Amanda [00:00:02] I feel more clear, like I just feel more organized about what the numbers actually are and what my course of action can be following our conversation. I’m also feeling a sense of gratitude for you and the way that you can actually take things that are a total mess, that are happening for someone else, and somehow just be like, Oh yeah, this makes total sense. Let’s just do it this way. 

Linzy [00:00:28] Welcome to the Money Skills for Therapists podcast, where we answer this question How can therapists and health practitioners go from money shame and confusion, to feeling calm and confident about their finances and get money really working for them in both their private practice and their lives? I’m your host, Linzy Bonham, therapist turned money coach and creator of the course Money Skills for Therapists. Hello and welcome back to the podcast. So this is our season closer for season seven of the podcast, which is a very strange thing to be able to say. But time is really flying. And this episode is our only coaching episode that we’ve actually had this season so far. And it’s with Amanda Starfield. Amanda is a very recent graduate of Money Skills for Therapists. She is a clinical social worker, therapist, supervisor, and director. And she lists her specialty as specializing in being human with other humans, which I love very much. She’s based in Massachusetts and works with youth and families. And in addition to doing individual and family therapy, she also provides consultation on everything from therapy to supervision to leadership dilemmas. Amanda is a lovely human. She was like a such a treat to have in Money Skills for Therapists. And in our conversation today, we get into creating simplicity when you are in a complicated transition. So Amanda has recently switched her private practice to S Corp tax status in the United States. So now her money has to flow differently. So she was using a profit first system before, which is a budgeting system for business where you use multiple bank accounts and you divvy out money on percentages. And she had a system that was working for her. But now with her new S Corp status, the way that taxes work has changed. There’s some reimbursements she has to be giving herself. And there’s just some complexity that’s been thrown into the mix that has taken something that used to be simple and makes sense and has made it confusing again. So in this conversation today with Amanda, we dig into her numbers and we look at how to take something that is complicated, how to take her numbers and to make them clear and simple so that they work for her brain and give her the clarity to know how much to pay herself in dividends, how much to set aside for those dividend taxes, how much she needs to be putting towards her payroll, just getting her tweaking her big picture again to get numbers working in this new incarnation of her private practice. So if you are considering switching to S Corp status or recently have switched to S Corp status or have/are going through any kind of other transitions in your practice or feeling like your numbers are complicated, this coaching session is going to walk through that process of taking something that could be super complicated and making it simple and clear. Here is my conversation with Amanda Starfield. So Amanda, welcome to the podcast. 

Amanda [00:03:35] Thanks for having me. 

Linzy [00:03:36] I am so excited to have you. So, Amanda, you finished up Money Skills for Therapists in the Community in October. 

Amanda [00:03:44] A month ago. 

Linzy [00:03:45] Okay. Yeah, so a month ago. And I’m curious before we like dig into your coaching piece today, what made you decide to join Money Skills for Therapists? 

Amanda [00:03:54] So I run a fully private pay practice, and I started that about two years ago now. And I did Tiffany McLean’s program, Lean In Make Bank, which really helped me start to unpack my money stories and really kind of understand what was going on for me and really deep in my clinical work as well. But I didn’t really have a handle on how I was actually managing the money that I was making. And I knew that there was more there for me and that I wanted to feel confident moving forward. And I really have this base as I was building my business of I actually know what I’m doing in terms of managing all this money. 

Linzy [00:04:33] Right. Yeah. So the how. It’s like you figured out how to make more money, but then it was like, how do you manage the money that you made or were making? Yes. Okay. And today, I feel like we’re going to dig into a topic that I think is going to show just like how deep you’ve gone into the money management world. Because I know you have some questions about profit first and S Corp. So tell me, what question are you bringing to our conversation today? 

Amanda [00:04:58] So I’m in this transitional period, which is a little bit confusing. So I went through your program. I was like, okay, totally understand profit first. I got these percentages down and then it was like, Well, I’m actually making enough to transition my business to becoming an S Corp, which now means that there’s different tax rates for different buckets of things, and there’s a different flow of how the money is moving. And I’m adjusting at the end of the year, but it’s actually going back to the beginning of the year, right? 

Linzy [00:05:28] Yes. 

Amanda [00:05:28] I’ve actually already saved plenty for my taxes for this year. 

Linzy [00:05:33] Yes. 

Amanda [00:05:33] So where I’m sort of putting my money, where and how I’m allocating it when it’s coming in isn’t going to be my ongoing system necessarily. And I’m very confused about what I actually am paying myself. 

Linzy [00:05:47] Right? Yeah. So you’re in a transition period right now because what I’m hearing is by transitioning to an S Corp, you now have some kind of like catching up or applying retroactively to do to the new way things work to understand that correctly. 

Amanda [00:06:00] Exactly. Yeah. 

Linzy [00:06:00] Okay. And that’s what your accountant has guided you to do. Is these things go back to the beginning of this year. 

Amanda [00:06:06] Yes. 

Linzy [00:06:07] Okay. Okay. What I’m hearing is you’re going to need two sets of numbers. Right. We’re going to need to think about what are the numbers kind of between now and the end of this year to make up for the fact that you’ve already saved more than enough for taxes based on the math that you’ve done. But then also next year, you’re going to need a different set of numbers that are like your new normal. Does that make sense? 

Amanda [00:06:28] Yes, absolutely. 

Linzy [00:06:29] Yes. Okay. Okay. So let’s talk about first the right now. So let’s get into profit first. And for folks listening just to contextualize, if they’re not familiar. So Profit First is a budgeting system that you’ve taken on in your business that helps you allocate money kind of the same way every time to help money go where you need it to be. And now that you’ve changed your tax status, your numbers need to change because part of being an S corp is that you are going to be taxed differently. It’s a bit more complicated, but you are ultimately going to be paying less taxes. So can you share your spreadsheet with me? And we’re going to describe the spreadsheet for people listening as much as possible to have the visual. 

Amanda [00:07:07] Certainly can. 

Linzy [00:07:08] Okay. So now we’re looking together at your Profit first calculator, which you have gotten from the course, and now you’ve added some more pieces based on your S Corp stuff. So tell me what’s happening with these numbers so far. Like what is solid, what is working, and what is not clear? 

Amanda [00:07:23] So the top number in income, that’s the past two weeks. So that was what I just allocated for my paycheck that I’m going to be getting tomorrow. Okay. What’s working is the salary and the operating expenses. What’s really not clear to me is that my tax percentage. The profit percentage, it’s really coming through the distributions, which is this other box a little bit lower. So I’ve basically sort of found that number by doing that, working backwards. 

Linzy [00:07:56] Okay. Yeah. And the number at the bottom here, I’m just seeing here you have like a distribution number of 797.73 that you’re playing with. Can you just click on that so I can see where that’s pointing to? Okay. I see. Yes. So it’s taking your salary and taxes and then your owner’s distribution. I’m just seeing how you have set this up here. So your salary in taxes together is 72%. That combines the 52% that you had for your salary was 52%, Taxes were 16%. So at 72, that’s great. And then I see you have it divvied up so that salary is broken into payroll and owners distribution. Tell me about these numbers here. 

Amanda [00:08:33] The payroll is what exactly what it sounds like. So that is the amount that’s going to be taxed sort of at the highest rate. So my payroll gets taxed at about 20 to 30%. So I have 30% in this spreadsheet right now. It is a little bit short for this month, so I actually had to shuffle. So this 442 in payroll tax, I actually is more like 475. So that’s one thing that’s not quite matching. And that’s because the actual just dollar amounts are lower. 

Linzy [00:09:03] Yes. Okay. 

Amanda [00:09:05] The distribution, it’s is it distribution is essentially like profit. It’s taxed at a lower rate. So these are sort of like the owner distributions. And the way that I’ve thought about the distributions in terms of the profit first model is to think, okay, there’s sort of like a quarterly profit or distribution that I’m thinking about, and then there’s like a monthly, you know, is there anything additional, is there anything sort of bonus, as you know, as the shareholder of my own company, that that would make sense to bounce back? So that’s sort of how my brain has wrapped itself around combining this and the profit first model together. It’s just that the profit is coming further down the line of how the money is flowing instead of right at the top being siphoned off. 

Linzy [00:09:51] Yes. And this is what I’m seeing is like before we started recording, you pulled out like your whiteboard that had like, here’s the numbers your percentage. And then there was like a sub-level where things are broken into further percentages and then a sub-level below that. And I made a joke that it’s like a like a Beautiful Mind kind of equation looking. And that’s what I’m seeing here is it’s like you’re what I see is you’re really working to try to be really precise and like, really like kind of get it right. But it does add a lot of levels, like literal layers to the numbers, right? There’s like layers on layers here right now as you’re trying to figure out how to set this up. So what I would love to help you think through is how to flatten this back into one layer.  

Amanda [00:10:33] Oh, that would be beautiful. Please. 

Linzy [00:10:33] Yeah, I think so too. Simple is good, right? And so this is, I think, a great example, Amanda, where like, it can be informative or interesting to, like, dig in and understand, like how something is complicated and how it works. But we don’t want it to be complicated all the time, right? Like we want it that when you sit down to do your paycheck and your distributions, you have the same feeling that you used to have when you had your problem first. Where you look, it’s clear. It’s like you know exactly what you need to do. It takes less than ten minutes and you get on with your life. So we’re going to work these numbers back in to that top level. What I’m seeing here then is you right now have taxes and salary as two separate lines at profit first. Right. And these are your standard profit first buckets, right, we have profit, taxes, salary, operating expenses. There’s a big goals line there that you’re not using at this time. Right. So but it’s so it’s those standard profit first accounts because you’re an S corp and taxes and salary are now coming from the same place. What do you think about just folding those into one category? 

Amanda [00:11:32] I’m totally good with that. I had it that way. And then it also felt confusing that way as well. So I just I had it combined and then I separated it. So I’m happy to put it back. 

Linzy [00:11:43] Yeah. Because. And tell me what did feel confusing about it because this is also like you know, business owners choice right. So we want to think about what makes sense for your brain. 

Amanda [00:11:51] Well, what’s confusing to me in general is that I don’t have clarity on what my overall combined tax rate is. So when I look at sort of the payroll tax and the distribution taxes and how those things come together, I really don’t understand what that overall tax rate is. So it was clarifying in my mind to go Well, that’s just all coming from one big bucket. 

Linzy [00:12:12] Yes, I know that you were working with Sarah Johns, who’s another therapist in the course, because I had to call Sarah. And then you were on the phone. You were on the little video on the phone. So this is a joint spreadsheet that you’ve been working on together, which I love, by the way. It makes me very happy. And I know that she was working also on blended tax rate, like figuring out a blended tax percentage. Do you- have you come to that point here where you figured out kind of how things will shake out for a blended number, or is that totally still opaque at this point? 

Amanda [00:12:41] It’s opaque. 

Linzy [00:12:42] It’s opaque, yeah. Okay. Okay. So let’s take a look here then. So let’s zoom back out and put your average numbers in the top of this profit first box. Rather than the 335, let’s put in that safe 8000, and we’re going to see how these numbers shake out through these different kind of basically like little sum funnels. Right now, the way that things are set up, it would be 5440 would be for your taxes and salary. And of that, payroll and payroll taxes. So that payroll number pulls from 65% gets paid to you, and then your payroll tax rate is 30%. Is that correct? 

Amanda [00:13:20] Yes. 

Linzy [00:13:21] Layers and layers. Okay. So that means that for that 5440 breaks down into 1060 for paycheck taxes. And your distribution taxes are 285 on this same amount. I’m following you now down these little percentage roads. If we work it back in backwards, let’s just be curious about the tax numbers that you’ve now divvied out. What percentage of all the money that came in the door is that? Because that’s what we do in profit first, right, is like we take these very specific numbers and we just apply them to the number at the top. So that we’re like taking out all these different layers. So the total taxes then that you’ve identified you need to save is 1060 plus 285. And I’m using whole numbers. I’m not using decimals. Maybe I’ll make that 286. This was a big evolution, I will say. And in my own relationship to numbers, when I stopped using cents, I was like, I’mma let it go, letting go of the cents, we’re just doing whole dollars. 1346 is what’s total there for taxes. And if I take that 1346 and I divide it by the $8,000 that came in the door, it is 17% of everything. And then what would be left from that money if I take this and I minus the the taxes, 1494 would be actually going to you in salary and distributions and that is 51%. So you see what I’m doing is I’m working them back up into those numbers again. Okay, this is where we are. So what I’m noticing is, the numbers that we just came up with, were these the same or 1% off of what you had in there? 

Amanda [00:15:01] They were just 1% off. They were just flipped. Which 1% went from salary to taxes. 

Linzy [00:15:06] Yes. One to the other. Gotcha. Okay, perfect. So what we’ve done is like, you had taken this, you broke them out into these sub numbers. But when we zip them back up, we’re back where we were at the top, Right? So we’re back into, like, this simple framework that means that actually this piece of the top is giving you what you need. If you combine your accounts, then you would have taxes and salary together. Profit is also a type of distribution, right? So that’s something for you to think about, is where you want to keep your profit. Do you like having that separate profit account where you can take that celebration money? 

Amanda [00:15:40] I haven’t been steady enough long enough in my business to really be able to like take that in or appreciate it. I really needed to because it was getting through that first year, really building myself. I really actually needed to be paying myself that rather than waiting on that as profit. Yeah. So I haven’t had that as a set up, but I would like to. 

Linzy [00:16:03] Yeah, because like as you have the distributions, like you talked earlier about that idea of like taking the quarterly profit but also having like regular distributions that you’re taking every month. So if that’s the case, like you can leave that profit there. What I want to consider, though, is we want to make sure you’re setting aside enough money to cover those taxes as well. So it might be that we need to think about your tax rate and update a little bit to account for the money on that 4%. 

Amanda [00:16:27] Okay. 

Linzy [00:16:27] So your distribution tax, I see you have as as 15%. So that’s your personal income tax amount, The 15%. 

Amanda [00:16:34] Yes. And that’s- so I actually have the profit wrapped in below in this sort of purple section here. You’ll see that I did the same thing that you just did with the taxes, rolling it back into the 8000. That’s what I did with the profit. So I actually have the profit already included in this 15% tax rate. 

Linzy [00:16:55] Yes. Okay. Okay. So that was already built in. So 15% of the distribution. So those three numbers at the bottom add up to 1904, is that correct? The three numbers below. Okay. That’s how they zip up. Yes. Okay. Beautiful. Can you just highlight those three numbers together and we’ll just see if they sum up. That’s good. And then can you sum up the the 1376 down to the 285, just the numbers, right to the right. 1904. Beautiful. Okay. So the distribution total. So it looks like then there is a little bit of tax that also has to go aside. Do I understand that the way that you’ve you’ve done this math, there’s a little bit more tax. 

Amanda [00:17:30] We’ve already accounted for it in the 17%. Okay. So that 285 and 1060 was added to to figure out that 17% an overall amount. So it should be accounted for. Okay. Beautiful. And this $1,060 amount is actually- there’s a buffer in that. So my payroll taxes don’t add up. They add up to less than this for a month. 

Linzy [00:17:54] Okay. Okay. And have you built buffer in there on purpose. 

Amanda [00:17:58] Yes. 

Linzy [00:18:00] Yes. Okay. Because as I’m thinking about this, I’m like, okay, as you run your paychecks going forward. Right. Well, we’ll talk about this year and your little like kind of transition period soon, but next year going forward, it’s like when you run a paycheck, the taxes will automatically be calculated by Gusto. They’ll be remitted or you’ll remit them. And so your salary taxes are covered. Right. It’s just that that extra bit of dividend taxes that you need to think about is like putting aside enough that at the end of the year when you go to do your tax filing, you have enough money set aside for the taxes that apply to the dividend portion. And the dividend portion is not taxed with that self-employment tax. So it’s 15% less, right, than your salary. And that’s the beauty of an S corp. So it’s making sure you have that money set aside. What I’m curious about is like for yourself, Amanda, if you had taxes and salary folded together, let’s say you have your payroll taxes and salary for that together. We think of those as like one thing. I was doing this with somebody else in the course today. Earlier today, what we did is we looked at her dividend and dividend taxes separately. We broke those out on the calculator so she could see this is the dividend that’s available to me and these are the taxes that would apply to that dividend, separate from the total paycheck. What do you think about playing with the numbers that way and seeing what that looks like? 

Amanda [00:19:14] Sure. I trust you. 

Linzy [00:19:15] Let’s play with that. Let’s make a copy of this because I don’t want to lose your numbers. What I would like to see for you is how much money just needs to be going aside for just to cover your paycheck, like your payroll taxes and your actual paycheck itself. And then what’s available for you to take as dividends and have set aside for dividend taxes for your paycheck. What is the paycheck amount your accountant has you paying yourself? 

Amanda [00:19:41] The take-home or the total? The total net is 1745. 

Linzy [00:19:48] What is the gross?  

Amanda [00:19:51] Gross is 1567. 

Linzy [00:19:51] And your net is more than your gross because you’re adding on the 300 for the office. 

Amanda [00:19:55] No, that is not accounted for in that. So that I add as an additional reimbursement. 

Linzy [00:20:00] Yes. 

Amanda [00:20:02] On top of the check. Yeah. 

Linzy [00:20:03] Okay. Okay. So when you do a Gusto payroll run, then the number that I want to find out is how much does it cost you total to do a payroll run? Like there’s the money that’s paid to you, but then there’s also the payroll taxes that you’re paying on both sides. You’re paying the employer and the employee portion. And then we also have this 321 a month that happens coming back to you. 

Amanda [00:20:23] I do better with paper than me just saving all the things online. So this I actually printed out from my paycheck that I ran yesterday. 

Linzy [00:20:30] Great. Okay. Okay. So what is the total transaction that went through Gusto, then, to run your paycheck yesterday? Like, what’s the biggest number you can see? 

Amanda [00:20:38] The biggest number is 2817.75. 

Linzy [00:20:42] Okay. Right. 2817.75. Okay, great. And that’s going to be your gross paycheck and your payroll taxes. 

Amanda [00:20:52] That is the total that was paid out. 

Linzy [00:20:55] Yes. Okay. The total that was paid out to you or the total that was taken from the business? 

Amanda [00:21:00] The total that was taken from the business. 

Linzy [00:21:01] Yeah, that makes sense. 

Amanda [00:21:03] Yes. 

Linzy [00:21:03] And is this a weekly or bi-weekly? What’s your frequency? 

Amanda [00:21:07] Twice a month. So the 10th and the 25th.  

Linzy [00:21:09] Okay. And then one paycheck a month also has this reimbursement of 321. Is that correct? 

Amanda [00:21:14] Yes. So this paycheck had 1072. 

Linzy [00:21:19] Okay. 

Amanda [00:21:19] That because it was the entire first quarter of the year. 

Linzy [00:21:23] Okay. Okay. Yes. And what was your thinking on managing that like you have, yeah, like you said, this like catching up on paying yourself back to do. Are you planning to pay yourself back all of that before the end of the year for the whole year? 

Amanda [00:21:35] This is one of the things that I hadn’t really figured out. Yeah, in my mind I was going to do the first quarter today and then I was going to see how these numbers panned out and either next paycheck or next month do maybe one more quarter. Like I don’t actually know because it’s a reimbursement. I haven’t been setting aside money to reimburse myself. So it’s essentially that that’s one of these places where it’s confusing. It’s not like I’ve set aside separate money to reimburse myself. So I just basically right now I’ve been using the distribution amounts to put towards the reimbursement. 

Linzy [00:22:11] Yes. Yeah. And then next year you would want to think about this as part of your operating expenses that gets paid back to you. But you weren’t thinking about that as you’re running your numbers this year. 

Amanda [00:22:20] Hadn’t thought about it like that either though. So that’s quite helpful. Yes. 

Linzy [00:22:22] Is it like the way that this is broken up is it’s like, yeah, instead of paying rent to somebody else, you’re paying rent to yourself. But it is an operating expense for your business. That 321 a month is an operating expense and that 1200 a month is also an operating expense. 

Amanda [00:22:33] That I have folded in the 1200. 

Linzy [00:22:36] That’s in your op ex?  

Amanda [00:22:37] Yeah. 

Linzy [00:22:37] Okay. And is that a separate transfer or how are you paying yourself that? 

Amanda [00:22:40] I wrote myself a check. 

Linzy [00:22:42] Okay. Okay. So check for that. And I’m curious, like, what did your accountant explain to you about why you should do one on your paycheck and the other one as a written check. 

Amanda [00:22:50] She didn’t actually specify? I think maybe just for ease of tracking. It gets much easier to go in and just like look up like check number. I don’t use checks for very many things. So it’s like the one thing that. It’s just I can look up checks and it’ll be very clear. 

Linzy [00:23:07] Mm hmm. Okay. Yeah, because something that I’m noticing, like, just as we’re talking about the new complexity. Right? And I’m feeling it, like, as we’re talking, I’m like, okay, wait. And then what’s this? And then what’s that? I’m thinking, how do we create simplicity? Right. And so, wondering that I have, and this is maybe a question for your accountant is like, would you have the option of paying yourself 1521 in a check once a month rather than putting it on your payroll? And then it just can come right out of your op ex account. Or two checks, one for 321, one for 1200. But that makes it clear it’s like, okay, this is my business paying me rent. 

Amanda [00:23:40] Yeah. 

Linzy [00:23:40] Just from a clarity perspective, getting it out of your paycheck, especially since you have 2 transfers happening that are kind of the same thing, but a little bit different. How does that idea sit with you of maybe having those just come out of your op ex in the future as checks? 

Amanda [00:23:53] I would imagine that that would make sense to her. I can’t see why not. Okay. 

Linzy [00:23:59] Because, like what I’m noticing here as we’re thinking about this is with profit first, it’s nice to be able to know that your op ex number is what you need it to be, and it’s covering everything. Right. And so with this piece of like, putting it on your paycheck, you could totally do it, but it’s almost like you would want to like have that money folded into your op ex and then make it transfer from op ex to your paycheck account to make it clear like, and this is my business paying me back like it’s- I’m thinking about how do we still give you the clarity of like, what is you and what is your business within this new structure that you’re in. 

Amanda [00:24:30] That makes a lot of sense to me. Mm hmm. 

Linzy [00:24:31]  So with that, then, what I would love to play with is let’s look at putting your salary and taxes number together to find out what the what is the percentage that’s going to cover this paycheck amount that we need to see? How do we make sure that Gusto has the money sitting there that they need for those two paychecks a month? So on your calculator, I’m going to ask you to put taxes and salary together. Like just rename one of the lines and the two paychecks together that you’re paying yourself is 2817.75 a month. Times two. Two paychecks a month. Right? 5635. 

Amanda [00:25:06] That total amount from my- well, I guess like my next paycheck would be close to that too. Like I’ve been reimbursed like the next quarter. It would be closer but it won’t necessarily be quite that high on an ongoing basis. 

Linzy [00:25:18] Right. Because this. Okay, so was this paycheck. This was there was reimbursement in there as well for the 2817? 

Amanda [00:25:23] Yeah, that included 1072 of that operating expenses reimbursement. 

Linzy [00:25:29] Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. 1072. Okay. So we actually need to bring that number down by 1072. 1800. That seems low. Amanda, you’re paying yourself 1800 twice a month. Yeah. So, 3601. That’s your salary. 

Amanda [00:25:46] That’s the salary. Yeah. 

Linzy [00:25:47] Okay. Right. Yeah. Because if we multiply that by 12 and then there’s little taxes there, so it’s like 40 K a year just for you. Yeah. Okay. And that seems to be like the number that I notice that gets set as like the reasonable salary is like around $40,000. Okay, great. So 3601 then is actually the number that we are looking for in your taxes and salary line. So what do you notice about the way the percentages are set up right now? 

Amanda [00:26:11] Well, there’s a much higher percentage in taxes and salary. 

Linzy [00:26:13] It’s giving us $5,400. 

Amanda [00:26:16] Are we going to do a separate line for taxes and distributions? Is that the plan? Okay. Okay. 

Linzy [00:26:21] This is like your payroll line. Then we can call it payroll. So this is like Gusto. We’ve got to feed Gusto the money that it needs to give you. So now let’s play with that percentage. Okay. So let’s start by bringing down that payroll amount. To get it to the 3601 a month that needs to be funded to run your paycheck. So now you have another 20% to play with. So that would get you- that’s like the full distribution amount. But we also want to put aside taxes for your distributions and profit. So with that, yeah, like if we look at your distributions and taxes together is like if I take the 24 that’s left and I multiply that by your 15% is your distribution tax rate. It gives me 3.6. So I would say make your distribution taxes four and then you can make your distributions 16. 

Amanda [00:27:09] Does it make sense to still have a completely separate line for profit? 

Linzy [00:27:12] What that does for you, if it resonates, is it gives you a spot to have like specifically celebration money. That’s the function of profit, right? Is like it gives you that little like build up and it’s like you see the money building up and you get to anticipate like, oh, at the end of, you know, December, I could just take my profit money and you had to think about how to use it. For some folks, that really resonates. Does it resonate with you to have like celebration or reward money building up? 

Amanda [00:27:37] Well, at the moment I’m about a thousand bucks on average short on my personal budget. Yeah, so not presently. 

Linzy [00:27:45] But maybe one day. Yeah. So let’s fold that into your distribution amount then. Let’s make that distribution amount 20% and we’ll make profit zero. So what this is showing you right now is that. You will be able to fund that paycheck if you have your numbers at 48 and it would give you 1600 that you could take as a distribution each month. And then there’d be just 320 a month to set aside to cover the taxes for that distribution. And that’s based on a 15% tax rate. How do these numbers look to you? 

Amanda [00:28:16] They look good. 

Linzy [00:28:17] Okay. And let’s add those two numbers together. Let’s add your payroll number and your distribution number, like the 3840 and 1600. Because this is important, right? This is what money is actually available to you. So this would mean you have 5440 coming home to you each month in cash. 

Amanda [00:28:31] That would be minus about 925 for payroll taxes. 

Linzy [00:28:38] Yeah. So you would look and see like what is your payroll amount and then you’d have $600 distribution. How does that sit in terms of your needs? 

Amanda [00:28:46] Well, first of all, it’s just a lot clearer to understand. Yeah. And in terms and in terms of my needs, it makes a lot more sense to me. This is much clearer. 

Linzy [00:28:56] Because we also need to remember that you’re also having $1,200 come out of your operating expenses to you and another 321 a month come over operating expenses. So functionally, there’s also another $1,500 coming home to you to cover home expenses. 

Amanda [00:29:10] Yeah. I actually might want to actually increase my operating expense percentage to cover that. So I might actually do this. 

Linzy [00:29:18] Mm hmm. And what I’m and is doing is she’s playing with numbers. This is like what we do, right, is to see, like, okay, that number doesn’t sit great, but that number feels a little higher than I need, so we’ll do a little switch. These numbers then gives you whatever your after-tax paychecks are. Do you know how much actually comes home to you on your paychecks? Like how much hits your bank now? 

Amanda [00:29:37] $1,269.81. 

Linzy [00:29:40] Okay. Approximately. And then we have 1440. That would be your distributions. And then we have 1521 for the two different types of rent you’re paying. So it’s $4,230 for your household. 

Amanda [00:29:57] The sorry, the 1200 amount, that is one paycheck. So that’s actually that should be twice that. Oh, okay. Okay. The month. 

Linzy [00:30:08] So 1269 is your take on paycheck times two of those plus 1440 plus 1521. Yeah. Okay. 

Amanda [00:30:18] So 5449 that I can work with that I can like actually not be in a deficit on my personal budget. 

Linzy [00:30:26] I like that for you a lot. So much. So much. So these would be your going forward numbers. Yeah, right. So this is based on like, okay, next year if 8000 is your safe number. That’s the average. Then you would be able to be paying yourself 5449 totally would be coming home to you in these different ways. Slightly complicated ways, but ways that ultimately benefit you using the percentages that we’ve set here. So what are you noticing about these numbers so far? 

Amanda [00:30:52] Well, I guess it’s so much clearer to me right now that I will have like the 1521 with one payroll and then I will have the distributions, 1440 to go the other payroll. I just when and where the money is sort of being dumped out is a lot clearer to me. 

Linzy [00:31:11] Great. Okay. So you can see what the flow should look like. Yes. Yes. Yes. That makes sense because yeah, actually, you do have three different amounts over four weeks. So you could create nice flow around that of when to expect those payments. Yeah. Ooh, I like that a lot. Okay. So this is now like a flattened version of what we were looking at before. That’s more clear of like, what is there for dividends and what’s the dividend tax like? What I like about looking at these numbers together, I mean, it is I can see like you’ve thought about dividend taxes that’s covered and you can set that money aside like either in the business or you could have that sitting in a savings account for home. But we know that when that tax bill comes, you have been thinking about the dividend money and saving for those distribution taxes as you go, which I love for you. 

Amanda [00:31:51] Yeah, it also really clarifies for me as I’m making my profit first bank accounts, what actual accounts to make. 

Linzy [00:31:58] Yes. Yes. Yeah. 

Amanda [00:32:00] Because I was still very confused about that. 

Linzy [00:32:02] And this would be, I think, a good structure to set up these four accounts, which are a little bit different than the accounts you had before. Yes. So now there is a second piece that we can touch on lightly, which is about catching up then for the rest of the year. So this is like a plan for next year. This year you have this catching up to do with paying yourself back for the 321 a month, right, for the running your home office. Is there any catch up to do on that $1,200 a month rent for groups or no? 

Amanda [00:32:30] Yes. 

Linzy [00:32:31] Okay. Okay. So it’s just like a lot of catching up to do. 

Amanda [00:32:35] Precisely. 

Linzy [00:32:36] Yes. Okay. Okay. There’s something that I’m curious about is have you talked to your accountant about taking less paychecks for the rest of the year and have some of these reimbursements coming home instead? 

Amanda [00:32:45] I haven’t. I can ask if that’s possible. 

Linzy [00:32:49] I would ask about that, because there’s going to be a balance there. And this is accountant stuff. This is not my area of knowledge. But of like hitting that, you know, reasonable salary. But also it’s like there’s only so much money in the business. So if you’re going to be reimbursing yourself for that, like the business can’t necessarily give you both of those things at the same time. At this moment, how much money do you have to catch up on or how many months you have to catch up on this $1,200 a month rent. 

Amanda [00:33:11] So you can actually rent 14 times in the year, which means that there’s two months that you can actually rent twice. So I paid myself for one. So that leaves 13. Okay. 

Linzy [00:33:23] 13 times 1200 is 15,600 that you’d be kind of due to apply for all this time that you’ve used your office for these groups. And then the 321 that you need to pay yourself back. You’ve done one quarter so far. 

Amanda [00:33:39] Yeah, I actually have those totals labeled out in my YNAB. 

Linzy [00:33:42] Beautiful. Music to my ears. 

Amanda [00:33:44] So for quarter two, it’s basically 1006. Quarter three is 965. And the fourth quarter I haven’t figured out at all that. I’ll probably wait on until after the summer. Okay. 

Linzy [00:33:58] So there’s another thousand and six plus 965, which is 1971. So what I’m hearing here then is between that money and the money for the space rental, there’s $17,571 that your business owes you that is not taxable. That is actually operating expenses that are owed to your household. So I would definitely be asking your accountant, can you just take those reimbursements out of the business for the rest of the year? You might need to still run a couple more paychecks to cover where you need to be, but considering we’re very close to the end of the year, I suspect that those reimbursements could basically replace your paychecks for the rest of the year and then you’re not running paychecks and having payroll taxes set aside. That’s going to sit with the IRS until next May. Right. Because you know that you don’t owe more taxes while your business owes you all this money right now. 

Amanda [00:34:50] Exactly. 

Linzy [00:34:50] Does that make sense as a course of action to check with your accountant about that? 

Amanda [00:34:53] It does. I didn’t even know that was a possibility of something like that to happen. 

Linzy [00:34:56] Yeah, you pay yourself regularly and you can check with your accountant. And again, I’m going to say as folks are listening, this is a question for Amanda’s accountant. This is not me saying this is what you should do, but it’s like, is this possible? Right. And this is where with numbers, as you know, Amanda, that curiosity can be helpful. But like, I’m like, can we do this? And your accountant might be like, Sure, yeah, totally. Or like, Oh, yeah, I totally meant to tell you to do that, right? But just to see if you can work this way. And if it can’t, then she should have a different solution for how to get this money back into your pocket, because I don’t think you have like $60,000 at the moment to pay this back and also pay yourself all your own checks. 

Amanda [00:35:29] Yes, exactly. And that’s what I partly what’s been so confusing. 

Linzy [00:35:33] Yes. So this has been a journey through spreadsheet land and beyond. What are you noticing coming towards the end of our conversation today? 

