We’re thrilled to present the latest addition to Afluencer’s content lineup – our podcast series featuring insightful conversations with influential brand owners. In this inaugural article, we have the privilege of introducing Floss Knight, the visionary founder of UkTherapyGuide, as our esteemed guest.
Meet Floss Knight: The Mind Behind UkTherapyGuide
Floss Knight, the innovative mind driving UkTherapyGuide, takes center stage in the Afluencer podcast series. With a wealth of experience in the world of influencer marketing, Floss shares captivating insights, challenges, and triumphs that have shaped her brand’s journey.
Podcast Premiere: Delving into the UkTherapyGuide Universe
Join us in exploring the enchanting world of UkTherapyGuide through the eyes of Floss Knight herself. We’ve embedded the riveting YouTube podcast video below, offering an exclusive glimpse into the transformative power of influencer marketing.
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Transcription Insight: A Peek into the Conversation
Gain an insider’s perspective as we burrow into the transcription of our engaging conversation with Floss Knight. Discover the strategies, anecdotes, and wisdom that have fueled UkTherapyGuide’ success, all captured in this in-depth transcription.
In Conversation with Floss Knight, Founder of UkTherapyGuide:
Floss:
Many years ago, I came into recovery and therapy changed my life. It changed the way I viewed things. It helped me with all the things that I struggled with. 80% of the population do, at some point in their life, struggle from depression, which will unlock the potential in people and get them started on a better track. We have no shortage of therapists because we have a really good reputation, but it’s about positive experience and spreading that is far wide, you know, strengthening our reach.
Brett:
Welcome to our influencer podcast today, where we connect small brands with micro-influencers. We want to highlight the up and coming collab opportunities for our influencer viewers and listeners. And today we’ve got a unique one. Last night is our CO founder here from UK Therapy Guide. UK Therapy Guide has a mission to ensure a safe, seamless and informed therapeutic journey for all.
They’ve got a generous affiliate program here offering a $60 commission that we’re going to talk about and again, really a unique platform and offering here. So thanks so much for joining us. Can you get us started by sharing your inspiration behind Founding UK Therapy Guide?
Floss:
Yeah, for sure. Firstly, thanks so much for having me. I’m really, you know, glad I found you guys because it’s an interesting proposition to ask. So I’m going to just tell you a little bit about who we were and why. I co-founded UK Therapy Guide so many, many years ago. I came into recovery. That’s about 29 years now, and I basically came into therapy through the back of that.
And I benefited. Therapy changed my life. It changed the way I view things. It helped me with all the things that I struggled with. And for me, I wanted to share that experience. So I’d worked in other other areas, but I did a significant training and it just became the right thing for me to do. So that’s what underpins our mission.
You know, we want to be helping as many people as we can, 80% of the population do at some point in their lives struggle from depression, however that manifests. And that’s what we’re trying to do, which when unlock the potential in people and get them started on, you know, on a better track.
Brett:
Yeah, that’s great. So did you as you were working as a therapist, was it sort of the inspiration to scale yourself and say, Well, I can help one client at a time? As a practicing therapist, I can create this platform where I can connect many to many.
Floss:
Sure. Well, that’s exactly what happened. So I started my journey having a very good experience in therapy. I did, you know, a long and very rigorous training. I then had a practice, one in Chelsea, one in Fulham, and I wanted to scale it because there are quite a lot of people in the space, some of them well-meaning, but they don’t necessarily have the right level of training to be able to sit with people, to work with people, to hold the space and encourage them to get well because you can get very complex presenting problems.
So I thought about that. And also therapists are very undervalued. So I wanted to make sure that we were looking after therapists as well. So it was about safety for all and making sure that people had the most positive experience possible.
Brett:
Yeah, I hear you from running a platform. That’s the tricky part, right? You got the both parties and you have to take care of both parties. It’s also interesting because you kind of need both in your case, you need the therapists, you need the clients on there. In our case, we need the brands and we need the influencers.
So starting these things, I know from our experience it’s interesting because you can’t have just one. We’ve got to get up to critical mass, you’ve got to get balls going. What was the trick for you in terms of getting traction? Was it having the therapists come on board and put their profiles up on UK Therapy guide and then you’re able to get the clients looking potential clients looking on the site?
Floss:
Well, we’re really lucky because we’ve been in that zone for a very long, very long time. And because I am a psychic therapist and I understand the, you know, the struggles, right? It’s really hard to build a business and understand a CEO, understand this, that and the other. So we take all that pressure off the therapists. And at the same time, I understand the credentials.
So, you know, there’s a training and there’s a training and all this is all about the quality of the training. So we do make sure we’ve done all the checks. I one of the big joys I get is I get to meet the therapists. So I really enjoy that to see how they present and so on. So actually we have no shortage of therapists because we have a really good reputation and now it’s kind of reaching more people.
