How a Lianne Perry Went from "Set It and Forget It" Website Failure to 20+ Qualified Leads

Let's start with a confession that I think basically every virtual therapist in Canada has made: You know that feature on your website where new leads can fill out a contact form? Yeah, that dead thing that hasn't worked in seven years?

Meet Lianne Perry, a Registered Clinical Counsellor running Moana Counselling (yes, like the Disney movie – her sense of humour is exactly what you're about to read), who just took that dead website and brought it back to life. Except it's not just alive anymore. It's actually working.

We're talking about 20+ qualified leads through her contact form in the last two and a half months. Not through Psychology Today. Not through referrals from other clients (though those are still coming). Through her own website.

And here's the part that's going to make you slightly jealous: She went from "I don't even know the back end of my website exists" to checking her analytics every single day (she can't confirm or deny this, but absolutely does).

Let me tell you how a flight attendant-turned-therapist who spent seven years thinking that having a "really pretty website" would magically generate clients figured out what she was actually missing.

The 20-Year Detour (And How It Led Here)

Back in 1999, Lianne got her first master's degree in sport psychology, working with athletes and performers. She loved it. But she quickly realized that without a clinical counselling background, she was limited in the depth of work she could do.

Mental note made. Then she went to work for WestJet. For 20 years.

By 2018, mid-40s and ready for a change, she enrolled in an online counselling master's degree while still flying part-time. That's the kind of human Lianne is – she just decides to do hard things and does them.

By December 2018, she made what she calls "jumping out of the plane and hoping the parachute opens" – she left WestJet and went fully into private practice.

With one client.

Then COVID Happened (And Changed Everything)

She'd just started getting traction in her private practice when March 2020 hit. She was the last one left in her shared clinic space before the College of Psychologists shut everything down.

But then something magical happened: companies stepped up with resources for doing bilateral stimulation online. She discovered she could actually do her specialized EMDR work virtually. And even better – she could see people from all over BC, not just locally.

When it came time to go back into the office, she didn't. "I realized I really love this," she said. "Working from home, seeing people from all over BC."

She kept the office space until early 2022, but cancellations were constant. She gave it up and never looked back.

Here's the thing about Lianne: She commits to her decisions hard. She doesn't waffle. She jumps and trusts the parachute will open.

The COVID Boom (That Nobody Knew Was Temporary)

2020 hit, demand exploded, and Lianne's practice went absolutely wild. Full four days a week. A wait list of at least four people almost every day. She thought, "I've made it. This is what private practice is like."

Here's what she didn't know: This wasn't normal.

Therapists who'd been around for 10+ years before COVID kept telling her this wasn't typical. But Lianne only knew this world. To her, this was normal.

Fast forward to 2023. Still full, but no wait list. Then – plot twist – holes in her schedule.

By June 2023, she had six sessions for the entire month.

Panic. Tears. Stress. She went from explosion to basically nothing.

The Year of Throwing Everything at the Wall

When the fear kicked in, here's what Lianne did: applied for contract positions, wrote a blog (because somebody said that would magically make clients appear), and looked into renting office space to go back in-person. Basically threw a hundred different things at the wall to see if something would stick.

Nothing stuck.

The whole second half of 2023 was rough. She was operating from hypervigilance – constantly anxious about the next month, wondering if it was going to be another cliff-drop like June. She kept asking the universe: "What am I missing? What do I need to do?"

She got close to taking office space again. But something in her didn't believe that was the missing piece. She just didn't know what else to do.

The Facebook Post That Changed Everything

By early 2025, Lianne was in this weird state of limbo. She was skeptical of business coaches (and honestly, fair – there's a lot of garbage out there). She thought she'd already figured out what she needed to figure out through two years of active problem-solving.

Then she saw a post on Facebook about a free master class.

Here's what Lianne said about deciding to attend: "It was free. My schedule has holes right now. I didn't have a client at that time. So I thought – why not? What's the worst that could happen?"

About five minutes into the master class, something hit her like a ton of bricks.

"This is it," she thought. "After two years, I've been trying to figure out what my problem is and what's missing. And this woman has the answers."

Now here's the important part: Lianne is not an impulsive person. She's a skeptic. She has an aversion to sales pitches, especially in the mental health industry, because it makes her feel "yucky." But what she noticed about the presentation was that it was presented with care and  genuinely knew some stuff she didn't know.

So she invested in the Full Practice Formula.

Week Three Is Where the Magic Happens (For Real)

Lianne went into the program and the first two weeks she felt completely immersed, trying to learn everything. She was overwhelmed but committed.

Then week three happened.

"Something just clicked," she said. "I realized all the things I hadn't been doing up to that point, and all the things I could be doing from this point forward. I just wanted to do it all."

She started implementing everything immediately. On her days off, during holes in her schedule, she wasn't just completing assignments – she was making actual changes to her website, adjusting things in real-time, experimenting with what she was learning.