Amanda [00:35:39] I feel more clear. Like I just feel more organized about what the numbers actually are and what my course of action can be following our conversation. I’m also, as always, feeling a sense of gratitude for you and the way that you can actually take things that are a total mess, that are happening for someone else and somehow just be like, Oh yeah, this makes total sense. Let’s just do it this way. So thank you. You’re welcome. Yeah, I’m just. I’m just feeling a little less overwhelmed. 

Linzy [00:36:08] Yes. Yes. Yeah. And I think, you know, now that we’ve worked the numbers, it’s like you can work them into the profit first. And the beautiful thing about profit first is, like, it can be a conversation, right? So if you go to run a couple of paychecks and then something’s changed about your numbers that you need a bit more, you can tweak your percentages, right? You can like take a little money from our backs and top it up. But I think that this will cover your basic needs and then you can always just tweak and adjust, but this brings that simplicity back into your system. Thank you so much, Amanda, for coming on the podcast and sharing this with everybody today. There were definitely points in this conversation with Amanda where my brain hurt. And I think that’s important to share because money – the work that I do with folks and what I teach is how to make it simple, but it doesn’t mean that there aren’t moments where you really have to think about how these things work, right? And I definitely had these moments in our conversation with Amanda where it was like, Wait, sorry, what was that? What’s this? How does this apply? Because it was in a very, like, complicated place. And so taking the time to understand how the numbers needed to fit together and how they needed to flow to the bank account and taking the time to make sure that we highlighted the important things, right. Like what we did in that conversation as we separated out a number for dividends that could be right in the top of Amanda’s profits calculator. So she knows for every dollar that comes in the door exactly what percentage can go towards her dividends. And then based on that dividend percentage, we send a tax percentage that we know is going to cover the taxes for those dividends. We took it so that the information that was most important was at that very top level. So she could see it really clearly. And it took a little bit of doing to get there, but we got there so that working through sometimes with money, when you’re in the process of creating clarity or looking at your numbers, it can feel heavy, murky, confusing. All of those things can happen. But it’s that like being with it and being curious and thinking about, okay, what do I actually need to see here? What is important? What am I trying to accomplish that can help you bring simplicity and clarity into something that otherwise can be very confusing and overwhelming. 

If you want to hear more from me, you can follow me on Instagram @moneynutsandbolts. And if you are looking to sink your teeth into something a little more substantial, I have a free mini training called The Secret to Getting Unstuck in Your Finances. This mini training includes a series of videos that walk you in little bite sized steps through looking at your relationship with money. If you find that you have a lot of anxiety around money, so you just avoid it. If you always feel like you’re just kind of getting by with money, but that’s it. And you know you should be saving for the future, but you’re just not. Or if you always feel like you have just enough money, no matter how many clients you see, you still feel like you’re getting by. This mini training is for you. It’s going to guide you in really starting to understand what your emotional relationship is with money, what your stories are around money, and what I have learned from doing this work with therapists over the last five years is that that is the starting place, right? Once we can identify the stories and the feelings that come up and where they’re coming from. Then we can start to make space for the learning and do the kind of working through that Amanda and I just did together, Right. Which is like digging in and using our skills to create great clarity and create systems. But that mindset work is foundational, and working on your relationship with money is foundational. To be able to learn how to get money working for you because you’re thinking brain needs to be available. So if you are interested in that mini training, I’m going to put a link to it in the show notes. It is the secret to getting unstuck in your finances. Thanks for listening today. 

David [00:00:01] Give yourself permission to have feelings. Give yourself permission to show up and get intimidated and just, like, avoid it for a week. Don’t expect yourself to come to anything new, right, including money and finance, and be like, okay, I’m just going to sit down. I’m going to nail it. I’m going to do it all perfectly from the get go and it’s going to be done. It’s an emotional roller coaster at times of like, things are going great. Things aren’t going so great. 

Linzy [00:00:28] Welcome to the Money Skills for Therapists podcast, where we answer this question How can therapists and health practitioners go from money shame and confusion, to feeling calm and confident about their finances and get money really working for them in both their private practice and their lives? I’m your host, Linzy Bonham therapist turned money coach and creator of the course Money Skills for Therapists. Hello and welcome back to the podcast. So today’s guest is David Frank. David is a financial planner who focuses specifically on therapists through the firm that he’s founded, Turning Point Financial Life. He helps therapists navigate all the elements of their financial life from understanding profit and loss to building a personal budget, to managing student loan debt and investing for retirement and everything in between. But he says, don’t let his love of tax code and spreadsheets scare you off. You’re just as likely to find him with his nose buried in one of Pema Chodron’s books as reading up on the latest financial planning techniques. And I think you’re really going to notice that balance in my conversation with David today. Today, we get into talking about, first of all, emotions and financial planning. What is the relationship between those things? And we talked about how people, at the end of the day, we are emotional. And so really working with that when we are planning for our financial future goes a long way. Being connected with our values. Really helpful insights from him. And he talks about some research that supports that. We talk about what to do if you feel like you’re behind, you know, which is something that I hear a lot from folks coming into Money Skills for Therapists when it comes to saving for retirement that they feel behind, they need to catch up. David and I talk about that story and what to do if you find yourself in that place and how to get started with investing. Good investment strategy. David suggests a really concrete investing strategy to use, whether you’re already investing or just getting started. David gives some very specific advice on how to go about picking what to invest in. Here’s my conversation with David Frank. So, David, welcome to the podcast. 

David [00:02:40] Thank you. I’m excited to be here. 

Linzy [00:02:42] Yeah, I’m excited to have you here. So, David, you are a financial planner who specifically serves therapists. 

David [00:02:51] It’s true. Yep, exactly right. 

Linzy [00:02:53] So for folks who are listening right now, I notice sometimes it can be hard sometimes to identify the terms like difference, like financial planner versus financial advisor versus like investment advisor. Can you tell folks a little bit about what you do specifically? 

David [00:03:06] Yeah, that’s a great point. And it’s such a point of confusion in terms of understanding titles in the financial services industry. And unlike the world of therapy, there is really no standards and there’s not a lot of regulation around who can use what term. So when I say I’m a financial planner, what that means to me is sort of it’s in the name really. It’s like it’s creating a plan for your finances and that incorporates everything from understanding and planning for the finances of your practice as well as your personal finances, and making sure that the whole piece, everything works together. And investing and planning for retirement and using retirement plans is definitely part of financial planning, but it’s not the exclusive focus of financial planning. So when you would compare a financial planner to maybe something like a wealth manager or an investment advisor or a financial advisor, typically financial planners are going to be a little bit more holistic and want to look at things beyond just your investment account, where more traditionally the financial services industry has been just about investments. So very narrowly focused on just that one thing and helping you just do that one thing. 

Linzy [00:04:19] Right. So you’re looking at the whole picture more when you’re looking at some of the financial health and financial future. 

David [00:04:26] Yeah, exactly. And actually, there’s a- I also wrote a blog piece a couple months back talking about some of these different titles and how to determine what type of help you might need. There’s even things like financial therapists or financial coaches out there. So they all- we all sort of like do different things and the titles are very fluid. So I think you really, when you see someone that you might consider working with, I think looking at their website, just understand what they talk about and what their focus is and even maybe have a conversation with them to really understand. Okay, I understand this is the title that you’re using a financial planner, a financial coach or whatever. But tell me like, what is it that you actually do and like, what does the process look like? And that will be a lot more informative than just relying on the title alone because people use the titles inconsistently. 

Linzy [00:05:12] Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And I think also, you know, asking what they do is good to know in general as you think about what you need. Right. Like I know a few years ago, my partner and I were looking to work with an out-of-pocket financial planner and we sat down with someone and he’s like, Well, I’ll just put your numbers in the computer. And I was like, Sorry, what? That’s what you do. Like not a great sales pitch. Hopefully he did more than that. But I realized, like he’s just going to do financial modeling and it’s like, Well, I could do financial modeling. I could see that this person wasn’t going to give me any kind of like strategy or guidance that I needed. And so that was also helpful to realize, like, okay, what you do is actually your approach is not the approach I’m looking for. Yeah. Move on to the next person who is going to meet you more where you need to be. 

David [00:05:53] Yeah. And on that note, I would also say, this stuff is intimidating. Like money and finance. Like it’s intimidating. Yes. And so I think for a lot of us, I include myself in this. I’m reluctant to ask a question sometimes because I don’t want to look like I don’t know what I’m talking about. Yeah. And I think like that is- don’t be afraid to ask questions. And they’re literally like the expression says, like there is no such thing as a stupid question. Feel free. Like ask questions. Ask- especially important when working with financial folks is understanding how you pay them or how are they compensated. So you really just like understand, like feel. Don’t let yourself be intimidated. Let yourself ask questions and be, you know, make sure that you’re that you’re comfortable with the person that you’re talking to. 

Linzy [00:06:40] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I do think what I noticed with therapists and health practitioners is sometimes we can be intimidated because we’re used to being good at things. So when we’re not good at something, you’re kind of like, I don’t want to ask the question that makes me look stupid because I’m not used to being stupid. I’m used to being very good at things. Yeah. And so it can be easy to defer and not speak up, which can lead to a really disempowering relationship with somebody who’s trying to help you or should be trying to help you. 

David [00:07:06] Yeah. And I’d also say just sort of progress rather than perfection here. Like, if you find yourself intimidated and you didn’t ask the question that you really wanted to ask in the meeting, just follow up with an email. No big deal. Yeah, you know, but yeah, just like keep coming back to it. But I totally agree. And I think one of the best life skills is to get comfortable feeling just being a non-expert. So being a beginner and just getting comfortable with like, whoa, this is something I don’t know anything about. This is a little intimidating. And you know what? Especially for those for all the mental health professionals out there listening, like you can tell yourself. I’ve gone to graduate school or maybe beyond. I’ve passed licensing exams. Like I am smart, I can figure things out. There’s tons of evidence to support that. And this finance and money stuff, it’s intimidating and sure, there are nuances to figure out, but it isn’t rocket science like you absolutely can figure this out. It’s just going to take a little bit of time and effort. 

Linzy [00:08:00] Yeah, well, and that comes into a piece that, you know, I think about when it comes to financial planning is like that’s an example, I think, of emotions coming up as part of our expenses of even trying to get help, which is like having that shame come up or defeat or, you know, being very self-critical. So I’m curious, you know, what have you noticed about that role of emotions when it comes to financial planning, the work that you’re doing with people? 

David [00:08:23] Yeah. So, I mean, it really all comes back to emotions. Like I think like when I saw my first therapist years and years ago, like as a client or as a patient, you know, he sort of walked me through. It is like, well, what else beyond emotion is there? Like, we take actions with the hope of achieving a certain, like emotional state, right? And like, that was like a really I was like, wait, I can’t be that. It can’t just be all emotions. But it is. Like that’s what being alive and being a human being is. And I think there’s often a tendency, mostly by folks in my profession, the financial services profession, to be like, this is money. It is about spreadsheets and numbers and investment accounts and emotions like that has nothing to do with what we’re talking about. But in fact, emotions are everywhere in money, you know, just like fear, like pride, like status, like there’s so many things tied up there, like everything comes up. And so I think there’s a number of ways in which emotions are important when it comes to financial planning. But I think first and foremost, while there’s a number of stories I can tell there, but I think first and foremost is just accepting it and just being willing to hold space and just give yourself permission to have feelings, give yourself permission to show up and get intimidated and just like avoid it for a week. Like, that’s okay. You know, like, don’t expect yourself to come to something, anything new, right, including money and finance, and be like, Okay, I’m just going to sit down. I’m going to nail it. I’m going to do it all perfectly from the get-go. And it’s just going to be, it’s going to be done. Like it is- it’s an emotional roller coaster at times of like, things are going great, things aren’t going so great. And I think the practice is making a wider variety or wider range of emotional experiences around money be okay. I think that’s super, super empowering. 

Linzy [00:10:07] Absolutely. I mean, there’s so many pieces there. I’m like, want to pull out so many pieces of what you just said. But you know, that piece around emotion and money is really powerful because I do think that, yeah, it’s easy to take in the message. That emotion when it comes to money is a liability or a distraction or it’s like you need to get past your feelings right in order to really understand money. But as you say, like, what else is there in life, right? Like, what are we seeking as humans? You know, we’re seeking to have experiences of enjoying being alive. And what is that experience? It’s having positive emotions, right? Or having emotions of growth and those kinds of things. And so- but that’s a really helpful grounding as we’re thinking about this, because it is so true. I think so often what therapists and health practitioners and just kind of more emotionally oriented people, what we tend to experience sometimes when you sit down across from somebody who’s so in that logical brain and so in that spreadsheet is like, not only do you not understand what they’re saying, but it doesn’t mean anything. Right? Like there’s no richness to it or depth. And like, this is something that, you know, the more over the years that I’ve been supporting therapists around money, I’ve started talking about this more and more of like, that’s kind of the point, right? Like, the point is to generate meaning in your life or generate connection or like, go after- give yourself more of what you want. And money’s a tool to do that. But when you just look at black and white numbers, you know, if you don’t have a vision for what those numbers actually mean or understanding what those numbers can do, yes, they are meaningless. And that’s not very motivating. Right. Like, it’s not very motivating to put aside a thousand bucks a month for retirement when you’re like, okay, so then I’ll have that number. Okay.

David [00:11:42] Yeah. So what. 

Linzy [00:11:44] What’s the difference between that number and this other number? So there is a flatness that can happen when we don’t think about the emotional part. 

David [00:11:50] Yeah. So, So yeah, you’re right on. And I want to share this. It’s a story, but it’s a study that was done. And it was a study that was written up in the Journal of Financial Planning, which is a thing. And it was about helping folks save more for whatever. For their future retirement or other future plans. And so what they did is they recruited a bunch of people that wanted to save more money. I think they did a couple hundred people were in the study and then they split them into two groups and one group they just gave a bunch of financial education, just like the cold, hard facts. Like here’s what the different account types, like, here’s how interest rates work, here’s how money grows over time, just to like hear all the tactical tools here, like the technical pieces you need to understand to save more. So that was group one was just financial education. Group number two, they didn’t get any financial education at all. And in fact, they were told to bring in a sentimental object, like some object that has sentimental meaning to them. And then what they did in the group is like they were asked to reflect on what values that like why was that sentimental object so important to them? What values were behind that? What did it say about them as a person? And then they tied their savings goals, their desire to say, let’s say, save $1,000 per month for retirement. They connected those saving goals to their values and to what was important to them as a person. Yeah. And then they even literally kind of made a vision because they kind of like drew like graphical representations of what that goal looked like. And so now you’ve got something, you’ve got sort of a tangible financial goal of $1,000 of savings per month connected not only to sort of what your goal looks like, but also how it connects back to the values and what’s really important to you. But again, keep in mind, this group didn’t get any guidance whatsoever on the technical skills of money. And so then they said, okay, great. So they set the two groups on their way, and then I forget how long the time period they looked at, but maybe was like six months or a year or something. They looked at the two groups and saw how their savings behavior changed and both groups saved more money, which was great. But one group saved dramatically more, in fact, three times more than the other group. If you want to guess which group was which, you already know. Yeah, yeah. I think, you know, it was the sentimental. 

Linzy [00:14:03] The sentimental. Yeah. Their values. 

David [00:14:05] Yeah. Like, so connecting all those pieces because like, when you’re that connected and sort of when the goals are not just dry numbers on a spreadsheet or on a page, but it’s really connected to what’s important to you. Then you just sort of, you figure it out, right? Like they didn’t get the financial education piece but like, Man, this is important to me. And I understand. I’ve been really clear about why this is important to me. So now I’m going to make the thing happen. And I mean, three times more. I mean, this isn’t a small effect like this is pretty dramatic. But I think it makes sense because all of this stuff, like it’s work. Like, Yes, you know, like it’s not easy. It’s uncomfortable. It’s extra work. Extra work. But it’s just, you know, it’s it’s hard. Yeah. And, you know, it’s- I think there’s a lot of analogies we can sort of draw between diet and exercise and personal finance or even taking care of the finances of your practice. Like, it’s just tough. There’s going to be times where you just don’t feel like doing it. 

Linzy [00:15:00] Yes. 

David [00:15:00] And that’s going to come sooner or later or it’s something that’s going to go kind of quote unquote, wrong or a little off track. There’s going to be a challenge. And I think the more we can connect back to what really matters to us as a human being, the better suited we are to overcome those obstacles that inevitably will show up 100%. 

Linzy [00:15:20] Yeah, and that’s a topic that I’ve also found more and more organically as I work with folks comes up is is values, right? Like what actually matters to you? And I’m not surprised that the emotional group saved more. Of course, that’s also my like you know, therapist in there. But of course, of course, you know, it’s that deeper stuff that makes the difference. But part of what I think about, too, is there is also for savings, for instance, what can be experienced as sacrifice. Right. You have to make a decision like, I’m going to do this. And because I’m doing this, I can’t do this other thing. So it has to be worth it. There has to be a reason that it’s worth it to, you know, put aside that thousand dollars for that instead of buying some flashy thing that you like would give you that really lovely dopamine hit, you know, four times, actually. Yeah. Just knowing intellectually, like, oh, well, because of the interest rates, this money will grow to this much by the time I’m 60. Like, that doesn’t really mean a lot. And I think a lot of us, too, don’t necessarily- we can’t make a strong connection with that future self as much as we want to. Right? Like I know one of my colleagues, Annie Wright, has a course, a mini course inside my course, where she talks about being able to think about your future self, and especially for people who come from like trauma backgrounds where you didn’t have that sense of solidity, where every day was survival. It’s really hard to think about your future self. And she has folks do the exercise of like doing one of those face aging things. Yeah, you could actually see yourself as you’re older, and I know especially too for people with ADHD, I’ve heard them share that it’s really hard to conceptualize your future self. Right. Like to believe in that future, but it really does have that long-term impact. So I can see how staying connected to now, why is this not just important in the future? Why is this important now? Like, how does this reflect who I am would be a powerful motivator to stay on track rather than an abstract number. That doesn’t really mean anything. 

David [00:17:04] Yeah, man, it’s so. I mean, you hit on a key point, which is like it’s difficult to think about our future self. And I think I think I’ve read some research that just like the default way of thinking about your future self is as a stranger. 

Linzy [00:17:15] Yes. 

David [00:17:16] So it’s just like, why would I, why would I give my money away to a stranger? That doesn’t sound like a smart thing to do, right? 

Linzy [00:17:22] Don’t even know them. 

David [00:17:23] I love the like the A.I. tool to like age yourself. For some reason, like, those visual cues are super powerful. Yeah. So like, yeah, creating even like, a vision board for what you want your retirement to look like. Maybe include that aged AI image of yourself just to really connect with the person that you’re going to be in the future. Yes. And just like realize you want to take care of that person, too. 

Linzy [00:17:45] Mm hmm. Because something that makes me think about, too, is also making sure that you are giving yourself positive experiences, nurturing experiences, fun experiences now, too. Yeah, right. Because that’s also something about retirement. And, you know, I’m sure you probably have stories that can come to mind. I know. I certainly do. Where sometimes people work so hard, they work so hard. They save so hard because it’s like when we retire, we’re going to live the dream. We’re going to spend half the year in Florida and like, you know, people who really often like from working class backgrounds where they sacrificed so much during their life and then they die six months after retirement or die even before they retire. Right. And I can think of many stories like that where you don’t get to have the happy ending that you’ve sacrificed so much to have. Yeah, right. And so, you know, I think about that, too, in terms of when we think about financial planning and at retirement in the future is like I think so often people think that it has to be all or nothing like that. They have to sacrifice everything today to live till tomorrow or they tell themself a story, you know, of like everything’s going to be better tomorrow. And when I think about what you’re talking about of like values, connecting with what’s really important to you, letting that guide your savings, I also think like how powerful, but also let your money do those things for you today. Yeah, because we don’t know. We don’t know what the future is going to bring. But you know what’s important to you today, right? 

David [00:19:01] Yeah. Like so many things in life, the saving stuff is is about balancing. It’s not all or nothing. And it’s so easy for so many of us. I include myself in this. But to fall into all-or-nothing thinking, total black and white, super binary. I don’t know why I like that. Maybe that’s just easy for our brain to like understand and just like, Oh, I get it. It’s this. It’s in this box. Yes. And yes, it’s about balancing. It’s about, you know, saving up for like a trip or something in the next six months or 12 months and saving for retirement at the same time. Yes, it gets tricky. But you’re right. I mean, yeah, I mean, there’s like a number of sad stories that come to mind that, you know, it’s just like people that worked so hard to get to retirement and then they never got there. And again, like that is unlikely to happen, but it can happen. So, yeah, just sort of eyes wide open and balancing. 

Linzy [00:19:49] Yes. Yeah, I think about it like, you know, a therapy term we would use for that is like a both and. It’s a both and. Like it’s important both to enjoy your money today, let it do great things for today. And to save for your future. Right. For that that future version of you who might be hard to connect with, but who’s- they’re going to be you, just older, right? And so trying to connect with why it’s really important to be saving this money, what you want to give that person. And with this, David, like, you know something that you do and that you help folks with, which I do not do at all, is investing. Right. And what I notice is as folks build a better relation with money, like when they do the work that they do with me, which is building out that foundation, getting money working, being like, okay, this is my regular paycheck amount. Taxes are covered. Often folks start saving up money for retirement, feeling like they’re also making up for lost time. Right? So I work with lots of folks who feel like they’re making up for lost time. It’s like, I should have done this when I was 22. Now I’m 41. Shit. Okay, here we go. And getting into the investing world, it can be very intimidating, right? Yeah. For folks who are stepping into that, maybe for the first time, what’s the best way to start with investing? 

David [00:20:59] Yeah, so I think the world of investing is overwhelming and there is just so much, frankly, garbage information that is out there in terms of what to do with your money, whether it’s investing in the latest cryptocurrency or like the next new, you know, hot stock or hot tech company or whatever. There’s always so many people out there like throwing these these ideas. And, you know, it’s not to say that you can’t make a lot of money by investing in the right, you know, investing in Bitcoin at the right time, like ten years ago. Yeah, that that was a great outcome. But it’s very difficult and you might even say impossible. It’s just sort of predict what the next big thing is going to be. And there is a ton of academic research about around this like finances, its own academic discipline. And there’s a lot of really smart people, certainly smarter than me, that have been looking at, well, how do you invest prudently? Like what is the right thing to do? You know, this has been going on for decades. And the research is really is very clear that picking individual stocks or picking individual cryptocurrencies or, you know, investing in wine or art, all of these things are very unlikely to achieve big, you know, good outcomes over the long term. They might do okay for- you might get one pick, right? It might do okay for a couple of years, but especially when we think about saving for things like retirement, which for most of us is, you know, decades away, we need our investments to consistently increase over time. And so the best way to do that is to have a portfolio. And portfolio is just a fancy word for the investments that you have, invest in a highly diversified and kind of what I would call a passive way. And that means – and we’ll talk about tactically how to do this in a second – but what it means is that you’re not picking individual stocks, you’re not buying Bitcoin, you’re not day trading or any stuff like that. You’re just buying consistently over time. Like every time you issue that paycheck to yourself or however you run your finances. You say like, okay, I’m going to take a percentage of this. I’m going to put it in that mutual fund, which is highly diversified and passively managed. And I know because it is those things, it’s going to have low internal costs and it means that so I know I’m not giving my money to the managers of that fund. I’m giving some money, but not a lot of money to them. And costs like that matter a lot when you’re investing over the long term and you know that what’s going to happen is that you’re basically you hold the market as a whole kind of so you’ve basically invested in the entire stock market. And what’s going to happen is that there’s going to be some companies that, you know, kill it, like knock it out of the park that become, you know, the Googles and whatever. All those big tech companies you’re going to own that’s going to be in your portfolio. And when those 10x, 100x in value, you’re going to see some of that. There’s also going to be a lot of companies that go bankrupt or do really poorly. But overall, it’s going to be okay because you’re highly diversified and the market is going to do what the market does, which is – at least over the last 100-plus years – there’s a lot of ups and downs, like a lot of ups and downs. So be ready for that. Like, that is going to happen. It will not consistently increase in value each time, but when you kind of zoom out and look at decades, you’ll see that while there’s a lot of zigzags, a lot of ups and downs, what tends to happen is that the market goes up over time. And so when the market goes up over time, when you’ve invested in sort of a passive low-cost, highly diversified way, you participate in the overall growth of the market. And I think that’s what yields the best outcomes. 

Linzy [00:24:29] Yeah. And it’s very- it’s really not sexy. 

David [00:24:32] It is not. 

Linzy [00:24:33] Just to be like, I’m just going to put my money into literally everything. Just see how everything does. Yeah. And this is where I think, you know, sometimes people will fall into this thing of, you know, trying to outsmart the market. Right? Like trying to pick something, pick the next winner. Right. Is like, I can see why, you know, from almost like a control perspective of feeling like we can be effective. Yeah. We want to be able to do better than average, right? We want to be able to do something that has a big impact. And I do think with investing like business, there can be this get-rich-quick mentality that we can fall into thinking that we can do the right thing and everything’s going to be different. We’re going to like have it made. We’re going to be able to retire at 40 years old because we made one good choice. And as you say, statistically, that’s not how it works. Yeah, right. It might work like that for people who picked Bitcoin, but for every Bitcoin there’s, you know, 100 cryptocurrencies that went nowhere. Exactly. Or that people just lost all their money, you know, with all these markets, like so that kind of highly speculative investment, it has to be money that you, you don’t actually need. Yeah, right. You’re basically gambling at that point. 

David [00:25:38] Yeah it is. I think there is a distinction between gambling and investing, and gambling is like putting it all in red and just like spinning the wheel and seeing what happens. 

Linzy [00:25:45] Yes. 

David [00:25:45] And I think a lot of people think that’s what investing is. And I think you’re you’re right. It’s not sexy. It’s almost counterintuitive. I think Warren Buffett, who’s, you know, this famous investor, I think he said that I think he said this someone smart said this, that we sort of practice benign neglect, which is just like you invest in a diversified way. And then when the market drops, you know, it’s like, oh, the market drops like what’s the right thing to do? The right thing is nothing. 

Linzy [00:26:10] Nothing. 

David [00:26:10] And that’s so difficult because it just feels like things change and we’re like, I’ve got to do something right. Like there’s something I got to do. Yes. And what I always say is, like, therapists should make some of the best investors in the world. And the reason I say that is because the work of investing is not picking winners like you mentioned. It’s rather sitting with your emotions and getting comfortable with a range of emotional experiences around what your portfolio is doing and then doing nothing like this. 99 times out of 100, something happens and the right action is nothing. And you know, I also want to say just like that, that concept of making up for lost time, that’s something that I hear a lot and it sometimes is connected to the question of what should I invest in? Like I hear people say sometimes, like I hear you diversified investing, using target date funds from someone like Vanguard. I hear you that that kind of makes sense. But I mean, I really have to I have to make up for lost time. So, like, I, you know, I need to do something different. 

Linzy [00:27:09] Mm hmm. 

David [00:27:09] And for better or for worse, at least in my opinion. And I think my opinion is backed up by, like, tons of academic research. There isn’t anything. There isn’t anything you can do. I mean, you can kind of pull some levers in terms of like, how much risk you’re willing to take. What sort of the blend of like stock market or equity investing versus fixed income. Yeah. Like all that. But it’s- you can’t really make up for lost time. It’s sort of a philosophical statement almost. But, you know, Yeah, I think trying to make up for lost time can hurt people sometimes because they absolutely there’s like this piece of like desperation almost. It’s like, oh, I got to do this. And yeah, that oftentimes doesn’t work out very well. 

Linzy [00:27:50] No. And it’s a painful story, too, is what I notice when often people are carrying this story of making up for lost time is it’s like in that story there’s like, I failed. I didn’t do it right. And then, as you say, like, that’s where we can become desperate. Or I find, you know, in the work that I help people do, that’s where people can become really hard on themselves and they want to like they’re like, well, I didn’t get to my finances all year, so now I need to sit down for 6 hours and do my finances. Like they’re basically punishing themselves. 

David [00:28:18] Exactly. 

Linzy [00:28:18] That’s not actually how building a sustainable relationship works, right? And what I’m thinking with investing too, it’s like there can be grief totally for the fact that you lost some gains, right? That you didn’t invest when you were 20 and maybe the money, the interest you could have made between 20 and 35 would have been great. But you don’t have it, right. So as you say, like there’s that piece of like sitting with the emotion being like, that really sucks. I wish that I’d been different. Right? You know, like, we’re allowed to feel that way. But the solution isn’t to do something drastic. The solution, I think, is to be even steadier. Right. And even more committed to like, okay, you know, this is my my target. This is why it’s important to me. Like that value piece you talked about earlier, you know, and that’s, you know, something I’m curious about. If people do find themselves in the position where they work with a financial planner and they realize that to get where they need to be for retirement, they’re going to have to put aside quite a lot of money. Yeah, you know, what do you see? You know, thinking back to that values example used earlier, what are some of the ways that you’ve seen people really be able to succeed, maybe using some of that kind of like emotional piece we talked about earlier, the meaning or the values? 

David [00:29:23] I think connecting with values is really important. And I take folks through what I call a life planning process where we get. Really, we paint this vision of your near-term future, not just retirement, but the near-term future of what you’re wanting to create. So like looking into that, you know, connecting into those values, doing things like a vision board or like just having statements that you literally put somewhere like on the fridge door or on the bathroom mirror where you’re just like, continue to remind yourself of what you’re moving towards and why it’s important for you. And the other thing sort of links back to something that you said that this is about developing the relationship. It’s not about fixing everything overnight. It’s about I mean, I think there’s a piece of, you know, like the book Radical acceptance of just like accepting things, how they are like and just accepting that, like, the past can’t be any other way. Like the past is the past and just sort of like letting go of that and accepting that and then sort of you don’t need to like, quote unquote, fix everything overnight. Like if you’re spending too much money, it’s like, okay, well, let’s just like develop a practice of like coming back to it. Like, I sort of talk about having money dates with your software, like every week or so. You’ve got a scheduled time. It’s on the calendar. That you treat it with as much respect as you get sort of a client appointment. You’re just like, This is my time to sit down at money and look at things and then just begin to think like, okay, how can we change things? And, you know, sometimes there are, you know, painful changes that need to be made. And like, like that’s tough, you know, maybe the mortgage is really actually unaffordable. Like, you know, like, I think that’s like the biggest one that I see. Like, sometimes it’s like the housing the housing that we’re in actually doesn’t work with our overall financial plan. And so we need to change that. And that’s painful or can be. But also don’t don’t jump into action like too soon, don’t catastrophize, just sort of be like, okay, let’s just keep back and revisit, keep revisiting it and thinking like, okay, here’s what my numbers are. I kind of know what needs to happen. I need to keep moving in this direction. Doesn’t need to happen overnight because nothing really happens overnight anyway. So just like how do I keep moving myself closer and closer and Yeah, and just. And just have someone like a financial planner in your life. Or maybe it’s, you know, or a friend or an accountability buddy or something like that. Like having someone else in the conversation with you I think is really powerful. That’s why I have my own financial planner because like, yeah, I could do it myself, but like I need someone who doesn’t live between my two years to be like in this conversation because it be like I get emotional about this stuff too, and sometimes I catastrophize, you know, things happen and it’s like having an outside party who is not as hooked into the emotions, who can be like, okay, we’re going to take a deep breath, look at the reality of the situation and think about what we can do to get closer to where we want to be. 

Linzy [00:32:02] Yeah, like I’m hearing, you know, a kind of a sustained being with, you’re talking about like, yeah, it’s building of that tolerance to keep being with it. It’s not about being with the problem once and making some drastic move and then it’s fixed and you don’t have to do it again. Like, Yes, you know, our relationship with money is an ongoing relationship. Yes. And so it’s that like, yeah, coming back to it, being curious like something curiosity is something I always encourage because I was a trauma therapist, is the type of therapy I used to do. And so curiosity can be really good at disarming anxiety and getting our problem-solving brain back online. Right. And being curious is like, okay, well, like what if this, what if that, how can that get me closer to where I want to be? What if I did sell my house? What if we did move into a condo? Would actually be a relief in some ways. Yeah, right. And again, I feel like that grief piece comes up again of like, sometimes we do have to grieve. Grieve that like our situation is unsustainable. Grieve that we have to make a certain decision to create more sustainability. That means we have to let something go. But therapists are good at that. Yeah, we do the feelings professionally. So what I’m hearing from you is like we have the capacity to do that. 

David [00:33:06] Absolutely. Yeah. What I always say is like finances, both in your practice and your personal finances. It’s not a project to complete, like it’s a practice to develop because it like it’s never for better or for worse. Like it never it never ends. Yes. It’s just something that we have to incorporate as part of our lives. 

Linzy [00:33:22] Absolutely. Yeah. David, for folks who want to get more into your world or learn more about you, where can they find you? 

