362: Low Risk Ways To Host Your First Retreat with Megan Gunnell

Swell AI Transcript: 362: Low Risk Ways To Host Your First Retreat with Megan Gunnell

Megan:

ed a number of retreats since: 2012

Megan: Thank you so much, Melvin. I'm so excited to be here.

Melvin: Oh my gosh, you know, we were talking about this right before crazy. It's taken this long for us to for you to come on the podcast. So I'm sincere apologies. But first of all, I'm just you are doing such amazing work in the world. And I feel like I really look forward to your like Facebook updates, especially like the cookie related ones.

Megan: Oh my gosh, thank you. That's so nice.

Melvin: Yeah. I mean, it's just, I don't know for you, but like, you know, when I was undergrad and grad school, this is not a career that I envisioned and even sort of the paths. And I do feel like in many ways, like what a time to be alive that we get to do this and just, I don't know, like use our skillset in just such a typical way. So.

Megan: It is amazing, isn't it? I feel really grateful. And sometimes I wake up and think, what happened? I was, you know, for so long, just focused on building a solo private practice. And I was so, you know, focused on that goal and so happy with my, you know, world that I had created. And it seems like overnight, I mean, even though it's been about four or five years now, that things have really shifted for me. I just feel like, who am I now? And what am I doing? And how did I get here? I don't know sometimes how it all unfolded. It's just such a weird and strange and wonderful place to be. But I do feel super grateful to host the community that I host, the Thriving Therapist group, and to be able to hopefully inspire other therapists to think outside the box and build and scale their business to the point where they feel like they're thriving in their personal and professional lives too.

Melvin: Yeah, absolutely. And you're doing like, I think the cool thing is you've done the work, you've shown us how to do it, and then you're helping other therapists and our colleagues do this. And I don't know for you, but like, I had an old supervisor that once told me, Mel, you have to see what we're doing as a skill set beyond just like clinical work. And I guess maybe before we jump into the world of retreats, how did you make that shift from you know, I am a licensed clinician and the things that I can do in private practice is therapy, two, I can do retreats or, you know, like even expand beyond that. Like, tell us a little bit about the internal work that it took to make that shift.

was a freshman in college in: 1992

Melvin: Yeah. I mean, I think, first of all, thank you so much for sharing that part of the journey. I think that's also highlighted for me is you didn't start by trying to do like Costa Rica retreats, right? And I think a lot of clinicians, at least for me, I can speak for myself, which is any sort of new venture, my natural default is to end and think about like the final product. And I'm like nowhere near the final product. But by thinking about the final product, I get crippled into actually taking the first little step.

Megan: Right. That happens all the time because I think it's easy to look on Instagram or any Facebook feed or TikTok and see these glossy, amazing, perfect images of these transformative retreats that people are hosting that do actually happen in reality. But what they're not seeing is the climb to get to the top of that mountain. And I worry that a lot of people feel like they might be getting some imposter syndrome or they might feel like a failure because they see that and think, I can't do that. How could I get there? But I started in a community center hosting a one-day program with a little luncheon and a cool little art experiential, some heart music meditation thing that I did and some self-care kind of workshop and a nice little lunch and a yoga class. And it was like one and done. And people loved it. And then they were like, can you host a weekend in northern Michigan for us? Why don't we do this as a real weekend retreat? So it started to grow. But I did many, many little things before I got to a big thing. And I think that's the other piece of this, is to really think about starting small and to know that those small steps make a huge impact for people. Because many of those women who attended those one-day workshops that I was hosting or one-day retreats they could also not have taken a week off and flown to another country and left their families or afforded to do that kind of a large investment at that time. And so it was like together, we were all kind of growing in the baby step to bigger step kind of commitment.