This is important to understand about Lianne: She's a doer. Tell her what to do, give her a framework, and she'll execute. She's not the type to wait until the end of the course to implement. She's the type to start Monday.

The Two Biggest Ahas

Her Website Was a Dead Artifact

She'd hired a developer seven years ago who built her website and handed her the password. Lianne was so terrified of breaking something that she learned to very carefully change a price, look at it to make sure she didn't destroy anything, then back out.

For seven years, that's all she did.

The backend information said she was an in-person counsellor in Victoria. She's not. Her SEO was completely outdated. Her geographic location was wrong. Basically, her website was a digital time capsule from 2018.

"I realized how much needed to be updated," she told me. "I had no idea about the front end or back end of my website."

AI and Lianne Had Some Stuff to Work Through

Generation X. AI was something that happened to other people. She didn't think she needed it because she'd been told her whole life she's a really good writer. Why would she need AI?

Then you reframed it: AI isn't about writing for you. It's about helping you write better and smarter, in a way that search engines understand.

She went from "AI feels like cheating" to "Oh. OH. I see what we're doing here."

The Numbers (And Yes, They're Real)

Let's talk about what actually happened after Lianne went through the program:

Before the Full Practice Formula:

• Mostly referrals from Psychology Today or existing clients
• Very few hits from her website's contact form (she barely knew it existed)
• Dead website that had been stagnant for seven years
• 5-6 blog posts written in seven years (because she didn't know what to write and questioned why anyone would care what she said)
• No active social media strategy

After the Full Practice Formula (8-10 weeks in):

• 20+ new contacts through her website contact form
• Blog topics planned out for the next six months (all written a month in advance)
• Weekly blog posts that are showing up in search and getting reads
• Active presence on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn (not just "having an account")
• New headshots scheduled for November
• Checking analytics regularly (she will neither confirm nor deny she does this every day)

Oh, and that Travis Kelsey and Taylor Swift engagement announcement? She wrote an extra blog post about it mid-week because she realized people are searching for things like that and there's psychology to explore there. The post got tons of reads.

"Before, I thought marketing was just about having a nice website that looks really pretty and people will find you," Lianne said. "Now I realize that was so not true. That was probably my biggest problem."

What Changed (Spoiler: Everything)

When I asked Lianne what's different now compared to before the program, her answer was immediate: "Everything."

Here's what "everything" means in practice:

She's not just seeing clients when she's not seeing clients anymore. She's strategically doing things. She's writing blogs based on what her ideal client is searching for that week. She's researching trends. She's asking questions about what people in her niche need help with. She's constantly looking at analytics and wondering, "Why did this blog do really well but that one didn't get as many reads?"

She goes from one blog every 1-2 years (if at all) to publishing weekly blogs with topics planned out months in advance.

She went from one email before we got on this podcast (10 minutes before we started recording) to 20 qualified leads coming through her contact form since the program ended.

"I feel like I've got a lot more control," she said. "I feel like I have more control over my destiny because I'm not just sitting around hoping something magical happens. I'm actively doing things."

And – this is the part that matters – those new leads aren't tire kickers. They're not people "shopping around" for a therapist. They're people who found her website, read her content, understood her approach, and went, "Yes, this person gets it. This is who I want to work with."

100% aligned with her ideal client.

The Thing Nobody Tells You About Being a Therapist in Private Practice

Here's something that Lianne said that I think is worth highlighting:

"I spent a ton of money on clinical training over the years. I think nothing of spending a couple thousand dollars to go do whatever clinical training. But I have never spent a cent on training for the business side – the website, marketing, business, AI, all of that. Never. And now I just shake my head. Why did I think that wasn't necessary?"

This is the thing that frustrates me about our profession. We get master's degrees in counselling. We do ongoing clinical training. We invest in certifications in specialized modalities. But somewhere along the way, we absorbed this message that business training was either optional, secondary, or somehow beneath us.

And then we assume that everyone else has figured it out. So when our practice isn't growing the way we think it should, we don't think, "Oh, I probably need to learn some business skills." We think, "What's wrong with me? Why isn't my hard work paying off?"

Lianne said something else that stuck with me: "Therapists are spending on clinical training when no one's even told us we need to learn about business. So it's this weird thing that we come by super honestly. And then we feel ashamed because we don't know."

Yeah. That.

The Visibility Breakthrough (It's Not Salesy, It Actually Isn't)

One of the biggest shifts for Lianne was understanding what marketing actually is versus what she thought it was.

She thought it was selling – like selling used cars, pushy, icky, making her feel gross.

What it actually is: Making sure the right people can find you. And when they find you, making sure what you're saying resonates with them.

"I'm not out there trying to sell myself," she said. "I just want the people that I would click with to be able to find me. And I didn't realize that before – they were finding other people, but they weren't finding me. And now there it is. Like there's all my stuff. Take a look at it. And if you think I might be a fit, then reach out to me."

