money, right? That sounds great, right? Don't have to do anything and money just comes in. And I think that's wonderful in theory, but the reality is there's a whole lot of work that goes on the front end and then constant maintenance of that. So it's not really mailbox money. It definitely requires work.

Melvin Varghese: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think I heard something recently, I'll probably butcher it, because I have a tendency to butcher phrases that I hear, but it was basically like, if something, if a path is easy, and a path is hard, default to the harder path, because one, it'll kind of push you, but then two, it's likely that most people won't have the resilience or the persistence to like stick with it. And so if you can sort of outlast, right? You essentially almost like go to the top, you know, eventually over time. So you said something I wanted to kind of two final questions. So one, you said managing it right, like with life commitments and all of these things. What does that look like even on a monthly or yearly basis? Like are you it sounds like you're constantly sort of looking at, you know, these regulations, seeing what you need to tweak? Do you, you know, say, like, every June, I'm going to sit down and rerecord everything? Or is it more like, you know, As things come up, you have to think about it.

Matthew Bierds: So for me, it's more as things come up. So, you know, for regarding CE rules, I'm set up with all the, you know, emails where if there's any rule change or the LPC board has one of their regular meetings, I get notified. And so then I'll go back and review those meeting notes or see what the rule changes are. to make sure that what I'm doing is in compliance. So I don't really have to put on the calendar those things. I'll get emails to notify me when changes are occurring, and then I just have to check and make sure I'm in compliance. The biggest thing I think I'm always doing is after making sure that I'm in compliance with the rules, is just trying to figure out new content and figure out something that people will enjoy and get something from because that scalable component, getting repeat customers means new courses. Some of them like to take the same course every time and they check that box and, hey, that's awesome. But other folks really want something new and different. So that's probably the part that I think is a little more consuming, is just new content. And I've actually had to try to now switch more, not being the most tech-savvy person, all of my content has always been downloadable PDFs. rather than video-based. So it's just a lot of writing and a lot of referencing. Probably would be a lot easier in some ways to do more video if I had that kind of savvy at this point, but it's all downloadable PDFs. So participants will purchase the course, download the material like an e-book, read through the material, take a quiz, do the survey, and get their certificate. So one of the things that I think is also I'm looking at as a challenge is how to engage more in that tech component with video. Because the feedback I get is people want more of that. They don't want to just read a long PDF. And I get that, right? I would agree. So that's the next challenge for me is engaging more in something that creates more video, more interaction, definitely is a big thing for the future.

Melvin Varghese: Yeah, I'm so glad you're thinking about it. Because like, also at another level, think about it, like your existing students that are taking it, if they see you on video, there's more of that human connection. And I would suspect it would increase like retention and future signups and even word of mouth kind of things like, you know, Yeah, definitely. I would say like lean into it because I think there's some, there's some neat opportunities there. Matt, the final question I had for you was, I feel like it's one thing to create these courses. It's another thing to market them. And I feel like this probably could be an episode on its own, but what would you say is like the, well, maybe a two-parter. So what's like the best ways that you found to market this? And then what's like the biggest mistake that you made in the marketing?

Matthew Bierds: Yeah, good question, Mel. So when it comes to mistakes, it makes me go back to 10 years ago, and I think of so many funny things I did. So one thing I did is I spent a bunch of money on postcards. I had these postcards made through one of those online services where I had my information and some course material. And then I was hand putting stamps on by hand and then going to the mailbox and sending these to hundreds of people whose license was coming up for renewal soon. And that was just ridiculous. A lot of waste of money and time again. And the idea was, oh, I'm going to send this marketing material out to people who are nearing that time and they're going to want to buy the course.

Melvin Varghese: In theory, in theory, sounds great.

Matthew Bierds: It sounded great, right? It didn't work. So a lot of different marketing techniques back then that I learned a lot from that improved upon now. But I think the biggest mistakes I make now are just not using technology as much as I should. I essentially do some blog posts and put out some information about when I have new material. And the market is small enough still where if you do, I haven't done this in that recent, but typically if you do like, Google search for LPC Supervisor Refresher Texas, it'll be me and a couple other people on the first page. And I don't even really do any marketing. So my biggest mistake is not doubling down and doing more marketing in this arena. And so that's an area that I'm really wanting to look at and work. But I do think what works for me, what is the marketing strategy, is even though my courses are depersonalized a little bit because it's a PDF, I think because I personalize everything and you can see me, you can email me if you have a question about my course, I'm very accessible. And so for me, the best marketing tool I offer is that I'm just very easy to connect with, I'm easy to get a hold of, and I'm a real person doing this real job of supervision in the state. And I think that's a really good marketing tool for any therapists that are even listening to this podcast, is maybe to think about what it is you're doing, what it is you're known for, and really connect at that level because that's already a skill set you have, it's already something you're in the arena being known about, so it's much easier to market that than something that people don't know you for. I hope that kind of helps answer that marketing question a little bit.