Melvin: Yeah. And then I think like, it reminds me of that Kevin Kelly's article, Thousand True Fans, right? And those initial folks, even though when you're starting that retreat or that first thing at a community center, right, you are like, gosh, this is not where I want to be, like in terms of like the big goal. But people remember that and people remember the courage, people remember the experience. And I think in many ways actually having something that's not like hyper-produced and almost has a human clunky feel to it, I think it just builds super fans and it builds trust and all of those things. Yeah, so thank you for even outlining that. One, you know, one question that I had for you was, I do feel like a lot of clinicians want to start retreats. Maybe this is a silly question, but what is so appealing about creating a retreat? I mean, it seems like a ton of time invested to create these times, tons of logistical stuff you got to figure out. Like, you know, like even for that first one, it sounds like, like a yoga person coming in, like a lot of stuff you got almost, you got to almost be like lots of details. Yeah. And a lot of event planning. And even I feel like for a lot of clinicians are probably don't default to like super detail oriented. Right. So, but what is that appeal of a retreat?

Megan: I think people, especially clinicians that build their entire business on an hour by hour basis, when we see a client one hour at a time, we're craving something deeper. Our clients are craving something deeper and we're looking for that transformative shift. And I can say without a doubt that that happens on retreat and that can happen in a one-day retreat model or in a small weekend retreat model, and definitely in the international one-week or longer retreat experience. And I think clinicians are really looking for that. And I think that it's difficult when we just do one hour at a time to see this grand transformation and to carry a group of people through something. I'm thinking back to all the retreats I was leading in Costa Rica, for example. I cannot emphasize enough how much mind, body, and spirit are connected when you're on retreat. And also, how you watch people really transform when you pull them away from their everyday life experiences. Because when do we have the chance to do that? When we go on retreat, we're actually inviting people to come into a space where they get to reconnect with who they are, They get to reinvigorate their passion and purpose. They get to redefine who they are and where they're going. These are major, major life questions that people are seeking to answer. And so who better to do that than a psychotherapist?

Melvin: Yeah, so well said. And I think, uh, there were a couple of things. One is I think for many clinicians, the default is trading time for income one-to-one work. Right. And I think it, it definitely takes, I don't know, for me, it's been such a transformative experience. And even as I now, you know, go back into a tiny private practice, I'm like keenly aware of like, wow, like I've come from this model of one-to-one gone to like more scalable offers. And now like coming back, I feel like so much more keenly aware of that, like trading time for income thing. And it's really, I don't know, like if you're listening and you have not experienced it, I think once you go to the beyond trading time for income model, it's so liberating. And I think the real benefit for me and maybe I know for you as well, like we really get to practice like self-care. And we get to practice that thing we preach. And that's really hard because I was talking with a friend recently, and I think they're like probably in their seventh, eighth year of like private practice. Right. And when you've done that, like only see one-to-one clients for, and you've got to do this year after year after year to build your income and bring in income. It is, it It's very hard. I feel like from a mental health and from a resilience, like I know, like all of us are very resilient, but from a, it's a different ball game when it's like one to two years in your private practice, you've got that great energy and one, but then it's like, when you get like 10, 12 years in and you realize this is the only model, like it's difficult. What do you think? Like, I mean, I know. Yeah. Just kind of love to hear your thoughts on that.

t retreat venues in Italy for: 2025

Melvin: Hey there, I hope that you're enjoying today's podcast session. So I've, you know, jumped back into private practice and I decided to go the private pay route. And one of the things I've been thinking a lot about is How do I tap into outer network benefits for clients that might want to use it? Now the common sort of perspective or tip that a lot of folks say is just to provide a super bill for clients, but the reality is I feel like most clients aren't going to go take a super bill and then call the insurance company and then deal with that whole mess of trying to communicate with the insurance companies and waiting on reimbursement and all of that kind of stuff, right? And then at some point, especially if they're keenly aware of budget and stuff like that, they're like, oh my gosh, I may not be able to afford working with this therapist and all of those kinds of things, right? This is where Thryzr comes in and the really cool thing with Thryzr is that they will actually float the clients for the sessions. So basically when you sign up for Thryzr you can automatically submit out-of-network claims for your clients. It's simply done through an app. It literally takes seconds. And Thryser takes care of all of the insurance stress. So we don't have to deal with it as clinicians. Our clients don't have to deal with it. And clients just pay what they owe for actual sessions, i.e. like the difference between your rate and the reimbursement rate, in order to skip the long insurance wait. All they have to do is pay the standard 3% credit card fee. There is no monthly contracts or fees or anything like that. If you would like to try out Thryzr, You can go to sellingthecouch.com forward slash thrizer, enter the promo code STC so that your first $2,500 in fees are waived. Again, that's over at sellingthecouch.com forward slash thrizer and thrizer is spelled T-H-R-I-Z-E-R and enter the promo code STC.

