Practice to Profit: Simple Business Growth Strategies for Sustainable Success
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Practice to Profit: Simple Business Growth Strategies for Sustainable Success
The Power of Sales Email Marketing: How She Sold Out Her Workshop & Increased Revenue with Upsells
If the word “sales” makes your stomach flip, you’re going to love this conversation. We sit down with licensed counselor and practice owner Tabitha Westbrook to unpack how a simple shift—from selling to inviting—turned a timely holiday workshop into a sellout success and opened the door to upsells that actually served families under stress.
Tabitha walks us through the workshop concept built for parents navigating sensory overload, trauma triggers, and schedule chaos during the winter holidays. The breakthrough wasn’t a fancy funnel. It was values-driven email marketing: shorter messages with a single clear action, consistent reminders that respect attention, and language that honors autonomy. Instead of hiding for fear of “being pushy,” Tabitha decided that silence takes away choice. By emailing more frequently with purpose, she gave her audience the information they needed to say yes—or no—without guilt.
We dig into ethical upsells that extend transformation, including kid-focused coaching, a mindful connection course delivered as a private podcast, and a stress and crisis management toolkit for when it all hits the fan. Each step meets parents where they are and helps them become the thermostat—steady, present, and responsive—so their kids can settle too. We also tackle unsubscribe anxiety, how to find a healthy sending cadence, and why multi-touch messages are accessibility, not annoyance, in a loud world.
To close, Tabitha shares a five-minute nervous system reset you can use anywhere to shift from reactivity to calm. It’s a practical grounding tool and a great metaphor for sustainable marketing: small, compassionate actions repeated over time create real change. If you’ve been hesitant to email your list, this is your permission slip to invite with integrity and watch your impact—and revenue—grow. If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review to help more creators find us.
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SPEAKER_02:She went from barely emailing her list to selling out her workshop and increasing revenue with upsells. Tabby Westbrook is sharing exactly the strategy that she used in order to do this. Hi, Tabby. Welcome to the podcast. How are you? I am good.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_02:Of course, I am so excited about this conversation about the power of sales, email marketing, and how you were able to sell out your workshop and increase revenue with Upsells. But before we actually jump into that, will you introduce yourself and your business? Tell people exactly what it is that you do.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. My name is Tabitha Westbrook, and I am a licensed counselor, licensed counselor supervisor, certified in just about everything under the sun. There are a lot of letters after my name, so I won't bore your audience with all of them, but we call me Alphabet Soup in my practice. I'm the founder and CEO of The Journey in the Process, which is an outpatient psychotherapy practice with offices in the Dallas, Texas, and Raleigh, North Carolina areas. And I'm also the author of Body and Soul, Healed and Whole, an Invitational Guide to Healthy Sexuality After Trauma, Abuse, and Coercive Control.
SPEAKER_02:I absolutely love it. Okay. So, Tabby, can you share what inspired you to create your workshop in the first place and tell them a little bit about what the workshop was at the date of this recording? Because I kind of need to preface this so it makes a little bit more sense, I think. Um, we are recording right before Christmas, about two weeks prior to. So time of year wise, you can kind of see why the workshop was what it was. Go ahead.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So the workshop itself was called Tears, Tinsel, and Triggers. And it was to help parents who have kiddos with sensory issues or trauma, you know, trauma responses or a whole thing in the lead up to Christmas and the winter holidays, because there's all kinds of schedule changes and all kinds of things that happen. Your normal isn't normal. It's good and it's fun, but there's a lot of activity, a lot of stimulation. And for a lot of families, this happiest time of year is sometimes not super happy.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Oh my goodness. As a parent, I can so relate to that. I think it is the most stressful time of year, regardless of whether what sort of background you have with your kids. Um it can be a lot. So before you were launching the workshop, what were your expectations around sales? Did you think it would do as well as it did?
SPEAKER_00:I did not. I did not think that at all, actually. I was hoping it would do okay. I knew it was good material. I knew that it was what folks needed. I hear a lot, particularly in the survivor of domestic abuse community, the struggles that they have in their parenting in this time of year. But I wasn't sure if folks were going to be interested or want to come to another thing in the middle of all of the things that are the month of December, to be honest.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. It's so needed though. And one of the things I have to say, and I told you this yesterday in our coaching call, that I have absolutely loved about you, is that you understand the value of what you provide. You have confidence in knowing that the transformation you were going to bring to people is really going to impact their lives. And I absolutely adore that about you. So it wasn't a matter of you thinking that the workshop was crap. You knew it was awesome. It was not knowing if the timing was gonna work and the sales process. Had you sold to your list prior to that workshop?