David [00:33:29] Yeah, the best place to find me is just on my website. The name of my firm is Turning Point, so the website is turningpointHQ.com. So HQ like abbreviation for headquarters, TurningpointHQ.com. I’ve got like a bunch of blogs, free resources and guides on there. And more information about what working with me one-on-one would look like. 

Linzy [00:33:46] Wonderful. Thank you so much. I really I really enjoyed this conversation today and I think our listeners are really going to appreciate it. 

David [00:33:51] This was a lot of fun. Thanks for having me. 

Linzy [00:34:06] Feel like David was really speaking my language. In terms of just the value of being able to be with your money. Feel the feelings like let that happen and then come back to it and keep working on it. That emotional piece, as you mentioned, is unavoidable, right? Inevitably, we’re going to have emotions about our money. And I really loved his point that at the end of the day, humans are emotional. Like, why do we do the things that we do to have certain emotional experiences? Right. So that is part of our relationship with money. So being connected to that and noticing, okay, your money right now is giving you negative hard feelings, maybe. What are the emotions you want your money to give you and how can your money support you? And like, living those values that gives you certain emotional experiences is a very clarifying and grounding way to think about what our money can do for us. You can follow me on Instagram @moneynutsandbolts. If you want more from me and if you want some support from a free resource for me with the emotional part of money which David and I talked about today quite a bit, you can check out my free mini training, The Secret to Getting Unstuck in Your Finances. This is a mini course that supports you in being with your emotions around money, identifying what’s there for you, and looking at how to start to shift your emotional relationship to money. This is really the first step I find with being able to learn financial skills is work on the emotional piece. See what’s there. Start to shift your emotions around money. So that’s secret to getting unstuck in your finances money training. I will put the link to it in the show notes, but you can find it at workshops.Moneyskillsfortherapists.com/gettingunstuck. Or click on the link to show notes to get that getting unstuck in your finances mini training today. Thanks for listening. 

Omolara [00:00:01] How do we make sure that these practices that we have, how do we really make sure that they become not only impactful to patients but impactful to populations? Right. And the way to do that, a lot of times, the easier way to do that is through these partnerships, because it’s just so much slower to try and get one by one by one by one to make the impact that I think a lot of your listeners really want to make. 

Linzy [00:00:28] Welcome to the Money Skills for Therapists podcast, where we answer this question How can therapists and health practitioners go from money shame and confusion, to feeling calm and confident about their finances and get money really working for them in both their private practice and their lives? I’m your host, Linzy Bonham, therapist turned money coach and creator of the course Money Skills for Therapists. Hello and welcome back to the podcast. So today’s guest is Dr. Omolara Thomas Uwemedimo. She is a pediatrician and professor turned health equity entrepreneur and funding consultant who helps mission driven health practitioners, like the folks who are listening to this podcast, connect with funding to be able to do the work that we do. Today we get into how to partner with nonprofits to be able to serve the folks that you love to serve. This episode is going to be so great for folks if you serve a population who typically cannot pay very much for therapy, if it’s really hard for you to serve the folks that you love to serve and that you’re passionate about serving while also getting paid enough to be okay, to have that financial stability that we talk about on this practice. Dr. Omolara brings this really interesting solution to this equation. By teaching how to partner with nonprofits and get access to grants and money that are out there, you know, that is available to serve those folks that you love to serve. And by creating these partnerships, you can have access to serving these populations that often are underserved and could really use your expertise. She gives us a rundown today on kind of the world of the contracts that are out there, what this looks like. We talked about mindset shifts for pricing contracts when you’re moving into doing contract work and bringing your expertise to organizations in this new way. And this really does strike me as a beautiful solution to maintain access for folks while also making sure that you are being paid well for your expertise and also that you’re able to increase your impact by taking the expertise that you might take for granted sitting alone in your office, just being really good at what you do and not necessarily recognizing that taking that expertise and not just being able to access funding to allow you or your team to serve folks directly like direct clinical services or therapeutic services to the folks that serve. But also you being able to go in and start to train people who work with a population that you know so much about. So like so many so many possibilities here to expand your impact through this world of contracts. Here’s my conversation with Dr. Omolara Thomas Uwemedimo. So, Dr. Omolara, welcome to the podcast. 

Omolara [00:03:28] Thank you so much. I’m super excited to be here. 

Linzy [00:03:32] I’m really excited to have you here. And we were just chatting just a little bit before we started recording that. I’m excited because what you teach, like this world that you help folks access, is a world I certainly know very little about. And I think the folks who are listening are also going to be new. So can you tell us a little bit more, just give us like that intro to these health contracts and yeah, this world that you help folks navigate? 

Omolara [00:04:01] Yeah, I think the best way to frame it is always – and this probably comes from my medical background – is a case vignette. 

Linzy [00:04:09] Beautiful. 

Omolara [00:04:10] And I can use kind of how I got into this, you know, Strong Children Wellness is my practice. And ultimately when myself and my co-founders were thinking about how do we get the initial capital to really start our practice, which I’ll share a lot about more later, we really were very, of course, hesitant about getting into debt because of course as medical doctors. Yeah, yeah, a lot of trauma there. Yeah. 

Linzy [00:04:37] Yeah. You probably have a little bit of debt already, right? Yes. Yeah. 

Omolara [00:04:40] And so ultimately, one of the things that we had all brought from our academic lens was the fact that we had really always, when we were starting programs, try to get grants. And what we found from that was that we had this opportunity, even as a for-profit, to partner with nonprofits that were serving the populations that we wanted to serve. And actually, as they would seek grants, they would bring us on as contractors to be able to deliver the services. So primarily the work that we do now is really trying to make sure that we can develop these partnerships. I like to call them for-profit nonprofit partnerships or as profitable practice partnerships where you have a target population that a nonprofit has. And now you guys can come together, but there’s this pot of funding that only the nonprofit, a lot of times, can access, right? They’re able to bring you in and develop a contract. The other way that we’ve seen this is that sometimes even if a grant is not available or there’s not a past funder, a lot of nonprofits are doing really well, but really struggle with bringing mental health services, other services in for their clientele that they know will absolutely be transformational. And so even in their own budgets, they usually will be open to being able to subcontract these practices and have retainers, which provides recurring stable revenue. That you can have and know – a lot which allows for you to diversify your income streams – Of course, from just patients to these partner organizations or income streams. That’s right. Yeah. That ability of the practice. 

Linzy [00:06:28] Well, it’s something that immediately comes to mind for me is I know a lot of folks who listen to this podcast can struggle with the question of like how you make the business work well, so that you are financially okay, right? And so you’re not living much hand-to-mouth, but also serve the folks you love to serve. And what sometimes folks end up having to do is pivot. They end up having to serve different people who can’t actually pay them what they need to be paid. But when you have like a passion for serving people who are never going to be able to pay you $200 per hour, what I’m hearing here is like, this is this beautiful opportunity because there is funding for those folks to be served. There are nonprofits already focusing on those folks that are in a position to get money to pay for services that those clients can’t necessarily pay for themselves. So it sounds like this beautiful bridge to be able to serve the folks who literally can’t pay out of pocket for services, but who might be the people that you personally, as a therapist, would love to keep serving? 

Omolara [00:07:24] Yeah, I talk about these costs like I do a math class and I’m always talking about these three costs that when you’re you aren’t able to navigate your practice by doing both profit and purpose, that there seems to be a cost that you’ll have. And the one that you mention is the access cost, right? The cost where, because I’m focused on profitability, which we need to be focused on business, we don’t because we haven’t had an expanded view of where we can get our cash flow, we aren’t able to provide that accessibility to those that maybe we were even called to serve when we entered the profession. And then you have that quality cost, which is really around the fact that you are working so hard and you’re having these really small margins of profit that you can’t- you don’t really have the bandwidth to bring in the types of services that you know would improve the quality and impact for your clientele. And so those are the things that become really difficult for our families and for a lot of the practices who want to serve that. 

Linzy [00:08:31] Yeah, absolutely. And I think that access piece ends up being a piece that some folks end up having to let go because of those other pieces you’re talking about. So this sounds like this beautiful bridge. So for folks who are listening and they’re like, okay, I’m here, I now understand that there is this like other pot of money. There’s this other avenue to be able to build your business serving folks who are not going to be out of pocket people. How can therapists start to approach, you know, this world? Like where do you start to start to be able to create these partnerships you’re talking about? 

Omolara [00:09:05] So where do you start? So I think the biggest place that we try to start is being able to start to survey who it is. I like to say the riches are in the niches. 

Linzy [00:09:16] Yes. 

Omolara [00:09:16] So, thinking about your practice, right, and thinking about where is the gap? So where is that moral tension? So what I mean by that is, you’re serving people, but there might be groups that you’re just like, I wish we could get to these people. This looks so different from many of the practices we’ve had, people who want to work with domestic violence survivors or want to work with immigrants that want to work with those different populations. There could be certain ethnic groups that aren’t getting to them, youth, other things. And so ultimately what you want to do is identify who is that population. And then what you want to do is you want to start to survey and look at who are the organizations that actually are already bought in and connected to those populations. And once you do that, then the goal is for us to be able to start to think about, okay, these are the populations, this is who I want to serve. Now, how do we get in front of the decision makers? That’s a lot of the work that we do in terms of how they put together, like the right email and elevator pitch and being able to connect with them. And once that connection is made, that allows me to have discovery and start to find out where the synergies are, Right? 

Linzy [00:10:28] Yeah. Well, it’s, you know, as you’re talking, I was down with COVID a couple weeks ago and I feel like I’m still coming back up. So I like, you know, I had a forced horizontal holiday is what my grandmother used to call them, where you’re just like, I am on the couch. This is where I live. And while I was on the couch, I read two business books, which I don’t generally advocate to do when you’re down. But my brain was looking for stimulation, and I read a book which is like an entrepreneurial book called Who Not How. And that’s coming to mind for me as you’re talking, because the premise of that book is basically if you have a problem – and in this case the problem is like, I really want to serve folks who are survivors of domestic violence, but I know that they can’t pay me what I need to get paid to live. How do I do that? The book would say, Don’t ask yourself how. Ask who? Who can help you solve this problem? And what I’m hearing is the who in this case would be these like nonprofits that already have these established relationships with funders and already are in this world. That’s like a beautiful relationship that you can form, which is going to let you serve those folks right and and access that funding by connecting people who are already in that world, who already have access to those resources, which makes so much sense. 

Omolara [00:11:36] Yes. And I think one of the things around this in particular is being able to just not be as limited. I think a lot of the times what we do as practitioners is we see what has worked for other people and it takes away our creativity. Okay, this is how you’re supposed to open a practice. This is what it’s supposed to look like. It’s supposed to either be private pay or insurance. And then, you know, we’re supposed to just build up and grow by volume by any means necessary. And what this allows for people to do, I like to say, is it allows for them to expand outside of just clinical care. Why I say that is because I think many of your listeners probably already know the term social determinants of health and know about this idea that health outcomes, whether it be mental health or physical health outcomes, only 20% is actually due to clinical care. And 80% is due to all of these other things: where they live, work, play, how they move throughout the world. And my goal is really for us to think about – if we want to make impact in our patients lives – thinking really broadly, does that include training, you know, staff at other organizations about how to address mental health? Does it include health education? Does it include consulting with these organizations to be able to help them think about how they can do maybe psychological first aid or support? So all of us have expertise that we’ve built up over this time that- clinical care is like minuscule. It’s probably the lowest hanging fruit of what we’ve accomplished and what we have to give to organizations. 

Linzy [00:13:17] I think, you know, that’s such a good reminder to have, because I think so often, too, I know, you know folks who tend to be around in my world tend to be perfectionistic and we can be hard on ourselves and we’re always thinking about the things we don’t know and that new training that we want to take or that client that we couldn’t really figure out how to help them. And we’re not necessarily owning that expertise that we’ve honed over years or decades. The things that we just live and breathe everyday that for other professionals or other folks would be a total revelation, right? Would blow their minds. 

Omolara [00:13:50] Exactly. And sometimes it’s easy in the way that we do that and think about the funding piece is starting to think about, you know, what are the populations that you’re already serving who a lot of other practices have difficulty serving or have a lot of or don’t serve. And you just always like they seem to just have great outcomes when they-[cuts out]. And then starting to break down what is it that I actually do like, What do we do differently, whether it be how we structure our practice or how we engage and start to build out what your framework is. Because once you’re in that, that becomes something that is actually sellable to other organizations, whether it be through trainings, whether it be through the education piece that you probably insert into your practice that you don’t realize. All of those things. I think the funnest part about doing this is being innovative about the contracts and like, okay, what is the service offer? What are the service offerings that we really think are going to be the highest impact for reaching these populations through these organizations? 

Linzy [00:14:57] Yeah. So, you know, as people step into this work, something that occurs to me is they’re going to have to move into thinking about contracts rather than hours. So I’m curious, like from your work of supporting folks making this shift, like what are the mindset shifts that need to happen as they start to move into pricing out a contract rather than like a clinical hour? 

Omolara [00:15:18] That is that’s a good question. I didn’t even like think about that- should but yeah and it comes up of course. I didn’t think about that. So I think one of the biggest things for our practice owners is getting used to the numbers. Numbers are big where we do contracts with organizations and they’re kind of like, someone’s going to pay this? 

Linzy [00:15:38] Yes. 

Omolara [00:15:40] That’s the first thing. I’m like, Yes, this is extremely valuable. So I think thinking one of the parts is paying like getting money for value instead of money for time, which is what we are used to as clinicians getting money for time. And so what I try to think about and help them think about is let’s do- let’s say you weren’t able to provide this, what would that organization have to do to pay someone to come in full time and do this work that you’re doing and let’s compare? And they’re like, Oh yeah, they’re going to need to hire this type of person. They’ll probably need this. And then we start to see how big that number is. And you’re like, Oh, okay, this is why this number is so big, because there’s a certain level of value not only on how much it’s going to cost, but also trying to position what is it after you do this that they’re going to be able to do? And so when we start to do that, then it starts to unravel and say, okay, value based pricing, not time based pricing is the first probably mindset shift. The other piece that we start to think about as well is thinking about not their rate as a clinician, but their rate as a consultant and starting to back into what those numbers cost. So we usually think about what is your ideal salary as a consultant? What is the number of hours that you can do this work? And we actually do the math of that into what their hourly rate is, not in a way that needs to be broadcast in the contract. But as we think about how many hours they’re contributing to the work, we’re able to now insert that in so that we can price it accordingly, make sure that they’re getting the salary they deserve, but also making sure they are able to, you know, keep that as something internal for them, but also allow for these contracts to make sure that they have the right pricing and they’re not underpriced. I often say to my clients that underpricing can actually make you lose contracts. 

Linzy [00:17:47] Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there is something about kind of the authority, right, of really owning what I’m going to do has been really valuable, you know, being rooted in, Okay if they had to do this without my help, they’d be bringing in a full-timer for a whole year and they would have to have these kinds of resources. Yeah, like you really sitting in that and putting out a price that’s a kind of respectable price. It’s so true, because if people see the cheapest, like the cheapest doesn’t have a connotation of quality to it, they don’t expect the best if you go with the cheapest. So yeah, and that values-based piece I think is so so important because something that occurs to me too, with with this opportunity, this way of expanding your practice, is it really is scalable. Right? And that’s something we kind of talk about in the business world a little bit. It’s scalable, kind of the same way that like a course is scalable where you are now doing like possibly one too many education, like you were coming in and you’re bringing your expertise that you’ve honed over the last five years and you’re training like 150 of their staff to now be able to like implement a new approach or, you know, whatever it is that you’re bringing in your expertise, you are multiplying your impact so much. And so that is worth so, so much, that organization and really recognizing that impact. 

Omolara [00:19:04] Yeah. And then I think other people don’t think about. So I like to say that our work helps improve revenue, reach, and impact. And the reach part I think is really important also in terms of thinking about making these partnerships and it becoming almost this referral ecosystem, right? That not only provides a new revenue stream through contracts, but also allows for your name to come up and be the go-to like if they do have clients that actually are able to come in to your services on their own. So I think it’s really important. And one of the things that’s happened for us is that we as a practice, I don’t think we’ve done social media marketing since like 2022 or something like that. It’s great. We have 20% monthly growth, but it’s because we- it’s not because we don’t market, but because this type of marketing, right, is just having calls with different organizations that are aligned has now allowed for us to be able to have our name in the community as the go-to for this. And so whether that be people that we access through organizations or people who access organizations and then we become the referral to come through. So I just want to point out that this also has this dual fold benefit of a new revenue stream, but also really supplying a distribution channel towards your original revenue stream as well. 

Linzy [00:20:30] Absolutely. Yeah. And you know, in my mind that’s some of the best type of marketing, which is just pure relationship building, right? Like you’ve just really you’ve built relationships that allow you to actually get in front of people and they know who you are. They have a real sense of you and your expertise like you’ve, you know, you’ve built up your expertise and your reputation by just doing what you do best, which is the actual work that you do. 

Omolara [00:20:51] Exactly. It’s been interesting because I think, you know, a lot of our work has really focused on. So I like to say our theory of change. I’m very into health justice. Our theory of change for health justice, specifically for communities of color, is increasing the presence and reach of diverse teams, diverse clinicians. And so I’m always just trying to think about how do we make sure that these practices that we have, if that’s your goal, how do we really make sure that they become not only impactful to patients but impactful to populations? Right? And the way to do that, a lot of times the easier way to do that is through these partnerships because it’s just so much slower to try and get one by one by one by one to make the impact that I think a lot of your listeners really want to make. 

Linzy [00:21:44] Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, part of what I’m hearing with this is there’s this funding that’s kind of out there that, you know, as an individual sitting in my office by myself, I don’t have access to, but by, you know, building these relationships, we then have access to these funding conversations that are already kind of happening that just right now we’re not privy to. I’m curious, like, what what is the size of these kinds of grants that exist? Like how much money are we talking about that is out there for the kind of folks we might love to serve? 

Omolara [00:22:14] Yeah, it depends, honestly. So we’ve had people who work with us for six months and they’ve gotten like $600,000 in grants and contracts. We’ve got people who worked with us for three months and have gotten $250 or, you know, I think what it looks like usually the midpoint is probably $100,000. Yeah. And what we do is we try to make sure that you’re not putting all your time and energy in one bucket. So we try to have at least a quarter in five organizations who are target organizations. And that way not only are you bringing our services to them to say, Hey, there’s an opportunity to partner, what also happens is that now that we’re on their radar, we might find two of those organizations who are like, Yeah, we have the bandwidth. We want to bring you in. We’re going to go through our budget and bring you in that way. We might have two other organizations who are like, We don’t have that funding yet, but we’re going to go to our past funder. Even though there’s not a grant available right now, we can go to a past funder and tell them this is a new opportunity. And usually those past funders, because that organization already has showed, you know, impact, they’re easily willing to actually give another 125, 150,000 to start this programing and move that forward. And what happens is, while that money is coming through, when you’re delivering those organizations, you usually are working with the development office to identify more funding for the future in order to keep you going. Because I like to say that a lot of it you can have either bigger contracts or even some smaller ones, about 50 or so that are what we call gateway contracts. And what that is. It means that you might- it might be training, it might be education for six months. What that looks like is you getting your foot in the door, them falling in love with your work. 

Linzy [00:24:08] Yes, Yes. 

Omolara [00:24:10] And then, okay, we have to we just have to find the funding to keep going. Right. 

Linzy [00:24:14] Got to keep it rolling. 

Omolara [00:24:15] So I like to say that most people from like a small contract to now having, you know, years and years. Some of our contracts right now are at the three-year mark at this point. It’s because they now can’t see their organization without the service that you provide. 

Linzy [00:24:33] Right. And I’m curious like to be really tangible about you know what these contracts are tied to, like say like a $100,000 contract. Would that be for education and training? Are we talking service contracts? Like what are some of the specific examples just to get folks like really get their wheels turning on what they can be offering these organizations? 

Omolara [00:24:52] Yeah. So if we look at the like gradation of price, basically your smallest contract is usually going to be maybe a health education contract. So what I like to say is usually we don’t price our contracts any less than, you know, take a month or something like that. And we don’t we don’t actually like to have our contracts any less than six months. You know, it depends because it always depends on the model, the modality of how you’re delivering that education. That’s always important. And what that looks like is kind of the baseline. The next here is usually training. So training staff at an organization, even training leadership at an organization that is usually next tier and garners you a lot more per month, maybe somewhere between the 20 to 30,000 or more monthly retainers. Then the next step is consultation. So leadership where you might be brought on because you’re a mental health specialist in LGBTQ mental health and they are seeing that there’s a lot more of those populations and they want to figure out kind of how to work their services to be more informed. So instead of providing services, you are talking to the leadership, giving them support on how they need to format their programs. The highest here is direct services because we know teams are needed, people are needed. So that usually starts to garner you probably the 50 K per month or more, depending on how intense that is. A lot of times what we recommend is people not directly providing the one one-on-one therapy, but that looks like dropping groups or close cohort groups where it’s like cohorts or it looks like evaluations and assessments to see where they’re at and then usually they’re funneled into your practice potentially to be able to get more ongoing psychotherapy. So that level of care. So that’s kind of the gradation that we usually see. Those numbers are very different of course, depending on what it looks like. But yeah, so as you can imagine, the cash flow piece becomes really much better tool where they’re able to know for the next 6 to 12 months. This is coming in regardless of like how many patients I see. The last thing I did want to say is that, how I always like to position these contracts is that as a solopreneur or whatever kind of practice you have or group practice, our goal is to make sure that these projects don’t rely on you. So a lot of times we insert a therapist or a staff or other staff member who will be able to deliver this, right? And so that then allows for you to make hires with the money in hand and de-risk the hiring process. 

Linzy [00:27:48] Yes. Yeah. We don’t want to just give you thousands of sessions a month to do. That’s not good. Yeah. Yeah. So also what I’m hearing too, is like helping to make sure that folks are taking on these contracts in sustainable ways. Right. And you have the right people in place to be able to fulfill the contracts without, you know, burning yourself out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Omolara [00:28:09] Very important. 

Linzy [00:28:10] Very important. So this is all very cool. It’s a lot of information, like it’s a whole other world. So for folks who are listening, if they’re curious about learning more about what you do, more about this world, where can they find you? 

Omolara [00:28:23] Yeah. So I’m- my stomping grounds are usually on LinkedIn, but we have a quick links and resources. It’s bit.ly/melaninandmedicine. Or you can just go to melanin and medicine dot co. So that’s melaninandmedicine.co. I’m on LinkedIn, on that quick resources, you can find all the places that we’re at. But yeah, I think, you know, we do masterclasses every month. We have an on-demand webinar so that you can learn about the process because like you said, it’s a lot of information, but at least there you can pause it. 

Linzy [00:29:00] Yes, Yes. 

Omolara [00:29:03] So yeah. 

Linzy [00:29:04] Awesome. Yeah. And I did. I was looking at your website this morning and you’ve got like a whole range of ways to support folks with getting into this world, which is so exciting. 

Omolara [00:29:12] And we also have a podcast too. 

Linzy [00:29:15] So we’ll put all those links in the show notes so that folks can easily find you. Thank you so much, Dr. Omolara. This was like so informative today. Really, I’m sure folks’ wheels are turning. 

Omolara [00:29:25] Thank you so much for the opportunity. I’m just trying to get this information out to so many more of us. So thank you. 

Linzy [00:29:31] Thank you. Something that really sticks out to me from this conversation is it’s easy for us as health practitioners, kind of, you know, in our own little silos, sitting in our office, to forget that there’s this whole huge world out there of funding that exists to serve the folks that we are passionate about serving. So really appreciated Dr. Omolara’s perspective today and just this world, you know, that she helps folks navigate of being able to form these relationships, These, as I named them, how I’m thinking about them is these who do not have relationships, who is already in touch with the folks that you love to serve and who already is in a position to get this funding that you can get on your own, creating those beautiful relationships so that you can bring your expertise to the folks who already are serving or interfacing with the people that you know so well, how to serve, and also bring you into contact with funding to give you stable income into your business to do what you do best. So lots of really cool possibilities out there and I hope that some folks listening today are inspired to go out and start to pursue these opportunities and and let your expertise reach more and more people who will benefit so much from what you do. You can follow me on Instagram @moneynutsandbolts. And if you’re enjoying the podcast, it really, really, really helps if you could take 2 minutes to jump over to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review. That is the best way for new folks to find us and be part of these conversations. Thanks for listening today. 

Christine [00:00:02] What people don’t always think about or don’t realize is that even if you don’t take insurance, that doesn’t mean your clients can’t use their insurance benefits to help cover part of the costs. A lot of people have what’s called out-of-network benefits, where they’re able to actually get reimbursed up to 80% of the cost of a therapy session once they meet their deductible. 

Linzy [00:00:28] Welcome to the Money Skills for Therapists podcast, where we answer this question: How can therapists and health practitioners go from money shame and confusion, to feeling calm and confident about their finances and get money really working for them in both their private practice and their lives? I’m your host, Linzy Bonham, therapist turned money coach and creator of the course Money Skills for Therapists. Hello and welcome back to the podcast. So today on the podcast we have Christine Li. Christine Li is not a therapist and she’s not a financial professional either. She’s the founder and CEO of Mentaya. Christine is an advocate for mental health. Growing up, she witnessed many of her friends fall victim to teen suicide and saw the impacts that mental health was having on the lives of the people around her. When she stepped out of her work at Google, she thought about becoming a therapist, but then thought maybe she could use her tech skills to support therapists who she’s always seen as making the world better. And she saw that while so many companies were spending their tech know-how to make therapy cheaper at the expense of therapists, none of them were actually doing anything that made therapists’ lives better. So she went about a mission of trying to create tech that actually improves the work that we do as therapists. And I think she’s been really successful. Today on our episode, Christine and I talked about how therapists can be very black and white in the way that they think about insurance in the United States. It’s like you’re either an insurance therapist who’s on insurance or you’re an out-of-pocket, maybe a premium fee therapist who’s not and has nothing to do with insurance. And we talked today about how there’s this huge gray area in between where we can support clients, even if you are not taking insurance, through helping them to understand and use their out-of-network. And Mentaya’s thing is making that as painless for clients and therapists as possible. We talk about the benefits that your clients may have through their out-of-network benefits that many of us don’t even know about, and that, hey, American therapists who are listening, you yourself might even have out-of-network benefits that you don’t realize that you have, that could get you reimbursed for health care that you’re accessing. And we also talk about just the benefit as private practice owners of making insurance easier for your clients. This is so often something that our clients, if they’re having to navigate insurance through like super bills and dealing with insurance companies, that’s really stressful for them as well. And we talked about how you as a private practice owner and a business owner, it’s beneficial for you and your clients when you also help them make it that part of your financial relationship easier. Here is my conversation with Christine Li. So, Christine, welcome to the podcast. 

Christine [00:03:27] Thank you so much for having me. 

Linzy [00:03:29] I’m really excited to have you here because, you know, I know part of what we’re going to chat about today is therapists and insurance. And you are someone who helps with this kind of like puzzle or challenge that therapists have with insurance. But you are not a therapist. 

Christine [00:03:44] No. 

Linzy [00:03:45] Yes, I’m excited about that because I feel like you’re going to have like a different perspective, you know, like those of us who are in the therapist’s world are so, like, soaked in certain ways of thinking about these things. But you are someone who’s kind of come from outside of the space to help us with this challenge. So I’m sure you probably have some, like different ways of looking or thinking about these things, having worked with therapists, that we might not see. 

Christine [00:04:08] No, for sure, I mean, I think it’s sometimes really useful too, because when you’re in a, you know, you’re surrounded by people who are all thinking similarly and you have been educated and trained to think in certain ways that it’s sometimes helpful to have an outside perspective, like you said. 

Linzy [00:04:21] Yeah, absolutely. So thinking then about therapists and insurance, what have you seen from the folks that you work with at Mentaya that you support at Mentaya? Why do you see therapists really grappling with insurance and if they should take insurance? What have you noticed about that relationship? 

Christine [00:04:38] I have talked to, I don’t know, hundreds, I think, up there, because at this point I wanted to become a therapist myself at some point. I still do, I think, later on. But one thing that I was really surprised by is this discomfort with money almost, where it’s almost like because you want to help people, there’s- I don’t know if it’s shame or discomfort around like wanting to pay yourself a lot and wanting to- like everyone wants to make a great living and be financially free. But also there’s this like problem of accessibility. Obviously, as a therapist, you want to be accessible to more than just people who can afford a certain rate. And so I think that’s where a lot of the difficulty of, you know, do I take insurance to try to be a little bit more accessible or do I do private pay and sort of prioritize my own needs and, you know, financial freedom for myself? And so I think that’s sort of the problem I hear a lot of therapists grappling with. 

Linzy [00:05:38] Yeah, I think, like we often see those things as like an opposition, right? It’s like I’m either helping other people, but then I’m not going to be able to make very much money. But that’s like kind of I’m mission-oriented or I have to think about my own financial needs and I’m going to have to make these tough decisions and prioritize myself instead of my clients. 

Christine [00:05:57] Yeah, I think that’s the that’s like a very prevalent way of thinking, I think from what I’ve heard from therapists. But it doesn’t it doesn’t have to be it. I mean, it sucks to have to be able to pick between like I make a great living for myself versus I’m accessible to people. And that’s a big thing of what we’re trying to bridge with Mentaya.  

Linzy [00:06:15] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I think people see insurance is, you know, the way for and I will say American therapist because I’m in Canada it’s different here but it is I think the way like insurance equals accessible is kind of like the, the way that, that we tend to think about it and that if you’re not on insurance then you’re not accessible. 

Christine [00:06:33] That’s yeah, that’s definitely what I’ve heard from a lot of therapists. I think what people don’t always think about or don’t realize is that even if you don’t take insurance, that doesn’t mean your clients can’t use their insurance benefits to cover part of the costs. A lot of people have what’s called out-of-network benefits, and they’re able to actually get reimbursed up to 80% of the cost of of therapy sessions once they meet their deductible. And a lot of therapists either don’t realize or they kind of know, but they’re like, oh, my clients will handle it. Yeah. So you’re really making the decision and thinking to yourself, Do I take insurance? Do I not? That’s not really factored in. And on top of that, one thing that I think I heard recently from a therapist is, oh, because I’m able to, you know, charge my full rate, I don’t take insurance. I can do a few pro-bono cases or charge very, very little for people who don’t even have insurance. And so you can serve different types of populations if you don’t take insurance as well. And I don’t think that’s something that people really think about. 

Linzy [00:07:33] Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So this this piece, this out of networks benefits is important because I know, having worked with therapists over the last five years, teaching Money Skills for Therapists and not being American myself, it’s like I’ve kind of heard like, whispers of like, well, there’s like, out-of-network benefits and like, super bills. I’ve heard these words. I have a sense now of what they mean. But what you just said is something that is new information that I think bears repeating, that many people, if they have out-of-network benefits, you’re saying they can get reimbursed for like 80% of seeing you, even if you’re not on insurance, if they have out-of-network benefits? Can you talk like more about how common that is? Like, how much can we assume that folks have this kind of coverage? 

Christine [00:08:16] Yeah, so it really depends on the person. What we do know is most people have out-of-network benefits. They usually have to meet some sort of deductible, whether it’s $500, $1000, even a couple of thousand, which might sound high, but that’s only, you know, a dozen therapy sessions and you’re able to make it deductible. And then after that, they can actually get reimbursed up to 80%. We’ve seen, I think, as high as 90%. But sometimes it’s on average, we’ve seen closer to, you know, 60 to 70% reimbursement. But that’s still- I don’t, you know, I don’t know how much you’re charging in Canada and the U.S., I’m in San Francisco. And so it’s, first of all, impossible to find a therapist who takes insurance here because the cost of living is so high. And so most therapists charge $200, $250 a session and people are able to get over $100 back per session with their out-of-network benefits. And most people have them. Most people don’t know they have them because, you know, the US health care system is not designed to be particularly consumer friendly.  

Linzy [00:09:16] What? I have only heard good things. No. Yeah, absolutely. So it’s like it might be even that somebody that you’re talking to on the phone, like let’s say that you don’t take insurance or you don’t take a certain insurance and you’re talking to somebody on the phone. So it’s possible that a potential client might even have some coverage for you. Like what I’m hearing is once they meet their deductible, which is going to vary, they might have coverage for you that they don’t even know about because they think that they can only see a therapist who is like in their network. 

