Not Sure Where To Start? 4 of My Best Posts

Sometimes it’s overwhelming trying to build your therapy business. There’s no shortage of information out there, and this blog is no exception. Here are some good places to start. Each of these 4 posts is each full of useable advice and action steps. 

How To Start A Private Practice On The Cheap And Eventually Quit Your Day Job

I walk you through the steps of starting your private practice and tell you where to invest and where to save throughout the process.

SEO For Therapists (Video Interview with Jeff Guenther)

Find out how to spend a weekend setting up SEO. Your misconceptions about SEO will be all cleared up by this interview. You’ll feel less confused and more ready to get started.

30 Days To A Strong Referral Network

Take 30 days and change your practice with this free challenge. This isn’t networking as usual.

Want To Get Off Those Insurance Panels?
 

If you want to transform your private practice by getting off of panels and bringing in more private pay clients, start here.

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Your Business BECOMES The Choices You Make

Think about your therapy practice for a moment. Is there anything about your work that you dread week to week? Is there any part of your practice that drains you over and over again?

If you're living with an aspect of your business that you dislike and you're not taking steps to change it, RIGHT AWAY, what gives?

You probably believe you don’t have a choice.

You’ve told yourself that in order to make your practice work, you’ve got to live with things as they are. Your practice is happening to you instead of you choosing its course.

You've forgotten that you're the boss of your therapy practice. 

You started this career with an internship in which you didn’t have many choices about which clients you would work with, your hours, your location, or your therapeutic methods. All of that was probably OK at that point. When you’re starting out as a therapist, getting stretched outside of your comfort zone makes you more flexible, more resilient, and better able to understand a wide range of clients and problems.

You started a private practice so that you could choose to work the way you wanted to, but you inadvertently set up your practice as if you were working for someone else. You were accustomed to adjusting to the rules of your supervisors and your internship, so you forgot that you’re in charge now.

I once asked a therapist who was working out of three offices: “Do you like working in three offices or would you rather narrow down to working in one or two?”

She told me about the circumstances that landed her in three offices and explained the availability of the offices and why this scenario works well for her clients. She talked about how certain clients would have a difficult time adjusting to a different office. After we examined the situation with the lens that her location is her choice, she acknowledged that she would like to work out of just one location.

We created a step by step plan to get her into one location within less than a year.

Some therapists are on insurance panels they wish they could get off of and don’t believe they can.

Some therapists don’t like the office they’re working in and believe they’ve got to stay.

Some therapists work hours they dread and believe they can’t shift their schedules.

Oh yeah, I did that. 

I used to believe that I had to work at least 2 evenings a week because I wanted to work with couples. There was a grain of truth to this. My evening hours would often fill up faster than my daytime hours. Potential clients sometimes said they needed evening appointments. After several years, I felt dread about working in the evenings. I loved the client work, but I didn’t love my schedule at all. I was missing out on bedtimes with my kids and downtime with my sweetie. I felt energized on the days when I started in the morning and finished by the afternoon. Some therapists enjoy the rhythm of working in the evening, but not me.

I finally realized that my schedule was my choice, made a plan to shift off of evenings, and kept my practice full during the transition.

Weaning off of evening appointments took a while. I stopped offering certain hours. When clients graduated, those hours came off of my schedule permanently. I eventually gave several months notice that I would no longer have evening hours. Finally shutting down those evening hours was scary at first, but it improved my quality of life.

I haven’t had an evening appointment in several years.

Your turn. If I can do it, you can do it. 

Is there a sense of dread anywhere in your business?

Identify a situation in your business that you don’t like and want to change.

• Do you work hours you don’t like?
• Do you work with any clients you dread seeing?
• Do you resent your fee with any clients?
• Do you feel stuck in networking relationships with people you’re not enjoying?
• Are you on an insurance panel you believe you can’t get off of?
• Do you work in an office you don’t like?

Maybe it seems like the choice you’re making is helping your business. If that choice is creating dread, it’s not going to help you in the long run.  If you continue to live with choices that leave you resentful, you’re not the best therapist you can be. When you feel joyful in your business, you can grow it with enthusiasm.

When you feel good about the choices you make in your practice, you make MORE money. 