SPEAKER_00:In little bits and pieces. Occasionally I would send out something that was like, hey, we're doing a thing, whether it was a new group in the practice or you know, a webinar or something that might be helpful. But it was really, I'm gonna use the word tentative. I wasn't asking for folks to sign up in a very bold way. I was like, well, you know, maybe if you kind of want to, like that'd be cool and all. So it was kind of really like not very inviting, honestly.
SPEAKER_02:And why do you think well, I know the reason why, but I want to know why you kind of approached it that way. Your email.
SPEAKER_00:I think because there are a few reasons for me. One is that I care very deeply about our clients. And I know because so many of them are survivors of horrific situations where they were taken advantage of and uncared for by another person that I never want to be that person. I never want my practice, my clinicians, any of us to be what they have escaped ever. And I really care about their well-being. And so I didn't want to bother anybody. I didn't want to give some hard sales pitch and, you know, make them feel like I was using them because I am not. What I want to help them do, what my practice wants to help them do is heal and be their most amazing selves. And so I think I was really afraid to just say, hey, I've got this thing, and it really could help you. You know, I was afraid to be too pushy.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. And I think I watched you, especially through mastermind, go through a little bit of a transformation yourself where you started to intentionally email more consistently with a call to action for the value that you naturally provide through your podcast and YouTube. And do you think that that made a difference in your sales for the workshop?
SPEAKER_00:I think so. I think so. I think people got a little more used to hearing from me. I mean, truly, like I might have emailed prior to really kind of getting a little more granular with this every three to six months. Like it was not consistent. And I think in some ways, as I've had to process through that, it's not fair to the people that we serve to not talk to them. And what I mean by that is we really do offer something special. We really do offer goodness and we really want to help. That is part of my core ethos. And as I looked at what my own values were, I'm a woman of integrity. And what kind of integrity is it if we have these good things and I never tell you about them? And that was really one of the things that started to help me turn the corner was I have, and other people might disagree, but I know my people. I have the best trauma-trained staff, whether they are coaches or therapists or biblical counselors on my team. We are so aware of the harm of abuse and so aware of how people are hurt that we are super careful, but we offer really good, good information and we want it to get out there to people. And we have these groups and retreats, and I wasn't telling anybody, and I wasn't telling anybody like, hey, I wrote this blog, our team wrote this blog that could help you. It could give you some goodness. It might be a drink of water in a desert, and I'm just not telling you about it. And I'm like, that's that's not fair, it's not right, and it's not good, and that's not sales, that's me telling you, I've got goodness, and then you get to decide what you do with it. And I think that was the other piece for me that was a shift was I can tell you about it, and then you get to decide what to you do with it. And that's that core ethos that I have of you keep your own autonomy. And so you can open the email or you don't, you can read the email and not click through. You can click through and read the article, you can take advantage of one of the things that we are offering or not. You get that choice. But if I don't tell you it's there, I'm actually taking choice from you. And I had to sit with that and go, ooh, I feel very called to the work that we're doing. I feel very called to serve the people that want to hear what we have to say. And am I helping them if I don't tell them we have stuff? And I wasn't, and that wasn't cool.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Oh my goodness, preach. I love that. And just because I think that that's something I've said often. I will tell people and it kind of puts them on the defensive, but I'm telling them that they're being selfish by not sharing because you're not helping them with the problem that you can solve if you don't share the information and put it out there and let them know that it's there. So walk us through your sales email marketing strategy. What did you do differently this time?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I sent emails for one thing. That's probably the first thing, as opposed to having zero strategy and sending no emails or sending one being like, hey, oops, maybe you want it, maybe you don't, whatever. I actually got serious about I need to send this enough because I know my own email box. And you get a lot of things, and especially this time of year, as you said, we're recording this around Christmas. There's just a lot, a lot of communication. And so it's easy to say, oh, I want to do this and leave it and then like mark it red. That is like my fatal flaw. If I mark it red in my email, I may never see it again. So I tend to leave things unread, which also brings me anxiety because there's a lot of things unread that I still need to work on. But I thought about like, if that's me, if that's my own situation and that of so many others that I talk to, you know, just in my life, whether they're friends, whether they're clients, then I'm not the only one, right? And so I need to hear things multiple times so that I remember to do it. And so I said, okay, I'm gonna get serious about sending more emails, not spammy ones, not obnoxious ones, not pushy ones, but ones that are like, hey, I see you, I care about you. These are things that could really be helpful for you. And I want to throw this out there to you. And then again, giving our clients, our email list the chance to say yes or no to it, to have the autonomy, the personhood to make that choice for themselves and not taking it from them. And so