osed to be hosted in April of: 2020

Melvin: Yeah, thank you so much for highlighting those because I feel like in many of these situations, people accentuate the positives and I think there are some wonderful positives and wonderful upside to it, right? But as with any new venture, there are things to consider. I mean, I work with colleagues creating their first course, and a lot of therapists want to create courses. But the reality is, there's a lot of legal stuff that we have to consider. If we don't talk about that, it creates this false sense of thing. You and I, we would feel horrible if somebody did something and then like, they ended up there ended up being liability or something like that, right, that they didn't anticipate, or, you know, we didn't mention it to them. So Megan, thank you for doing that. I know that in planning these retreats, a lot of therapists get really worried about booking a venue, like you mentioned it earlier, like, you had venues booked, but then they're also worried, okay, if I go and spend, and I don't know anything about this, so maybe just even enlighten me, like I would think you would need to put some sort of deposit down, right? And what happens in a scenario where the clinician puts, they're worried about having to put this down payment down, but then they also don't have the security of knowing whether it's going to sell out or not. Like, can we like talk, I guess, through some safe ways to do this so that, you know, it can mitigate risk a little bit?

Megan: Absolutely. I always recommend when you're just starting out, first of all, start small. So just test your audience with a one-day program. Rent a small community center or some sort of hotel room or a venue that you can host a nice small group in for a full day program and just see how it goes. test your audience, test yourself, make sure you think of everything, your details. And there's all kinds of little things that will come up along the way. As you do it, you'll start to learn like, oh, I would do this differently next time. Or I would probably remember to have this structured this way. Then, when you're thinking about hosting a weekend retreat or something longer, I always tell people, search for a venue that will offer you 100% refund up to a certain date. And then make sure that you give yourself a long enough runway so that you can try to sell the minimum number of slots you need in order to financially make that viable. And then from there, If you know you can break even and you hit your 100% cancellation date and you still have a few slots to sell, then you can successfully and confidently move forward and hold that venue and not feel like you can't afford to do it. But it's tricky because some of the venues, even resorts that I've hosted at, they don't offer 100% refunds. So sometimes you have to be willing to lose your deposit if you can't sell your slots. Another thing to consider on this same topic is the size of your platform. So I'm confident knowing that if I'm trying to sell, for example, a minimum of 100 spaces for a Thrive Summit in Costa Rica that I'm hosting, for example, with CEs and speakers, and it's more like a conference-style retreat and summit, I know that I can sell 100 slots because I have 20,000 people in my community. But when I first started out, I was only looking at hosting retreats and workshops for my caseload of clients. And so I was looking at maybe 150 or 200 clients on my caseload, and I was trying to get 10 people to fill those retreats. So you have to do a little bit of math. You have to also sort of ask your audience. There's nothing wrong with asking a few people in your community, whether it's your clients or the therapist that you're doing coaching with, for example, or whatever it might be to say, Hey, I'm thinking of hosting a retreat next year in this location or in this region. And this is what I think the retreat will include. What do you guys think? And kind of give a little bit of a beta test to that to say, does anybody feel like they're interested in this? Do I have a warm enough audience to do it? So that might help with some security and confidence for therapists that are just thinking about getting started.