There’s a path to get unstuck. The path can be gentle and slow if it needs to be. The key is to start taking steps.

Your fears may come up as you even consider making changes.

You worry that if you make a change you’ll be negatively impacting a client.

Your step by step plan should give your clients ample warning about anything that affects them, like a fee raise, location change, schedule change, or you removing their insurance panel. Once you get clear on your change of direction, you can focus on starting a conversation with your client about that change in a clinically sensitive way. In many cases, you can find a way to continue working together, and in some cases you’ll help them transition to another therapist.

You worry that if you make a change, your practice will topple. You believe you won’t get enough clients if you don’t keep doing things exactly this way.

Create a step by step plan to make this shift in a way that doesn’t pull the rug out financially. Perhaps this will include an overhaul of your marketing strategy.  

Let me repeat: When you feel good about the choices you make in your practice, you make MORE money. 

That area of dread is sapping some of your energy. Make a plan to let it go.

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What Sets Apart Therapists With Successful Practices?

Therapists with successful practices tend to spend their time and energy differently from great therapists who don’t have the practices they want.

As a therapist in private practice, there are 3 kinds of activities you spend time on in your business: providing services, taking care of the day-to-day, and moving your business forward.

Providing Services

The time you spend with clients providing therapy falls into this category. All of your income and most of your work satisfaction probably comes from providing services.

Taking care of the day-to-day

This is all the stuff you regularly do to run your business besides providing the time you’re in the room with clients. Day-to-day activities include answering your phone, paying bills, writing notes, managing your billing, going to consultation group, charging credit cards, and answering emails. It also includes maintaining your marketing. If you write a blog, give talks, or network, you can include that in this category.

Moving your business forward

This third category includes the tasks you don’t HAVE to do in order to maintain your business where it is right now. It’s the time you spend moving your business forward. This category includes  the time you put into dreaming about your business, looking at the big picture, learning new business skills, creating goals, and getting inspired for the business you want to move towards.Therapists who put time into this category tend to succeed at making more money and creating businesses they want to run.

How much time should you put into moving your business forward? At the very least, one hour or more per week. More is better.

Let’s look at some specific activities and tasks that will move your business forward.

• Reading articles and books about business. Hey, you’re moving forward right now!

• Participating in a business coaching program or peer-led business mastermind group

• Setting goals and planning the steps to accomplish them

• Overhauling your website

• Creating new services

• Reaching out to new potential referral partners

I'll give you an example of why this time makes such a big difference to your business. 

A therapist I’ll call Sheila came to me with a very full practice. She had a caseload with 80% insurance based clients and 20% private pay clients. She loved her clinical work, but she was working too many hours and needed to increase her income. She knew if she added more hours she’d burn out, but she wasn’t sure what else to do.

She signed up for my Superpower Method For Therapists™ Program, and using that process she created a new plan. Even though she was working full time, she started putting at least 2 hours per week into “moving your business forward” activities. She overhauled her website to reflect a niche and created a new business model which included group therapy. Within 6 months she had launched her group and her percentage of private pay clients was on the rise. She was following a step by step plan to move off of insurance panels. She was able to slightly cut back her hours while increasing her income.

Carve that time out. 

When I run the Superpower Method For Therapists™ Program, the participants do a lot of work. We have group calls 2 times per month, and the lessons and homework assignments between calls can take 2 or more hours per week. I also give bonus challenges to help participants move their businesses forward even more if they’ve got the time and energy. At the end of the program, participants see that they’ve managed to carve out 2 or more hours per week to move their businesses forward. Many participants then commit to continuing to carve that time out after the program is over.

But how can you possibly do more than you're doing right now?!

So I know you don’t have an extra 2 or 3 hours per week lying around on your calendar. You’d love to put time into this “move your business forward” category, but you’ve already got a long to do list. You can’t add more.  

You need a STOP doing list

If you're already working full time, you're a parent, or you're burning out, you have to get creative about what goes on that STOP doing list. 

You’ll probably find all of the items for your STOP doing list within your day-to-day tasks. In both of my businesses, I pay for excellent help from someone who takes huge items off of my “day-to-day” list. She does them so well that I can truly let them go. I rely on systems like my practice management system which includes billing and online scheduling. Many therapists have found that using an online practice management system takes hours off of their day-to-day work. If you’re spending time emailing or sending voicemail messages back and forth about scheduling, find a better system.  

