Take the Challenge: 30 Days To a Strong Referral Network (Back by popular demand)

If you need an infusion of clients who are a great fit for you, building referral partnerships is the fastest way to make it happen. This isn’t networking as usual. It’s a targeted and strategic plan to create relationships that will bring you great referrals over and over again.

Participants have said:

“I met with one new colleague who has already referred me a new client.”

“I was able to take steps with this challenge that I couldn’t before.”

“I have tools I can use after the challenge.”

"Thanks for all the resources you shared in this (FREE!) challenge."

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Need A Few New Clients NOW?

“I need a few new clients right away.”

I often hear this from therapists. It’s time to bring in more income to pay your bills. Maybe you’ve had some clients graduate recently, and you need to fill those slots. Maybe your expenses have gone up. Perhaps you’re just tired of waiting for your practice building strategies to pay off.

Even for this very short-term goal, you need to make a plan that moves you closer to achieving your long-term vision for your practice. You can tackle a short-term goal in a way that takes you OFF track from your long-term vision, or you can tackle that same goal in a way that brings you CLOSER to it.

For example, applying another insurance panel will take you OFF track from a long-term goal of creating a private pay only practice.

Slow down and figure out your long-term vision of what you’d like your practice to be like.

The first question I usually ask in a consultation with a therapist is: “What’s the difference between the private practice you have now and the one you’d really love to have?”

One part of that answer is how much money you’d like to make.

Just a few other parts of your vision are: who you’d like to be working with, what methods you’d like to be using, what hours you’d prefer to work, and what sort of office you’d like to be working in.

After you’ve tapped into that vision you can make a plan to bring in a few clients fast. Here are some potential ways:

Speak. 

When you speak for an organization where your right-fit clients are hanging out, you have a chance to bring many people into your practice quickly. Make sure you’ve got a process to help people sign up for a free consultation at the talk.

Network. 

Reach out to a small number of colleagues to get together with. Bring your calm and generous self to these meetings. This is about creating or renewing long-term authentic relationships. When you’re top of mind for a number of people, you’re more likely to get referrals.

Make some key changes to your online presence. 

Creating a great online presence requires a thorough and time-consuming process, but there are a few important things you can do quickly. Doing these things is sort of like tidying up quickly before a friend comes over.

Edit your homepage so that it speaks more directly to your right-fit clients using words they would use.

Make sure your site makes it easy to take the next step to work with you.

If your photo isn’t great, get a new one taken.

Check your directory listings and make sure they highlight how you’re different from other therapists.

All of these practice building activities can take you closer to your long-term vision as long as you’re clear on what that vision is.

Is it time to create the private practice only you can create? Apply for a free consultation now. 

Find out what you need to do next to bring in more therapy clients. Take my Private Practice Strength Assessment. 

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Doing The Taxes For Your Therapy Practice?

Are your finances disorganized?

Maybe you’re struggling with tracking down all the numbers you need to get your taxes ready, and you’re feeling frustrated, anxious or even ashamed. You’re not alone. Lots of therapists in private practice lack a clear set of financial systems.

When you're preparing your taxes, you're reminded of every way that your financial systems are failing you. 

It’s a good time to consider making your systems better. Maybe you’re considering investing in a bookkeeping application to help you with your finances. It may be a great idea, but before you do, get clear on the systems you need.

The tool you choose is less important than the consistent habit of using whatever system you have. Even if you only have a spreadsheet and a calendar, you can track the numbers you need. I use quicken for personal and business finances, but there’s no one system that’s perfect. Just a few others to check out are FreshBooks, Quickbooks, Xero, and YNAB. As you read this, think about how you’ll create a system that suits you and your business.

There are a minimum of 3 things that you need tracking systems for in order to make your taxes easier next year. 

1. expenses paid

2. bills yet to be paid

3. collected and uncollected fees

When you have a hole in those tracking systems, you lose time and money. You also experience a feeling of overwhelm every time you need a information and you can’t find it. Disorganization leads you to spend time trying to track down information for client receipts, lose money when you don’t claim all your business expenses, pay late fees, or lose money in uncollected fees.