Christine [00:09:44] Yeah, because if you think about it from, you know, the average person, consumers perspective, most other services you go to like you go to your PCP or your gynecologist or whatever doctor, a lot of doctors take insurance because, you know, they’ve been able to somehow negotiate rates high enough to make that sustainable for themselves. And so it’s there is no real understanding of out of network because you’re like, okay, either they take insurance, I give them my insurance card and then I don’t really know what happens in back office for doctor’s offices. But I just get my co-pay and that’s it. So that’s people’s impression of, you know, taking insurance and that if you don’t take insurance and you say, oh, I’m cash pay, you know, you pay my full rate, people are like, okay, I either find a therapist who takes insurance, which is, you know, can be difficult to find. Or I just have to pay someone’s full cash rate. There’s not a real understanding of, oh, there’s something in between where you can pay their full cash rate and then get reimbursed afterwards. You have to submit claims to insurance. You have to understand your insurance benefits. It’s kind of complicated, which is why most people don’t know about it. 

Linzy [00:10:46] Yeah, because, like, I’m so used to hearing folks talk about this in black and white terms, unlike in in the therapy world, in our little kind of goldfish bowl. And that, you know, I occupy with some other folks. There’s a lot of debate and I think I’d like a lot kind of like black and white of like take insurance or don’t take insurance, right? Like you’re full fee or your premium, or you like, take insurance, but you’re not going to get paid well. And it’s kind of like people feel like they have to pick one of those routes. Am I going to be like service based and I get paid well, but that’s worth it? Or am I going to like, be out of pocket and only be able to serve people a certain income bracket? It’s black and white. What I’m hearing from you is there’s this like big gray area in the middle that I think most people don’t know about. 

Christine [00:11:28] Yeah, a lot of people don’t necessarily think about that because, I mean, as a therapist, I’m sure a lot of therapists have heard of the concept of super bills. I think a lot of therapists who are private pay in insurance or don’t take, you know, all insurances, they only take some they have some concept of a super bill. It’s like, Oh, I can just give you this bill. And, you know, you have to figure it out yourself. 

Linzy [00:11:49] You deal with it. Exactly. 

Christine [00:11:51] Which, you know, I guess because obviously if you’re not taking insurance, you don’t want to deal with insurance. And so you’re like, all right, here’s some bill. Hey, client, go figure it out yourself. Yeah, but the average client is not going to understand how to even see if they have these benefits, how to even submit super bills. I have so many friends since I’ve started Mentaya that I’ve been telling about, like, Hey, you have out-of-network benefits. You can submit super bills. And they’re like, What is that? Or like, I think my therapist gave me some sort of super bill, but I don’t know what to do with it. Yeah, I think there is this lack of almost education around this whole. 

Linzy [00:12:22] Yeah, absolutely. That’s what I was thinking is like there’s lack of education from consumers, like in which in our case we were call clients. Our clients don’t know about it, but also therapists don’t know about it in terms of like just how robust this benefit can be for the clients that they’re serving, even if you don’t take their insurance. 

Christine [00:12:40] Yeah. So I think the first step is just the educational component. Most people don’t even know they have out-of-network benefits. You have to call your insurance company, okay? You have to ask certain questions. You get transferred around, sometimes the call drops. And so a lot of people even don’t even get to that step, whether they don’t want to call their insurance company because it’s not pleasant for anyone. 

Linzy [00:13:00] Whatever it is, it’s calling your insurance company. Yeah. 

Christine [00:13:03] Or they try and they’re like, I’m kind of confused. Or like, I kept getting switched around and I don’t really understand it. Yeah. And so the first part is just really the educational component on helping people even understand that the insurance benefits you’re paying for or that your company’s paying or allow you to actually get reimbursed for therapy. So that’s kind of the first part of even just. Letting people know. 

Linzy [00:13:25] Yes. Right. And that’s for a consumer perspective. And I’m thinking for therapists who are listening, that’s going to apply to your clients. But it might also apply to you. Like if you are covered by a spouse’s insurance, you might even yourself have out-of-network benefits you could be using that you don’t know about. 

Christine [00:13:40] Yes, exactly. I think a lot of people just- it’s even harder, actually, if you’re covered by your spouse, to figure out what your benefits are, and all that, because it’s- you’re not the primary insurer now. 

Linzy [00:13:50] You can’t pick up the phone and call. Yeah. Now there’s a middle person and your spouse. Okay. Yeah. So there’s this education piece that, like people just don’t even know about this. So, you know, I’m hoping folks who are listening today, if this is new for you, I hope that you’re like taking it in. And I’m hearing the next step is to actually look into your individual insurance and see like, do I have this coverage? What does this coverage look like for me? 

Christine [00:14:11] Yes, And especially as a therapist, if your clients don’t know, I think a lot of therapists are like, oh, you can call your insurance. You know, I don’t know. Figure it out yourself. Yeah. Which puts the onus on the client, which is, you know, totally fair. But if you think about it from sort of a business person. 

Linzy [00:14:26] Yeah. Yeah. 

Christine [00:14:27] As a therapist, you really should be incentivized to help your clients understand if they they have these benefits. But when you say like, Hey, my fee is 200 a session, there’s going to be some clients who are like, Oh, I don’t know that’s kind of expensive, that much, you know, every week for a year is a long time. It’s a lot of money. Sure. But if you say, hey, my fee is 200, but you might have these out-of-network benefits that allow you to get reimbursed for a portion of my cost. You know, I can check it for you and tell you what they are that can help you just convert a client who otherwise might have been like, No, thank you. And then that helps you grow your business. 

Linzy [00:15:05] Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Because I see it as like it’s a way that you can extend the service that you’re offering and make it really clear to somebody like this is going to be easy by you having that information. So, so for that then, like what options do therapists have that to, like have a tool to help with this piece or outsource this piece? How as a therapist, if you are not part of an insurance company, if you’re not paneled or if your panel was, say, one insurance company, but you know, the people come with other insurances, how can you get this information? 

Christine [00:15:33] Yeah, there’s a few different ways, depending on how much work and time you want to put into this. One way, if you have a lot of time and you’re willing to deal with insurances, you can just call yourself. You can be like, Hey, give me your insurance card. Yes, I’ll for you and tell you if you have these benefits and then call insurance, loopback around with your client, be like, Hey, you actually have these benefits, here’s how to use it. That’s one option. I imagine most therapists probably don’t want to do that, and that’s part of why they don’t want to take insurance. You just don’t want to. The health insurance company. Yeah, Infuriating sometimes. Absolutely. Yeah. Another option is to you can hire a biller and have someone call for you and do that for you. And the third option is you can use an automated tool such as Mentaya. So we have this instant benefits calculator where you can just ask for the client’s name, date of birth, and member ID put it into our little widget and then within 3 seconds we’ll tell you if they have out-of-network benefits or not, what their deductible is, you know, how much they can get covered, etc., and will share that with your client so that they can just do it themselves. And you don’t even have to be involved.  

Linzy [00:16:38] Okay. Yeah. And so this dashboard then, like this is kind of this is where you’ve stepped into the therapist world as somebody who’s from outside of the world. The tool then allows me like if I’m on the phone with Sarah and Sarah’s like, I have Blue Cross, and I’m like, Well, I don’t take insurance. What you’re saying then is in the tool, like we can put in Sarah’s information and see how much coverage she actually has for out-of-network benefits. 

Christine [00:17:04] Exactly. And so this is something that has helped therapists, you know, when over a lot of these private pay clients who might otherwise be on the fence about starting therapy, because on the phone you can say, hey, my fees, you know, 200 or whatever. But I see here that you have your deductible, let’s say $1,000, meet it in about five sessions. And then every session after that, for the rest of this year, you can get 70% back roughly on their right. And then when the client does the calculations, you’re like 70% back on $200. That’s like basically paying $60 a session. That is much closer to a co-pay. 

Linzy [00:17:41] Right. Yeah. So like after those first five sessions, they’re now paying you $60 an hour, which is actually a much lower rate than I think any therapist can really afford to offer as a sliding scale. Like that’s a that’s a massive amount of coverage. 

Christine [00:17:55] And to be clear, as a therapist, you’re still getting paid for 200, you’re still getting paid your full fee, but just sort of the clients being reimbursed is closer to 60. 

Linzy [00:18:07] Yeah. Like I see this. It’s like you’re filling that education gap on the spot when you’re having conversation with a potential client. The tool means that you can look and see. Exactly. Not not in general, what the situation is, but like for that specific client, what their financial relationship with you would actually look like. And you can tell them, give them a completely informed perspective on this is exactly what it would look like if we decided to work together. And that sounds a lot better than somebody having to pay $200 out of pocket for the whole year. Exactly. 

Christine [00:18:37] And this is something that because it’s so quick, it takes a few seconds to run and then you’ll see the benefits immediately. You can keep them on the phone. It’s not like, oh, let me call insurance or let me do this and I’ll loop around with you because then you lose momentum. Then it’s like, yeah, you have to email them and that they have to make sure to respond. They have questions. It’s you can just figure it out on the spot. And a lot of times clients might be like, Oh, this sounds great. Okay, look, I’m ready to start. You know, when can I start? And so that really helps convert clients. I’m a therapist, and obviously as a client, you’re happy. You’re like, Oh, I didn’t know I had these benefits. I can save money on therapy. This is great. And so, yeah. 

Linzy [00:19:16] Yeah, it really it sounds like it. Yeah. It’s like you’ve created a tech solution for a massive problem that therapists have, which is, first of all, this, this lack of education that their clients don’t know what they have and we don’t know what they have either. There’s that lack of information. But also you have removed the need to talk to insurance companies. 

Christine [00:19:34] Yes. 

Linzy [00:19:34] Which I have to say, knowing therapists, like there are top two things that therapists hate. Number one is clinical notes. Number two is dealing with insurance companies. Clinical notes we cannot get rid of, but insurance companies is something that can cause a lot of stress. Right? So this just kind of bypasses that whole messy conversation and navigating being on the phone with a company that, you know, billers do this because therapists hate it so much that this is where billers have created a whole industry because it’s such a headache. 

Christine [00:20:01] Exactly. Exactly. And so this is this is sort of the educational component. Yeah. Well, even understand if they have these benefits, I think there’s a second part of, you know, what do you do if you do have these benefits. 

Linzy [00:20:14] Yeah. Yes. 

Christine [00:20:15] So there is a couple of options that clients have right now. I think the most common one a lot of therapists do is, okay, I’ll give you a super bill. You know, you figure it out yourself. Yeah. And I don’t think therapists sometimes realize how few of their clients actually use super bills because you’re not involved. You’re just like, Here it is. Good luck. I’m not involved in it. And so maybe you’re thinking, Oh, my clients are submitting it, they’re getting reimbursed, but you have no idea because unless you’re talking to them and asking them about it, a lot of clients are like, okay, great, I have a super bill. Like, I don’t really know what to do with it. Or maybe they try to they don’t know how to submit it or they try to submit it. And they’re like, I haven’t heard back from my insurance in like a year, like I haven’t got any money back. What’s going on? Or they submit it and it gets rejected. And it’s, you know, this jargon that most people don’t understand. It’s like, oh, this code like can’t use this code to bill. 

Linzy [00:21:05] Yes. 

Christine [00:21:06] A lot of times clients then have to hold it there because they’re like, Hey, I got rejected. Can you help me as a therapist who doesn’t want to deal with insurance. Now you’re like, I have to go look at the code or call insurance, or maybe you get some notice from the insurance company and you’re just like, I don’t know what to do with it. And so for a variety of reasons, a lot of clients don’t end up actually successfully submitting the super bills and getting reimbursed. 

Linzy [00:21:29] Right. 

Christine [00:21:30] So that’s that’s currently the most prevalent option. I think therapists have vaguely heard of the concept about network benefits and super bills and they have like a copy and paste on their website that’s like, you know, I give super bills and you can full insurance and here are the things you need to do. But for the average person, you’re like going to therapy for mental health care and then, you know, to improve your mental health and then you have to go and deal with insurance that is like the most infuriating. 

Linzy [00:21:57] And like I totally see how therapists I mean, this is what I hear. It’s like I give a super bill. It’s like a super bill. There’s a hand motion I’m making that nobody can see because this is a podcast. But for me, the super bill goes with the motion, which is the like, Get it out of here, like passing it off motion, right? So when we do this and our clients end up with these super bills, like, you know, I’m hearing that it can be really stressful for them. Like, what do you, what have you heard is the impact of kind of this practice that we have of just kind of sloughing off the super bill on people? What does that do to our clients? And like, why is that maybe not good for us? 

Christine [00:22:29] So, I mean, I don’t want to speak for every client and there is just a few things that I’ve heard are sometimes clients can feel overwhelmed because you’re like, I go to therapy. And then on top of having to, you know, pre-pay a private pay fee and then I get this like bill that I have to figure out how to submit and deal with insurance and I have all these phone calls with insurance and it’s just this huge mess and I feel overwhelmed by the idea of having to do that. So I think that’s something that clients sometimes say. Other clients will just be really frustrated out of it. They’re just like, Oh, I thought I was supposed to get money back, but like, why am I not getting money back? Yeah, so why is it getting rejected? Like, what is wrong with the code? And then, Hey, therapist, can you help fix this? Like, why are the codes you’re giving me wrong? And then there are just clients who are just like, all right, Like, I’m not even going to try, like the idea of this just sounds insane to me. And they just they say, screw it. I’m just going to, you know, pay the full fee and not even try to get reimbursed. But what that ends up doing to them is that they might end up in a point where they’re, you know, financially little strained and they’re like, oh, I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced this. Like, can I go to see, you know, every other week, every other week, and then once a month and they kind of slowly stop going to therapy. You’re going less frequently because they just can’t afford it versus if you could get reimbursement more quickly and be able to then reinvest that money, you get reimbursed back into therapy. That would really change things. 

Linzy [00:23:57] Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s like that stress on the client. And if they give up, then eventually they are carrying the weight of paying your sessions in full. And yeah, I can see how like if someone is paying $200 a session out of pocket and they would have the opportunity to be on the remaining 60. But that’s not working because these super bills, you know, yeah, when something has to go financially, therapy is going to be a pretty appealing way to save 800 bucks a month immediately. Yes. 

Christine [00:24:21] Yes. And you know, to be clear, it’s not every single client has this issue. There are obviously some clients who do submit their super bill. It just depends so much on the insurance company, insurance plan. A lot of insurance companies make you mail in or fax in some form, usually have to fill out the form. And most clients are like, I don’t really know how to fill out the form. And so if as a client, you had again, like as a therapist, if you had a bunch of time and you really dug into it and you really did your research, you could figure it out. It’s just that most people don’t have the time or energy to be able to do this right. And insurance companies are only, you know, open during work hours. And you have to carve out time outside of work during work hours to be able to call your insurance company and figure out what’s going on. Right. 

Linzy [00:25:04] Right. Okay. So for this, then, I know that meant you folks have been working on this part of the problem, too. So tell me, like, what is the solution that you’ve figured out to to ease this issue for for therapists and their clients? 

Christine [00:25:19] Yeah. So entire we our goal is to completely shield therapists and clients from ever having to deal directly with insurance. We have experienced that, so we know how frustrating. But we built out this automated claim submission tool for therapists and clients where all you have to do is sign up for an account and after every session will automatically submit claims to the insurance company in their preferred format and exactly what format they mean and right so that it just goes through immediately and is successful on the first try. 

Linzy [00:25:54] That is pretty sweet. 

Christine [00:25:57] It’s really easy. We just need to know, you know, when the sessions have happened. And as we know that and obviously as a therapist, you pre-fill like diagnosis. There is a little bit of setup, but it takes a couple of minutes to set up. And then every week all we have to know is, you know, when the sessions have happened right, if they happen will automatically submit a claim the same day immediately to the insurance company and we generally get clients reimbursed on average. It varies a lot, but on average in 17 days. And so it’s less than a month. 

Linzy [00:26:30] That’s pretty good. Yeah, that’s faster than a lot of therapists get reimbursed. 

Christine [00:26:34] And yes, it depends a lot like obviously some clients get reimbursed in less than a week. Hmm. Some clients, it does take, you know, 3 to 4 weeks, but we submit it as soon as we can so that it’s processed as quickly as it possibly can be processed. 

Linzy [00:26:48] And so what I’m hearing is like for the client, then once they’ve, like given the original information and their information and like there’s actually nothing for the client to do after session. 

Christine [00:26:57] Exactly. 

Linzy [00:26:58] And for the therapist, like, what did they actually have to do to get the information to Mentaya to say, yeah, the session happened and this is how long it was or whatever. 

Christine [00:27:08] That’s a really good question. So you’re right, the client signs up, you know, they don’t have to do anything after that. As a therapist, you sign up, you set up each client’s profile, so you put in, you know, their diagnosis, CPT code as sort of the default values, and your fee and things like that. Yeah. And once you set that up per client on a recurring basis, the only thing we need from you is just confirmation if a session has happened. So for example, if you sync your calendar, we will send you a HIPPA-compliant text after every session. Just saying, can you text back ‘yes’ to just confirm the session has happened? because we we can’t have you know, we can’t just presume the sessions happened. 

Linzy [00:27:44] Yeah. No, no, no shows. 

Christine [00:27:45] They’re rescheduled. We just need this confirmation to make sure that the sessions happen and then that’s pretty much all we need from a therapist. You just let us know like you text back. Yes. And we will automatically submit the claim. You know, take the proper information from your profile, your client’s profile, the session details, and put it all together and submit it to insurance. 

Linzy [00:28:05] Okay. And then I think the question that’s going to be on everybody’s mind who’s listening is how do you get paid? Like you being Mentaya. 

Christine [00:28:14] Yes. So we have- so as a therapist, the only thing that you would pay for is the first thing I mentioned, sort of our instant benefits calculator. The thing that helps generally convert more clients. Yes. And that is that is optional. So you can submit claims for free. And we have clients pay for the claims or for the therapist, you can pay $29 a month per practice to have this benefits calculator you can use with your clients, you can put on your website, etc. and that is $29 a month. That’s month to month. You can cancel any time. And it’s fully optional. It’s, you know, if it’s helpful for your practice, you’re getting all these new clients who might be interested. You can use it if you’re like, I’m super full and I don’t have any clients benefits. Yeah, that you don’t have to use it. So we’re pretty flexible on that. And then on the client side, we charge clients a 5% fee per client. So if your session fee is 200, we charge clients $10 and on average we get clients, you know, 60 to 70% back on therapy. And so for most clients, you’re like, I’m paying a 5% fee. And then on average I’m getting, you know, 60 to 70% back, which is like a no-brainer for a lot of clients who just don’t want to deal with super bills or don’t understand how. 

Linzy [00:29:26] Yeah, right. Because for them, it’s like they’re paying 5% and they’re having to do literally nothing in order for these claims to be processed. 

Christine [00:29:32] Exactly. And you’re never paying 5% to get a bunch more money back. Essentially, you don’t have to do anything for that. 

Linzy [00:29:37] Yeah. You know, something that I appreciate and I think it’s a helpful thing for a therapist to be thinking about is I do think that so many therapists, you know, when when they decide to opt out of insurance, they truly opt out of insurance. They’re like, I don’t think about insurance. I don’t talk about insurance. I will not call insurance. I hate insurance. But what I’m hearing is like, it’s so valuable to our clients for them to get some help from us in navigating the system, because the system is frustrating for us and it’s also frustrating for them. Right. And not only is it frustrating for them, but it’s like if they’re coming to you because they’re under stress or their marriage is in duress, or they have a child with high needs and like, you know, they’re probably coming to you because like life is a bit challenging. And so what I’m hearing and what I’m thinking about is like by therapists helping out with this piece, like not and I don’t know, it’s like, are they taking responsibility for it? I don’t know how to like, think about that piece, but it’s like you’re you’re offering this tool to make it easy to just take that part out off the client’s plate, both in terms of them being able to make an informed decision of what it’s actually going to cost them to work with you. Right. And maybe getting information that they didn’t have to realize, like, oh, once I pay $1,000, like I actually have 70% coverage, that that is the financial information that changes everything. So it’s like you’re you’re giving them the information to make an informed decision up front. But you are also taking this kind of like headache off of their plate or giving them a tool that can help them take the headache off their plate so that, yeah, like the experience of therapy just becomes a lot easier because all that admin stuff is just taken care of. 

Christine [00:31:02] Exactly. And I know I, I think you made a, you touched on something that I think is important. Some therapists are like, Well, I don’t want to take insurance, so I don’t necessarily want the responsibility now, you know, feeling without even if it’s out-of-network insurance. Yeah. And what we encourage therapists to do is tell their clients like we have a whole script a therapist can share with clients. Which is, Hey, I’ve partnered with a service commentator that can help you see if you have out-of-network benefits and get reimbursed for therapy. If you do, you know, you can use, like I’ll work with them to submit these claims and actually get you your money back. But, you know, as a therapist, like, I don’t benefit in any way directly from your involvement. It’s completely optional. And if you have questions, you can email them directly. Like, we don’t want to necessarily force therapists to be sort of the middleman between their clients and us, and we want them to feel comfortable saying, Hey, Mentaya is going to take care of it. Like I’ll work with them to make sure it works, but it’s really on us that entire to make sure that the claims getting submitted and all that stuff so that it doesn’t affect your only positively affects your relationship with clients. So if they have any questions, any issues that come directly. 

Linzy [00:32:14] Oh, okay. Right. Because like you would the therapist have to be involved though, in setting up the initial like billing codes and stuff like would that kind of that that seems like a part that might not be able to be skippable. 

Christine [00:32:25] Yeah, so that part, I think what I’m talking about is more the framing to your clients because as a therapist you don’t portray or like you don’t feel like you’re taking on this new responsibility of dealing with insurance. Because with Mentaya we are the ones taking on that responsibility. We just need you to be involved to some extent because we can’t make up, you know, CPT codes and diagnoses for like we need to hear that from you. Yeah. And we need confirmation from you that those sessions happen. But aside from that, all the claim submission, if there’s any questions that there are any issues, we take care of all that on our own and we try not to involve you at all unless they’re like, we need, you know, whatever, more information. But usually they don’t do that. And so for pretty much it’s just smooth sailing. Once you sign up, get your clients on, you give us a little information you confirm the sessions have happened, and we’ll take care of everything else. And I think just like letting clients know that if they have questions, they come to us. If they have issues, they come to us. If they’re not hearing back from their insurance, they come to us, so that you don’t have to be involved in like, Oh, my client came into line. My client was asking me this, you know, So. 

Linzy [00:33:34] Yes. It’s kind of like you’re not getting back in bed with insurance by, you know, having this service bill to your clients. Like this is a relationship between your clients and Mentaya that you need to kind of kickstart. But then it’s off your plate. 

Christine [00:33:49] Exactly. 

Linzy [00:33:50] Yeah. Cool. This is very exciting. I appreciate that you kind of come in to solve this problem for us. You know, in terms of, you know, speaking for therapists as a whole, which I have no authority to do whatsoever, just so you know. But I do like- I think so often in terms of like tech in the therapy space, the therapist can feel threatened because there’s a lot of tech in the therapy space that is a bit about devaluing the work that we do. And it’s like, you know, like platforms that are like, you can go work for this platform and you’re going to get paid $25 an hour to serve people. But because they can get you clients easily, like so much of tech coming into the therapy space has been a bit of a threat to the wellbeing of therapists. And so I appreciate that. I think you’re using your powers for good. 

Christine [00:34:34] Thank you. Yeah, that’s something that was definitely really important to me when I started Mentaya. I wanted to do something that, you know, we want to make mental health care more accessible, but in a way that’s sustainable for therapists because, you know, if it’s not sustainable for therapists, if you play it out, you know, ten years, 15 years, 20 years down the line, we’re going to have no therapists left. And then so obviously, like the people who are working their hardest to try to help others in these times of stress, we want to be able to support therapists by helping therapists, you know, put on their oxygen masks first before being able to help their clients. And I think it also translates to better therapy for clients when therapists are not overworked or burnt out or like needing to work insane hours just to make a living. 

Linzy [00:35:20] 100%. Yeah. Like, I mean, like, this is a phrase that just came to my head for the first time. But I think in some ways we’re seeing like the, you know, like Uber eats ing of therapy, you know, when we’re like when therapists are turned into basically gig workers, you know, who like, work for not very much money, but it’s like flexible and easy. But you have no rights. And like in a lot of ways, therapists have the risk of being exploited. And what I’m hearing is the solution you come up with Mentaya is kind of like the opposite. It’s like therapists, you know, can make the decisions that are right for them financially. They can like think about their needs and like set up a practice that’s sustainable for them. And this is a tool that eases that transition and like makes it easy for clients to still access like this big, complicated system that might give them significant coverage without the therapist having to carry that. Exactly. Yeah, I appreciate that. So, Christine, folks who are curious and learning more about Mentaya, where can they find more information? 

Christine [00:36:13] You can go to our website. It’s mentaya.com. And we have information for therapists, for clients. We have information our pricing. And feel free to check it out. And I’d encourage everyone to sign up and try it out. It is you can sign up risk-free. I know we have a promo code as well for our listeners, LINZY, so that if you sign up and you put on your promo code, you can try out our benefits calculator for free. You can already submit claims for free. So you can essentially try out our entire platform for free for 30 days. And then if you like, the benefits calculator, you can subscribe. And if you don’t, that’s okay too. You can just use the claims submission tool as well. 

Linzy [00:36:57] So. So it’s Mentaya.com And you can use promo code LINZY.  It’s funny, I changed my name when I was a child and I have to spell it for people a lot. So when it’s a promo code. I’m like okay it’s LINZY, no D. And that gives them the benefits calculator free for the first month. Just like try it out and see how it works for them. Exactly. Awesome. Thank you so much, Christine. It was great having you on the podcast today. 

Christine [00:37:20] Thank you so much, Linzy. 

Linzy [00:37:35] I talk a lot about money being a tool that’s kind of a a philosophy about money that I’ve been increasingly leaning into in the last couple of years. And this conversation with Christine today also gets me thinking about how just having the right tools as clinicians, as business owners, as private practice owners, makes our lives so much easier and makes our clients lives so much easier. Something that I see often is that therapists can be reluctant to invest in tech and tools. Sometimes folks don’t even want to have like an EHR electronic health records because they don’t want to pay for the cost of having it. But having the right tool at your fingertips, that takes something that can be difficult and makes it easy is just so valuable in terms of recouping your time and energy to do the stuff that you’re good at and you care about. I’m really appreciative, actually, of Christine of coming in and creating a tool to make this a part of therapist relationships with our clients easier, because it means that then therapists can be spending their time being good at therapy. Clients can spend their time applying the things they’re learning in therapy and enjoying their life. It’s taking this insurance piece pretty much out of the equation, which, based on what I’ve heard with dealing with American insurance companies, is where it should be so appreciative to Christine for coming in to create a tool to make something easier for therapists so that we can focus on the stuff we love to do instead. If you are enjoying the podcast, you can check me out on Instagram @moneynutsandbolts, and I would still appreciate if you could leave a review on Apple Podcasts about the podcast. Maybe you can share about your favorite episode or what you particularly appreciate or any little things that we’ve talked about on the podcast that have stuck out and made an impact for you. Leaving a review on Apple Podcasts is the best way for other therapists and health practitioners to find the podcast. Thanks for listening today. 

Nicole [00:00:01] Look for the bottlenecks. What does that actually mean? I want you to go into your online booking and be a client for a second. Click on the button and see: can I get an appointment within 48 hours? Oh, no. That means I need more availability and maybe I need to hire or I need to shift things around. You probably are wasting money on marketing if you’re not allowing the people to book. They literally want to book with you, but you’re making them wait. 

Linzy [00:00:28] Welcome to the Money Skills for Therapists podcast, where we answer this question: How can therapists and health practitioners go from money shame and confusion, to feeling calm and confident about their finances and get money really working for them in both their private practice and their lives? I’m your host, Linzy Bonham, therapist turned money coach and creator of the course Money Skills for Therapists. Hello and welcome back to the podcast. Today’s guest is Nicole McCance. Nicole McCance is a fellow Canadian. She is a psychologist who’s now retired, turned business coach, who helps therapists with their group practices, helping them make more money, help more people, and have more freedom. She’s also the host of the business savvy therapist, and this is probably going to be the most concise, I think, episode of the Money Skills for Therapists podcast that we’ve had so far. Concise is usually not the word that I would give for myself or the guests that we tend to have. But Nicole is so clear-thinking. Such actionable steps that she shares today about how good practice owners can increase their income without marketing. She gives them like really specific specific steps that folks can take to increase money coming in to the practice today, while also being able to help clients faster and talking to you about how group practice owners – who I have learned from experience tend to be some of the busiest humans that I know – can manage to get everything done. Some really good tips for group practice owners. Even if you’re not a group practice owner, there’s going be so much that Nicole mentions today that also can be applied to solo practice. Just some really good business practices, really clear thinking. Here is my conversation with Nicole McCance. So, Nicole, welcome to the podcast. 

Nicole [00:02:21] Happy to be here. 

Linzy [00:02:22] Yeah, I’m happy to have you. So I mean, something that’s always kind of nice and novel for me is you are actually like down the road from me. We’re going to use that term generously. But in the scope of online business, you’re basically my next door neighbor. 

Nicole [00:02:34] My Canadian friend. I know. Totally. 

Linzy [00:02:36] It’s very nice. And so your niche, you know, what we’re going to dig into today is group practice, right? So you came up through solo practice, built a great group practice, now you help folks with group practice. So I do also want to just like plant a little seed here for folks who are listening today, who are not group practice owners. A lot of what we’re going to talk about still is going to apply to solo practitioners today. Is that fair to say? 

Nicole [00:02:59] Totally, yeah. 

Linzy [00:03:00] They’re like general business principles. So they might not be scalable. When you have a group practice you’ve scaled and everything you do has scaled impact. 

Nicole [00:03:08] Yes. Yeah. 

Linzy [00:03:09] But a lot of these things are going to apply today. So if you’re a solo practice owner still listen, there’s going to be great stuff. 

Nicole [00:03:13] You guys are going to love this. 

Linzy [00:03:15] Some seeds for the future. If one day you do decide that you want to bring on other clinicians or practitioners. Yes. 

Nicole [00:03:20] Can I just speak to that? Because I never knew guys that I would have a group practice ever. 

Linzy [00:03:27] Wasn’t your plan. 

Nicole [00:03:27] I just- it was when I was pregnant with twins. And I find a lot of people – I think your story is similar – once you become a parent, priorities change. And I really did it because I just couldn’t work the evenings and weekends anymore and was able to scale it really quickly and sell it. So here I am to tell you all the things. 

Linzy [00:03:45] It’s so true. And I think that’s one of the beautiful things about business is you don’t necessarily need to know what your path is to still end up on these amazing paths that make sense for your life. Like you get to make your business suit your life. 

Nicole [00:03:55] Isn’t that beautiful. We’re so lucky. 

Linzy [00:03:57] It is so beautiful. We are so lucky. Okay, so let’s let’s start then, on like a practical note, when you are a group practice owner, like a lot of folks that I see in group practice, like they spend a lot of time thinking about marketing, obviously because they have like a suite of clinicians, maybe two, maybe ten, maybe 20 clinicians that they need to think about attracting folks. What are other ways to increase your income without marketing, if people feel like they’ve already hit the marketing wall or that’s not where they want to start. 

Nicole [00:04:26] Yes, guys, please listen up. I think that some people listening have a bit of a leaky bucket, so they’re doing the marketing, but they have the bottlenecks and the clients aren’t sticking. So there’s three things. The first one might scare people because I’m saying the word sales. Reduce your sales cycle. What does that actually mean? If I go on your online booking right now, therapist’s listening, I want you to pay attention to: can I book within a few days? Most people, that’s not the case, right? If I, let’s say, to book a free consult takes me five days and then to actually see you for therapy takes me me another six days to get in. But here’s the thing, we know that human beings wait way too long to get the help that they need by the time they’re clicking book. Now, for that free consult, it’s like past their, you know, way past their need. And a lot of you, you want to grow, but you’re not allowing your practice to help that person, but you’re also not allowing that income to flow in. So can you imagine to take a 12 day sales cycle? So what I mean by that is how long it takes for them to click book. Now, book a consult and actually see you and have that money hit the bank. Let’s see. It takes 12 days, right, if you can. And I highly suggest allowing them to book within two days, get them the help they need. Now they are suffering and distressed. And guess what? You help more people, but you literally double your income because you went from a 12 day flow of income to a two day flow of income. 

Linzy [00:06:02] Right. Right. So that new money comes in the door way, way faster. 

Nicole [00:06:06] Yes. And then that makes base like it’s always flowing in way faster. 

Linzy [00:06:10] Yes. Right. Because something else that occurs to me, too, is like you are reducing an emotional or a decision friction that people are going to have where if they need help now and they’re like, Oh, I can’t do a consult call with this person until next Wednesday. But that other person I looked at could talk to me Thursday and I’m like really suffering. You are also, you’re not as competitive. Like you’re not as appealing to somebody who feels like they need help. They needed help like three months ago. Let’s be real.