Your turn. How can you take action now to move your business forward?

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How To Grow A Therapy Practice Without Overwhelm

You’re growing your practice. That means when you’re not seeing clients, you’re returning phone calls, answering emails, marketing, networking, and trying to tackle a huge to do list. Overwhelmed yet?

I spoke with Frances Harvey, founder of My Solution Services about how to get out of overwhelm. She and her team help therapists with all of the everyday tasks of running a solo or group practice.  

In this conversation, Frances talks about how to take tasks off your plate so you can focus on what matters to you.

At the end of the interview, you’ll see 2 surprise guests. 

Here are some highlights from the interview: 

What Frances says to overwhelmed therapists

#1: Breathe! It’s common for therapists in private practice to feel overwhelmed.

#2: You’re not supposed to do it all yourself. You need to offload the things you shouldn’t be doing so that you can focus on the things you should be doing, like providing excellent therapy.

Some things you probably shouldn't be doing

The most common things therapists ask me for help with are #1 phones and scheduling and #2 billing.

Phones and scheduling are critically important to your private practice. That’s your life line, so it’s scary to hand them over. But most of the time I hear therapists say that they often can’t return calls until 10 at night or that it’s sometimes 3 or 4 days before they can return a call. That’s not good!

When you’re at the point where you’re not returning calls promptly, you need help.

I've developed a step by step system for handling phone calls. 

Here’s the structure we use when a potential client calls your practice:

1.   Create the relationship with the potential client. “Hi, how are you? I’m glad you called. My name is Frances.” Within a few seconds we’ve created some rapport.

2.   Create a safe place and ask them to tell me what why they want to come in for therapy.

3.   Create value. We have a detailed profile for each therapist in our system. We know how long you’ve been a therapist, your fees, what you specialize in, and everything you can possibly imagine. We pull up that information right away and it seems like we’re sitting right there in your office and we’ve known you for 10 years. We’re able to create value for the client and let them know why it would be a good idea to come and see you.

4.   Handle logistics. We give them all of the information they need including fees, length of session, and what to expect in the session. Then we move into scheduling an intake.

5.   Do the follow up work, which may include a confirmation email to the client and a message letting the therapist know we’ve booked a session. It’s a very structured process.

My staff receives about 15 to 18 hours of training on this process, including role-playing the calls.

What tasks should you hand over?

When I talk to a therapist, I help them make a big list of everything they need to offload. I help them prioritize the top 3 most important things they need to take car of, and then we identify the #1 task that we will start with.

If you know you need help, but don’t have any idea what to offload, I give you an assignment. Take a week or two, and make a note in your smart phone every time you’re doing a business related task. For each task, ask yourself: Should I be doing this task? Should I be using my time on this? Note your answer next to each task.

Why you SHOULD offload some tasks

I often ask therapists: If I gave you back 10 hours a month, what would you do with it?

It’s critical for you to market and network with your colleagues. And what about spending time with your family?!

You may have to push yourself to hire help before it’s easy to afford because you may need those 10 hours to take your practice to the next level.

To get in touch with Frances and set up a consultation, go to mysolutionservices.com or email her at  frances@mysolutionservices.com.

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A Blindspot You Can Fix Now

Here’s a problem I’ve seen happen to some excellent therapists lately. They’re doing just about everything right to build their unique and profitable therapy practices, but they leave out something important. Bear with me and I’ll tell you what it is and how to avoid it.

Let’s pretend it’s you. Imagine this: You’ve identified your niche, learned to express what’s unique about you as a therapist, created your ideal business model and implemented a solid marketing plan. Your website reflects who you are and speaks directly to your right-fit clients. Maybe you’ve even done some speaking gigs or created content that your right-fit clients value. You’ve brought up your fees so you’re getting paid well. As a result of all of this hard work, your practice has grown. Woo hoo!

But then….you start noticing you haven’t gotten a referral from a colleague in a while. What gives? You’ve got strong relationships with your colleagues, and you’ve gotten together with some of them recently. You refer clients to them, and you’d value referrals in return. You’re feeling discouraged.  

Here’s the thing. You probably haven’t been telling those colleagues that you have openings.