I sent way many more emails than I have ever sent. I was very anxious. I could feel it in my body, and I was just like, okay, I'm gonna breathe through that. I'm gonna remember my why, that I want them to have this goodness if they want it. And if they don't, that's totally fine too. But if they don't know it's there, then they won't have it. So I sent more emails and was clearer in them and also really was careful to make them shorter. I think there was a time in my life back in the day before you and I had a conversation about what are you doing, that my emails were too long. And it was helpful for me to pare them down because what am I really giving you? You do not need, and it reminded me of those recipe blogs that you go to that are like 700 feet long, and you're like, Can I just jump to the recipe? I just need to know what to go and get at the store, right? And so I was, I needed to jump to the recipe for the readers and say, here's the goodness, here's when it's happening, here's how it can help you, and here's the link. And that's it. And so I think paring it way down so that folks could have a better idea of what I was offering without having to read 700 years of pro, you know, prose. I mean, certainly I can talk and that's lovely and dull, but it's really not helpful when you just need to know what I'm trying to say to you.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Oh my goodness. I think over years I've watched my own emails get looked shorter and shorter. And it's because when I go into my own inbox, if I have to swipe more than twice, I'm deleting it without reading it. It's too much. And with my old eyes, two swipes is not a lot of actual sentences because of the size of the font that I need to have it at. So I think that that's just so important that you have adjusted to the times. We know that people are busy and they don't have a ton of time. They want you to get to the point and help them. And that's what you really have done with those emails. And they were still sales emails. And I think when people hear sales, they get like cringy, right? It makes us nervous. But really, all a sales email is something that has a call to action, it just tells them what they should do, how to solve the problem.
SPEAKER_00:That's it. Yeah, and I'll tell you one of the ways that I was able to help myself in that regard, right? For me, they're invitational emails. I just I'm not even gonna call them sales because I want you, I I certainly want people to come into the things that we have. I they are good, they are really good. But I also want to invite you. And one of the things that is a core ethos of mine, so I also teach domestic abuse um advocacy training, and I do all of our grounding exercises in that class. And I always tell people it's an invitation. An invitation is something you can accept or decline. And so if I don't invite you though, you don't again have that opportunity. And being invitational to a population that doesn't always get to have a voice is really important to me. So instead of me feeling like the word sales, which can feel smarmy, I think we think of used car salesmen and every therapist and coach that I know has a hard time with wanting to be equated with that because that's not who we are, or at least not most of us anyway. And so for me, I'm just giving you invitations. I'm giving you an invitation to a group or a workshop or a class that we have or an online event, or I'm giving you an invitation to read a blog that I think will have information that could help you or encourage you. I'm giving you an invitation to listen to my podcast or watch a video. I'm giving you invitations. What you do with that is up to you. And I did find this is one of the things that surprised me because not only did I use my email list, but I also posted on our socials way more than I ever do. And it was very consistently done. And one of the things I got back was, oh my gosh, I'm so glad that you sent this again. I had wanted to register and I had forgotten. And I heard that a few times, and that helped me enormously go, okay, this is really something people do need. And I am remiss if I'm not repeatedly inviting in a loud space, right? Like our world is really loud right now, and there's all kinds of information coming at us, and it can be so hard to lay hold of the pieces that we need that we want to engage with. And so it's easy for something to just go flying by and you didn't grab it. And so I want to give it another flyby so that if it's something you want, you can grab it.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Okay, so I want to ask your permission for something. Can I start calling them invitational emails? Because I think that that is it's my it's such a shift, but it's and it's just a word, but it is such a it made me feel even better hearing it come from you, hearing you say invitational email rather than sales email. So if I have your permission, I will start calling them that instead of sales emails. So I love it. Absolutely, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:And I think honestly, like when you're doing the letting people know well, that's really what it is, right? You know, I want you to know these things are there because I want to help you. That's why I got into therapy in the first place. It's why we've built the practice that we've built, it's why we do things a certain way, and why I'm very careful about how we present things out in the earth, if you will, because it matters to me how people feel when they interact with us. Because you come to a therapist not in your best hour, right? You are engaging with our stuff because you have seen some things and they were not good things. And I want from the moment that you interact with us from our websites to any in, you know, communication that we give, I want you to feel welcome. I want you to feel loved, and I want you to have that internal sense of safety in your body as you deal with our stuff. And so when I am sending things out to invite you to what we have, I want you to feel cared for in that moment. And that's hugely important to me.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Oh, I love that. So let's talk opsels. What opsal did you include and why that one to the workshop?