Nicole [00:06:35]  Exactly. And their no show rate increases every day you make them wait. Know why? Because it’s sunny today and I’m actually fine. I’m just going to cancel or you made me wait long enough. Exactly what you just said. I actually found someone who can see me right now and solve my problems. Right? 

Linzy [00:06:52] Right. So not only does it mean that that relationship starts faster, you know, the money starts coming to your practice faster from that good fit client. But also you’re going to convert more folks because. 

Nicole [00:07:02] They’re going to show up. 

Linzy [00:07:03] They’re not having to wait. There’s less time for them to change their mind. 

Nicole [00:07:06] Yes, I think we’re in such a unique industry because our clients are suffering. I think that’s a big thing that people don’t realize. And there’s this sense of urgency and then other industries that they really need that appointment now and just a double check, because I’ll tell you a lot of group practice owners specifically that I work with, they’re too busy. They actually don’t know that that’s a bottleneck in their online booking. And then they go in like, Oh my gosh, here I am. All this marketing is going in and these people are- I can’t- I’m not allowing them to book. 

Linzy [00:07:39] So true. Yes. Yes. So if you are listing now, I mean this would also apply to solo practitioners, but like go look at your website from like a potential client perspective. Like, I really need to see you. I’m having like perinatal mental health issues now. I just found out my partner’s having an affair. Now, how long do I have to wait to even talk to you to see if we could possibly be a good fit? 

Nicole [00:08:02] Exactly. Yes. So that’s number one. There’s two more. Number two is reduce your no show rate. How do you reduce your no show rate? I’ll tell you this, your highest amount of no shows will be on your consult call. I suggest offering a free consult call. Think it’s so important in our industry. They need to talk to you. It’s about connection, right? They do. But your no show rate is going to be high on that because I think people didn’t- they haven’t met you yet. So they don’t really care to cancel. You know, they haven’t paid, they haven’t signed a consent form, you haven’t gone through the cancellation policy. So how to reduce your no show rate is allowing them to book within two days to reducing the sales cycle is going to help. But also having a follow up system. Maybe they felt okay so let’s say I booked three days ago and – a consult – and it’s today, but I’m actually feeling okay today. I actually had a pretty good sleep last night. I don’t need it. I’m going to cancel. If you don’t follow up with me, you’re not going to catch my cycle of moods. I didn’t deal with my problem. My problem is still there, and it’s going to pop up in probably another week. So you follow up. 

Linzy [00:09:11] Right and like that follow up. What would that look like? 

Nicole [00:09:14] Yeah. Oh, gosh. I teach people this. 

Linzy [00:09:16] Yeah. You know, the bite size version. 

Nicole [00:09:19] Yeah, I would, because the question is how quickly do you follow up and how do you even know? I love Jane App, because I can easily pull the metrics from Jane App practice management system. I would get your admin to follow up within a day. Now, that may seem like a lot, but I just canceled. I’m very warm in my buying process. I know, guys, this this feels weird because we’re talking about like sales and buying, but just hear me out. And so the fact that you reach out a day later, I’m going to be like, yes, okay, you know, let’s rebook. I will email, send them an email. No one answers the phones because of all the scams we get. Just send them an email. Within a day. 

Linzy [00:09:57] Yeah, Because they’re still thinking about you. They haven’t forgotten about you yet. They just canceled, like, yesterday afternoon. 

Nicole [00:10:02] You got it. Yes, you’ve got it. And maybe today’s not such a great day. So the probability that I book is high. 

Linzy [00:10:08] Right. Which also I think, again, thinking about it from a potential client perspective, like they might be embarrassed that they canceled. And then feel crappy again the next day. So you’re also just normalizing like, hey, you know, noticed that you didn’t, you know, had to cancel yesterday. You just let us know if you need to rebook. We’d be so happy to talk with you. You’re also normalizing for them, like, Oh, okay. It’s totally fine that I canceled. It’s totally fine if I book another consult call. 

Nicole [00:10:32] And we got you. You know what I mean? We’re here. You’re not alone. 

Linzy [00:10:35] Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I love that. Okay. And I know you have a third one. Yeah. 

Nicole [00:10:39] Yes. Number three, increase your contact call conversion rate. So, number one, do you know it? Most people are like my what?

Linzy [00:10:47] Yeah. Yeah. 

Nicole [00:10:48] And you can easily track how many calls, consult calls, you had this week, even in solo practice. For the group practice owners, I would have all my therapists in a sheet, just write down, Here’s all the consults and here’s the ones that didn’t book and then give them a process to help more people. There’s so many therapists that do not book on the consult. They feel weird about it, so they basically provide them value. Yeah, that person’s motivated, but they don’t say, Let’s book, right. I have Tuesday available and I actually suggest that they book four sessions. Here’s why. I think you’re setting up the stage that therapy is not a one-and-done at all ever. And at least I would explain it like, you know what, a treatment plan can vary. Let’s book at least the first month. Here’s why: my schedule is actually quite busy and you get 2:00 at two. Yes. And they just love that. They’re like, oh, my gosh, okay, they’re more likely to show up. And that commitment level to that, they’re like, okay, I’m in it. I’m excited. I’m going to get results. 

Linzy [00:11:53] That’s so great. I really love that point about you’re setting an expectation from the beginning. You’re helping them understand, like, I’m not going to see you next Tuesday, and then you’re going to be like, I’m better. This is great. You are setting that stage for like, okay, now we’re going to start our work together. So let’s like plan out some of that work together. And I will say the regular schedule thing, the Tuesdays at two. People love that. Like when I did that, I- obviously there’s folks who sometimes like work shift work like there’s going to be exceptions always. Yes. But when I switched to a regular schedule in my in my own practice when I was solo and I said like, okay, your spot is Tuesday at two, we also had a cancellation policy that went with that. So there were boundaries around that. I had clients who were like literally elated, like so excited, like, I get to see you every Tuesday. Actually, that’s my spot. Yeah. You’re taking away that like stress too of them not knowing if they’re going to get in to see you next week. And like, you know, there is stress for our clients and our patients when they’re on an irregular schedule with us.  

Nicole [00:12:51] And I also think it’s in a world that’s not predictable or consistent when you have young kids, let me tell you. Yeah. That it’s like, oh, I know one thing in my life that’s gonna happen. 

Linzy [00:12:58] That’s right. Predictably, which like it’s such a beautiful thing because therapy, you know, as you talked about, what’s different about what we do is like folks are suffering right? And you’re giving them an anchor in their week to know, like no matter what happens, I’m going to see Nicole on Tuesday at two. It doesn’t matter what happens with my spouse between now and then. I’m going to get to talk about it on Tuesday. 

Nicole [00:13:17] You got it. And I had some clients say, okay, three more days, three more days. And they would start planning all the things I know I’m going to tell. 

Linzy [00:13:23] They already had multiple sessions with you in their head is anticipating that time together. Oh, I love that. That’s so good. So, I mean, with this, like, I know some of the group practice owners who are listening or are thinking about this, and they’re also thinking about 100 other things because something I’ve noticed also teaching group practice owners, like you do, in my course is group practice owners are some of the busiest humans. They are. They truly are. How do they do that? How do proprietors, owners, how do they pull it all off? 

Nicole [00:13:54] Yeah. Thank you for bringing this up. I want to talk about this because some of them are like, That sounds really great, but I’m very busy. Yeah. Write this down, everybody. My favorite background music in my life. Create and delegate. Create and delegate. You probably have a little bit more freedom in your life, hopefully because you’re working a bit less because you’ve got other people seeing the clients. Yeah, I highly suggest that group practice owners. Yeah, they have to set it up once. Set up a tracking system for your no shows. A follow up system. Yes, that could take an hour of your day, but then you delegate it. It’s such a beautiful thing. Hopefully you have an admin that will change your life. So that will be worth every penny. And you’re not doing this because your hour obviously is worth way more. 

Linzy [00:14:42] Yes. Oh, I love it. It rhymes. It rhymes. So it’s true. Create and delegate. But yeah, I love that piece too about, you know, an admin who changes. Like it’s something else that I’ve noticed. And I don’t know if you’ve also noticed this. The folks you support. Is you do also need to let an admin change your life. Like you need to let go. You can’t be the best at everything and the only person who does everything you need to create and then truly let somebody else own it. 

Nicole [00:15:09] Yes. So in my program, one of the things I help them with is hiring, having really good interview questions, reference letters, giving them a personality test, because I think that trust has to happen first. Yeah, I was and still am, a recovering control freak, so that was hard on me. And so I get it. We’re type A, but once you find your unicorn, your life truly changes. 

Linzy [00:15:31] Yeah, it’s true. Yeah, I 100% agree. So for people listening then, like what is the first thing they should focus on if they’re listening give they’re like all these things. There’s all your great ideas. There’s always so many great things you can do for your business. What’s one? What should they focus on first? Yeah, what’s one? 

Nicole [00:15:48] Take a peek. Even if it means that you’re getting up an hour earlier. I know that doesn’t seem great, but it’s really my magic morning routine. I get up before my kids do. 

Linzy [00:15:57] Yes. 

Nicole [00:15:58] And go in there with fresh eyes and look. You know what? You’re looking for One thing and one thing only. Bottlenecks. Look for the bottlenecks. What does that actually mean? I want you to go into your online booking. Please use online booking. It’ll streamline so much for you. And be a client for a second. Click on the button and see. Can I get an appointment within 48 hours? Oh no. That means I need more availability and maybe I need to hire or I need to shift things around. But you probably are wasting money on marketing if you’re not allowing the people to book, they literally want to book with you, so you’re making them wait. 

Linzy [00:16:34] Oh, that’s brilliant. Yeah. And the leaky, leaky bucket. Before I go back to that for a second, I think is so, so helpful because we hear about marketing all the time. Yeah. I feel like, you know, so many folks who have come on to the podcast or want to come on the podcast. Everybody talks about marketing. 

Nicole [00:16:47] It’s the hot topic keyword. Totally. 

Linzy [00:16:50] There’s so many ways to market. Marketing’s so exciting, it’s so sexy, so fun, So, so people think it’s not my fave, but it’s like that is seen as the one solution. And what I’m hearing is like, you could be spending tons of money on marketing, but you’re losing folks before they’re even getting in the door. In this case, you’ve got it. 

Nicole [00:17:05] And you know what I love, Linzy, about everything we just talked about? It’s free. Yeah, totally free, right? Marketing is not free. Everything: reducing your sales cycle, reducing your no show rate, and increasing your consult conversion rate – Free, free, and free. 

Linzy [00:17:18] Mm. Beautiful. Beautiful. Very affordable. Thank you. So, Nicole, for folks who want to get further into your world, where can they find you and follow you? 

Nicole [00:17:27] Yes. If you love podcasts, I have one is about the business savvy therapist. Every Tuesday new episodes release and I have a starter kit for you. Expand your practice starter kit the first three steps because some people, even if you’re in group practice, are wondering, I’m feeling lost. Or maybe it’s time to take the leap into group practice and the link. I’ll give you the link. It will be in the show notes and you can get the starter kit. 

Linzy [00:17:51] Wonderful. Well, thank you so much, Nicole, for coming in today. This is like really great actionable stuff. So I hope folks who are listening, if this applies to you and your practice group practice, even solo practitioners, take those helpful pieces, go do the things. That’s going to make a big difference. 

Nicole [00:18:04] Amazing. Thanks for having me. 

Linzy [00:18:18] Something that sticks out to me from my conversation with Nicole is just we can’t assume that everything is working the way that we want it to. It’s so helpful to stop and just take a look at things. You know, she suggests that early morning, if you have kids, I can definitely see the benefit of that before the chaos of the day starts. Just look at your website. Look at that intake process. Like one is a contact call available. With those fresh eyes from the perspective of a potential client. Right. What is it like for them to try to get a hold of you and you might discover that it’s not the experience you want to be giving them. So really, really helpful, actionable piece there around making sure that folks can get in to see you sooner because clinically that’s helpful. And from a business perspective, that’s also really helpful. So great advice from Nicole. Group practice owners who are listening. I also want to give you a heads up that we’re going to be opening the doors again for Money Skills for Group Practice Owners, which is my course that’s all about taking you from feeling like an overworked, stressed, and underpaid group practice owner to being the confident and empowered financial leader of your group practice. To hear about the doors when they open for that course, you should get on the waitlist. There’s a link in the show notes. Get on the waitlist for Money Skills for Group Practice Owners so you hear about it when we start our next program, which is going to be running in January. If you enjoyed the podcast, you can follow me on Instagram at @moneynutsandbolts. And as always, if you are enjoying the podcast, I would so appreciate a review on Apple Podcasts. It’ll take you 2 minutes, maybe three. It is the best way for other therapist health practitioners to find us. Thanks for listening today. 

Samantha [00:00:02] If you’re going to invest in something and you’re going to invest in the copy and the messaging that is going to resonate with the people you want to work with. If you’re going to create a design that is going to feel really welcoming and kind and communicate what you do, you are going to see those clients come in as a return on investment. 

Linzy [00:00:28] Welcome to the Money Skills for Therapists podcast, where we answer this question: How can therapists and health practitioners go from money shame and confusion, to feeling calm and confident about their finances and get money really working for them in both their private practice and their lives? I’m your host, Linzy Bonham therapist turned money coach and creator of the course Money Skills for Therapists. Hello and welcome back to the podcast. Today’s guest is Samantha Mabe. She is a website creator developer who specializes in supporting therapists and health practitioners, folks in the wellness space. And today, not surprisingly, Samantha and I talk about websites. Websites are not, you know, a direct part of finances. And yet we talk today about how they’re so important to private practice, how we really can’t get away without having a website – and a good website – these days in terms of how clients find us. And obviously the right people finding us and wanting to pay us is pretty financially essential. We talk about thinking about your website and making sure that folks are actually getting directed towards where they need to go. Talked about how so many things that therapists we can just take for granted can end up being obstacles to people who come across our website, stopping them from actually completing that contact form and letting us know that they want to meet with us. And we also talked about when to DIY your website and when to pay someone else. I had some definite learnings today in this conversation with Samantha and I think you will too. Here’s my conversation with Samantha Mabe. Samantha, welcome to the podcast. 

Samantha [00:02:14] Thank you so much for having me. 

Linzy [00:02:15] Yeah. So you are a website designer, you are a marketer, and I’m always grateful for marketers because I find personally, as you know, like therapist, coach, teacher, marketing is something that I’ve never really been able to get that excited about, but it’s a kind of non-negotiable part of having people find you. I’m curious, like what led you to focus on therapists and health practitioners? Who are your folks that you serve as a website designer? 

Samantha [00:02:41] When I started website design, I was focusing on pretty much anybody who came my way and then narrowed into online businesses. But what I found was that I had a couple of clients who were in the health and wellness space, and I loved seeing how they were able to serve their clients and really get a transformation. And at the same time that actually one of my clients inspired me to go on this journey to get some fatigue and anxiety issues fixed. So I was seeing a naturopathic doctor, I was seeing a counselor to help with some things, and I was able to experience kind of what they did on the client. And I loved the idea of working with people who were serving clients in the real world who are making a difference in these people’s lives and helping those businesses to thrive by giving them a place to show up online, to showcase their expertise, to start building trust with the people that they wanted to work with. And I found that it was also a need in that space for website expertise, which is what I love to do. 

Linzy [00:03:57] That’s right. Yes. And, you know, I think you’re so right that therapists and health practitioners, like we have such specialized skills that are also really complicated and kind of hard sometimes to explain. And so sometimes it’s hard to translate what you do with your clients and like the transformations that you give them and like the meaning of the relationship and everything that goes into it. Sometimes it’s hard to translate that into the nice digestible page where you’re sharing the right information with somebody who’s coming across you without showing the wrong information that might be overwhelming, but giving them enough. Like I know when I started in my private practice, it was before trauma therapy was really something that made sense to anybody. So even as I would just be like at a dinner party chatting with friends and they were like, Oh, so what are you doing now? I’m like, Well, I’m an I’m in private practice and I do trauma therapy. And then I’d have to try to figure out how to explain trauma therapy in two sentences, which was like really, really hard. And I think most therapists have the equivalent of that kind of experience. How do you distill this big, complicated thing that you do into something digestible that people are like, Oh, I get it. I know somebody who needs that, or, Oh, I need that. How do you make the complex, simple and easy to understand? 

Samantha [00:05:04] Yeah, especially when you specialize in something. So if you’re doing trauma therapy, you’re not going to take just any client. And so, saying I’m a therapist is not going to be helpful to people. 

Linzy [00:05:15] Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So something that I hear sometimes from therapists, especially those starting out in private practice when they’re trying to figure out what do you do first, what do you have to do? What can you get away with? Sometimes folks will ask me like, do I need a website? Or they only have like a Psychology Today profile, but it’s like, isn’t that enough? What is your argument for why therapists actually need websites? Even at the beginning of private practice? 

Samantha [00:05:42] The best thing that you can do when you start your website, and the reason why I tell people to do this, is get it online, because Google is going to start seeing what you do. And so you are starting from the very beginning of your business or wherever you’re at. When you start, you are creating that profile, you’re building trust, you’re building kind of that sort of that juice with Google to help people find you. And then you are also really showing up as a professional, reliable, trustworthy source for people who stumble across you on search or get referred to you by somebody that they know. We are pretty much all going to type in somebody’s name when we hear a referral or we hear about what they do. And so we want to have an online space that’s going to highlight what we do, highlight our expertise, really connect with people and make it look like we’re professional. We know what we’re doing. We’re still in business. We didn’t close down. All of those things. Because what a website can do for you that other profiles are not going to be able to give the whole picture on. 

Linzy [00:07:00] Yes. And something else I’ve also noticed, even just in myself, is if I do a search for somebody like, say, specifically a therapist, even like a colleague of mine, like, you know, I’ll be talking to somebody who is looking for a therapist. I’m like, Oh, you should really connect with this colleague of mine that I used to work with. When they don’t have a website, sometimes it feels like a bit sus, like you’re like they’re really real. I think we have, for better or worse, reached this time in society where, like the internet is so real to us that if you don’t have a presence on the internet, I think there is this question that comes up in people’s mind of like for who they really are. They really feel like, are they real? Yeah, it’s going to be much easier, I think, for somebody to assess and make a decision about somebody who has an actual website, a presence to look through. Then somebody they’re like, Yeah, I read their like two paragraphs on Psychology Today, but like, it doesn’t look serious. And I do think it does raise little flags in us if someone is not truly searchable, if there’s not actually like a website to land on rather than little like bits and pieces scattered over the internet. 

Samantha [00:08:01] Absolutely. When I was talking to my mom about some of my clients, you know, she goes to her chiropractor and she’s like, Yeah, I Googled my chiropractor and they didn’t have a website and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to call them. And I’m like, If this is just like these older generations and they are Googling people, we know that we need it, like. 

Linzy [00:08:18] The boomers, the boomers, things like that. Everybody below is going to think like that too. Yeah, there is like a legitimacy that a website gives you, unfortunately, in a way, because I’m like, it seems kind of arbitrary, but people are really looking for that and when they don’t find that, it plants seeds of doubt. Yeah. So for people then who are starting a website or they, they have a website, but they’re like, I don’t know if this is actually working for me, not seeing the returns on it. How can you make a website actually get folks in the door? What needs to go into that? 

Samantha [00:08:49] I really like to keep it simple. So when you are taking a look at your website, if you’ve already built it, what I like to start with is looking at some of the data. Are you getting traffic to your website? Because if you don’t have any traffic, right, then the design isn’t going to matter, right? But if you are getting that traffic to your site, what the data can tell you is which pages they’re coming to and kind of how long they’re staying there. And that’s going to give you a good picture of if you’re capturing people’s attention. And then if you get lots of people on there, but you’re not getting them to call in or book an appointment, you know, there’s kind of a disconnect in the way that it’s laid out for them to then take that next step with you. So you’re kind of a detective. You’re figuring out where is the problem and then what do we need to do about it? 

Linzy [00:09:47] Yeah. Yeah. Because I think, you know, one way that I think about it is it’s like they’re in the house of your website. Like, what window are they jumping out of instead of getting to the end and, like, contacting you, which is the goal, right? And so that’s information. You know, if folks are listening now and they’re like, Oh, I don’t know that about my website, is that information that they’re already going to have available to them if they go look in the back end of the website? Or is that something that they’re going to have to specifically add some text to do that? How easy is it for folks to find that information? 

Samantha [00:10:17] Depends on your platform. So any platform you can add Google Analytics, it’s going to give you the most information, probably too much information, but you can install that, give it 30 days and you’ll get data. If you’re on a website platform like Kajabi, Squarespace, I think Wix even has some analytics. If you’re on a paid plan, you can go in and see some basic information. As far as how many people, how many visitors do you have, which pages are they looking at, that kind of stuff. Yeah, and that’s always a good place to start. 

Linzy [00:10:55] Okay. Yeah, but will those platforms tell you where people left? Like what page they were on when they exited your website? 

Samantha [00:11:04] Most of them don’t, you just kind of have to dig in. What I have always seen is a correlation between the most popular pages and the pages people leave from that, which make sense. If you have the most people on your home page, the most people are going to leave from your home page. 

Linzy [00:11:22] Right. Okay. Yeah. So that’s not necessarily something to look for to be like, you know this when people left this page, this page is my weakest link. 

Samantha [00:11:30] Yeah, you have definitely have to have something like Google Analytics that’s going to go more in-depth with that. 

Linzy [00:11:36] Yes. Yeah. And I think that’s really helpful for folks listening, because most therapists, if they are established in private practice, do have a website, right? But it’s like, I love your point of like, is your website even getting traffic right? Like, where are people going? Because something I can think of is like if you have a website that’s getting traffic, but nobody’s making it to your contacts page. That shows you there’s a problem there, right? In a situation like that, what would you- how do you solve that? What do you know to do if you discover that for folks who are listening? 

Samantha [00:12:07] What I always start with is I tell people that we need to look at what your number one goal of your website is. So that’s going to be getting to your contact page, filling out the form, actually getting the submit button. And then we work backwards. So we want to make sure that every page of our website is a journey to move them there. Mhm. So your first call to action on your home page under your headline where you’re talking about what you do should send them to the contact page to get in touch. Yeah. Action on your services page where you’re talking about these are the people that I work with, That’s kind of how we lay everything out. That button should send them to the contact page, so we want them to have a really easy time getting the information they need and getting over to where they need to be without getting distracted by everything else. 

Linzy [00:12:59] Yes. Yes. Okay. That’s a great point. So for people listening, if you feel like you’re not getting enough to your contact page, make sure it’s easy for them to get there. Like using that house metaphor, which may or may not be helpful at all. But I’m thinking like you’re going to be able to see kind of who’s going to what room in the house. It’s like every house should have a portal to the place you actually want them to end up. Yeah. Which for therapists is going to be their contact page where they fill out the form because something else that occurs to me, so the like, I’m just thinking about all the friction points for folks who reach out, especially to mental health therapists because there’s so much vulnerability there. This probably also applies to folks who are looking more for like physical or, you know, health supports, but especially mental health. There’s like so much shame there and there’s so many feelings that I would think that like any friction that you can remove is a good idea. To remove anything that might get in their way could lead to them just jumping off and being like I’ll just contact her later instead. Or like, No, I’m just going to keep. Like, does that, is that accurate? Like, should we really be trying to, like, make it as easy as possible? 

Samantha [00:13:57] Yes, You need to make it as easy as possible. And some easy ways to do that is make your contact form as simple as possible. So only ask the questions you absolutely have to do. It’s not an entire intake questionnaire. Let them fill out a contact form or schedule in an appointment scheduler directly instead of having to call your office. I will not schedule somebody if I have to talk to them on the phone. 

Linzy [00:14:24] Yes. You’re not the only person below the boomer generation who feels that way. Yeah. 

Samantha [00:14:29] And then if you are sending them offsite to some kind of scheduling software that you use, try to make that as clear as possible too. So don’t have them go there and then have to choose which appointment type that they want, for how long it’s supposed to be or which issue you’re dealing with. Like all they need to do is get on your schedule or get that form in your inbox. 

Linzy [00:14:55] That is so true. I sat with someone recently supporting them to reach out to a therapist, and so I got to see all the points where there was friction that if I, if I had not been there, like literally for the purpose of just supporting this person in submitting the form, and it was like, why are you reaching out for help? And like, even that is a hard question for someone to answer if they’re really in distress. And so, yeah, it makes me think about how again, it’s like as therapists and practitioners, we’re so used to what we do that it’s like, Oh, just, just put on the form that you were sexually abused as a child. That’s- I hear that every day. It’s like for them, it’s not every day, right? It’s- we get- we can really forget how hard it is for folks to even name the reasons that they’re coming to see us. So if you’re asking folks to do that before they even meet you, you’re asking a lot and you’re possibly losing people because of that friction. Yes, absolutely. So for a website, then, if somebody is maybe in a place where they’re going to be building their own website or they’re thinking like, okay, is my website actually doing this stuff, what pages and information actually need to be part of a good therapist website? 

Samantha [00:16:02] I always start with four pages, so you have your home page where you’re basically giving an overview of what you do, who you work with, all of kind of the ways people can connect with you. Yeah, you have an about page that’s going to address your credentials. If you have a team, you’re going to include that. Kind of give them all of the things that are going to make you trustworthy, that they’re going to know you were the right person for them and that you have the expertise that they’re looking for. You want a services page, and I like to keep this as simple as possible without a whole bunch of dropdowns and extra links where you’re going to talk about kind of the overall thing that you help people with. And then you can list out, you know, these are some of the issues that we might address. These are the types of therapy that we might use. Because when people come to your services page, they’re not going to know what all of that means necessarily. You as a therapist are going to be working with them to figure out, here’s what we need to do in your specific situation. So people just kind of need to hit these keywords that apply. These are some things I’ve heard of. Want to make sure you know what you’re talking about. If you can include testimonials from clients, even if they’re anonymous, that can be really helpful. And then you’ve got at the end of that, you’ve got your contact page where they’re actually getting in touch to set up an appointment with you. 

Linzy [00:17:30] In a very simple way where you’re not asking too much for them. Yes, yes. Yeah. And the testimonials piece like I know for me, I’m in Ontario, registered as a social worker. Like we’re not allowed to use testimonials at all, which is a, you know, a bummer. The business part of me knows that’s a bummer. The other parts of me know like, No, it’s so complicated. So that’s definitely something that, you know, folks should be checking with their own college to see what you’re allowed to do in the state you are, with a specific licensing body that you’re part of. So how much does a good website cost? I have had friends do $20,000 website overhauls. I’ve heard people do $500 websites. Like it’s such a massive range when folks are looking to like make this investment in their business, how much should they actually expect to pay for a decent website or a good website? 

Samantha [00:18:23] Yeah, it’s, I mean, it’s going to be a range. It’s going to depend, I would say you can if you want to work with a design agency that’s going to do kind of start to finish, everything is going to be 10,000 plus. If you’re willing to do a little bit more work and work with somebody like me, I have my own small business. I am going to be working with you one-on-one. We’re going to design the website, get it launched. So my process is 3500. That’s about what other designers who do what I do charge. Yeah, and then you can add on additional pieces. So if you don’t want to write the copy for your website, I have copywriters who are about that same price range that I refer you to, so it could definitely be under 10,000 depending on what you want to take on and what you want to hand off to somebody else. Yeah. 

Linzy [00:19:14] Yeah. 

Samantha [00:19:15] Yeah. The other cost you have to consider is you’ve got a domain that’s going to be $15, $20 a year. That’s like the URL they type in. Yes, Yes. And then you’ve got your website hosting and that can, that can vary a lot depending on the platform you’re using. But I would expect to spend probably no more than $300 a year on that unless you’re on something like Kajabi that’s also a course hosting platform and that is a lot more expensive. 

Linzy [00:19:46] Yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay. So I’m hearing then, like unless folks are going like premium, which is like the 10,000 plus. A typical website overdo will be a few thousand dollars. And if you add copywriting on top, that’s another like few thousand dollars. So we’re looking like somewhere around $7,000 for a good website. Yeah. And as folks are thinking about this because some people are listening now would be like, Oh, I did not want to spend $7,000 on a website. What would be your argument as to why it’s this is a worthwhile investment for all the things that therapists could be investing in in their business. 

Samantha [00:20:20] What I have seen – and I have looked at a lot of websites – is that most websites in any of the health and wellness fields are pretty outdated. They look like they were designed, you know, 20 years ago. 

Linzy [00:20:33] And so you’re saying they’re bad? Yeah. 

Samantha [00:20:37] But if you’re going to invest in something and you’re going to invest in the copy and the messaging that is going to resonate with the people you want to work with, if you’re going to create a design that is going to feel really welcoming and kind and communicate what you do, you are going to see those clients come in as a return of investment because A, you’re going to jump up in the search results. You’re going to see more of your referrals convert because people are going to see, Oh yeah, you’re a legitimate business. I feel like you’re trustworthy and I want to work with you and you’re just going to start building all of that. And I think everybody is going to be moving in that direction. So if you can get in ahead of everybody else, it’s definitely going to build momentum in your business. 

Linzy [00:21:25] Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah, I know. For me, when I started out, I had a website built by somebody else because web design is one of the few things that makes me feel smashy. It brings out the rage. I have very little rage in my body. But there is something for me about, like, I used to do HTML back in the day in various admin capacities and something about like an HTML script that is not working, and it looks right to me, but it’s not working, just makes me want to smash my computer. So I learned that the emotional value of outsourcing is also really high. But I will say like having made that investment in my practice at the beginning, you know, I used to be the top of Google like, you know, the very top if you searched like trauma therapy Guelph, or therapist Guelph, like I was front page and that probably got me dozens of referrals over the years that I was practicing. So there is like a return on investment piece there. Is there ever a time when you would tell somebody that it’s not the right time to invest in a website? 

Samantha [00:22:24] I encourage people who are just starting out. If you are not seeing a ton of clients yet, feel like that time in your schedule to figure some of this out. If you’re not exactly sure who you want to work with and you’re narrowing down on that, yeah, it’s a great time to just find a platform or find a template, get it up and out there as a DIY solution and know that you can come back to it later. Once you have all those answers and who exactly you want to work with and what your messaging is going to be, right? Instead of putting in that big investment upfront and then having to change a lot of things down the road. 

Linzy [00:23:04] Yeah, and that’s actually, you know, that’s such a great point. Sometimes I think that it’s tempting to want to invest in those things when you first start your business because it feels like a way you’re going to figure that stuff out. Like it’s like a shortcut where it’s like, But if I make a website, then it’s solid and then I’m going to know who I serve and I’m going to know how I talk about what I do. But it doesn’t actually replace that time, though sometimes it takes to like, really, like hone in your niche and be like, Oh, actually I don’t really want to serve folks with like intense anxiety like I used to in my my agency job. I’m actually getting really excited about working with parents, and that’s going to be my niche. Sometimes it does take a time to feel your way through that niche. And so yeah, you wouldn’t want to get a website built that’s all about anxiety when you’re three weeks away from pivoting to being like a parent coach. Yeah, that would not be a great investment. Samantha For folks who are listening, where can they find you if they’re interested in learning more about what you do? 

Samantha [00:23:57] So my business is lemon and the sea, which makes it pretty easy. So my website is lemonandthesea.com . I am on Instagram and LinkedIn. So Instagram is lemonandthesea LinkedIn is Samantha Mabe, just my name and that is mostly where I am hanging out. I also have a podcast that I talk business and website design on, and that’s process to profitability. 

Linzy [00:24:19] Well, great. Thank you so much for joining me today, Samantha. 

Samantha [00:24:22] Yeah, thank you for having me and chatting about this. 

Linzy [00:24:39] Marketing is one of those things that, as therapists, most of us don’t tend to love. I don’t love it. And yet it is such an important part of the business. And I like this framing of your website as being part of, you know, giving your potential clients an experience of you before they even meet you, thinking about what is their experience coming onto this website? Where does this website lead them to? Is there language that makes sense to them? Does it feel overwhelming? Are you asking them questions in order for them to just get a consultation with you that are actually really difficult questions for them to answer? And you don’t realize that because you’re so used to talking about these hard things every single day. These are great things to reflect on, thinking about our own websites and ultimately making sure that we have websites that represent us really well and get the right folks in the door and allow us to thrive in private practice. So thank you to Samantha for coming on the podcast today. You can follow me on Instagram at @moneynutsandbolts. And if you’re enjoying the podcast, I would so appreciate if you’d head over to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review. It’s the best way for other folks to find us and be part of these conversations. Thanks for listening today. 

Mary Beth [00:00:04] The thing is, when something goes wrong, people do want to assist us. And if you have a team, they want to be there for you. Even if you have support, people like accountants and bookkeepers. They do. They want to help you. They just need the tools to be able to support you. 