It’s obvious to your colleagues that you’ve done some fabulous work on your business. Your website looks great and the way you talk about your work is compelling. You look so successful to your colleagues that they assume your practice is full. They figure you don’t need or even want their referrals.

You can SO easily fix this. I got an email this week from a gifted colleague letting me know that she’s got some openings. I’ve sent her many clients over the years, and occasionally she’s been too full to take one. Thanks to her email, I’ll send her more soon.

Do this right now: Think about which of your colleagues doesn’t know you’ve got openings.

On a side note, if that description of you having it all together made you feel bummed out and you said, “No I really haven’t done all of those wonderful things,” that’s OK. Wherever you on your practice-building path, I’m here for you. Whether you’re brand new to private practice or you’re a seasoned expert, I’ve got resources to help you create the business only you can create. 

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Tips For Creating A Great Therapy Website, Video Interview with Kat Love

If you're creating or revamping your website, you want to hear what Kat Love has to say. She's a web designer who builds sites just for therapists, and she was generous enough to allow me to pick her brain.

Warning: You’ll wish you’d seen this before you created your website!

Below are some gems from the interview. 

One common misconception:

A common misconception is that your web designer will create your entire site. Web designers don’t create the written content for your site. You need to have your content prepared before the designer begins. You can work with a copywriter who will create the content for you, or you can go through the process of creating that content yourself.

Therapists usually underestimate how much time and energy it takes to write even one good page for a site. Strategizing, writing, and editing good content is time consuming.

Mistakes Kat sees therapists making over and over again:

Many therapists have a lack of clarity about what’s necessary in terms of both design and functionality on your website. For example, having share buttons on a services page distracts the visitor from reading about how you can help them. It sends the wrong message to ask the visitor to share your services page on social media. It’s important to think carefully about what you want to invite your visitor to do.

More is NOT always better.

When your visitor is pulled in many directions on your website, they are less likely to take the right next step. Having too many calls to action leads to paralysis. You as the professional need to guide your visitor to the next thing they should do on your site.

Your website is often the first impression a potential client has of you.

If they arrive on your site and experiences chaos and overwhelm, they might expect to feel that way in therapy with you. If they go to your site and find the experience clear and comfortable, they will expect to find therapy with you clear and comfortable too.

Advice about images:

Images are really important. They communicate on a different level from anything else. Colors, layouts, spacing, and copy matter, but images are in their own category because they are so quickly understood and felt. We need to be thoughtful when we choose images.

Three categories of images to use on your site:

1. Images that validate their experience: For example, if you’re working with people who struggle with depression, you would use images that connect with what depression feels like.

2. Destination images: These images represent where the visitor wants to be. For the example of depression, you might choose images that bring up feelings of calm, balance, or freedom. Feel into what your ideal clients desire in their life and choose images to reflect those things.  

3. Calming images: These are more emotionally neutral. They promote a sense of trust and don’t elicit emotional activation. One example of a calming image would be a beach.

From these 3 categories, choose images that speak to the entire journey your potential clients travel through in therapy with you.

The process you use when choosing your images is similar to the process you need to use when you write your copy. You need to identify the pain your clients experience, the gains your clients hope for, and the solution you offer.

Before You Hire A Designer:

If you’ve got a do-it-yourself website and want to work with a designer to bring your site to the next level, here are some things you can do to prepare and have a better result.

1. Clarity: Get clarity around what it is you do and who you serve. If you’re clear on who you are trying to attract and how you serve them, you’ve got the foundation for everything you create in your business, including your website

2. Copy: Assess what’s working on your current site and what isn’t. Evaluate whether your copy is actually speaking to your ideal client. Answer these questions: Is your navigation easy or difficult? Is your organization of content logical? Look at what’s on each page from the visitor’s point of view. (and remember you can hire help for this!)  

3. Design: Think about the color, images, and layout. See what’s working and not working with the design on your current site. Research by visiting other websites and tracking your emotions when you see different things. (How do you feel when you look at a website that is bright red?) When you hire your designer, you’ll be the best client ever, and they’ll really be able to help you create an effective site.

Links

You're gonna want more from Kat. 

Here's her article about how to choose images for your website. 

Kat Love's website: KatLove.com

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