Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Olivia Pelts. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Olivia thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. If you had a defining moment that you feel really changed the trajectory of your career, we’d love to hear the story and details.
I remember specifically when I moved to Orlando, Florida, and I had just begun working in a group practice. I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to get clients to schedule with me.
I didn’t know how to market myself. I didn’t understand how to even talk about what I offered.
Through some gentle self-exploration facilitated by my supervisor, I came to realize that I didn’t actually believe that what I had to offer people was really meaningful and that it was really impactful – ultimately, I didn’t believe in myself. This led into a dark season of my life where I questioned if I should even be a therapist – was I cut out for this? Was I not good enough?
I’ll never forget, one of my good friends reflected back to me, “Olivia, just because people aren’t coming to you for therapy doesn’t mean that you don’t have a gift.”
Over the next year or so after this, I took on the challenge and did a deep dive into marketing and understanding how healers and therapists talk about themselves. How do we market in a way that is in alignment with who we are and how we show up in the world? That was really my journey and how I got into becoming, now, a business strategist and a marketing expert for helpers and healers and owning a large group practice in the St. Petersburg area.
It was really when I came to grips with, do I actually believe in what I am doing? Do I believe that I actually have a gift to offer the world? Once I began to really be honest and take a deep look inside, people started finding me…the right kind of people who are a good fit with my therapeutic style.
Beyond this, I fell into becoming a therapist within the foster care system and doing private practice a few nights a week. When I moved to St. Pete, about seven years ago, I wanted to work in private practice exclusively, which is when I fell into becoming one of the head coaches and chief marketing officer at Burg CrossFit for the next 5 years. It was during those five years, I really learned how to do digital marketing and how to create and curate an exceptional customer experience. During my time at Burg, we grew the gym from a single facility with about 60 members to 3 gym locations with a total of about 400+ members.
If you had to boil it all down…when I got really honest and asked myself – do I actually believe that what I have to offer is going to change people? – that is when things began to shift and open up.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I am a licensed mental health counselor by trade and a group practice owner and marketing specialist by choice. I did not get into the world of therapy intentionally. In fact, I always say that I did not choose therapy, that therapy really chose me as cliche as it sounds.
During my junior year of college, my mentor, at the time, blindsided me and set me up on a breakfast date with a local counselor instead of having breakfast with her – super cool, Emily :) During this breakfast, this local counselor dispelled all my fears and concerns around becoming a therapist. To be totally frank, being a therapist seemed wildly scary and intimidating.
The work of therapy is really the work of oneself. It is so intimately tied to your spirituality and your own journey, that if I’m not doing my own work, if I’m not staying attuned to who I am and how I’m showing up in the world then I’m not going to be that helpful as a therapist. At the time, it felt like too much pressure and also…who was I?
I eventually gave in and got my Masters in Mental Health Counselor in Denver, CO and through a series of events eventually found my way to St. Petersburg, FL. For those who know me they would likely identify me as an “extrovert” and prior to having kids, I was always out and about taking various leaders to coffee, breakfast and asking them – how can I best serve you and your community as a therapist? It was through this that I eventually became known, in the community, as working with kids and teens specifically around issues of adoption and attachment and behavioral struggles in addition to being one of the head coaches and head of marketing at Burg CrossFit. Currently, I specialize in working with adults around issues of codependency and how to have significance and meaning in relationships. In a lot of ways, it is the same work I did with kids and teens we just now focus on the individuals story and how they are showing up in the world.
While I currently see clients on an individual basis, I am actually working on a program where we will do week-long therapeutic experiences, which will allow us to deep dive into your story in conjunction with experiential experiences like paddleboarding, being out in nature, silence, retreats and those types of things. I’m really passionate about finding ways that will help folks not only in the here and now but also doing the deep work on their story so they don’t keep repeating the same things (or get in the same types of relationships) over the course of their life. The week-long therapeutic intensive is a way that will help jumpstart people who maybe have been in traditional therapy before and haven’t made much progress to people who maybe have never been in therapy but just want to jump in with both feet and do the thing and find some relief. Doing individual therapy on a weekly or monthly basis is fantastic but it can take a while for meaningful change to occur so this is being created as a way to meet that need.