She was unfindable. Literally listed for the wrong city (Victoria when she's fully online), described as in-person when she only works online, with outdated modalities and information.

So when she fixed those things? When she updated her website to actually reflect who she is now? When she started writing blogs about things her ideal client actually searched for?

People started finding her.

Novel concept, right?

What She's Building Next

Lianne's not done. She's never done. (This is a Gen X flight attendant who became a therapist and now she's basically treating her business like her clinical training – always learning, always evolving.)

She's got new headshots coming (beach photoshoot with the dog – because why not?). She's going to keep doing what she's doing because, as she said, "these things take time."

She's not going to make the mistake she made the first time where she thought, "If I just do these things, it'll make a difference" and then never change anything for seven years.

She's going to keep learning. Keep looking at analytics. Keep adjusting. Keep writing blogs. Keep making herself visible.

And she's describing it like "waiting for the popcorn to pop" – she's got two kernels popping now, but she's waiting for the whole thing to really go.

I guarantee you, in six months, she's going to be eating all the popcorn.

The Bottom Line for Canadian Therapists Running Online Practices

Lianne's story proves something I keep saying to therapists: You don't need to figure this out alone. You don't need to wait for some magical understanding to hit you. And you definitely don't need to spend two years throwing a hundred things at the wall hoping something sticks.

What you do need:

• Clarity on who you actually serve (not "everyone with anxiety" – actually understand your ideal client and what they're searching for)
• A website that actually works for you (which means you need to understand how it works, what your backend looks like, and how to adjust it)
• Content that speaks to your niche (not generic therapy advice – your specific people with their specific struggles)
• A strategy that feels authentic (not sales-y, not icky, just honest visibility)
• Understanding of how search works (which, yes, includes AI – and it's not scary, it's actually kind of fun once you get it)
• Permission to do things differently (Lianne didn't need to go back into office. She needed to fix her online presence. Different strokes for different therapists.)

The Full Practice Formula was designed specifically for established therapists who have been doing this for a while and are wondering, "Why isn't my hard work translating to the practice I want?"

It's not for people just starting out. It's for people like Lianne – who were working hard, who had built something, but who were missing the business piece that nobody ever taught them.

Connect With Lianne

If you want to check out what Lianne's doing now, or you want to see what a therapist who takes the work seriously looks like:

• Website: moanacounseling.com
• Facebook: Moana Counseling
• LinkedIn: Lianne Perry

She's fully online, working with clients across BC (and beyond), specializing in helping people who feel stuck, stressed, or overwhelmed, people who know something needs to change and are ready to do the work, but they don’t quite know where to start or how to get there

Fair warning: Her blog posts are actually funny. She writes about real stuff. She's not performing. She's just showing up as herself. And apparently that's what people have been looking for.

Ready to Stop Throwing Things at the Wall and Start Building a Real Strategy?

If you're a Canadian therapist who's been at this for a few years, you've got a solid practice, but something feels off – like you're working hard but not getting the results you should be getting – the Full Practice Formula might be exactly what you need.

I work exclusively with Canadian therapists because I understand:

• Canadian regulatory environment and how that impacts your visibility
• How to build your visibility ethically within your college's requirements
• The unique challenges of online therapy practices in Canada
• What actually works in smaller Canadian markets
• How to make your website work for you instead of just existing

About the Author

Cecilia Mannella is a Registered Clinical Counsellor with 25 years in mental health and over 18 years building therapy practices in Canada. She scaled from solo practitioner to seven-figure group practice and now helps established Canadian therapists build sustainable practices without the burnout. She knows exactly what it feels like to throw things at the wall and pray something sticks – and she knows how to fix it.

FAQ: Building Your Online Therapy Practice in Canada

Q: How long did it take Lianne to see results? About 8-10 weeks into the program, she started seeing significant changes. But the biggest results (20+ new leads) came in the 2-3 months after the program ended. Timeline varies by therapist, but you start seeing traction within weeks if you're implementing consistently.

Q: Why didn't updating her website and blog get her anywhere for seven years? Because she wasn't doing it strategically. She had a pretty website with zero strategy. She didn't understand how search works, what her ideal client was searching for, or how to write content that actually resonates. A pretty website means nothing if nobody can find it.

Q: What if I'm skeptical of all this marketing stuff? Good. Be skeptical. But don't be so skeptical that you miss opportunities to connect with the right clients. There's a difference between healthy skepticism about sales tactics and refusing to learn how to be visible ethically. Lianne went from very skeptical to implementing everything because she realized the skepticism wasn't helping her – it was just keeping her stuck.

Q: How does this apply if I work in-person in a specific geographic area? Same principles apply. You still need clarity on your ideal client and what they're searching for – it's just localized. The strategy is the same; the geographic scope is different.