SPEAKER_00:So we included for the workshop an invitation to do some coaching with one of our kiddo specialist therapists. So we have some incredibly good kiddo specialized therapists that are really good at helping families walk through hard things. And so if there was a parent that came to the workshop and was like, yes, our entire neurology is on fire and I need some personalized help that you could enter into that. And then we also had a separate offer going on at the same time, which was a mindful connection class that I wrote years ago that I've added a private podcast to, which makes it a lot easier. So I've, you know, look, do people want to sit in front of their computers and learn? No. Would I rather they learn beside a lake? Also, yes. And so you can take this and listen to the lessons on a podcast, which is really awesome, instead of having to like sit in front of your computer and watch a video. And we wanted to offer these in tandem because helping you regulate your own internal world helps you regulate your child's internal world. As parents, we are the thermostat. My friend Lynn, who is a fantastic child therapist out of Houston, Texas, I want to give her a shout out because I love her so much. She has used that language and I love it so much about we are the regulators, we are the thermostat, we are the 72, 72 degrees. And so if you're able to connect and be in the present moment yourself, then you are able to help your child do that. And that really sets the tone and is really, really helpful. And also you respond instead of react. And then the other piece that was also an option if you got the mindful connection course was our stress and crisis management course, which is what to do when it all hits the fan. And what does it do often this time of year, particularly if there's a full moon? It all hits the fan. I don't know about you, but it's felt like the last few years were dumpster fires, if I'm being honest. And so to have these resources there so that people could have them as they walk through the how do I want to do holidays differently, so that we are not in the middle of a meltdown like 90% of the time, which it sometimes feels like for families. And you're dealing with your own stuff, particularly for survivors of abuse, you often have to share your child with someone that is not your favorite co parent. They are very mean. Abuse often continues after divorce or separation. And so parents can feel really frazzled and it's really traumatic and hard. And so, if you're able to settle in your own internal world a little bit, it's gonna make all of It that much easier, including those moments of grief when you have to be without your kiddo or your life doesn't look the way you'd hoped, which I think honestly extends to many people that this is not where I thought I'd be in this world, in this moment. And so being able to really dive into that and manage those big feelings, we wanted to say, here is a silver platter with lots of beauty and skills if you want to take it.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Oh my goodness. So, so very good. And I do. I think that those next invitations were a perfect connection. They just made so much sense. And the fact that you quoted Lynn, it's funny because Lynn is in the on the podcast in two more episodes after you coming in, sharing her kind of the journey that she has gone through with her business. I but yes, that regulator, I can, it's just so important, not only during holidays, but all year long. Just know how to not react and instead respond quietly. And it's not always our best moments. So let me ask you this. What did this workshop teach you about the power of your email list?
SPEAKER_00:That my email list isn't gonna be mad at me, which how many of us think, oh, somebody's gonna be mad at me for filling the blank, right? And look, some of the there are people out there that will be mad at us no matter what we do. It's life. Life gets lifey, people are people-y. But my email list is there because they've asked to be there, right? At some point, they filled out something, said yes to something to get on the email list and to become part of where we invite and have community. And they're not going to be mad at me. And if they don't want to stay on it, there's the beauty of unsubscribing. And I don't get offended. Like I think everybody looks at their unsubscribe numbers and feels a little bit icky sometimes, like, oh darn, what was it me? You know, and it's like, well, maybe it wasn't you. Maybe it's just like there's 700 things in their email and they don't need your services right now, or they don't need, you know, your information right now, or they got on there by accident because they filled out something else. And okay, cool, you know, and I don't take it personally, but the ones who are there who stay, they're the ones who say, we really value what you are offering us, and we want to hear about your invitations. And so I have relied on that and learned to lean in. And one of the things about me personally, I and people have probably figured this out, I really like people. I really like to help people and really like to know stories and be engaged. And I realized that I was missing out, our company was missing out, my other therapists were missing out because we weren't engaging with these people who said, we want to know, we want to hear. And I think that helps me again, and knowing they have the autonomy to open or not open, click or not click, subscribe or unsubscribe. And I'm not, I'm gonna use a B word, a burden, which for every trauma survivor ever, and I am a trauma survivor myself. I think that's how you become a trauma therapist, if I'm not lying. You know, do your work first though, if you're in school and listening to this, like do your work, do not people with you know, people in hard places unless you've done your work. So you gotta do your healing work first. But there's still that part, right? That just says, I don't want to be a burden, I don't want to be a bother. And by virtue of the fact that they have signed up for our email list, I'm not. And again, they get the choice to open or not.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. So what would you tell someone that feels like they're emailing their list too much?