We have helped thousands of people who possibly are still in therapy, I’m not sure, but it’s been a a good experience. And behind the website, behind the platform, right. Where people and that’s where, you know, we all say, you know, you can reach a person, you’re not going to be stuck in a kind of an an automation ball of hell.
Right. But pitch up like because people are at the back of therapy, you know, we’re not just to service. It’s much more than that.
Brett:
Yeah, that’s an interesting juxtaposition with some of the big tech solutions. So are you seeing that as a competition? I would imagine before UK Therapy Guide, it was probably like an old school type of referral model where people would find a therapist maybe by referral, maybe they’re going online, but there aren’t really sites, review sites geared towards helping them in that solution.
So I would assume, I guess if we started there, what was life like for potential client before UK Therapy Guide? Was it referrals? Was it searching online through these kind of random sites?
Floss:
Yeah, I think it’s a really interesting point. So we’re probably way a little bit way behind you guys, right? So so obviously we’re in the UK and you know, therapy is obviously you’re in California, I believe, which is like, you know, the the center of it all So over here. So my practice was when you fall and you build a practice by having regular clients who refer other clients and you build a name for yourself.
Now, obviously with lockdown, there’s been very much a jump into the space whereby people are looking online, they want reassurance. There are a lot of not necessarily properly trained. A lot of people jump into that space because it’s a massive market. So they’re there for the financial reasons rather than perhaps for the benefits of bringing a good quality of therapy.
So, you know, we’ve been around that space for for a very long time. But a lot of people with deeper pockets than us are in there. But we very much are established and we just do things differently in terms of of how we operate and how we choose to operate. Everything we do is underpinned by therapeutic values and so all of those checks.
So that’s a headache for a client. You go online, right, and you’re going to have the top ranking sites, right? And you might hit, you know, one or two of those, but you’re not entirely reassured or assured that you’re going to get a call. And by the way, what I’m not saying is some of those platforms do a great job.
But with us, you can rest assured that we have done the checks and you are going to be placed with somebody. And if they’re not the right therapist, we’ll find another therapist. But on matching. So we do a thing where you can have a call with one of the team. We don’t take a clinical history because we’re not they’re not all clinicians, but we’ll place you.
We send videos as another thing. People kind of came back to us and said, It’s great to see a photo, but what you want is you want to see how somebody presents. And it is all about that. I mean, that feeds also into the influencers that we want to work with. What people do present in a way that matches kind of our brand and our message.
They want to hear the affects, right? How how people look, the voice, where the pitch lines. And that’s really reassuring for people. So so those things. But it’s an overwhelming thing. You know, I’ve got a problem. I don’t know where to go. I could go here, I could go there. And it’s confusing. So we try to demystify things and I think we do a pretty good job, actually.
Brett:
Yeah, that’s a great service. Personally, verifying the therapists who are on the site, I would imagine that that’s unique to you. And even if you you’re seeing like a, you know, a funded type of operation from down the street here in Silicon Valley. I know how they operate. They always try to boil the ocean. Right. So there if you pitch to venture capitalists, you say, hey, we’re going to be big in the UK therapy market.
They’ll stare at you and they’ll say, okay, and what else can you do? So my inclination is that they are probably trying to do a bunch of different things. And the notion of having humans actually verify therapists over the phone or over Zoom is going to be a nonstarter with any type of funding. So that’d be my guess.
You could correct me or here as you see it, since you’re it’s your company, but that’s my feeling. Is that true that you kind of see these maybe bigger tech companies, but they’re looking at the space and they’re trying to build a platform. But again, it’s not just the UK therapy, but it’s for a bunch of different services.
Floss:
Yeah, I mean, they are. So some of the big boys are American, American and you have state restrictions and licenses. We don’t have that here. So they have parachuted into the UK and therefore they don’t understand. So you might be in the UK and you might have an American therapist. And although we are brothers and sisters in that way, there are cultural differences and cultural different understandings mean, you know, and often people want to work with the therapist that is from there, you know, from where they were born or that their main understanding in their upbringing.
So so things like that. And without a doubt, it’s all about scale. I mean, I know, you know, those are the significant challenges that you have when you’re a small business. You do want to scale, but it’s the way in which you scale. And, you know, I think that’s really important that you keep your your ethos. They also don’t pay so well, so they don’t pay therapists.
I would I would see an equitable value for their skill set. So paying somebody 30, $35 an hour is, I feel somewhat exploitative, you know, And in the UK, obviously. So what we try to do or not, what we try to do, what we do do is we, we let them set the market price and we we do our very best in order to bring customers and a good level of service.
So we’re not we what we do, of course, you know, we have ambitions to scale, but we want to keep all of all our compass very much trained on, you know, quality that’s very important to us. And trusted Trust is what underpins therapy. You, you know, you need to be able to trust your therapist and all our values are based on that.