Now I'll go over the bare minimum you need to do in order to track those 3 things. 

Expenses Paid

Daily or weekly:

• Keep a big envelope or file for your business receipts for each year. File ALL of your business receipts in that envelope. Sure, you can file your receipts in several different categorized files. If you’re in business by yourself, one file is probably going to be easier and less time consuming.

• When you receive receipts online, label them or put them in a special email folder so you can find them easily. You’ll need all of those receipts if you get audited.

• Categorize your expenses. If you use a program to track your finances, go in and choose or create a category for every business expense. If you’re using a spreadsheet, create categories that you can use each month. If you don’t do this daily or weekly, you’re likely to forget what some expenses were. Use categories that you’ll use for your schedule C at tax time. If you don’t know what they are, look up Schedule C categories. Go ahead. It’s easy to google.

Monthly:

• Add up all of your business expenses so that you have a picture of how much you’re spending in each category and how much you’re spending overall. If you’re using a bookkeeping application, you can have it generate this report. Easy peasy.

Annually:

• File the past year's big envelope. Start a new big envelope.

• Add up all of those monthly numbers for each category to create your schedule C.

Bills yet to be paid

• Use a separate bank account for business expenses.

• Put any bills you can on autopay. Keep a list of these so that you’ll notice if any aren’t automatically paid due to a glitch in the system or an expired credit card. Losing your URL due to a late payment would be a real bummer.

• Keep all incoming paper bills in one place. Once a week pay those bills, write a note on each bill of the date you paid, and then file them right away (with your other expenses paid).

Collected and Uncollected Fees

Daily:

• Use one system to record the sessions and fees you collect every single day. The low tech system is to use your calendar and make a note right there of what your client paid and whether there is any fee to be collected. Be consistent with your record keeping so that no uncollected fees fall between the cracks. Online scheduling systems like simple practice and cliniko can hold your scheduling and fee information in one place.

• Generate any requested receipts.

Monthly

• Add up all collected fees (be sure not to include any sessions for which fees weren’t collected). Record this monthly number.

Annually

• Add up all of the months of collected fees. That’s your number for Gross receipts for your Schedule C.

Of course there's much more you can track, and over time you may choose to use a more sophisticated set of systems. First get really consistent with the basics, and notice the peace of mind it brings you to be more organized.

Is it time to get some help with building the business only you can create? Apply for a free consultation with me.

How To Answer The Question: "How Do You Work?"

What’s the question that makes a lot of therapists nervous?

"How do you work?"

When you’re on the phone with a potential client, they are likely to want to know what you charge and when you’re available, and then comes that question: “How do you work?”

Many therapists find themselves falling into therapist-speak at this moment.

The words you've learned as a therapist don't belong in this conversation.

You may never hear feedback about how little of your answer the potential client understood. You might walk away from the conversation thinking they have a pretty good idea of the way you work, while the potential client is thinking, “I have no idea what the heck they just said.”

They aren’t likely to give you that feedback because 1. they don’t want to look stupid, and 2. they don’t want to be rude.

I say this with love. You could be losing potential clients who are a great fit for you if you answer this question in therapist-speak. Come up with a better answer so that your potential clients can make a better decision about whether to work with you. If you’re the best therapist for them, they’ll be more likely to realize that.

So what should you say?

There are a couple of great ways to answer the question.

One way to answer the question “how do you work?” is to take the description you would normally give of your method and describe it with no therapy words. If you’ve ever played the game “Taboo,” this might feel familiar.

For example, if you normally say:

“I use depth psychotherapy” (followed by your therapy-speak description), try something like this: “I help my clients figure out what’s going on deep, deep down. You know how sometimes you think or feel something painful, and you’re not sure where it comes from? I help my clients find out where that stuff is coming from so that we can make some really lasting changes.”

Another way to answer the “how do you work?” question is to think about the clients who are the best fit for you, and describe one important thing about the work you do with them. By focusing on one thing, you help them imagine what it would be like to be your client.