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
One of the most effective strategies for growing our business at Sunshine City Counseling and Eastern Shore Counseling in Portland, Maine really has been how do we show up in our local community and how do we give away as much as we can for free? I’m a huge believer that the more value that you can provide to your ideal customer, the easier it’s going to be for them to say, “Wow, I really want to work with that person. I really want to work with that business.” So, our emphasis has been on how can we create the most amount of value for our community and how can we redefine the therapeutic process?
This feeds directly into building out our brand. “How are we perceived in the community?
Are we “professional” or are we more relatable?” For us, it always goes back to our core values that we take our own mental health seriously. We’re never going to ask our clients to do something that we ourselves aren’t willing to do. At Sunshine City, we also have a strong ethic around how do we equip people with mental health resources and education that maybe couldn’t afford private practice rates? Our emphasis has been on how do we generate the most amount of value? So that it’s insanely obvious and easy for people to say, “wow, yes, I want to work with them, I want to work with that counselor, I want to work with that practice.”
The more you can focus on the value that you are giving, not just in the tangible or intangible things like a service or product but, for instance, what comes with a therapy session? How does what you offer also align with your overall brand? For us, at Sunshine City Counseling, from the moment that they schedule a free first session with us, they’re getting a video from me, they’re getting a series of emails over the course of the month or two, helping them understand how to prepare and how to squeeze the most juice out of their therapy sessions. Our branding is even evident in how we curate and create our office space. For instance, when someone comes into our office, we have cold brew coffee from Bandit and Mother Kombucha on tap in addition to snacks, water and other goodies. The overall vibe in our office is consistent with our social media, our website presence, etc. We want folks who come to work with us to see that we have some of the best clinicians in the city of St. Petersburg.
Have you ever had to pivot?
I think an obvious one that comes to my mind was during the pandemic (obvious, I know). January of 2020, I had just quit my jobs at Burg CrossFit simply because I felt like it was time for me to focus 100% on my own business and felt like big things were coming for Sunshine City Counseling. Of course, March of 202, the world kind of imploded a bit and therapy suddenly became a very big need.
In shifting to 100% online therapy, I remember not only did our business grow by like 40% during those first few months of the pandemic, but we also were trying to provide as much support for folks who weren’t in direct care with us through a variety of different avenues (courses, zoom groups, podcast). People needed us more than ever and many people lost their jobs, so they couldn’t afford mental health care, which didn’t feel good to us. One of the programs we created was called Therapy After Hours. It was on Sunday nights, we’d get together on zoom, I’d read a poem from Morgan Harper Nichols, and we would talk about different topics that were a reality for so many. This was also the time when we launched our podcast, A Safe Place to Land.
We also started to build out and explore mental health courses that were affordable for folks who couldn’t afford an individual session. The idea behind it was simply that folks can purchase a mental health course on a variety of topics for less than half of a typical therapy session.
The pandemic helped us to get really creative and explore how we can take what we’ve traditionally only done in person and take it online. What are different ways that we can spin out our different services? So, again, the podcast, different community events that we did online that we’re now shifting to in person. Currently, we are creating the first ever retreat led by mental health professionals in Central Florida and we are so excited for it. It is going to be held at ChoZEN Retreat Center the first weekend of March 2023 where we will be exploring our stories and equipping folks with tools on how to not only understand their story but also where to go from here. In person curated events are something we are so excited to continue to explore
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sunshinecitycounseling.com
- Instagram: @thesunshinecity
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sunshinecitycounseling
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oliviapelts
- Twitter: @oliviapelts
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBnJWYTfPUCFKEYqm5WwmOQ
- Other: https://growinghealers.com/
Image Credits
Kailyn Rose Creative