ADHD and Business Development: Three Steps I Used to Create my Home Study System for Parents
ADHD and Business Development: Three Steps I Used to Create my Home Study System for Parents
Article by Debra Burdick, LCSW, BCIA-EEG
I created a Home Study System (HSS) for Parents titled A Holistic Approach to Successful Children with Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder. Here’s the three step process I used to do it.Step 1: PlanningFirst I looked at my goal. My goal is to help people feel better, think better, and perform at their absolute peak. I had been doing this for 20 years in a private practice setting helping one client at a time. I wanted to help more people on a larger scale.
Then I reviewed how I came to know what I know.An illness that began in 1984 set me on a healing journey that taught me about mainstream and alternative methods of healing. I learned about nutrition, exercise, meditation, spirituality, acupuncture, chiropractic medicine, energy healing, Reiki, changing thoughts… I changed careers from being a computer software engineer to a licensed clinical social worker in my own private psychotherapy practice. I added Neurofeedback to my practice in 1999 and helped my daughter with ADHD to get off stimulant medication.
I looked at how I was already helping people. I helped hundreds of clients with ADHD over the past 20 years in the context of an outpatient psychotherapy and Neurofeedback practice. I figured out what works and what doesn’t work and helped clients explore options for improving their lives.
I hired a business coach and followed her example and advice. I became frustrated with the restrictions of the business model I was using and looked at ways to help more people in less time. This meant looking for ways to add the capability of helping many people (one-to-many) in addition to the one-to-one model I was already using.
I looked at resources that were already available to help parents with children with ADHD and discovered there were few such resources available. There were books about ADHD but no step-by-step systems to lead the parents through the process of helping their children.
I decided to create a Home Study System for Parents and titled it A Holistic Approach to Successful Children with Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder. I hoped to provide an easy to use, working resource for parents – something I wished I had when my daughter was young.
Step 2: Creating the ProductI set aside all day Friday as my business development day and disciplined myself to write and record interviews every Friday. To accomplish this I scheduled all my clients Monday through Thursday to leave Friday open.
I defined the steps in my system. I looked at how I was already helping people and distilled the process into a 14-step system containing each of the major steps I already used in my private practice.
I gathered resources in the form of books and research by knowledgeable authors. I had already read most of the major books on ADHD and I decided to reference them as resources in my HSS. I had studied the brain and ADHD through numerous courses and workshops as well.
I summarized what I learned from my own experience of parenting a child with ADHD. My daughter was diagnosed with ADHD when she was in grade school. We put her on medication and then when she was thirteen, we did Neurofeedback training. We were able to discontinue the medications and she graduated from college with three years on the dean’s list. I understood how difficult parenting a child with ADHD can be as well as how wonderful it feels when they succeed.
I incorporated examples from my own private practice. I had been helping clients of all ages with ADHD for 20 years so I had lots of examples to include in my HSS. I learned an enormous amount from my clients over the years.
I found experts in all the steps in my system and interviewed them. I knew how important the various steps were and recognized that I often referred clients to these types of experts for certain things. For example, although many of my clients take medications, I don’t prescribe medications. So I interviewed the medical director of the Hallowell Centers in Massachusetts and NY, Dr. Thor Bergersen, about medications for ADHD. I interviewed a Naturopathic physician, a nutritionist, a special education teacher, a parent coach, a professional organizer, a sleep expert, and a Neurofeedback expert. Each of these experts added a wealth of information to the HSS.
Besides writing and creating the HSS I then learned the process of creating a finished product. I found a resource to design the cover and CD label graphics called KillerGraphics.com out of Australia who did an awesome and affordable cover design.
Through my local Chamber of Commerce I found an expert at http://www.MysTV.com to master the CD’s. He was invaluable in helping me create high quality recordings.
I followed my business coach’s example and hired a fulfillment company, http://www.Vervante.com, to produce and fulfill orders of the finished product including the 3-ring binder, manual, worksheets, and eleven CDs.
Step 3: Promoting and Order Fulfillment I hired a copywriting expert to write a Sales Page about the product to help people understand why they cannot live without this product.
My website expert put everything on my website. I want the power of the internet to make this product available to parents all over the world.
My Virtual Assistant set up my account on http://www.1shoppingcart.com to take the orders online and send the order to the fulfillment house. This makes it labor-free on my part and allows me to focus on what I do best – which is NOT packing and shipping.
I wrote articles about ADHD and published them online. In order to help more people, increase awareness of my expertise and help drive traffic to my website, I wrote helpful articles about ADHD and published them in various places on the internet.
I got the word out about the HSS by finding joint venture opportunities. I was interviewed by Kim DeYoung at http://www.metromom.com/ADHD and on internet radio by Khama Anku at http://www.spiritualphysique.com/pages/radioshow.html, and. I will be interviewed by parent coach, Susan Epstein, at http://www.ParentingPowers.com November 10th, 2009. I will continue to develop other joint ventures.
I gave a free local seminar about my Holistic Approach and promoted it through social media, email, a mailing to the special education departments at all the schools in the county and my colleagues, through the newspaper, through the Mystic Chamber of Commerce, and through flyers I posted around the area.
About the Author
Debra Burdick, LCSW, BCIA-EEG, The Brain Lady, owns Advanced Options, LLC, a private psychotherapy and Neurofeedback practice in Groton, CT. Advanced Options, LLC is the home of the BRAIN FITNESS TRAINING PROGRAM, which combines outpatient psychotherapy services, Cognitive/Behavioral Therapy and Neurofeedback to help clients of all ages to improve their lives by helping them feel better, think better, and perform at their peak. For more information, please visit http://www.TheBrainLady.com
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