SPEAKER_00:Like, don't spam people. Like, you know, if you're sending out three emails a day, you're probably out of balance. You know, look for balance in all things. But, you know, if you're sending out a few emails a week and they're valuable, right? Know your why. A long time ago, I read the book by Simon Sinek called Start with Why. And it resonated with me because that was very much how I saw business anyway, was why am I here? Like, why am I doing this? And for me, my why is there are things that I know about life and living and healing. There are things that my team knows about those things. And I want to tell you, I do not want to gatekeep goodness. So I want you to know. And so if that's my why and that's what's fueling my emails, then a few times a week is really reasonable. If I write a stellar blog, which I did this week, by the way, it is all about junk journaling, which is super fun. And if you like know that this is awesome, cool stuff that could really be helpful to people, like, why wouldn't I want to tell them? And so everybody this morning got an email from me with that blog LinkedIn to say, hey, this is really cool. And if they're like, not for me, then they don't have to open it or click through. If they say, Oh, that sounds neat, I want to know more, then they get to read about it. And so I'm not a bother. I'm not a burden. I'm not doing something that's outside of my own values system. And I'm hopefully helping people in the process.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so my listeners are business owners, most of them are women that are getting pulled in 18 different directions. Most a lot of them have kids. Tell me about your five-minute nervous system reset.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, this is such a fun thing, uh my version of fun. Let's be clear. So when our neurology is on fire, so it whenever you're listening to this, you're probably like, there's seven million things going on, and I'm about to lose my tacos and pull out my hair. And I'm like, I hear you. This helps us get back into our bodies and work on that internal regulation, our internal thermostatus, so we can get back to 72 degrees. And they are simple, simple practices that do not cost anything other than a little bit of your time to do. And they are just meant to be little bite-sized. Help me take that breath. Help me breathe into this. And so they're just super simple things that people can really access. I always encourage people, like if you download this resource, throw it on your phone, like maybe screenshot some of the ones that really lean in for you. So that when you're like, hi, I'm here at the park with my child who's like laying in the dirt and trying to eat mulch and whatever little children do, right? They're licking doorknobs and things during flu season. You're like, oh no, don't do it. That you can take that and go, I need to take a breath. I'm gonna go to the bathroom, the one place most of us can get a few minutes, and I'm just gonna follow one of these and do a little bit of self-care in this space for myself so that I can be my best self. This is what we tell mamas in particular, but I'm gonna say it to every woman because there's a lot of pressure on us as ladies. Put on your oxygen mask first. There is a reason they tell you that on an airplane. You are not good to anyone else if you cannot breathe. And these help you put on your oxygen mask. And the cool thing is the more you practice them, the more you build those neural pathways. And so then as you start to engage in them more frequently, you can start the exercise and notice your body shift. There's one particular exercise that I do really often. And the minute I even think about it, thinking about it right now, my body starts to relax because I've done it so much. And so you will build this habit, just like kind of running a marathon or lifting weights, but for your brain that helps your brain calm down and helps your body calm down. And it's really helpful. So I recommend it for everybody.
SPEAKER_02:Excellent. So we're gonna link to that in the show notes. And the second I get off, I plan to go download it because I had my own little outburst yesterday with a teenage daughter that is now driving and thinks that she owns the world and can do whatever she wants. I definitely could have used something that would have regulated myself rather than screaming the way that I did. So we're gonna make sure that that is linked so everyone can go and grab that for themselves. Um, Tabby, I truly appreciate you so much for taking the time to speak with me and share your knowledge with my audience.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. It has been so fun to be here. And I hope that it's helpful. I hope it helps people make the invitation to their list and know that you're not doing something smarmy or icky. You're just inviting someone into a different space with you.