Melvin Varghese: It's such a good question because I think if you've listened to episodes of the podcast, I think a lot about the most successful practitioners, when they ask a question about referrals, they usually say it's one of two things, local colleagues or old clients that are word of mouth. And this is the thing, right? It's not fancy. And so most people then skip it because it's not fancy enough. But I think if you have that foundation down, the other stuff, it just makes it so much easier.

Matthew Bierds: Oh, yeah, that's a lot of people that I meet. They said, oh, my friend so-and-so took your course and said it was great or, you know, really enjoyed the process. So, yeah, I mean, a therapy community is still a small community in a lot of ways where we do build those connections and make referrals just like with therapy. I feel like I get the same kind of marketing, you know, with these courses where people just refer to each other and you become kind of known as this is, call Matt if you need that. So it's really been nice to have that kind of, you know, very community-based marketing.

Melvin Varghese: Yeah, absolutely. I'm incredibly grateful for our conversation. Thank you so much for just sharing your wisdom on this. I feel like all of us have online courses within us, right? And I feel like so many of us are now saying like, okay, how can I use this therapist skill set in new and innovative ways? And it's so cool to see someone doing this. And so appreciate you and thank you for coming on the podcast. Where can we learn more about you and the awesome work that you're doing in the world?

Matthew Bierds: Yeah, thanks, Mel. I really appreciate you having me. This was a lot of fun. I haven't done a podcast in a long time, so this was a really cool experience for sure. To find me, the easiest way is just go to my personal website, just like my name, mattbeards, M-A-T-T-B-I-E-R-D-S dot com. And that's where you can get information about my courses and the other things that I'm doing. But yeah, if I can help in any way, I'm always open to that and meeting new people and learning. So that's cool.

Melvin Varghese: Awesome. Matt, thank you so much for doing this and incredibly grateful LinkedIn brought us together. And have a great rest of your day.

Matthew Bierds: Thanks, Mel. You do the same. Bye.

Melvin Varghese: Hey there, hope you enjoyed my conversation with Matt, and especially if you've been either thinking about creating an online course, or you've built a successful practice, or you're in the process of building your practice, and your creative brain is getting activated, and you're like, oh, this is something that I've been always wanting to do. I hope that today's session has just been more than anything, has just been encouraging to you. I feel like, you know, when I got licensed as a psychologist now 12 years ago, I these kind of things I just remember still like there was such stigma around like doing things like creating courses or being like a public speaker or writing a book like maybe less so with writing a book but like being a public speaker or even like posting on social media. It's just so neat to see our field evolving and getting to see just exposure to these like innovative folks that are doing things and More than anything, it pushes us and starts us to think about what we can do with our skill set beyond just clinical work. And there's of course nothing wrong with at all with clinical work. I'm a big proponent of clinical work, but just unique and amazing things that we can do. I was reflecting on this conversation with Matt and The thing that… I took away a couple of things. So one is that if you are building something, and it doesn't necessarily need to be a course, right? But maybe it's even as simple as like you have an email opt-in, right? You start a newsletter and nobody signs up. right? For most of us, I think the tendency, or at least I can just speak for myself, my tendency is then to blame myself and get and then almost like want to like stop. But I think this idea of like, that we learn when things don't work out, and in fact we often learn more when things don't work out. I think it's just such an interesting, it's just a different way of looking at it. The second thing I just wanted to mention was, you know, Matt's, Matt offers something that is like pretty, from a technical perspective, like it's not like super advanced, right there, it's a PDF download, it is things that folks read. And this is the thing, right? Something that I struggle with is sometimes I think, when I'm going to put something out in the world, it's got to be the best, you know, it's got to look, it's got to have pro level, this pro level that, and I've got to be super articulate and all of these things. And the reality more is, And the more I talk to, especially our colleagues that are doing like really cool things, the more the theme that seems to come up over and over is that they're willing to take that first step, realizing it's one step in a larger journey that they're going to probably mess up and they're going to learn a ton of lessons along the way. But ultimately, they're able to separate their own perception of who they are from the thing that they're trying to build. So I hope you enjoyed this conversation again with Matt. Matt's website is over at mattbeards.com. And from there, you can learn about all the different stuff, including this, this course for LPC supervisors that are based in Texas. Have a great rest of your day, and I will talk to you soon. Bye.

Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Selling the Couch podcast. For more great content and to stay up to date, visit www.sellingthecouch.com

Melvin Varghese: Hey there, it's Melvin. I hope that you enjoyed today's podcast session. Just wanted to take a moment again to thank the team over at the American Psychological Association for supporting today's podcast session. If you're a psychology professional that is looking for your next job in psychology, definitely check out PsyCareers, the American Psychological Association services career centers. CyCareers now has over 400 job postings posted specifically for psychology professionals. You can connect with leading employers and explore roles that match your skills and your professional and personal goals. You can check all of that out over at sellingthecouch.com forward slash APA, sellingthecouch.com forward slash APA, create a free account and get started.