Melvin: Yeah, I love that because I think a lot of times, again, I fall into this, which is instead of, I almost like try to build in stealth or something, right. Versus, but I think there is something, each of those little like validation steps and especially just coming from a place of like, I'm thinking about, so it's like not a certain thing. I think it just, one, I think it gives you feedback. And then especially if the feedback is positive, it gives you momentum, I think. And that's probably equally important in all of it. You said two things, and I wanted to dive a little deeper into them. Man, our time is flying by the way. Like I feel like we could probably talk like another, but we'll, uh, we'll probably have to go a little bit over, but these are such a good conversation. So you said breakeven versus having a little profit. So when you get to that deadline and you're, why do you think about breakeven versus like being like a little profitable, like.

, I'm still using images from: 2012

Melvin: Yeah, really, really awesome point. Two questions. So what's like a general like buffer, like a percentage that you would recommend? So that's like one and then I forgot second one is but I'll come back to it. We'll maybe we'll start with that.

Megan: Well, people ask me that a lot. I have a couple courses on retreat building, so I go through a formula of all the different kinds of expenses you have to think about adding in when you're creating a price point. I will tell you, I try to tell people, add up all your expenses and then divide by the number of your ideal participants. So you might have I don't know, $50,000 in expenses and you have 10 people coming and you want to divide the number of people into your expenses and you buffer those expenses probably by… It depends. It depends how big your venue is. It depends how large your group is. It depends where you're hosting it, how long. I mean, I always put a generous buffer in there when I'm hosting an event for 100 people versus when I'm hosting an event for 10 at a smaller venue. So you do want to have a nice cushion there for yourselves And then you divide by that number to try to get the breakeven cost. And then you double that rate for the registration price so that you know you have a good amount for yourself and your team and your marketing efforts. And there's a lot that goes into it. I pay a business manager, to manage all the spreadsheet data and all the coordination with the clients. And I have a VA that does the graphics and Canva and promos and marketing strategy. So there's like a launch campaign kind of all behind these retreats too that I'm paying for. So you have to think of some of those pieces when you're doing the math on what to charge people. Then you want to really look at it and say, is this a price point that feels right for my audience? You know, is this intuitively a yes? I always ask people to sort of check in head, heart and gut. Like, does this feel aligned with how much you think this retreat value is and how much it should be charged, how much the people should pay for it? But also, will you make a profit? So it's a really delicate balance because some venues that you look at, for example, are super beautiful, but they're super expensive. And so I've had a lot of coaching calls with therapists that want to build retreats and they come to me with these amazing venues that I'm like drooling over the pictures with them, but I'm like, wait, pump the brakes. Like, let's take a closer look. You would have to charge an astronomical fee, you know, for your participants to come in order for you to break even or to make a profit. So let's take a closer look at all your other options.

Melvin: Yeah. Thank you for, thank you for sharing that. I want to be super mindful of your time. Is it okay if we take about five more minutes? Sure. I'm fine. Okay. You shared that there are a hundred percent like fully refundable properties. How do you find those?

Megan: Well, they are on Airbnb. I have rented some before. It depends on the size and where you're hosting and how big they are. But some of them do allow a 100% refund up to a certain point. So it might be like, I don't know, 90 to 120 days before you're going to be there. And then they have like a 50% refund up to this point, and then no refund up to this point. So you have to look at those cancellation policies really carefully. But remember, hosting in the United States is very expensive. And when I host experiences, I not only love to bring people abroad, and I love hosting in Costa Rica for lots of reasons, or hosting in Europe for lots of reasons, but the venues are also more affordable because there's more of them. So these places like Italy or France or places where I've hosted in Costa Rica, they have these amazing retreat centers or houses that are sort of designed for retreats. And they're ready to accept people to book those properties. And they're inviting people from all over the globe to host their events at these venues. But in the US, it becomes very, very expensive for us to find a venue on Airbnb or VRBO, for example, that or even a retreat, a hotel venue, a resort, for example, it becomes very, very expensive for therapists to look at hosting in the United States. So I do encourage people, even though it feels like a big leap to host abroad, to kind of look at properties across the globe because you have to kind of calculate people's flights and time and all of that has to be part of your calculation. Because I mean, if you want to host something in Bora Bora, I don't know how many therapists could take enough time off to, you know, recover from the jet lag that it would take to get there, you know. And I mean, a lot of people do it, but it's like for me, I love going up and down, like, you know, from the U.S. to Costa Rica. It doesn't require a lot of jet lag or the flights are pretty easy to find. But those things have to be part of your calculation, too, for sure.