Linzy [00:00:29] Welcome to the Money Skills for Therapists podcast, where we answer this question How can therapists and health practitioners go from money shame and confusion, to feeling calm and confident about their finances and get money really working for them in both their private practice and their lives? I’m your host, Linzy Bonham, therapist turned money coach and creator of the course Money Skills for Therapists. Hello and welcome back to the podcast. Today’s guest is Mary Beth. She guides business owners to create contingency plans that prepare them and their team for extended vacations or the unexpected so businesses can continue to run successfully in their absence. Today’s episode is a conversation about the things that we don’t like thinking about, which I think makes it very much on par with what we usually talk about here when we talk about money and those things that we don’t like thinking about is what if we get sick? What if we get injured? What if we need to step away to take care of somebody else in our life who gets sick or injured? Or what if we die? They’re not fun questions to think about, but I think we all know if we zoom out, that it’s worthwhile to start to put plans in place to make it possible for things to be taken care of if those things happened, when those things happen. The conversation with Mary Beth today really got my wheels turning, thinking about the importance of having a professional will, the importance of bringing other people into your business. So it’s not just all living in your head. And we get into how to actually make a contingency plan. What does a contingency plan actually look like? What is in it both for your personal life but also for your business? So if you have a hard time thinking about the what-ifs in your life and if you will want to have a plan in place so that your family and your clients are taken care of if you are not able to take care of them. This is going to be a great episode for you. Here’s my conversation with Mary Beth Simon. So Mary Beth, welcome to the podcast. 

Mary Beth [00:02:36] Thank you, Linzy. It’s a pleasure to be here with you. 

Linzy [00:02:39] I’m excited to have you here. And I’m excited partially because we’re going to talk about the things that people don’t like to talk and think about. 

Mary Beth [00:02:47] That is true. 

Linzy [00:02:47] Which I think is really important. Yes. Which I see is kind of part of, you know, the work that I’m trying to do in the world is get folks approaching and thinking about the inevitable things that we don’t like to think about. And you, I think, are on a similar mission with a slightly different focus. So mine is money, you know, yours is the hard stuff that happens in life. There’s contingency plans that we need. 

Mary Beth [00:03:09] Yeah. And the idea is to keep the money flowing. 

Linzy [00:03:12] Yeah, right, right, right. Okay. So we’re going to talk about- I talk about taxes, you talk about death and other things. So we’re going have a death and taxes conversation today. So folks listening. Take a breath, grab a warm drink. Let’s settle in to think about things that we don’t like to think about, but that are inevitable, or at least likely, which is that life happens. So, Mary Beth, you help folks think about contingency plans. So for the therapists who are listening, like what kind of contingency plans do they need to consider having in place? 

Mary Beth [00:03:42] Yeah. So I do a lot of work with therapists, so I can go pretty deep into some of the therapist concepts for contingency planning. So I always recommend that we start with a personal contingency plan and address the things about our legal and financial aspects just as a human being. Right? So that we’re talking about what happens to our family if something happens to us, what do they need to know? And then after the personal contingency plan is in place, then for business owners, the next step is to create a contingency plan for your business so that either someone who you trust professionally or personally will be able to step in and keep your business running if something happens to you, until you get back on your feet. Or know how to address what’s happening, how to understand your business, if you do die unexpectedly. Right? And then the third plan is called a Business Continuance Playbook, and that is about documenting the standard operating procedures – the SOPs – for your role as a business owner. Right. 

Linzy [00:05:01] So and just to, you know, really ground in the kinds of things we’re talking about, like what are the kinds of events that might happen that mean you need a contingency plan in place? 

Mary Beth [00:05:11] Yeah. So, I mean, one of the gifts of COVID was that it brought clarity to us about how people and business owners in particular can be fine and operating in their business one day and then hospitalized the next. Right. Especially, you know, in the early days of it. So, you know, anything can happen from the potential of having even a concussion where you can’t look at a computer, where you can’t read, you can’t be in a room with light, that kind of thing, something that will take time for that to heal. A car accident, an illness, you know, anything that would take you out of the game. All the way up to something that would take you out permanently. 

Linzy [00:06:04] So, like injury, illness, death, these are all things that we need to be- although we don’t like to think about them. And I think especially like, you know, for myself, like I’m a parent to a young child. So, like, these are things that are especially difficult and painful to think about, you know, when we’re I’m so relied on. But they’re the kinds of things that you can put a plan in place so at least you can mitigate some of the impact. 

Mary Beth [00:06:26] Yes. And the idea is that if something does happen that takes you out of the game temporarily, you want your business to be able to continue running. You want to continue getting paid, if that’s possible. You want bills to be paid so that things don’t go off the rails in a 2- to 4-week time period. Yes, that makes it even more difficult for you to come back into the business. 

Linzy [00:06:53] Totally. And what I think about, too, is if you do, I don’t know, have to be hospitalized. You- I mean, last week, my team, we had three different medical crises or emergencies in my team, just, you know, just being people in our early forties, I, you know, like I got injured and then my spouse had to go to hospital and then our other team member had to go to the hospital just like bizarre. But it’s like, that’s just life. What I think about too, is like if you have plans in place as you’re saying that like things are taken care of, even if you’re not in the business, you can actually rest and take care of yourself. You’re not worried about like, oh, God, there’s this thing that I had to do or there’s this bill that has to be paid or that only you can do because there’s no information for somebody else to be able to do it for you. 

Mary Beth [00:07:33] Yeah, and that’s such a great example because that really does happen. I have seen people in that position where they really they cannot rest. They cannot take care of themselves because of the worry that their family isn’t taking care of that. There isn’t enough information in place for someone to assist them. And the thing is, when something goes wrong, people do want to assist. 

Linzy [00:07:57] That’s true. That’s so true. 

Mary Beth [00:07:58]  And if you have a team, they want to be there for you. Even if you have support. People like accountants and bookkeepers, they do. They want to help you. They just need the tools to be able to support you. 

Linzy [00:08:11] Right. So you know something about folks listening right now, like many, many of the people listening to this podcast are probably solo practitioners where it’s like just them in their business. They might not even have an administrator and maybe they have an accountant that they see once in a while. Like for those folks where it’s really just them and their clients, that’s kind of who’s, you know, around. How can they ensure that their clients would be taken care of if they have to be absent or, or even if if they pass away? Like how do you leave a contingency plan for a business that’s really just you? 

Mary Beth [00:08:43] Okay, so let’s start with something that would be more common. So let’s say that there was an illness that took a solo practitioner out of the business for a couple of weeks. In that scenario, to be prepared, you might want to create some type of an agreement with another solo practitioner therapist where you could support each other in the event of an emergency. So have someone who is authorized to contact your clients in the event of your absence, or even just to say someone will reach out to reschedule you at a later date just to have that communication with your client so that they’re not left hanging and that the person who is out of the practice can get some rest and take care of what they need to take care of. So approaching your contingency planning as a way of collaborating with another solo practitioner is one idea that may work. Since you have the credentials, the authority to support that other practitioner. When it goes into a more extreme case where a solo practitioner may die. In that situation, it’s important for therapists to have a professional will and a professional power of attorney. 

Linzy [00:10:16] Okay, Yeah. 

Mary Beth [00:10:17] And this can be difficult to find attorneys who are familiar with creating them. Okay, So it’s a concept that started in California. 

Linzy [00:10:29] Not surprising.  

Mary Beth [00:10:32] And then some attorneys across the country are familiar with what that means. So from the professional will perspective, this person would be authorized to take on your clients to access client records or to do the transition for the clients. And then from the power of attorney perspective, they would be authorized to potentially do some financial work in your business, you know, work with your bank accounts, communicate with your accountant to keep things moving, as well as to have access to your clients and their information. 

Linzy [00:11:12] Right. Okay. So that would actually be a will that you would have drawn up where you, you know, you’ve named your person, your power of attorney. And it sounds like that would also be a colleague. Right? So this would be the more. 

Mary Beth [00:11:24] Yes, it needs to be somebody who is licensed and- 

Linzy [00:11:28] Authorized 

Mary Beth [00:11:29] Authorized. Yeah. 

Linzy [00:11:30] And something I think about with that, too, is that’s such a gift to leave your clients. I mean, this is true of a will, too. Like I’ve gone through the personal will process twice. The first time it was not complicated because I had no kids and, you know, we didn’t we didn’t have like a lot. It was more just making sure that we had a plan in place. It was very simple. The second time was very complicated because we have some complexity in our family’s finances and like really thinking through how you want it to look if you die is not comfortable, but it does really feel like this beautiful legacy to leave your family. And what I’m hearing here is like, this is an opportunity to leave a legacy like that for your clients in the case that you die because that will also be traumatic for your clients. 

Mary Beth [00:12:11] It can be, yeah. You know, like how many therapists have clients who have been with them for years or decades?  

Linzy [00:12:19] Yes. Yes. Right. 

Mary Beth [00:12:20] Even if it’s not constant. Right. You’ve had that connection over the years and they come in and out as they need you and they rely on you as a resource. Yes. And so, Linzy, as you’re talking about creating your personal will, ideally this professional will is something that sits, you know, on top of your personal estate plan. So you start with that foundation of your personal estate plan, depending on how your business has set up, what type of way that it is registered, right, You have to have that incorporated into your personal estate plan and then create your professional will on top of that. 

Linzy [00:13:02] Okay. Yeah, because what I hear there is like, you’re leaving somebody to take care of the business pieces, but also take care of your clients. Right. To, like, inform them of what’s happened and help make sure they get an appropriate referral, whether that is that person themself who maybe does similar work to you, who can take them on, or whether that person helps to do a warm referral to somebody else? 

Mary Beth [00:13:22] Yes. 

Linzy [00:13:23] Yeah. Yeah. That’s a very powerful thing to put in place. And with this Mary Beth, like in your experience, what are some of the things that hold therapists back from doing this work and putting these plans in place? 

Mary Beth [00:13:35] Yeah, So I would say, especially for solo practice therapists, it’s this question that we just talked about. You know, it’s just me and the practice. There is no one- that feeling of there are no other options, right? So opening your mind to the possibilities of what- how that question can be answered and that challenge can be solved. And then on the other hand, if you have a large group practice, then sometimes therapists might feel like it’s so complex. Nobody can be my second in command because it’s so complex. And in that scenario, I suggest that you might want to create more of a board of directors approach to your business where you might have one person who you trust with all of the information and access to the finances, and then potentially have some supporting actors around that individual who are able to do maybe accounting or bookkeeping work or clinical work and make recommendations to that key decision maker, right? 

Linzy [00:14:49] Yes, yes, yes. 

Mary Beth [00:14:50] So those are you know, that who is my second in command is a big question. And the other thing that holds therapists back and people in general back is that we don’t want to go here. We don’t want to think about, you know, at especially at a young age with children, the possibility that we may, you know, we could die early or something like that. We just don’t want to think about it. What I would suggest is when you think about the complexity of your life and your business, just think about somebody needing to navigate that without you there. 

Linzy [00:15:31] Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That’s kind of like a tangled ball of yarn to leave behind for somebody else who does not- is not you and is not in your brain. And you know, something that I’m thinking about as you’re talking is like the therapist so often just as kind of a type of human – often people I find who are in in therapy and health practitioners too, but definitely mental health clinicians – often they’re used to being caretakers and they’re used to being the one who’s responsible, and they’re used to being the one like, No, no, only I can do this. This is my job. And what I’m hearing is like, that story can show up at the solo practice level, where it’s like, but there’s nobody else. It’s like literally only me. But it also show up at the group practice level where like, but it’s so complicated, nobody else can do it. Right. And what I’m hearing is like, we need to push past that story that nobody else can do it. But also we need to actually set it up so somebody else can do it. 

Mary Beth [00:16:20] Yeah. 

Linzy [00:16:20] Right. That’s part of the plan is like we are actually making a map for somebody else because there are other competent folks around us. We’re not the only competent person in the world, you know, but you can use those skills that you have to make it so that everything’s okay, even if you’re not able to run the show. 

Mary Beth [00:16:37] Exactly. And that the key to creating a really solid plan is to go as far into like a challenging area as possible. Right? So it’s, you know, I die suddenly and somebody needs to be able to do this. Who doesn’t do this on a regular basis. Right. But most often, this plan will most likely be used for intermittent disruptions in your life and your business. So often when I’m working with a therapist or a client, something will happen in the family that pulls the business owner or their spouse out of the picture to take care of somebody else for a period of time. That happens so frequently. And so you need your resources around you so that you can get that assistance that that you need. 

Linzy [00:17:34] Absolutely. Yeah. And you know what to think about, too. Is that also having a plan like that in place means that you get to be present with whatever that is, right? Like if you have a parent who falls ill or if your child is hospitalized or, you know, all these things we don’t like thinking about. But that do happen. You know, you just get to again, just be doing that. You don’t have to be worrying about, oh, was this person informed that I can’t make the session? And was like, oh, there was this loop that had to be closed off. Like, you just got to be in whatever role you’re playing in whatever situation or and just be in your own life and not have to be worrying about all these loose ends that nobody else can tie off. 

Mary Beth [00:18:10] Yeah, that’s exactly it. 

Linzy [00:18:11] Yeah. Yeah. So what is the process then, for creating contingency plans? How do we do this? 

Mary Beth [00:18:18] Yes. So the only reason that we don’t already have them in place is that we don’t know the process. Right? For each plan, it takes about four weeks to create each plan. So as I mentioned before, typically I’d like to start with the people with their personal contingency plan. And the first thing is to gather all of the important documents together. So for your personal contingency plan, this includes things like a statement for each bank account that you have for your personal life. Okay, let’s put the business aside, information about the beneficiaries that you have on all of your accounts. So that’s typically your investment accounts, retirement accounts, life insurance. Things change in life and people often forget to change their beneficiaries. And then other people who are friends and family will be shocked at who inherits what because the beneficiary never went back and updated. So information about your cable internet, copies of every card that you carry in your wallet, copies of your passport, TSA access, anything like that, any of your certificates that are legal, professional or religious. So like birth certificates, marriage certificates, death certificates for anybody, and, you know, parents who have passed anything like that. So you get all of this information together, all of your legal documents. The first week is collecting all of this information, and then the second week is organizing it. Now I create binders for my clients, but everybody can do this on their own as well. And so organizing it in sections in the binders. The other part that happens during the personal contingency plan process is clients are asked to adopt a password management system. I like LastPass, but if it is done in paper, like handwritten passwords, I provide people with a password book that’s flexible and they can add sections and paper to it, depending on needing to expand it or contract the size of it. So passwords are a big part of the contingency planning process. And so we usually talk about that in the very beginning because that can be a big change for people. 

Linzy [00:20:53] Yeah, And you know, we now all have, I don’t know, like 2000 apps and websites that have all different passwords and they force us to update passwords randomly. It’s kind of a new problem, right, That didn’t exist 40 years ago when people needed support or passed away. 

Mary Beth [00:21:10] This is the thing, like our digital life is- can be a burden to somebody who is trying to navigate what’s going on with us. So that’s something that’s worthwhile for everyone to consider. Whether you would be able to get yourself into a- like commit yourself to a password management system and get those who depend on you and you depend on in your personal life to adopt the same system. 

Linzy [00:21:40] Yes. Yes, yes. Yes. Okay. 

Mary Beth [00:21:43] One thing I like about LastPass is that you can name an emergency contact who will have automatic access if you don’t deny it within a certain period of time that you set up in the system. 

Linzy [00:21:56] So someone else can get in. Yeah, if that needs to happen. That’s nice. Yeah, that’s nice. 

Mary Beth [00:22:01] Which is a beautiful thing. 

Linzy [00:22:01]  Yes, absolutely. Okay, so gathering together all this information, I think is where we were talking about in the process. Yeah. And then what happens after that? 

Mary Beth [00:22:11] So then we’ve gathered all of the information and then it’s time to review and assess the current state. So when we look at bank accounts, then it’s how are they registered? Who has authorization to act on their bank account? 

Linzy [00:22:30] Yeah. 

Mary Beth [00:22:30] In some investment accounts you can name a trusted contact who can call in, ask questions. They can’t close the account, they can’t liquidate the account, anything like that. But they would be able to work with with the company and get information on it. Then you may also want to consider when you’re looking at things like bank accounts, do you need to give power of attorney to someone else or do you want to add somebody as another owner on the bank account? 

Linzy [00:23:03] Right. Okay. 

Mary Beth [00:23:05] Yeah. So for example, like you may have opened a bank account under your own name, but now years later, you decide, Well, actually, my spouse should be on there with me too, right now so that they don’t have to enact power of attorney in order to get access. 

Linzy [00:23:21] Yes. Yeah. And that is something that I have heard and encountered, like as my grandparents aged and passed away, like having the account set up so it’s easy for someone else to access in case. Yeah, because it can be very complicated. There can be quite a delay for people to access the money if you’re the sole bank account holder. 

Mary Beth [00:23:41] Right. And then so to keep in mind, power of attorney is a factor while you’re alive, while the principal is alive. And then the will comes into play when the principal is deceased. So power of attorney is only a factor while you’re alive. And then the same thing when we look at credit cards, does anyone need to be added as an account manager on the credit card? So sometimes we get confused because one person in the household gets the credit card and gets a copy of the card or an additional card for somebody else. And we think, Oh, well, that’s my credit card account. But it’s only the person who initially applied for the credit card. Okay. So you may want the person who was not the principal on the credit card account to have account manager status, where they can call up, they can have conversations with the credit card company, report fraud, report something stolen, but they cannot close the account without providing a death certificate. 

Linzy [00:24:49] Okay. 

Mary Beth [00:24:50] The other things that we want in there is like we want to make sure that the will and guardianship documents, power of attorney, medical power of attorney is all up to date. So those documents are not set it and forget it, as you were talking about earlier. Yeah. So as life changes, it’s important to either go back to that attorney or find another attorney who you can develop a long term relationship with to review your documents. Let’s say like every five years or any time that there is a significant change, a birth, a death, anything like that. 

Linzy [00:25:28] Right. 

Mary Beth [00:25:29] And the other thing that we would have in there is medical history. I’ve created a one page medical history inventory that makes it easier for people who want to help us are going to be there to support us, to have access to our critical information, medications, doctors, all of that kind of information. Social media handles. Who has access to your social media? Who is permitted to turn it off or you know? And what do you want? What are your intentions? 

Linzy [00:26:03] Yeah. Which again, this is like a whole new area, you know, with the Internet age that we live in. Yeah. And this is something that I’ve seen people encountered when there’s been, like a sudden death in their family is like, would that person have wanted their Facebook to live on? Would they have wanted their Facebook closed? Either way, they couldn’t access it. So yeah, I think those questions of like, yeah, what do we want our digital footprint to be once we’ve died? 

Mary Beth [00:26:26] Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So these are the things that we talk through and you know that people have an opportunity to make decisions about it. All the information about your vehicles, you know, all of your titles, all that information, how things are registered there, would all go into it, a Social Security statement. So it’s a best practice to check your Social Security statement on an annual basis just to make sure that there’s no fraud and your will and your power of attorney, so all that information is there. So it’s a lot. 

Linzy [00:27:00] It’s a lot. It is. Yeah. Yeah. And for folks listening, like, if we think about doing all those things at once, it would be like very overwhelming. Right. And I know sometimes, like, you know, folks that I work with, I see this with with money where it’s like when you haven’t done something for a long time, it can be very tempting to just want to, like, do it all in like catch up. But I’m hearing for you, this is like a four week process. 

Mary Beth [00:27:22] Yes, it’s a four week process for each plan. And so the best way to approach it is to approach it like a project. And you may not want to do them consecutively, right? You may want to say, okay, this month looks good to do a four week sprint in for my personal life, and then in three months I’ll do a four week sprint for my business, right? 

Linzy [00:27:49] Yes. Yeah. So pace yourself as you’re working. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And I’m hearing, like the personal is the foundation. Do that first and then business. You build on top of that. 

Mary Beth [00:28:00] And really once, I mean, there can be some resistance to even beginning this. But once you start and you are, you know well along your way in the personal contingency plan, the business contingency plan goes a lot more smoothly. 

Linzy [00:28:15] Yeah, I’m sure it really flows because that that you’ve you’ve already done a lot of like the hard thinking about just what you want. And I’m sure that once you built that muscle, you can naturally apply that to your business. 

Mary Beth [00:28:27] Exactly. 

Linzy [00:28:27] Would be a lot easier. 

Mary Beth [00:28:29] So next you go into the business contingency plan and there’s there are some similarities. But when we talk about bank accounts here, a lot of therapy clients follow profit first. So it’s important to have narratives about your bank accounts, about how you use profit first, about the way that you move money to which accounts for what purpose. This is super informative for anybody who is your second in command. Yes, this includes your business and liability insurance information about your business credit cards. We create an inventory of devices and hardware, and it asserts memberships and subscriptions. So that is an Excel spreadsheet with all of that information, which is super helpful. One, if you want to assess your expenses. 

Linzy [00:29:26] Yeah, Yeah, right. Yeah, it would certainly serve that function. If you made that list, you might see some things that maybe don’t belong there anymore. 

Mary Beth [00:29:34] Exactly. And then for your devices and hardware, it’s great for insurance purposes. If anything were lost, stolen or anything like that. Health insurance administration, if you have a group practice or a larger business, some therapists have insurance contracts. So we include an inventory of that lease agreements or any rentals, loan documents, payroll information, if that were to apply. And then your professional will on power of attorney retirement plan information for you or your group practice. Again, social media handles, who has access, taxes, information about your federal and tax I.D. letters and local and state registrations. Utilities, Utilities are very much like credit cards where you might want to add an account manager who can have conversations with the companies. And then vendor contracts, business associate agreements and information about your website and who are the contacts and resources for them. 

Linzy [00:30:51] Yeah. And you had mentioned earlier, too, about, you know, the idea of having a SOP – standard operating procedures. How much does that overlap this list? Like how much could have good, I suppose, replace some of the need to list these things or how much do you see them as like two separate projects? 

Mary Beth [00:31:07] Yeah. So there are times where it can seem like there is some overlap. So for example, with Health Insurance Administration, you may have – or payroll – you may have SOPs documented for that. So in their business contingency plan, it’s really just highlight information. So for payroll, like we use gusto, you know, whatever other information, if there is another resort, you know, who in the practice is in charge of payroll? What is the frequency? Just like high level information. And then when we get into the business continuance playbook, that’s where we either make sure that SOPs are already documented or we do the document. I do the documentation. Yeah. The client. Okay. 

Linzy [00:31:56] Yeah. Yeah. And that’s the continuance. So that’s the assumption that somebody is going to keep running the business. Yes. So especially group practice, this would obviously apply. Somebody else is able to step in and keep running the business in your absence or in your death. 

Mary Beth [00:32:09] Yeah. So like for group practices, they’re often looking at it being a sellable asset. We talk through, is there anybody on the radar who you think now would have interest in it? Who, you know, has interest in it at this point? That may change, of course, in the future. But yeah. 

Linzy [00:32:29] Yeah. And in that case, like I mean, that’s an interesting piece because it’s like, okay, let’s see. I know somebody is interested in maybe buying my group. How do I fit them in then to the continuance plan? Because I don’t know, maybe, as you say, maybe they won’t be interested if I become unable to work or if I pass away. How do those things fit together? 

Mary Beth [00:32:48] Yeah. So it is worthwhile to have those conversations just talking through. I mean, that person may have a role in the whole second in command structure and B, you know, you may want to inform them that you are putting this plan in place. Yeah. And as part of the planning process, I’m also considering longer term whether I’m here or I’m not. You know, would you want to be part of the succession plan? Right. Some therapists who I’m working with, you know, they do see on the horizon that, you know, in 5 to 10 years they would like to get out of the business. Yeah. And then I would say that your business contingency plan and your business continuance playbook are part of your sellable assets. 

Linzy [00:33:39] Yeah. Yeah. 

Mary Beth [00:33:40] Right. Because how many businesses would just love the opportunity to get the business owner, SOPs.  

Linzy [00:33:49] Yes. By creating this, you’re. I mean, what I’m thinking about, too, is you’re also just building your business structure. So rebuilding your business is not just you. It’s not just in your head. Right. Like it’s something else that somebody else could actually step in and run. It exists outside of your brain. And I think, you know, what we talked about earlier. So often therapists, we think that we’re the only people who can do it. And most of it does live inside of our brain. Right. We haven’t recorded it anywhere, which means that we only we can do it because we haven’t actually made it. So anybody else could access that information. So getting it out of your head helps with your contingency plan, but it also gives you a business that you might be able to sell. 

Mary Beth [00:34:23] That’s right. And we gain so much perspective by taking a step back and looking at our business. No matter what line of work you’re in, it always generates ideas for how to do, how to simplify, how to do things differently. Yeah. 

Linzy [00:34:41] And I think, you know, something that I would be curious about, too, is when people do this process, do you see this ever leading to people reassessing like what they’re doing now, not just in terms of processes, but like, yeah, like I something bad could happen to me. I find for me when I ever I do that kind of reflecting, it does get me thinking like, okay, am I actually living the life I want to live right now? 

Mary Beth [00:35:00] Well, that’s wonderful. I mean, I do see with group practice owners that they’re like, Well, there is this other thing that I would like to do, or with solo therapists who are like, Well, I’d really like to expand into coaching as well. So adding another piece to the business, you know, if they feel like the unknowns are tackled in their existing business, it does kind of open up the space for them to consider adding or changing their business in some way. 

Linzy [00:35:34] That’s so parallel to my experience, Mary Beth, with like helping folks with financial foundations, which is, you know, very much adjacent to what we’re talking about here is like once you have your finances clear and you’re in your solo practice or in your group practice, once you’ve got clarity and you’ve got a good foundation, then you do get to grow or change or expand off of that base, right? But when we don’t have that base under our feet, whether it’s like the foundational financial systems in pieces or as you’re talking about like these contingency pieces that like what if pieces when they’re not taken care of, it does take a lot of our bandwidth. I think it takes a lot of our like worry and anxiety like we feel when we’re not on solid ground. 

Mary Beth [00:36:14] Yeah, absolutely. Even if that’s not something that we can’t put our finger on that we can’t put words to. Once you start working on this and you start to tackle it, it does create a sense of security that you have that cover, that everybody who depends on you, that they are going to be okay because you put this plan in place. 

Linzy [00:36:39] Oh, I love that. So, Mary Beth, for folks who are interested in learning more about you, interested in learning more about contingency planning, where can they find you and what do you have for them? 

Mary Beth [00:36:50] Yeah, so I created a free business contingency plan for your audience. Cool. Yeah. So they can go to nichepartnershipconsulting.net/linzy. And in that you’ll see narratives for the for the bank accounts and the credit cards. And there is a 12 question checklist that will help you get started with creating your business contingency plan. There’s other free resources on the website that you’re welcome to check out as well and active on LinkedIn. If anybody wants to connect with me, they’re wonderful. 

Linzy [00:37:27] That is a very exciting I’m going to go get that that freebie for myself. 

Mary Beth [00:37:33] Yeah. Yes, please do. 

Linzy [00:37:35] Thank you so much, Mary Beth, for joining me today. This is a really thought provoking conversation. 

Mary Beth [00:37:40] It was great to be with you, Linzy. Thank you for having me. 

Linzy [00:37:56] This conversation with Mary Beth has certainly inspired me to get my professional will and contingency plan in place. I have done the work, as I mentioned, around my personal will, although I have not completed my personal contingency plan. I do have a great book called I’m Dead Now What? Where you can fill in all of these things, think through how you want things to look, and help people find all the important information if suddenly you die or if you’re ill. Really, really helpful to think about just putting these things in place now. While we’re well and we’re able to. And what a gift that is for your future self. If you find yourself in one of these situations for your family, but also for your clients. You know, I’ve heard so many people make mention of a therapist dying, their therapist dying and then never finding somebody else. Right. And we can’t guarantee, of course, that our clients will want to work with whoever we have as our executor on our professional. Well, that colleague, that trusted colleague that we bring in. But think of how much better it is for your clients to hear about your death from somebody else who is a skilled professional who can hold the space for them on a phone call, you know, giving them the news and then letting them know that they can either see them themselves or work to connect them with somebody else who would be a good fit. What a gift to leave your clients if you know the worst were to happen. So really, lots to think about after this conversation with Mary Beth today. You can follow me on Instagram at @moneynutsandbolts. If you want some free money content there we’re always doing the practical and emotional pieces that we like to do. And if you’re enjoying the podcast, I’d really appreciate if you can be a review on Apple Podcasts. It is the best way for other therapists and health practitioners to find me and to be part of these conversations. Thanks for listening today. 

Jennifer [00:00:04] You have to have a great relationship with money in order to make money really work for you. And I feel like the more work we can do around intuition and connect to why money is a tool and what we want money to do for us, the stronger we are in our relationship with money. 

Linzy [00:00:28] Welcome to the Money Skills for Therapist podcast, where we answer this question How can therapists and health practitioners go from money shame and confusion, to feeling calm and confident about their finances and get money really working for them in both their private practice and their lives? I’m your host, Linzy Bonham therapist turned money coach and creator of the course Money Skills for Therapists. Hello and welcome back to the podcast. So today’s guest is Jennifer McGurk. Jennifer McGurk was connected with me through one of my lovely students, Paula Miller, who’s taken Money Skills and now she’s doing Money Skills for Group Practice Owners. She introduced Jennifer and I, and she was like, You two should meet each other. And we just did, and it went so well. So thanks, Paula. Jennifer is the founder of Pursuing Private Practice. She is a dietitian who helps other dietitians start private practices in all these ways. And she’s also expanding and serving other health practitioners. Today, Jennifer and I talked about the relationship between money and food, which is a conversation I’ve been wanting for a while. This has been percolating in my brain. So we talked about how our relationships between money and food can look so similar, both in terms of the societal messages, the fantasies, the magical thinking that we have around money and food, but also in terms of what does an intuitive grounded relationship with these things look like? Tons of parallels there. And then Jennifer also shared about how money looks different at different stages of private practice, which is super helpful to think about as we grow. Money looks different and our skills and what we’re learning also needs to look different. Here is my conversation with Jennifer McGurk. So Jennifer, welcome to the podcast. 

Jennifer [00:02:22] Thank you so much for having me. It’s such an honor to be here. 

Linzy [00:02:25] I’m excited to have you here. I’m excited to have you here. And I was saying to you just off mic, just before we started recording that I had just been thinking the other day, I was walking and I was thinking, I need to have someone on the podcast to talk about the parallels between our relationship to food and our relationship to money. And we had already prescheduled this podcast and here you are. 

Jennifer [00:02:48] The worlds are colliding. 

Linzy [00:02:49] And worlds are colliding. So for folks who are listening, who don’t know who you are, can you tell us a little bit, just a little bit about who you are and what you do to contextualize our conversation? 

Jennifer [00:03:00] Yes. So my name is Jennifer McGuirk. I am the CEO of Pursuing Private Practice. I am a registered dietitian, also a certified eating disorder specialist, clinical supervisor and business coach. And historically, pursuing private practice has really been meant for dietitians, nutritionists. And we just started branching out and talking to other healthcare professionals because so much of the work that we do for dietitians can be across the board to other professions. So I’m so excited about this new direction, although it’s just a little tiny pivot in the world of business, as you know. 

Linzy [00:03:36] Yes. Yes. 

Jennifer [00:03:37] But my background in dietetics and private practice has really solidified the work that I do now with other dietitians. And I love the concepts of health at every size, intuitive eating, weight inclusivity, and those values really inform the work that I do in business. There is a lot of diet culture in business, and I love to find it, point it out, and help business owners be connected to their business and more intuitive about their decisions. While understanding like creating a business that serves them is the number one value and priority. And a lot of times as healing helpers and professionals, we put ourselves last. 

Linzy [00:04:20] Yes, we do. 

Jennifer [00:04:21] So I am so excited to, you know, have my work be out there helping so many business owners. 

Linzy [00:04:26] Yeah. Okay. And I love this. And the way that, you know, you bring your knowledge of diet, culture and all the work that you do to counter diet culture into your work, because I do think there’s there’s so much here. 

Jennifer [00:04:39] Yeah. 

Linzy [00:04:40] Let’s dig into like what do you see as the connections between food and the way we talk about food and money. 

Jennifer [00:04:48] Yes. Okay. I was- I’ve been thinking about this question so much lately because I’ve been talking a lot about money, and you are the perfect person to talk to about this. So many of us focus on the external with the money and they give themselves value. It’s almost like they get a hit of serotonin when they see a certain number in their bank account. And I always say to people like making money is amazing and making money is a boundary, but why does making money matter to you? And I like to think about money as being a tool. I know you’ve said that before on your podcast, too, so I know we’re in alignment with that. But it’s not like you, you know, get all this money and then like, instantly the magic happens for you. You have to have a great relationship with the money in order to make money really work for you? 

Linzy [00:05:44] Mm hmm. 