For example, I might say:

“One thing I do with clients is help them let go of shame. Most of us carry around shame, and it gets in our way in lots of parts of our lives, like at work or in our close relationships.”

When you find an answer that feels right to you, practice it a few times. Don’t memorize it. You might use the same phrase or sentence to get you started each time, but make sure you’re speaking in a grounded way rather than just reciting your lines. Then practice your answer on a few friends who are NOT therapists. If they understand what you’re saying, you’re on the right track.

Are you ready to create the practice only you can create? Get free stuff from me every week. No spam. I'll never share your email. That would be weird. 

Copy On Your Therapy Website: Less Is More

When it comes to copy on your therapy website, less is more.

When I say “copy,” I’m talking about the words on your site, such as your home page, your about me page, and your services pages.

I know it’s hard to keep it simple. You do so many things as a therapist. You help people with so many different kinds of problems, and you’re trained in so many methods.

It takes a lot of words to describe all that.

Luckily, describing everything you do is NOT the job of your website. 

The job of your website is to help your right-fit clients get a sense of whether you will understand them, whether they will feel comfortable with you, and whether you will be able to help them.

One way to help a potential client feel comfortable is to give them a clear and simple experience on your website. 

What if you have a lot to share with your potential clients?

There’s room for that in the form of articles or blog posts. Some potential clients like to read more. You can give them a chance to access more content if you have a blog or articles on your website.

That’s where you can tell your potential clients all about the different issues you work with, the methods you use, and everything that you think they might like to know.

If you follow my advice and start editing down the pages on your site, save everything you edit out on a separate document. You might find that you’ve got enough left over content to start writing some articles right now.

Want more help? Get my free stuff in your inbox every week. 

Boutique Therapy?

Are you ready to position your boutique therapy practice?

An article “Dear Google, Is There a Shrink for That?” by Casey Schwartz, just came out in the New York Times yesterday.

She discusses the way that therapists are creating niche practices more than ever before.

Here she talks about how this is related to online searches:

“Undoubtedly, the Internet has contributed to the shifting therapeutic landscape. Where before, word of mouth was crucial to the search for a therapist, prospective patients are now likely to take to the web, and faced with thousands of anonymous possibilities, look for some way in which to determine who may be the best fit, whose boxes check their own boxes.”

The article points out that this is mostly an urban phenomenon. When you’re in a crowded market there’s more of an opportunity and a necessity to choose a niche. It’s hard to stand out as a therapist with a general practice.

Please don’t panic. You can choose a niche and still do plenty of work outside of it. (Keep reading).

The internet is not the ONLY place your clients are looking for  you.

Every day, people are still asking their friends and other professionals for referrals.

Your online presence is an ideal place to focus on a niche.

You still have plenty of room to recieve other kinds of referrals from your colleagues and clients.

I’ll use my practice as an example.

The Bay Area Relationship Center focuses on couples therapy in our web presence. Our average mix of individuals to couples is about 30% individuals, 70% couples. Many of our referrals for individuals come from past clients and our colleagues who know about our skills outside of couples therapy. They didn’t find out about our individual work on our website,  but through interacting with us in person.

Many of the therapists I coach have used a similar approach, focusing on  a niche for their  online presences, and building other parts of their practices through referral partnerships and word of mouth.

Boutique or no, is it time to build the therapy practice only you can build? 

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I Changed How I Set Goals For My Businesses And Here's How

It’s early February. How are you doing on your year-long goals? Every year I set myself year-long goals in my personal life and for my businesses. I did it again this year. Then in January I read the book The 12 Week Year, and I’ve completely converted to a new kind of goal setting.

The book points out that when you set 12 months goals, you tend to procrastinate. 12 months is pretty far away.

Let’s say you want to have a full practice by the end of 2016. You may not feel the need to take any major steps in January. Even if you haven’t made a lot of progress by May, you still might feel like there’s plenty of time to turn things around.