Melvin: Yeah, that's awesome. Great answer. Megan, kind of the final area that I wanted to talk about is marketing, because I think we started our conversation speaking about that. What are like the top two strategies that you've seen work when it comes to like marketing these retreats in order to fill them?

Megan: Well, one thing is you have to be very clear on your intentions when you build something. Why are you building it? Who are you building it for? And what is the result or the promise or solution that your clients or attendees will get by attending this retreat? So once you're clear on those three things, then the landing page really writes itself. And then the right people who are really wanting to be part of your retreat will resonate with your message around what it is, who it's for, and what they're going to get out of it. Because you have different themes. Sometimes retreats carry a theme. A grief and loss retreat would be very different from one that's all about couples work or whatever. So you really want to think about what it is that you're offering and who it's for. really drill down to that ideal client and really understand what your promise is before you build your marketing strategy. The second tip is really think about your runway. Because if you don't give yourself a long enough runway, it'll be really hard to get that plane off the ground. So a lot of people will say to me, I've had a lot of therapists sign up for coaching calls and they're like, I'm building a retreat in two months and I don't have anyone booked yet. And I'm I'm like, okay, it's too soon, too soon. So I'm like, let's take a look at maybe tearing that one down and then building one for next year or in six to nine months from now, because you really do need a long runway for people to look at booking the time to do this and saving the money to invest in it, maybe making a payment plan for people. But I will tell you one of the fastest strategies to selling out is making sure that you're building something that your audience in front of you is asking for. and then making sure that you give yourself a long enough runway and also building up a little bit of a warm excitement around when you're going to open this registration. So you're talking about where you're hosting it. You're talking about what people might get out of the experience. You're talking about the excitement of being there and and all the different components of what makes this retreat so special. And then you keep saying, it's going to open, it's going to open, it's going to open. And when it opens, you do usually have a lot of people who have already seen it and looked at it and thought, wow, I really want to be part of that. And then when you open it, it sells very quickly. So hopefully that's the strategy that would help most people sell out.

Melvin: Yeah, I love that. And I think the big thing I'm just taking away is like build this in layers and build this like block by block. Right. Because even though it feels like, Oh, I'm just doing like a half day retreat or a one day retreat, the reality is you're putting the blocks together and you're creating the systems. So that when you do scale to, and if you want to scale to like the weekend or the international just becomes like so much easier.

Megan: For sure. Start small, baby steps and listen to the audiences in front of you. And I think it's, you know, you do have to think about protecting yourself. There's lots of little details involved, but if you start in a really small way, it's easy to sort of scale it, you know, over time. Yeah.

Melvin: Can I ask one final question? Sure. So let's say, like, if you don't hit that number, right, that breakeven number, what's the best way that you've found to, like, communicate to people who signed up, like, basically saying, like, hey, we're not going to run it, you know, but let's say you've had, like, I don't know, two people sign up or something, and you really want me to attend or something like that.