Jennifer [00:05:44] I feel like so many of us have shame around money. I feel like so many of us want more money, but don’t necessarily know how much more we want. I feel like a lot of us have this, you know, upbringing with money that affects how we think about it today. That just makes us disconnected. And I feel like the more work we can do around intuition and connect to why money is a tool and what we want money to do for us, the stronger we are in our relationship with money. And with food. 

Linzy [00:06:12] Yeah. Yeah. 

Jennifer [00:06:14] Very similar in the sense that so many of us are disconnected. We have these nutrition like recommendations. We have all these diet plans that exist. We have diet culture telling us when you lose this magical number of pounds and when your weight is where it is, your entire life is going to be better. But what happens when all of that doesn’t work for someone? Because it doesn’t work for a lot of people and they’re disconnected to their bodies and the intuition of hunger and fullness and the principles of intuitive eating and satisfaction in eating foods that we actually really want and connecting to our body image in the way that is going to work for us. And said with a ton of nuance, because there’s a lot of oppression in this world that really, you know, affects so many people in different ways and more people have oppression than others. And I am someone that has many unearned privileges and I’ve worked with over a thousand eating disorder clients in my office between my solo work and my group practice. And I have seen so many people battle diet culture and come out on the other side very connected to their why and why their relationship with food is so important in their life. And I see so many parallels with that and money. 

Linzy [00:07:35] Mm hmm. Yeah. Like the the diet culture piece. Like I’m hearing part of it is like, with money, it’s like you look at a number on your bank account, you think it says something about you, or there’s the story. When X happens with money, your whole life is going to be different. Just like there’s a story when you lose X amount of pounds, you’re going to feel great. You’re going to be confident that it ended up like these kind of fantasy narratives that happen with these two things. And yeah, like what I’m hearing from you is, is intuition. Yeah, right. Like there’s there’s a going inside. So I’m curious. You know, if the problem is that we’re kind of sold this story of when X, then Y, right, that either doesn’t come true or isn’t even possible depending on our our circumstances or who we are. Tell me about like how intuition looks like. How does that different relationship with money or with food look? What is that intuitive relationship like? 

Jennifer [00:08:28] First of all, I think it’s different for every single person. In food, there is a concept called intuitive eating. And in intuitive eating, you really do combine so many different nuances into the work of being a connected eater. So there is the nuance of having knowledge about general nutrition and what works for your body. There’s the nuance of connecting to hunger and fullness. There’s the nuance of rejecting diet culture and figuring out like how to respect your body, move in a way that works for you and, you know, figure out like what are satisfying foods that are actually going to work for you. So having that individualization within a framework is how people really connect to what their body needs, right? And in a world where there’s so much diet culture and just noise everywhere telling you what to do, how to eat, I think people lose that internal voice that is guiding them through the choices that they make around food every single day. So connecting to I like these certain foods and I don’t like these other certain foods. 

Linzy [00:09:36] Yes. 

Jennifer [00:09:37] Connecting to like actually, what does nutrition mean for me in terms of setting up meals and snacks that might work for my body. Right. And things that I’m craving and etc., etc.. And then also, to what do I have access to for people that might work, you know, in hospital settings and nurses and people like that. Like they might have a specific meal break where they get to eat at a certain time versus someone else that might have a little bit more flexibility. So what is going to work for them? And this is the work that dietitians do, and this is why, quote unquote, following a meal plan. And then I’ll get to the money thing following a budget that’s given to you. 

Linzy [00:10:16] Yes. 

Jennifer [00:10:17] Following a meal plan doesn’t necessarily work because everyone’s quote unquote, meal plan, is going to be a little bit different depending on their circumstances, their food preferences, what they like and how they connect to their own body. And that’s why diets just don’t work for so many people. And that’s why I feel like money stuff and budgeting doesn’t necessarily work for so many people because you can’t just give someone a cookie cutter budget and have them follow it to a tee. You have to get to know them and what they want in their life and their lifestyle and their expenses and things like that. And then when it comes to business owners, you know, what kind of business are they running? What are the operational costs, what are the expenses, what’s the team that you need? So everyone is going to be a little bit different. The categories might be similar in terms of the different things that you have to think about with money, but the ranges are going to be very different depending on your unique circumstance. 

Linzy [00:11:14] Yes. Yeah. And the really sinking into yourself, you know, is something that I, you know, talk with my students about. And and even when I think about getting to that point where you have like enough money. Right. And it’s like sometimes that’s not satisfying. I’m like, why is it not satisfying? Because we compare what we have to somebody else or we think that we should be spending in certain ways and that that should make us feel certain ways. But that’s not true for most of us. Yes, right. And it’s like sinking into what feels good to you, what is satisfying to you? Like what’s a satisfying way to use money. Right. And I think to with this, there’s also you know, there’s a lot of privilege bound up in this. And I think with money, too, we start to get into certain class stories when we have a certain amount of money. You’re supposed to wear certain types of clothes or drive a certain kind of car. And like, there starts to be this certain outward appearance that you need to maintain because you’ve joined a certain class bracket. But like I will say for myself, for instance, whenever I buy some sort of consumer goods, like there’s just a lot of like cool stuff, you know, as a middle class person. When I buy, like cool stuff from the Internet, it makes me feel good for like about 10 seconds, most of which is me actually placing the order by the time it arrives, I’m already over it, and it’s made my life 0% better. In fact, then I just kind of have this extra thing in my house that I’m more stuff in my house. But I do notice, like, there is this kind of idea of like, you know, you have expendable income, like buying nice, nice things or shiny things. That doesn’t work for me. Right. But if I keep comparing myself to, like, my peers or my friends who make similar money to me, it’s very easy to think that that is what I should be doing, because that’s kind of the that’s what you do when you get to a certain income bracket, right? You, you we compare to people around us so often to guide and so often it’s disconnected with what actually we need. 

Jennifer [00:13:02] It reminds me of going out to dinner and someone with a disordered eating relationship with food might think, I have to get you know, I’m not going to pick an example because I feel like it’s going to be different for everybody. But like, I have to get this really, really healthy thing on the menu. And then all of the people around you are getting exactly what they want. One person might be getting something like an entree. The other person might be getting a couple of appetizers that a person might be deciding to do, like appetizer dessert combo, and everyone is picking what they want based on how they’re feeling and what they’re craving and what works for their body and their situation. And then the person that has that disordered way of thinking around food is picking something based on external rules and not going inward. And I feel like it’s so important to have the insight as to what works for you so you can change your thought patterns, you can change the emotional reactions, and then you can change behaviors. And I say all three of them because sometimes you have to change behaviors before the thoughts and emotions actually change for you. But having that support around it is so important. 

Linzy [00:14:04] Yeah. Yeah. You know, with intuitive, like I’ve tried to think of like what is the term before the equivalent to intuitive eating? Like, is it intuitive spending? Maybe it’s intuitive spending. Yeah. I remember a couple of years ago having someone in the mastermind, one of my- who had done my base course, Money Skills For Therapists, and then we did Mastermind together. And she’s an eating disorder therapist. So, you know, kind of like, yeah, this like dance of like, right. Yeah. And like intuitive spending I think about as the spending decisions where you’re really grounded. Yeah, you’re really connecting with like, why am I making this decision? What is this doing for me? What am I looking for? And this does this thing that I’m purchasing, is it actually going to give me the thing that I’m looking for or am I looking for something else that this can’t even give me? Which I think is the same with food sometimes, too. We’re looking for something from food that food can’t give us. 

Jennifer [00:14:50] Exactly. 

Linzy [00:14:50] And so just like really slowing down to be present with choices is something that I thought would be part of my definition of intuitive spending, like slowing down enough to be with and make a grounded decision for that moment, which might look different than it would the next day. 

Jennifer [00:15:05] Yes, mindfulness mindfulness around why we’re making the choices that we’re making, which is so powerful. 

Linzy [00:15:12] Yes. In terms of business, like you’ve you’ve helped folks at different stages of business growth. And so I’m curious like, how do you see money as being different in different stages of money? 

Jennifer [00:15:26] Yes. So at first in private practice, we have five different stages of business. We have setup, start, grow, scale, and coast. And we love the coasting stage of business so much that really honors self care and boundaries. And sometimes in business you don’t have to keep growing and growing and growing. You can just coast if you want to. 

Linzy [00:15:46] 100%. 

Jennifer [00:15:46] So I feel like money is different at every single one of those stages. When you’re setting up, you’re not making any money in your business. You are literally pouring money into your business. You’re buying courses to educate yourself, you’re getting your software systems set up, you’re spending money on maybe developing a website or, you know, definitely spending money on getting your office set up, whatever that might look for you, whether it’s, you know, an actual in-person space, or home. And in the start stage of business, that’s where you’re making your first amount of money. You are going to be so excited to make your first session fee. That money is going to mean so much more to you than ever before because it’s the first time you actually made money in your business. So it’s so emotional, but you’re still not making a profit at this point because you’re just having a couple of clients. When you’re growing, I find is when you actually start making money in business and you have to be really careful to set great foundational skills in looking at the data, analyzing the numbers. But at this point, I feel like so many of us don’t really know what we’re getting into with the finances because we’ve just spent money and not necessarily had to worry about it so much. And now finally, in the growing stage of business, we are making money. And then for scale, you’re probably hiring someone, you are creating systems in your business. You are really figuring out how to take your growing practice and expand beyond 1 to 1. And that does cost money. But the potential there like big risk, big reward. Yeah, scaling can bring a lot more profit and revenue into your business than maybe what you ever thought possible. Right? So those four stages, I really think focus a lot on money. Coasting, you might just be, you know, hey, maybe I can cut this expense. Maybe, maybe it saves me some time. Pretty much money is flowing and you’re not necessarily trying to grow, but you’re also not trying to lose money in a coasting stage of business. You have to keep up with certain things that will bring revenue into the business. 

Linzy [00:17:45] Mm hmm. Yeah. And something that I hear, not surprisingly, through the lens of Money Skills, is how as we’re in these different stages of business, there are like different skills that start to need to come into play as you move from one stage to another. 

Jennifer [00:18:00] Absolutely. 

Linzy [00:18:01] Can you speak to that a little bit? 

Jennifer [00:18:03] Yes. I mean, I think well, I know you talk about this a lot on your podcast, so I won’t go into it, you know, like there’s so many resources here, but paying yourself is a skill that is very different throughout the different stages of business. I feel like being able, like, especially with scaling, like growing and scaling, you’re probably paying other people to help you if you’re growing. It might be a contractor or two here or there, just helping with website stuff and things like that. And you actually have to start to set boundaries for the value that you expect for the money that you’re paying for the work. And I think that that’s huge. So many people, myself included at the very beginning, just avoid because we’re people pleasers or we want to make sure everyone likes us. And I feel like by the time I hired my 10th team member, I finally figured it all out. 

Linzy [00:18:49] Yes. 

Jennifer [00:18:50] I have to have a job description. I have to have expectations. I have to make sure that the work is getting done. I have to make sure that the business itself is being respected. And I am actually leading the business and not just hiring people to help me. But it’s the business is an asset that I’m trying to protect. So I do think that so many different emotions and feelings and nuances are in this conversation throughout the different stages of the business. 

Linzy [00:19:15] Absolutely. And, you know, when I think about what we were talking about a moment ago in terms of like intuition and being with, yeah, it makes me think about how, you know, you mentioned with intuitive eating, it’s like kind of this mix. There’s a mix of knowledge, right? Like it’s not just like your gut, It’s not just like, what do I want? What does my body want? Yeah, but it’s mixing in knowledge with, you know, that, that like, felt sense of what feels good to your body to make like a balanced decision. And it makes you think about with business. It’s like we do need to be building knowledge at every stage. Like what I’m hearing there is like there’s a skillset around just like HR, like job descriptions, right? Like employee reviews. Being able to have conversations if, like, somebody’s not performing, those are skills. And then you have your gut with it, you have your felt sense of like, is this person fit in? Are they the right hire? Do they make a mistake? But there’s all of this knowledge and these, you know, in a business structures and systems that need to be built around it. So you’re not just firing from the hip. There’s a mix of like head and gut. 

Jennifer [00:20:14] Yes, absolutely. And that’s exactly intuition as well. In food, it’s a mix of knowing, you know, the data around nutrition and what food can do for someone and their health and how it’s connected, and also understanding like where it fits in the realm of health in general. You know, it is a smaller part than what I think people think. People think, oh my gosh, I’m just going to eat healthy and everything’s going to be totally okay. And that’s magical thinking. But it is, you know, figuring out how to take data and intuition together to figure out what’s going to work for you in both business and food. 

Linzy [00:20:46] Hmm. And that’s actually really interesting. You know, going to the parallels again, like that idea of like, I’m just going to eat healthy and everything’s going to be good. It’s like we know that usually that’s not sustainable because you’re eating healthy. What does that mean to you? You’re probably cutting out things that you want. Eventually you’re going to just like go after the things you want. And I think the exact same thing is true with money, right? And like when you have a presence with money, when you have a balanced present relationship, you can look and see like something’s not feeling, right. Oh, I’m not- this is not being fulfilled, right? Like with food, you know, like, oh, well, I love chocolate and I’ve cut chocolate out of my diet and that’s a terrible idea. But with money, too, it’s like, you know, I’m trying to restrict- what I see people do a lot is try to pay down debt super aggressively. Right? It’s like they’ve had this very, like, avoidant relationship with money. They don’t look at it. They’ve accumulated debt. They have a lot of shame or guilt or stress around that. So as soon as they start to try to like, build skills around money, they go like heavy debt pay down. And that’s not sustainable. Right? And so then what ends up happening is like a couple months in a row, you put on 1500 dollars a month on debt and you’re like, I’m the queen of the world, and then the next month your furnace breaks and you can’t put anything down on debt, and then you feel like you’re failing because it’s become this, like, extreme all or nothing. Yeah, right. So those are like swings. It’s not really like a binge purge or restriction, but it is that like going really hard in an unsustainable way to something that might not actually be the most important thing to you in your life at that moment when you actually look at your daily needs and what money could do with you. Yeah, taking your kid to the park might actually be better for you in general than paying that $300 down on debt faster. 

Jennifer [00:22:20] Yes, absolutely. I do think it is a pendulum swing back and forth, though. I see this all the time with food as a dietitian. And I do feel like I see it, too, in business where people will be. So, you know, I’m going to work on my business. I’m going to, you know, spend all this money like getting systems organized, like I’m going to just go heavy, heavy, heavy, and then all of a sudden burn out. 

Linzy [00:22:42] Yes. 

Jennifer [00:22:42] And in the same idea, like people just avoid so much and they do everything themselves. And then they finally start to hire people. And sometimes it’s too late at that point where it’s like you’re going to end up working for a quarter of the year, just eight, 10 hours a day to try to get it all in. And like recognizing the signs of like, where do you meet in the middle? Like, how do you spend intuitively on your business to make sure that you have support and have help and that you don’t reach rock bottom in business before it gets too late. So I think it’s a skill that people learn. I think building the resilience of knowing when to ask for help and when to change course and when to pivot is something that I feel like a lot of us learn through mistakes.  

Linzy [00:23:28] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I would say that I think the being with and being curious – this is my trauma therapist coming out – can help you notice sooner. Like what’s not working right about the way you’re managing your money or what you’re not spending money on because you’re trying to save money, but it’s costing you in your time and energy like your precious time and energy. Absolutely. Just letting yourself like be open to the information that’s there in front of you. Because I think often when we are in this like pushing stage, it makes you think too about like when folks diet really hard where you’re just like, No, I’m just going to do this and it’s going to be fine. And like, you’re putting your head down and you’re pushing and pushing and pushing. You’re like ignoring always other information from inside and from outside. And like all of this stuff that could help you pick a more balanced course. When you when you slow down in your present, there’s a lot of wisdom. 

Jennifer [00:24:16] Yes. And being okay with getting uncomfortable, if that’s not comfortable for you, for the insight of it all, you know, being okay with challenging yourself to do something different. Because, you know, I know you’ve heard the saying before, too, but like, what gets you somewhere doesn’t get you to the next place. You have to learn new skills, be comfortable, and keep challenging yourself to go forward. 

Linzy [00:24:36] Yes. It’s the like, what got you here won’t get you there. In business. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Jennifer, thank you so much for joining me today. It’s so nice to meet you. I, you know, I was joking with you in the beginning about kind of like we’ve got our little pools. We’ve got like, I’m in like, the little, like, mental health therapist. Let’s help mental health therapists like build businesses and you’re in the little like dietetics portion world, you know, and we both like, serve folks from those modalities. So it’s nice to kind of like join our paddles together a little bit today. 

Jennifer [00:25:04] Yes. Oh, my gosh. Linzy, thank you so much for having me on it was unbelievable. 

Linzy [00:25:07]  And so for folks who are looking to find you, follow you, get further into your world, How can they do that? 

Jennifer [00:25:14] Yes. Pursuing private practice dot com is our website. We have so much information and free resources. Lots of things for you to explore and come find me on Instagram. I love hanging out on Instagram. I have a good relationship with social media, which I feel like a lot of people cannot say. But at the real things that we’re talking about, like relationship with social media. So I do have help. It’s me and my team, but we are @pursuing.private.practice 

Linzy [00:25:42] And then we will put those links in the show. Note Thank you, Jennifer, for joining me today. 

Jennifer [00:25:45] Thank you, Linzy. 

Linzy [00:26:00] I was so glad to have this conversation with Jennifer today and start to pull out these pieces around money and food. I feel like there’s like a whole there’s like a book here. There’s a documentary, there’s a course. Like, there’s just so much in terms of the parallels between these two things and I’m sure so much to more that we could say about desire and and bingeing and restriction, the parallel between these things. But ultimately, I do notice, you know, over time, recording these podcasts and coaching in Money Skills for Therapists and just having these conversations with friends and people that I love, about money, so often it does come back to that piece about presence, right? And just really being with and part of being with, as we talked about, is having the knowledge to be able to get information right. So part of being with your money is developing the skills and knowledge to be able to look at numbers and understand what you’re looking at and understand how to make good decisions with those numbers to get where you want to go. But so much of it is also just being curious and present and tolerating the emotions that come up and just having a relationship with that thing, not ignoring it, but letting yourself be curious about it and be with it. So I just so appreciate this conversation today with Jennifer. You can follow me on Instagram @moneynutsandbolts. And if you’re enjoying the podcast, please Apple users. Those of you who love Apple and use Apple, please jump over to Apple podcasts and leave me review. I already told you my sad, sad story of trying to leave a review for my favorite podcast, which is working it out with Mike Birbiglia and not being able to because I’m not an Apple user. So Apple users. Can you please use your Apple privilege and do what I could not do and leave review for the podcast? It’s the best way for other therapists and dietitians and other health practitioners to find us. Thanks for listening today. 

Cas [00:00:02] Bookkeeping tells you about the financial health of your practice. Bookkeeping is just a way of tracking your income and tracking your expenses that you had during a specific time period, typically a calendar year, because that’s what the tax rules require. And it’s just kind of writing down how much income did you make, how much money did you spend on specific types of expenses, and then you being able to see at the end of the day, how much money do I have left over? 

Linzy [00:00:28] Welcome to the Money Skills for Therapist podcast, where we answer this question How can therapists and health practitioners go from money shame and confusion, to feeling calm and confident about their finances and get money really working for them in both their private practice and their lives? I’m your host, Linzy Bonham therapist turned money coach and creator of the course Money Skills for Therapists. Hello and welcome back to the podcast. So today on the podcast we have Cas Tyagi. Cas is a Canadian accountant who has a firm that specializes in working with therapists and health practitioners. Today on the podcast, Cas and I get into some real nitty gritty financial stuff. We got into bookkeeping, what it means, how to think about bookkeeping, why it’s worth your time to bookkeep as you go. And then we also look at the kind of sibling to bookkeeping – bookkeeping is about the past – budgeting, which is about the future. I know budgeting is not everyone’s favorite topic, but it’s so, so helpful to really start to be able to think about budgeting and what it means in terms of not only money and planning ahead for money that’s going to be coming in. But Cas talks about using your budget to also plan your time by looking at the past, by looking at bookkeeping. You can also look to the future and look at what numbers are going to look like and actually plan your year, plan your practice to fit the way that numbers tend to work in your practice, work with what is a really helpful perspective on budgeting and planning forward into the future so that you can build a practice that works for you and meet your needs and is actually going to be realistic. And then we also get into taxes. So as you can hear, lots of nitty gritty stuff today, but I think you’re going to find Cas to be really accessible, really down to earth, and their love for helping therapists understand these things and make them work for us really shines through. Here’s my conversation with Cas Tyagi. So, Cas, welcome to the podcast. 

Cas [00:02:40] Thanks, Linzy. I’m really excited to be here today. 

Linzy [00:02:43] So you have the distinction of now being the first Canadian accountants that we’ve had on the Money Skills for Therapist podcast. 

Cas [00:02:52] You know what, it’s funny, when we were speaking before, that actually didn’t surprise me because I know a lot of accountants in Canada are just very generalist with anyone who will come to them and they help you in tax season and then they typically go to you for the rest of the year as well as. So excited to be here and help some therapists to understand their finances a little bit better. 

Linzy [00:03:12] And since you are Canadian, you know, some of the things we might talk about today might be just specific for Canadians and we can try to like make a note of those when we do talk about those things. But also as we chatted about just a little bit before we started recording, a lot of the principles of accounting or ways to manage money apply all over the world, literally. So a lot of what we talk about will apply to everybody today as we think about accounting and therapists. So let’s get started. I want to hear your pitch, because a lot of folks who listen to this podcast, they’re listening because, like, maybe money is not their best friend or they’re working on having a better relationship. And when you’re still working on your relationship with money, often it’s hard to stay on top of it, right? And it’s hard to like actually be tracking or yeah, keeping track of or knowing what to do. So from your perspective as an accountant, Cas, why is bookkeeping important for therapists to be doing and what should people be keeping track of in terms of their bookkeeping? 

Cas [00:04:12] Great question. And it’s so funny because I find that a lot of clients that we work with, they kind of come to us and they’re like, Oh, sure, I haven’t done my bookkeeping. So we take a very hands-on approach with our clients to help them actually through this journey because it is really overwhelming until you know what to do. When you know what to do, it’s a lot easier, right? Maybe when someone says, Give me your bookkeeping, it’s kind of like a deer in the headlights moment. I’m like, What does that even mean, right? How do I even do that? I don’t know what the thing is, but bookkeeping tells you about the financial health of your practice. Bookkeeping is just a way of tracking your income and tracking your expenses that you had during a specific time period, typically a calendar year, because that’s what the tax rules require. And it’s just kind of writing down how much income did you make, how much money did you spend on specific types of expenses, and then you being able to see at the end of the day, how much money do I have left over? You know, did I have a big sales month or a small sales month? Did I spend more money than I earned this month? And kind of breaking it down into those categories so you can really understand how much should I spend on a new laptop, how much should I spend on regular monthly recurring costs, the management software, how much did I spend this month on advertising for that one-time cost? But now I don’t have to spend that money going forward, so I can know that that was a big investment into my business. And so it’s really just looking at also like the cash flow is coming in and out of your business and gives you that really great high-level picture of what is your financial health, of your practice, where did you spend money and where did money come in? 

Linzy [00:05:39] Right. Yeah, Yeah. You’re putting together that big picture or small picture, I guess depending on the period of time to understand what happened because bookkeeping is historical. Is that a fair thing to say? 

Cas [00:05:51] Actually, bookkeeping is what has happened up until today. It has happened so far. And we’re going to talk a bit about budgeting as well, I think, a little bit later, too. And that’s kind of the exact opposite. It’s what is going to happen in the future. But when you think about bookkeeping, it’s kind of writing down that, you know, in the month of August, how much sales did I make. You can do some really cool things with bookkeeping as well, because it’s not just necessarily about your sales, right? Money comes into your bank account and that’s a great number. But maybe you invested in a new Google ad about couples therapy. So breaking out your income into individual sessions versus couples sessions could be something really cool to put into your bookkeeping so that you can see how profitable or how much money are now making from those couples sessions and see if that specific ad is now working, right. So break it out by different practitioners if you’re a clinic owner. You maybe want to track how each of the practitioners that you work with are trending and making sure that they’re progressing in the way that you would want them to from a sales perspective so that they’re increasing their sales and you’re also getting value out of having them on your roster as well in lots of different ways that you can breakout your income to actually see really interesting information, even new versus returning patients. How much money do you actually get from your new patients every single month? What is that looking like? Is your practice still building or is it kind of stagnant now means so you’re only doing returning patients. 

Linzy [00:07:14] Yes, right. Yeah. Like what I’m hearing, you know, the way you’re talking about it, there’s – for some reason this has never occurred to me before, but as we’re thinking about as historical, it almost makes me think of keeping a diary, right? Where it’s like you’re recording what happened. And by recording what happens, you get to take some perspective and reflect and make sense of what happened. Right? And it happened no matter what. But by stopping to record it, then you can look at it. And then as you’re saying, you can see these cool things of like, yeah, your return on investment. This ad you paid for, did it make any difference? Has your amount of couples sessions improved or like what’s happening with this particular person that you hired? There’s a story there that you can pull out if you put that information together by bookkeeping. 

Cas [00:07:55] Absolutely. And if you think about it, you know, without having that stuff written down, you have no idea where to even start to make better financial decisions for your business because you just you don’t even know where your money has been going or how your money has been coming in. Yeah. If you sit down and you think, oh, you know, I think I had a lot of sales this month. But then you look at it and it’s perhaps shorter sessions instead of 90-minute sessions. You did only 60 Minutes, You were super busy, but you’re not earning as much. I mean, 90-minute sessions are going to be a little bit more profitable, right? So, yeah. So that gut feeling versus seeing it on paper and maybe it’s aligned, maybe it’s not. And if it’s not aligned, that’s where the issues come out. Right. 

Linzy [00:08:34] And I think that’s such a helpful point because our emotional experience, our emotional story about money can be so strong sometimes, but it’s not necessarily correlated to what’s actually happening with those numbers. Right. And I always tend to think about like the wisdom is in the middle. The wisdom is like in that balance between like, yeah, what was that emotional experience like of making that money? Because if you have a month to use your like 45 session versus 90-minute session example, if you have a month where you do a ton of 90-minute sessions, you only do 90-minute sessions and you’re so, so busy and you’re so tired and you feel so drained and you feel like you can’t catch up, right? But then you look at your numbers and it’s your best month ever. It’s like, Yeah, it’s your best month ever. But emotionally, the cost of doing that, like that’s not sustainable, right? And so like those two things really, I think, work together to tell us what is strategic in our business. But we can only know that – I’m hearing from you – by actually having those numbers that you put together. 

Cas [00:09:28] Exactly. And writing them down. Honestly, we recommend to all of our clients to do it, at least on a monthly basis. And I think, Linzy, you’ll probably have it in the show notes. But we have a free bookkeeping template that would be for Canadian and U.S. listeners as well. If you just need to start. The U.S. one there’s a couple of little tweaks that need to be made. But if you have questions, you can always reach out. And this template we also have some emails and helping you just to understand how to get set up for success as well. But tracking this on a monthly basis and just kind of seeing what happens, I think it’s also important to understand that sometimes you make big investments into your business, like building a new website. And so in that month it probably feels like, Oh my gosh, I’m so frustrated, I have no money left over, how am I going to pay my bills or I have to take out some debt or different things? But getting to that point and then looking back and saying, Oh, well, that’s how I feel that way – it was marketing. It’s not that my sales were less. It’s a big expense. And so that can be okay because I expect it to pay off for me in the future as well. 

Linzy [00:10:24] Mmm Yeah, really lets you take perspective and understand what’s actually happened. So then thinking about the, the flip, so you know, bookkeeping is that looking back on the past, is that like diary keeping. So now let’s talk about budgeting for folks who are listening. How can they start to not only, then, think about the past, but also think about the future and plan through budgeting. 

Cas [00:10:48] So I always say that budgeting is what you expect your bookkeeping to look like at the end of the year. It’s sitting down at the end of the year and saying, okay, in 2024, what do I expect to make? When do I expect to have these big expenses like a new website? You know, I already know that I’m going to pay for that in February, so you’re just kind of slotted in and you mentally reserve that cash or mentally know that maybe February you’re going to have a different month. You know, you’re thinking about your sales pattern. So especially when you’re going to be tracking your sales by month, you can start to see maybe January, February are quite busy and then March starts to trail off. And then if you take vacation in the summer, you already know that maybe July of 2024, you’re not going to earn that much income because that’s when you always take vacation. Yes. You know, but it’s going to be coming and you can plan around that and think about these the sales profile as well, these big expenses that come up and just kind of know that they’re coming and think about this best as you can. 

Linzy [00:11:43] Yeah, that’s that’s a really helpful. Piece to zoom in on, because I think a lot of times when folks think about budgeting, they think about expenses. Right. And spending. And I will say and acknowledge that for many folks listening right now, probably talking about budgeting is like, look, it’s really nobody’s favorite thing. But I love what you’re zooming in on here is like it’s not just thinking about what you’re going to spend or not spend or any of those things. It’s also thinking about like, what are your earnings going to look like based on the plans that you have? Right. So as you’re saying, like if you’re not going to be working in July because you’re going to be taking time off and that’s going be amazing planning ahead. So that means you’re gonna have half the income in July because realistically, that’s what happens when we only work half the time as we have half the income. So putting that into your your projections and plans rather than it having being a surprise or being disappointing because it’s going to happen. 

Cas [00:12:36] Exactly. It’s almost like it’s your roadmap for what your cashflow is going to look like next year. And just to plug in, since I am an accountant, you can also better save for income taxes. Once you know what next year is going to look like, you can come up with a really good amount to be able to save and set aside. We typically talk about a specific percentage or a level, so then you can plan and prepare and just kind of know what that will look like instead of scrambling in April every year to pay, Right? 

Linzy [00:13:02] Yeah, because you’re going to plan forward for times that you’re working, more times that you’re working less and have a better guess of what that number is going to be, because that’s something that I find folks guess on. And there’s some forgiveness to guessing because once you figure out your percentage, you know, as long as you’ve picked within the right tax bracket ish, but it can feel like a big guess as to what your actual take on income is going to be. But I’m hearing that budgeting is a way that you can think about it more accurately. 

Cas [00:13:28] Yeah, exactly. Because you’re already planning for, let’s say, one of your business goals next year. Maybe with this example, you work so many 90-minute sessions and now you’re exhausted and you’re like, Oh my gosh, I never want to do that again. I’m going to scale back. I’m only going to do 15 sessions per week. Maybe Last year you did 20 sessions per week. And so even now, this big income tax bill with this big income tax percentage and now you’re saying, oh, no, scaling back is going to be a better fit for me. I’m going to maybe manage expenses or something like that. You know, what is your sales going to look like If you scale back five sessions per week, how does that work when you actually put it down on paper? What does that impact your finances? So then you can plan your personal life as well, right? This leads so much into your personal, you know, how will you continue to pay your mortgage or afford other things? Right. Right. You can plan in. Oh, well, if I scale this back, then that means maybe I have a virtual assistant. Maybe I’ll scale back the virtual assistant because now I’ll get more admin time as an example to kind of make up that difference. But it’s really to do with your business goals and it’s like, okay, at the end of this year, what do I want to do next year? You know, this year is great or not so great or in the middle. What do I want next year will look like? Where do I want that to go? And planning that out and looking at that cash flow so that you can make some really good decisions today for what you think will end up happening. 

Linzy [00:14:43] So for people who are listening, who might not have a system in place yet and maybe aren’t tracking yet, how can they start to budget? What would be a starting place to start to build this skillset? 

Cas [00:14:57] Yeah, so I’m sorry, everyone listening, but step number one is doing your bookkeeping. 

Linzy [00:15:03] It’s a trap, right? 

Cas [00:15:04] I’m sorry. It’s a trap. It really is. Bookkeeping is going to tell you what has happened so far and it gives you a good idea of what to expect in the future, like expenses that you have in August for Owl and for Zoom and for other things. They’re likely going to happen again next month and next month and every month for the rest of your career. Right. You also already know when you’re going to have to pay your accountant every year. You know, when your membership dues are going to be payable as well. So looking at your bookkeeping and into the past is going to help you to say, okay, this is most likely what’s going to happen in the future. Now, if your rent has increased or your accountant has increased their fees, that’s going to change things. You kind of have to think strategically about, well, how much do I think that will cost next year? But it opens up this conversation for, okay, in February I had to spend $1,000. Do I think that’s going to happen again? Yes or no? What does that look like going forward? 

Linzy [00:15:54] Right. Yeah. And do you suggest that folks do this like on paper spreadsheets? Like what do you suggest to people who are just maybe starting? 