Perhaps there are actions you dread that you know you SHOULD to build your practice. You might put those off until closer to the end of the year.

In the 12 Week Year method, you choose a small number of goals that you’ll accomplish by the end of 12 weeks. Then you map out what steps you’ll take to accomplish each goal, and give yourself a due date for each and every step.

The key to this is that you choose goals that will move your business forward.

After your first 12-week “year,” you assess what your next most important goals are.

Does this mean you’ll lose track of your long-term vision? Nope. Before you choose those 12 week goals you spend time thinking and writing about your LONG TERM vision, the one you’d like to get to within several years. You choose the goals that are most likely to move you towards that vision.

Let’s say your long-term vision includes having a practice full of cash paying clients. First you’ll create your vision, considering what you’d like to earn, what kinds of clients you’d like to work with, what your hours will be, and even what your office will look like. You’ll spend some time thinking and writing about that vision until it feels clear and you can easily tap into your desire for it.

Then you’ll choose one or two measurable goals that you can accomplish within 12 weeks to bring you closer to making your vision into your reality. You won’t pick more than one or two goals because you also have to do all of the regular stuff that takes up time in your life. Choose goals that will stretch you AND that you can accomplish in a few hours a week.

If you think you don’t have a few hours a week to carve out, question that. (link)

I’ll repeat: The key to this is that you choose goals that will move your business forward.

Maybe you’ll choose a goal of rewriting all of the copy on your website or of reaching out to 50 colleagues. Then you’ll break down the tasks that it will take to get you there, and spread those tasks out with due dates spanning the 12 weeks.

Why not just map out your goals for the whole year all at once?

Once you’ve accomplished your first 12-week goals, you’ll be in a better position to decide what your next goals should be. Opportunities and challenges come up several times throughout the year, and 12 weeks is a short enough time to stay flexible.

Will you find out how much you can change your business in the next 12 weeks?

Ready for more free help? Get free stuff from me every week. 

What would you do for your business if you had more time?

Do you ever feel like you have way too many ideas for your business and not enough time to implement them?

Maybe you’re dreaming of taking some time off to actually get some of that stuff done.

What would you do with a chunk of time if you were to find it?

 

Would you write some articles, improve your website, get a new photo, create a welcome video, introduce yourself to some people you’d love to know professionally, add a new service to your practice, or start writing your book?

Here’s the thing: If you would carve out just a couple of hours a week, you could actually get a lot of that stuff done right now in the midst of your current life.

People tend to overestimate how much they can get done in a short period of time (like an hour or even a week) and they tend to underestimate how much they can get done over a long period of time (like a few months or a year) with consistent effort.

Stop waiting for that day when you'll have a chunk of time. It may never get here. 

It’s time to do less of what is urgent and more of what is important for your business.

But the urgent stuff pulls at you...

Calls come in from potential clients. Yep, it’s a good idea to return those right away, especially if you have openings in your practice.

Your roof is leaking. You have to call your landlord or if you own your home, you gotta figure out how to get that patched.

Bills are due. You sit down and pay them.

You or your kid is sick. Suddenly you have to carve out a DAY where you didn’t have one.

You feel like you have no more time to take care of those important business ideas. The urgent stuff took all of your time.

The thing is, I know you can be counted on to carve out time for what's important. You do it every day as a therapist. 

If you have a therapy appointment scheduled, you are there, with your butt in your chair, totally present with your client. You’re not checking your phone. You’re not writing an email. You show up and you keep your butt in the chair until the session is over. That’s your commitment.

Any chance you could give even a little bit of that commitment to some of those other important but not urgent items on your list?

When I work with a therapist to build their business, this is one of the things we look at first. Are you willing to schedule time to do the homework I give you? Are you willing to block out time on your calendar to implement the strategy we create?

Next time I’ll share one resource that’s great for getting more done. I’m reading a book right now called The 12 Week Year. It’s motivating me, and I think it might be helpful for you too.

If it’s time to make your practice into the business only you can create, apply for a free 20-minute consultation now.