You need to be able to trust who your, you know, who you’re going to spend, you know, have a deep relationship with.
Brett:
On the scaling side. Can you tell us a bit about your affiliate program FLOSS in terms of when you launched it and how it works?
Floss:
Sure. Sure. Just can have a little little sip. Sure.
Brett:
Yeah. Yeah. No, I’m always interested to hear opportunities from our for our influencers in terms of I mean, promoting UK therapy guide, I mean, great service that you provide and opportunities with the affiliate program, especially with people who are involved in the therapy world. Sounds pretty exciting.
Floss:
Yeah. So we have, you know, a range a lot of, you know, our clients are young, we’re looking to attract and spread the message and we want to do it in a fun way. So we’re creative. You know, I think people that kind of dance dogs, whatever, anybody that, you know, matches our core values and they’re putting out fantastic content.
We’d love to kind of embrace that opportunity, work with them, grow with them, and move to, you know, a position where we’re collaborating long term and everybody’s best benefiting from it because there’s not thing right? And I’m not knocking it, but a pair of shoes is a pair of shoes, right? And a perfume is a pair. But, you know, is it is it is, it is a perfume and so on.
But this is about actually improving. So you’re somebody whose life significantly and it’s in a meaningful way. And so that is our objective. We want to do it with flair. We want to do it, you know, in a fun way. And different influencers will present different, you know, as I said, they might have pets, right? You know, I’ve got my very, very own dog snoring on the sofa over there.
So we love pets, you know, In fact, all of our our team, you know, we’ve all got pets. So if that’s your modality for communicating. So my therapy is always really, really creative. So I will use whatever it takes. So somebody, you know, we might have a pet, somebody might be autistic, you know, whatever it is, we might do photo collages.
So I’m a real believer that reaching people through the mediums, that’s important to them and other people, obviously their followers is a great way to interact. And at the same time, you know, everybody benefits from it and we’re bringing something good to the world.
Brett:
Yeah, it’s great. And I get my four year old dog behind the laptop here and business nearly as well. And then also on the affiliate program, then we’re talking about a commission based opportunity. Is that right?
Floss:
Yeah. So so we have a really simple thing. We’ve got a link. So somebody joins, they sign up through it, they give us their payment details. Also, anybody that uses the link to make booking, it is logged. We pay out when, when, when the first session has taken place. We also because we think it’s really important for the influencer to have an incentive for their followers.
So it’s giving and giving and that super, super important 20% discount on the first session. I mean, it’s really clearly laid out. And what we also like to do, you know, we share our assets. If people have got questions and have got ideas, you know, bring it on, because we’re super excited to be working with new people, people of all ages from from everywhere.
I mean, one thing I would say is we generally do not operate in the U.S. at most save for the reasons I gave. But we’re working with some influences who we’ve been introduced to by you guys that are in the US, but they have big followings in other countries. So isn’t isn’t exclusively so. So I’m in the UK, in London, but we have lots of clients actually around the world so you know, and they’ll come to us because they want UK therapy, because they understand the ratification of that qualification session.
Brett:
That’s great and we will get the link to your collab here so that our influencers watching, listening, I guess more watching on the show notes here to click to apply and you’ll see those come in through influencers. So we’ll get all that up and make it easy for people. Last one here, for me, for us. Looking ahead then, where do you see UK Therapy Guide heading in the future?
And generally speaking, just what’s next for the platform you and your great service?
Floss:
Well, you know, I’ve been doing this for a very, very long time. And as I said, you know, my big drive and where I thrive, I everybody that works with us is to spread the message, to get people that are struggling, feeling that there isn’t necessarily a way out or in a relationship to understand themselves better and find that there are better solutions.
And if you’ve got negative patterns, whatever, or lost that actually you’ve got all those splinters inside anyway, right? They’re there and they manifest in different ways. They might come out in your relationship, they might come out at work, they might come. And actually if you process them through verbal communication, through therapy sessions, you can be free of all that.
So that in essence, is the message. And so it’s about positive experience and spreading that is far and wide and, you know, strengthening our reach and yeah, growing, growing with the influences that that we will end up working with.
Brett:
That is great. And we’re so happy to have your collab posted with us again. We’ll get the link here in the show now. It’s great affiliate program Opportunity for Everyone looking for a really great service to promote something that helps people through their therapeutic journey. So last night, co-founder here of UK Therapy Guy thanks so much for joining us today.
Floss:
My absolute pleasure. Have a lovely day and thanks. Thank you so much for allowing me to and to meet you and your influences.
Brett:
You as well. Yeah. It was great chatting with you. Thanks again.
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Reflecting on a Journey of Innovation and Influence
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