Megan: So it's difficult. I have had coaching clients, like I say, that didn't maybe have enough of lead time or something happened with the price point or other world events got in the way of what they were trying to build or host. And I think you have to be very clear and upfront. You have to talk about your refund policy or application of a deposit towards a future retreat, or that you're simply changing the dates. So sometimes people will say, They'll ask those two people that signed up, like, look, I still really want to do this, but I think we've booked it too soon. What works best for you? Can we push it back a little bit and check with your venue and see if you could reschedule it for six months from now and see if you can still host it at that time and then give yourself a little longer runway? Sometimes people just want a clean refund and you'll just start over. But you do want to be clear and honest with your community and apologize for not being able to host it at that time. But sometimes things come up and people in this day and age, especially in a post-pandemic world, are used to cancellations and changes and being flexible is, I think, part of that philosophy that I think everybody's feeling these days.

Melvin: Yeah, absolutely. Megan, thank you again for doing this. I'm incredibly grateful for you. Please tell us a little bit more about the work that you're doing in the world and where we can learn more about it.

Megan: Oh, thank you so much for having me. It's really my pleasure. Talk about retreat building. It's one of my passions. You can certainly hop into the Thriving Therapist Facebook community or you can find me at thrivingwellinstitute.com. Perfect.

Melvin: Megan, thank you again and have a great rest of your day.

Megan: Thank you so much. You too.

Melvin: Hey there, I hope that you enjoyed my conversation with Megan, and especially if hosting retreats is something that is in your future. I hope more than anything, this episode just gives you encouragement in order to think about that, and more importantly, just to move forward on it. I was thinking a lot about this conversation as I got ready to record this part of the podcast. And, you know, the one thing I kept thinking about is, well, two things. One is, you know, I shared a quote, I think probably in a few episodes ago, a quote that seems to be guiding a lot of how I make business decisions and life decisions recently, which is, I heard it from Ali Abdaal the first time, which is basically when you're starting something new, get going, then get good, then get smart. And I think a lot of therapists want to optimize for getting good and getting smart before they get going. And I think retreats are a prime example of this. I think so many of us it's easy to go on Airbnb or VRBO and search for venues and almost like create nice like color coded documents and all of these things and division boards and all of that stuff. But at the end of the day, I think jumping into doing the actual work and trying to make it happen, I think is the best way to learn. But I think the thing I took away from this conversation with Megan is it doesn't have to be something grand scale, i.e. don't do an international weekend or week-long retreat as your first kind of thing. Instead, literally start with a half-day to one-day retreat at a local community center or gathering place or co-working space or any of these kind of places, and then just build out from there. because that's the get going part because the other side of it is you'll figure out this is something I started doing recently with all of our anytime we have launches for our online course mastermind I literally sit down for like two hours and at this point I'm actually just kind of accumulating this data over as the stuff is happening but basically I take some time to say like what worked well what didn't work well and what do we need to improve and that way when you're hosting your retreat at the community center you're taking that same information so that when you start to scale and if you want to scale right to like international retreat or something like that you are taking all of the little pearls of wisdom and the hard-earned lessons so that when you do get to that international level that your retreat can be truly awesome. The second thing that I took away from the conversation is just the how long these take to plan. So Megan alluded to it takes about 24 year and a half to 24 months especially to plan these international retreats. So be sure to give yourself a long window but by the same token don't use it as a way to like compress and stress yourself out like in the last six months. but use it more as a way to intentionally build because all of these things right the reality is they take time but one thing i have had to really unlearn and i don't think i'm like perfect at it but sometimes like i create stress for myself just to like motivate myself to do well And what I'm learning now at, you know, the ripe age of 41 is that, you know, that takes a toll on your health. And it's not like something that's healthy or sustainable. And it's not a good model for anybody. So give yourself lots of time, but also just do intentional and thoughtful work. I think just a real practical thing is even just blocking out time every week, just to focus on retreat kind of stuff. Megan's website is again over at thrivingwellinstitute.com and definitely be sure to join her Facebook community which is over at The Thriving Therapist. If you just go on Facebook and look for Thriving Therapist, you should be able to find it as well. We'll also put it in the show notes for you. Have a great rest of your day and I appreciate you so much for tuning in. Bye!

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Melvin: 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.