Cas [00:16:04] Yeah, I’ll say whatever works best for you and gets you to actually do it would be the best system, right? Yeah. For me, I’ll be honest, our bookkeeping template that we use, we also use that essentially the exact same template for budgeting for our clients as well. The same ideas, right? Once you do your bookkeeping, you can almost copy it and now call it your budget and then just tweak it a little bit for what’s gonna come. 

Linzy [00:16:24] Yes. 

Cas [00:16:25] Yeah. And then you have all of this really great useful data from last year, like your busy periods and your slow periods, right? Maybe for you, things to pick up in September, maybe not. Maybe if you’re working predominantly with kids, things will pick up till October because parents are still dealing with the back to school thing, right? 

Linzy [00:16:40] Yes. 

Cas [00:16:41] Maybe September is actually a low month for you because of that. But now you can plan and prepare and you know that all. Also look at the large expenses. Your sources of growth if you’re breaking things out. Right. Good one could be adults, couples and children’s therapy in which what are you pushing? And maybe each of those have different types of profiles as well. Right. Couples therapy is probably going to be a lot more popular in January and then maybe trail off, whereas individual therapy tends to be a bit more consistent and then kids all around the school schedule right. So, yes, prepare for that. 

Linzy [00:17:10] Yeah. Yeah. I love it because it’s so clear. Like often what happened in the past is what’s going to happen again unless you’re planning to do something drastically different. Right. And an understanding of ebbs and flows. One of the many benefits I can think of that is it’s not an emotional surprise. It’s not a financial surprise, but also it’s not an emotional surprise when you’re like, Yeah, it’s July and I work with kids, so nobody’s around because kids are off at camps and they’re away with their families, right? Like it allows you, I think, to be real and reasonable about your expectations rather than it being a shock when your numbers look a certain way. 

Cas [00:17:46] Absolutely. And looking at these ebbs and flows, let’s say, you know, if you’re in your first year practicing, you’re just working as much as you possibly can, and then you start to see these natural ebbs and flows. Well, now you should start building out a vacation schedule for yourself. You’re not that busy in July anyway. Why not take time off in July, right? 

Linzy [00:18:02] 100%. Yes. And this is this is like something that I find I have renewed conversations with myself literally every summer. This summer it’s a different conversation because also as your life evolves. But I’ve noticed for me, like even teaching, it’s like folks folks are not as engaged in the summer and it’s kind of like we’re all kind of like, like I’m teaching a new program Money Skills for Group Practice Owners, which is going super well. It’s really fun. And at the same time, people like some of my my repeat students have been kind of like giving me a hard time about like, why are you running this in the summer? You know, my kids are like, why are you doing this to me? And I’m like, I am so sorry, but this next year I’m like, Yeah, I’m going to actually structure my life in the future – because I have a child – around the fact that he’s going to be off school and things are going to look different and our routine, at the very least, it’s going to be different. And just building that into next year’s schedule so that I’m not kind of like fighting against the season, like doing work when other people are not really around or doing work like that. I’m seeing what’s happened in the past and making a note of it means you can like go with the flow and do what makes sense for you in the future rather than repeating the same thing next summer or next holidays or whatever the thing is. 

Cas [00:19:09] Exactly. To the extent that you can, because sometimes your family wants to take a big vacation in July, and even if July is a high month, still go and enjoy that vacation. But now you know that it’s happening. 

Linzy [00:19:19] Mmhmm. 

Cas [00:19:20] And you know what that income loss is going to look like so you can better plan and prepare for that trip that you’re now really excited about and then going to be coming back in August. If that’s a low month for you, maybe, you know, block off Mondays and use that as an admin day so then you can really enjoy your evenings instead of having to chart every single day. You just chart on Mondays as an example. 

Linzy [00:19:38] Right right. 

Cas [00:19:39] Figure out different ways to take on seasonality. 

Linzy [00:19:42] Yeah I like that. I like that creativity too, right, of thinking it can look so many different ways. Working with- by looking at the past and how things have worked and how they’re going to tend to look. You can then tweak the way that you’re working to make it fit the actual situation. 

Cas [00:19:57] Luckily, I would say more people should be excited about what’s going to happen than what has happened in the past. Right? Like I just came back from vacation. I don’t even remember the fact that I was on vacation, but I’m really excited about my next vacation and I’m already planning for that. 

Linzy [00:20:10] Right? Right. 

Cas [00:20:11] Oh, sitting down now. Or, you know, maybe it’s a Christmas exercise or whatever that looks like and going, Oh, hey, what am I doing next year? What I have to be excited about. Just kind of gone through the fall and it’s been busy. You know, Jan and Feb are still going to be busy, right? Yeah. Get yourself excited about what that will look like and then start thinking financially about, okay, how do I afford that even if it’s six months down the road? So that means months. You already maybe have some money set aside so you don’t have that pinch from not working. 

Linzy [00:20:36] Yeah. And I think too, you know, folks that are listing many will be mental health therapists. Some people are, you know, manual practitioners or speech language pathologists. But regardless of the type of helping work that you do, it is also heavy work. And I think it’s good for us from a mental health perspective to have a break, to look forward to, you know, whether that’s going to be like having an extra day off in the summer or actual time away or staycation, whatever it is like. I think that’s so important to bake that in to the way that we do business in the helping professions, because it’s essential to make it sustainable that we actually have that quality time off. And I’m hearing from you as an accountant that that’s something that can be planned from an accounting perspective, that should be part of how we think about our year. 

Cas [00:21:21] Yeah, exactly. And then you can kind of see where the finances are going to end up going, but also get, you know, that almost mental clarity of, okay, what are the finances going to look like? Because it can be really intimidating. So if you’re in your first year of practice, you’ve just been working for the whole year, and the idea of taking some time off is feeling really intimidating. You can plan for it and then all of a sudden just knowing that you already have that plan and setting some money aside in the months before you end up. Going on vacation just feels a lot less intimidating to be able to take. 

Linzy [00:21:49] Yeah, absolutely. Okay. And then speaking of setting money aside, the other question that tends to float around for folks, especially when they’re newer in practice, but also if their financial picture has been changing, right, if their practice has been growing or decreasing – is taxes. That’s the other budgeting piece that like, you know, taxes are inevitable, but sometimes it’s hard for folks to really hone in on how to save. So what do you generally suggest people should be saving for taxes? 

Cas [00:22:19] Yeah, great question. So I’m going to get a little bit Canadian centric. So if the US listeners, you know, saving for taxes, one of the most important things is saving sales tax that you collect. So HST, depending on your province, saving your actuals, the actual amount that you collected. But then by doing your bookkeeping on a regular basis, again, this is a trap all leading you back to bookkeeping or bookkeeping on a regular basis. You can have that number really easily accessible to be able to file. And also when you’re registered for sales tax, you actually get to claim the GST or HST that you paid on purchases as a deduction against the sales tax that you collected. So I’ve seen a lot of health professionals who save their full 13%. If you’re in Ontario and so much money leftover at the end of the year, which is nice because then they feel like they get a bit of a bonus, but it could also be nicer to just save the appropriate amount throughout the year and have a little bit more to spend on groceries, you know, because 2023 inflation, things a little bit too much. 

Linzy [00:23:15] It is a lot. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, Yeah. So that’s a great example of like if you save as you go. So this is for folks who charge sales tax. So for Americans listening to sales tax, it might also apply to you. But yeah, if you’re able to write off your purchases against, you know, the money you’ve collected, you might end up actually owing a lot less than you think you do. But you’re only going to know that if you’re tracking as you go. 

Cas [00:23:35] Exactly. And you know, there are some other things. You know, in Canada, we have what’s called the quick method for sales tax. So if the government, the full 13% so, you know, I don’t want to say never save the full 13%, but you never end up having to pay that because if you work with a good accountant, they should be able to help you get that down pretty significantly. 

Linzy [00:23:51] Yeah. Okay. Okay. And then what about income tax? 

Cas [00:23:56] So income tax, again, we encourage our clients to do that on a monthly basis just to see what’s your taxable income for the specific month. And then you’ve got the cash in your bank account and then you set the amount aside. And we talked a little bit earlier, Linzy, about the percentage model, and that’s what you have to talk about within our client base as well within our firm. And to give you some good examples in the province of Ontario, if you make $50,000 of taxable income, you’re looking at 25%. If you make 100,000, you’re at 29%. So that’s actually don’t change that much. 

Linzy [00:24:27] Yeah, it’s such a smaller jump than you would think between those income brackets. 

Cas [00:24:34] Exactly. Now, the dollar amount is huge, but you know, some people come to me and they say, oh, I’m saving 30% but they’re a new grad who’s never worked. And so you might have some carryforwards. That doesn’t really make sense because you don’t need that much. Right. But the difference between that 25 to 29% from a percentage perspective, it’s really small from a dollar amount, though it can become really big. So if your goal is to grow your business, let’s say last year you made 50,000 and then this year your goal is to make 100,000. You want to double this year. Well, if you only save 25%, you’re actually going to have a pretty big amount of cash to make up at the end of the year. Right. So it’s always best to err on the side of caution, go for that little bit higher number. But as you’ve already set up your budget in place and you have a really good idea of what your income, after all of your expenses will look like, then you better estimate what your percentages are. Let’s say you with $70,000, or you can take somewhere between 25 to 29%, Save that throughout the year. And that’s going to be a pretty reasonable percentage for you. 

Linzy [00:25:30] Right. And to clarify, with that number Cas, does that include their their employer portions of like, you know, in Canada, CPP and E.I. in the U.S., it would be like the self-employment tax. So does that include those portions as well? When we’re talking about 20- those numbers as examples, 29% or 25%. 

Cas [00:25:50] So that includes CPP, the employee and the employer portion. But individuals who own their own business, especially sole proprietors, you don’t have to pay into E.I. Unless you’ve opted in. 

Linzy [00:26:01] Yes. Okay. Okay. So that does include those numbers. Great. 

Cas [00:26:03] Exactly. And just for context, I think in 2023, the number for CPP employee plus employer contribution is $7,500. So it’s not nothing, but it does max out at around $70,000, which is why the percentage doesn’t change too much when you go to 100,000 because you drop off that 11% contributing into your CPP. Right. 

Linzy [00:26:25] Okay. So there’s a tax there that disappears once you pass a certain income bracket. Yeah. Yeah. And that is very helpful to think about, you know, like really looking forward and thinking like, exactly how much are you going to earn because that allows you to set that percentage. And as you say, like even though it’s not a big percentage jump because your income jumps a lot, it would be, you know, several thousand dollars you’d be having to find. It is just nicer not to have to find those if you don’t have to. 

Cas [00:26:49] It’s better to have that as an extra bonus after being processed than to have to magically come up with that amount of money. 

Linzy [00:26:56] Yes. And one tax mistake that I feel like I do need to mention, Cas, because I hear this a lot and you probably hear this from your clients as well, is for a lot of therapists. I know there is a confusion on what number to save that, let’s say 25%, what number to save about 25% on. So for folks who are listening, can you clarify exactly what numbers should they be looking at to save 25% of. 

Cas [00:27:20] Your income after you deduct all of your expenses. So that net income number. Not on the gross big number that you bring in, because you might have a lot of expenses during the year, right? You might be paying rent and you also get to deduct your home office if you’re in Canada or perhaps your vehicle as well, depending on the type of work that you’re doing on your cell phone and other things like that, that you get to bring that really big sales number down a lot smaller. And that’s what you pay tax on. 

Linzy [00:27:45] Yes. Okay. So it’s your earnings that you take home after you’ve paid to run your business, because I many, many times encounter therapists who are saving 30% of everything that they bring in. And then they’re kind of like, why do I have no money to get paid? And it’s like, Yeah, because that’s a lot of money you can end up paying, especially if you’re paying a lot of business expenses. 

Cas [00:28:05] Exactly. Well, and you know, that can be an exercise that you do with your accountant. If you’re not comfortable with thinking about that net number, if that’s something that will jibe with you. I’ve worked with some clients who are like, okay, just give me the number of my gross. Right. The sales coming in, what do I do with that? And so you can get accountant can help you to back into that. But it should really be a lot smaller than 25% in sales tax. 

Linzy [00:28:30] Yeah. Yeah. And in Money Skills for Therapists – because we eventually teach profit first and many folks opt into profit first. That’s where you do take a number off of everything. But it’s a smaller number, right? Like we have an equation to reduce it, so you’re not saving 25% of everything that comes in the door. You might only be saving 15% or or 18%, depending on how much you’re spending to run the business. But I think that’s where I think that’s really added to confusion is people know that profit first exists and that you take percentages off of everything and so they just take their full tax number and take it off of everything. But yeah, I’m hearing from you like if you have questions about this and if you want to think about it, like, how much do I set aside of every dollar? A good accountant can help you figure out that number. 

Cas [00:29:09] Absolutely. And it should be pretty easy for them to be able to help you to figure it out as well. 

Linzy [00:29:13] Yeah. Awesome.

Cas [00:29:14] Some of the other things that can also impact how much you have to pay in taxes are your RRSP contributions. So those additional contributions that you’re making into retirement savings. And for Canadians, I’m going to give you guys a little tip. For 2023, there’s a tax bracket at $106,000. So if you catch up all your bookkeeping, you’re like, oh my gosh, I’m going to be making more than $106,000 this year. Please contribute to your RRSP because you got a 40% savings on that. It’s really significant. 

Linzy [00:29:41] Oh, wow. Okay. Okay. And for Americans listening, I will say an RRSP is our retirement. Registered retirement savings plans that, you know, you don’t have to pay taxes on the money you contribute there. So for Americans, I believe that that is 401K’s are the ones that are like pretax folks who are listening. You probably know the answer you probably already know. So I’m not going to clarify and pretend to be an American investment specialist, but that’s what Cas’s referring to there. So that’s that’s a great tip for Canadians listening is if you notice, you’re going to cross that 106 line. Making an RRSP contribution can bring you back down a tax bracket. 

Cas [00:30:16] And not that it’s ever a bad thing to contribute into your RRSP, even if you’re making $50,000, contributing $100 per year, it does compound interest. And is still a good thing to start making those investments. But actually after that $106,000, just the return on it for that decrease? So if you contribute $10,000, you get a $4,000 decrease in your income tax bill. It’s pretty significant. 

Linzy [00:30:38] That’s significant. Yeah, that’s great. That’s a very good tip. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. And for folks who are listening, how can they find out more about you? Canadians that are listening, especially, and folks who might be, you know, looking for an accountant who specializes in Canadian therapists who are very few and far between, I will say, where can they find you and and what do you have for them? 

Cas [00:31:02] Yeah, absolutely. So we have a very active social media presence on Instagram. I’m on there with reels three times per week, giving lots of great tips, which has lots of information for you. So follow at @tyagigroupaccounting, it’s going to be a really good place for you. Can also ask us any questions that are idioms. We’re happy to connect you with some good resources and we also offer free discovery calls for any potential clients as well. So if you’re looking to switch accountants or you’re listening to this call and you think that you want to work with an accountant, that’s cool. Instead of just, you know, an accountant, that’s a little bit boring. We have a fantastic team of CPAs on roster, so you can book in at tyagigroupaccounting.ca/book or the link is also on our Instagram bio as well in case you don’t want to try spelling that one of these free discovery calls. And then we always start our clients off with a free one hour onboarding strategy calls so that we can review your financial situation. Although I will give a warning that you have to have bookkeeping completed for us for review as well, but we’re there for you to ask questions and help you along the way and then just get prepped and prepared for next tax season. It’s never too early to start doing that. We actually onboard most of our clients in the fall season because the clients that we work with are people who really want to start understanding their finances and taking it pretty seriously and wanting to just get education, knowledge, understanding and have a good CPA on their team. 

Linzy [00:32:21] Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Cas. 

Cas [00:32:24] Well, thanks, Linzy. 

Linzy [00:32:39] I have a lot of folks ask me if they need to work with an accountant. And my answer is yes. And the reason my answer is yes is for tips like the one that Cas just gave at the end of the conversation where they just shared, you know, this certain tax line in Canadian taxes, you know, where if you cross over $106,000, if you can put money away in your tax-sheltered investments, you can save up to like $4,000 if you can put away a chunk of money. That kind of knowledge of the way that taxes work, the way that different investments work, that is that really specialized niche knowledge that accountants have. You know, the way that I like to talk about it is we should have people on our team who are really geeky and excited about things that we do not like. And most of us don’t read tax code for fun and haven’t done all the research on, you know, these little like tips and advantageous points where if you do a certain thing, you can save a bunch of money, but accountants do. So having someone like us on your team to guide you and being able to make these great choices and answer your really specific questions that are specific to your province or your state is really, really valuable. We don’t know what we don’t know. And I think the conversation with Cas shows that, you know, there’s people who are really excited about the things that we don’t know and it’s worth it to invest and have those folks on your team, whether they’re doing your bookkeeping for you or whether you’re meeting with them periodically or getting your taxes done by them and having those end of year conversations. They add knowledge to your business that you don’t have. If you want to follow me, you can find me on Instagram @moneynutsandbolts. And if you’re enjoying the podcast, you know what I’m going to say? Please jump over to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review. It is the best way for other therapists and health practitioners to find us and be part of these conversations. Thanks for listening today. 

Ryan [00:00:01] A planner, when they’re evaluating your situation, they’re looking at everything through the eyes of taxes. So how you’re saving, how you’re spending, how you’re paying back debt. It’s all through the eyes of taxes long term because we want to bring down the amount of you’re paying in taxes long term. And so a CPA is really good at that year planning, whereas the planner is good for the long-term planning strategy. 

Linzy [00:00:28] Welcome to the Money Skills for Therapists podcast, where we answer this question How can therapists and health practitioners go from money shame and confusion, to feeling calm and confident about their finances and get money really working for them in both their private practice and their lives? I’m your host, Linzy Bonham therapist turned money coach and creator of the course Money Skills for Therapists. Hello and welcome back to the podcast. Today I’m excited to have Ryan Derousseau, who’s a certified financial planner on the podcast. I mention this in my conversation with Ryan, but I have been approached by many financial planners over the last few years of doing this work, who want to connect with folks who listen to this podcast and, you know, the folks that I serve. I’ve said no to everybody up to this point until Ryan. The reason that I’m excited to have Ryan on this podcast today is that he is a fee-only financial planner, which is a big deal. And we’re going to talk about that more in the podcast. Like what is the value of fee-only versus other more traditional models of how folks get paid for financial planning? But he also specializes in working with therapists and private practitioners, which is really rare. So you pay Ryan out of pocket and he specializes in serving us, the folks who, you know, serve other people, the helpers in the world. And his goal is to help people like us thrive financially so we can focus on our clients. Today in our conversation, Ryan and I talk about understanding more about that fee-for-service model of financial planning versus how people usually get paid, like why you should look for a fee-only financial planner. This is something that I’m really passionate about. So really great to talk with Ryan about this. Today we talk about some tax strategies and some interesting little tricks in your business that might already apply to you. Like you might already be in a position to be able to use some of these things to save you money on taxes. We also talked about succession planning and thinking about actually setting up your business so you could sell it even as a private practitioner, like a solo practitioner, which is a new idea to me, but I’m really into it. So we cover a lot of ground today using that big picture financial thinking that Ryan has as a certified financial planner and I think is really the value of having a certified financial planner in your life, which is somebody who can look at your personal finances, not from the perspective of today or this month or this year, but they’re thinking 30, 40 years for you and helping you bring that into the way that you’re planning your money. Here is my conversation with Ryan Derousseau. So, Ryan, welcome to the podcast. 

Ryan [00:03:13] Yeah, thank you for having me. Very excited to be here. 

Linzy [00:03:15] I’m very excited to have you here, Ryan, because you are the first certified financial planner that we’ve had on the Money Skills For Therapists podcast. 

Ryan [00:03:23] Oh, very cool. Yeah. Honestly, I’m not surprised. Well, one thing when I was looking at like – because basically I was a writer for many, many years and I covered financial planners, I covered personal finance topics and I was self-employed. And so when I was making the switch, just because I wanted to work with people one-on-one, a group that was self-employed that I saw there was not nearly as much people helping them and guiding them on the financial track, were therapists. And I like working with therapists. I think they’re great people, they do great work. And so – I have a therapist – so I am very much in line with that. And so it just it stood out to me as sort of a special. 

Linzy [00:04:04] There’s kind of a gap there, right? Like, there’s a lot of financial planners for doctors, for instance. Yeah, exactly. They get a lot of attention. 

Ryan [00:04:10] Everyone’s going for doctors. 

Linzy [00:04:11] Everybody wants doctors, which makes sense because doctors, you know, can have a very, very, very high income. They’ve got a lot of money to work with, which is kind of fun too, I would assume, as a financial planner. Like, you get to do all sorts of cool tax strategy and stuff like that. But yeah, therapists are certainly underserved and we very much need the kinds of supports that you are giving to folks with this long-term financial planning. 

Ryan [00:04:31] That’s great to hear. I’ll give a quick plug in terms of: look for a fee-only advisor. 

Linzy [00:04:35] Yes, thank you. 

Ryan [00:04:36] We have developed new ways for people to pay, so it’s not like doctors are not the only ones who get service now. All sorts of people get service now. 

Linzy [00:04:45] Yes. And let’s pause on that for a second, because this is something actually, Ryan, like in terms of putting folks in front of of our audience, right, our Money Skills for Therapists audience who are listening. Or Instagram. I’ve been approached by many financial planners, I will tell you, over the years, who want to be connected with the folks who are here for these conversations. And the reason I say no is because they’re not fee for service. And I feel really strongly about this. Let’s talk just a little bit more about the difference between fee for service and what you were referring to of like why folks want to work with doctors. 

Ryan [00:05:16] Yeah. 

Linzy [00:05:16] Have to explain the difference in how you get paid. 

Ryan [00:05:19] Absolutely. And this is one of the first things like when I covered financial planners, this was one of the first things I learned. And so as- my entire writing career, I would only speak to fee-only or fee-for-service advisors because they’re basically the ones you can trust where their advice is aligned with you. Because what you have are three different options a fee-only, fee-based, and commission. And commission and fee-based, what they’re doing when they’re providing you advice is they’re also getting commissions on the side from a life insurance agency, a mutual fund company, or some other service. And so when they’re saying, hey, you should put your money into this X mutual fund, well, is that the right mutual fund or is that the mutual fund that’s kind of works for you, but also pays them really well? And my first experience was this was personal. Like my wife’s father had a financial planner for 20, 30 years. He sent us to the financial planner. And, you know, he wined and dined us and we’re like, how is he getting paid for this? It wasn’t a couple of years later till I learned about this stuff. And I looked at it and I was like, Oh, that’s how he’s getting paid. He’s in a mutual fund that’s not growing at all, but paying him every single time we put money into that account. And so that personal experience really kind of lit a fire under me as well. 

Linzy [00:06:45] Yeah, it’s going to be hard for somebody to give you the best advice for you when they’re also thinking about their own paycheck. And this mutual fund here is going to pay them a bunch of money. And this one over here that actually might be more appropriate for you, they don’t get as much money from. Like it puts their financial interests and your financial interests in conflict. 

Ryan [00:07:02] Exactly. Yeah. Said better than me. Yeah. 

Linzy [00:07:05] So fee for service, then. Tell us, like, what does that model look like? How is that different? 

Ryan [00:07:11] Yeah. So I only get paid by my clients. They come to me and, you know, there’s three different ways I tend to work with them. They might need a specific plan for something. They’re going through something or they’re DIY or who likes to do it themselves. And so we just basically we have an hourly rate. How long is the plan going to be? Okay, here’s the plan. Here’s how to get started. They’re off on their own. They go do it. You know, what we found was people are hesitant to go off on their own. So like, let’s say you’re opening a solo 401K if you’ve never done that. Are you picking the right button? You know, when I first did it, the experience was, I hope this is right type of experience. And so what we did is we created a subscription model. And so essentially we take the cost of the financial plan divide by 12. And so you have access to me every quarter where we’re going through a portion of the plan and whatnot. And that helps also because life changes, things change. Inflation changes, laws change, that sort of thing. And then if you’re, you know, a little further along in your journey and you have assets that you want someone else to manage, then there’s also the asset under management strategy, which is, you know, where we’re investing for you. We do broad-based index funds. It’s not like, yeah, you know, we’re picking stocks or anything like that and then you pay via the portfolio, right? 

Linzy [00:08:35] And with assets under management, basically it’s like if I have a bunch of money invested with you, if the money does well, I do well and you do well. Right. Like where. 

Ryan [00:08:44] It’s somewhat. Yeah. And you know, like I always this is a probably something to talk about with your audience just because a lot of people look at investing is like returns and gains. Like how much am I getting back and how much am I losing. A financial planner who’s worth his salt or her salt is really not looking at gains and losses in the short term. What they’re looking at is are you invested in a way that matches your risk willingness or risk tolerance? Yeah. So essentially, if the market drops, are you going to sell everything and hide under the couch or are you going to keep it steady? Because we want to keep it steady. This is a long-term plan. It’s not a short-term plan. We’re worried about that and your time horizon or when you actually need that money. And so this is what the value of index funds is, because we can really figure out sort of your risk tolerance, determine how much risk you need to be exposed to via the index funds, and then plan that over time. And so that’s really how we invest, even if, you know, we’re investing for you. But that’s gains and losses type of thing. Sure. Yeah. If it goes up. Yeah, I want to make a little bit more money in that case. 

Linzy [00:09:56] Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, what you’re mentioning here is such an important quality that folks who do the work that you do can bring to somebody’s life, which is that long-term perspective. Yes, because I think I think, too, there still is so much of this kind of like a get-rich-quick narrative around business in general, you know, money in general. And like, we, you know, can be trained to think short term and think like, oh, things are really good. Things are really bad. Right? But someone with your training knows that it’s about decades, right? Not about a week or a year even. 

Ryan [00:10:30] Yeah. I mean, that’s also, you know, when we’re talking about the like the therapy business, right? You know, we get very excited when we’re like, oh, things are going really, really well. Yes, I think I’m going to hire my first employee and I’m going to, you know, maybe buy a spot as opposed to rent a spot and things of that nature. And that’s all well and good. These are all things like we want our clients to do, eventually do. But we’re also looking at it with that sort of broader look like what are the protections in case you buy that and suddenly you lose like 10% of your clients and then what next? Or you hire that person. And while they’re not performing like they should and business is slower, then what? So we’re worried about all the ifs and buts of like. 

Linzy [00:11:18] Yes, okay. And you know, related to that, I know that there’s this this term which is probably going to be familiar to folks who are listening, which is this idea of backstops. Backstops in your money. Can you explain to folks listening what a backstop is? 

Ryan [00:11:33] Oh, yeah, absolutely. It’s not a technical term, but I feel like it’s a term that’s really started to pop up as sort of a way to just a synonym for buffer, you know? So because we love, you know, marketing like lingo. Yeah. 

Linzy [00:11:48] But got to make it slightly different. Absolutely. 

Ryan [00:11:50] You know, really stand out. Yeah. But yeah. So the backstop or buffer is really sort of how you protect your business. As we’re building that business, we want to make sure that we’re putting layers in place so we never feel that like real anxiety when you’re first starting out because just we want to go forward. We don’t want to go backwards. And that’s really where the buffer or backstop is. And so this can take shape in many different ways. You know, for a business owner, I’m always talking about them building a – not just an emergency fund for their family finances, but an emergency fund for their business. And people are like, oh, I don’t want to just have cash sitting in there in an account. But what that does is it really provides that, you know, like serum of anxiety reducer? When things are going not quite right, but it also like tells you when you can expand. So when someone’s like first starting out, what I’m telling them is sort of look at your expenses as on the personal side, right. How many, how much expenses do you need to have or do you need to cover from your business every month? That’s your salary. You may be a business owner, but you’re getting a salary just like everyone else. And you don’t pay yourself more than that just because you did really good one month, you instead keep that salary the same and, as you do well, you’re building that emergency fund with that extra money. And that’s how you build the emergency fund on the business side. And then on the personal side, most people know they need to have 3 to 6 months of expenses. And I’d say that for business owners, because you don’t want the need to fix a roof to impact your business, you know, you don’t want a water heater to determine. So change the fact that how you view your business like it may- like you may need a new water heater and suddenly you may have felt great about your business and now you’re not and you don’t want that because that makes bad decisions. So that’s kind of what the backstops is, is always have these protections in place. 

Linzy [00:13:55] Yeah, and I love that looking at the relation between those two things, because I think first of all, for lots of folks there, there’s such blurriness between those things, right? It’s kind of like they’re not doing the regular salary. I’m like such a fan of the regular salary. I love that you said that. And that’s something that I teach in my course. That’s one of things you do at the end is like, set your regular paycheck, have that buffer so you can be taking time off and you’re not getting punished because you took vacation. You don’t need a smaller paycheck because you went away. Right. Like that doesn’t make any sense. No employer can get away with doing that to you if you’re a salaried employee. But also, what I’m hearing here is by creating buffers or backstops in both places, you protect both of those things. You protect your business and you protect your home by creating stability in both places, right. And then a personal problem, personal financial problem, doesn’t end up impacting the business because you have to like clean money out of the business or you’re just like super financially stressed, which shows up like that affects the way you can show up for your clients or the decisions are going to make in your business. You know, somebody might call who is not a good fit for you, but you’re feeling really financially stressed by this water heater. You need your place at home that you’re in a money force. You’re going to say yes to somebody who’s actually going to not be a fit and make your clinical work really difficult and make you feel incompetent as a therapist because it’s not the work that you do. Right? There’s all these like knock on effects that can happen when we don’t have that stability. 

Ryan [00:15:10] Absolutely. And, you know, it could like hit the fees you’re charging because you’re like, oh, well, I lost a client. Now I need to get that other client back and I’m going to charge them half the price. 

Linzy [00:15:22] Right? 

Ryan [00:15:22] Right. And then what’s that do long term? You have a number of clients that are paying half your rate. And you don’t want that.

Linzy [00:15:29] No, no, no. You know, stress, stress and desperation does not lead to strategic decisions. 

Ryan [00:15:34] Absolutely. 

Linzy [00:15:35] That’s for sure. Yeah. So another thing that I would love to ask you about is something that I don’t teach or touch at all, which is like tax strategy. I feel like for the therapist brain where this is, you know, therapist help situations where this is not the world that we live in. I feel like there’s this like complex web of rules. I’m almost picturing like in A Beautiful Mind, there’s all these, like, you know, equations running everywhere that is kind of like the world of taxes and making sense of it and plugging in. And something that you do as a certified financial planner is help folks understand strategic tax moves to make. So I’m curious, like, what are some of the moves that you suggest that people make regularly to your clients to help them create stability and flexibility and all those good things? 

Ryan [00:16:18] Yeah, this is where the caveats come in. I’m not a CPA. What I do is I look at- basically a planner, when they’re evaluating your situation, they’re looking at everything through the eyes of taxes. So how you’re saving, how you’re spending, how you’re paying back debt, it’s all through the eyes of taxes long term because we want to bring down the amount you’re paying in taxes long term. And so a CPA is really good at that year planning, whereas the planner is good for the long-term planning strategy. And so from a long-term planning strategy perspective, a few things I would say one, so a lot of people think that like you get a business and in the therapy world you have to have a business. So this is not like new. You have probably an LLC, P LLC, or an S corp of some sort, but just jumping into the S Corp or jumping into the LLC is something that you need to consider, not because those tools inherently have tax differences, but what you can do with those tools are different from a tax perspective. And so when you’re starting out, it may make sense to be more like an LLC just because you may be losing money in your business for the first year, even because you’re investing, investing a lot and clients are only starting to come in, that sort of thing. And from a tax perspective, one thing to think about is that’s okay. 

Linzy [00:17:44] Yes. 

Ryan [00:17:45] Because, if you’re losing money, guess what you’re going to tell the IRS? I’ve made no money and I don’t pay any taxes. And so so that’s fine. And but the LLC allows you to kind of bring that money, those losses directly to your personal because it’s a pass through entity like that. And so let’s say you have a spouse and they’re they have a good income and so you’re using that income too. While the LLC might be able to impact the overall family income, so the family as a whole is now paying less in taxes. The first thing I would say is determine- like look at your business for what it is right now, not where you want it to be or what it is right now, because you may be able to just get tax gains from that or protection from that. And then, you know, the other thing that I would say from a tax perspective, and I always like to liken retirement as this like, it’s like this secondary income stream, this passive income stream that people kind of forget about. And, you know, when we’re talking about backstops earlier, that’s really what retirement planning is. Because, you know, if you’re putting in $10,000 a year, let’s say, into a retirement account, and that’s growing 7%. And after ten years, you have let’s say – this is total B.S. math – but let’s just say, yeah, yeah, $150,000. Just let’s just say, well, you’re gonna feel a lot more comfortable in your business if you know you have $150,000 sitting there protecting you long term. And meanwhile, the beauty of those is if you have the right tax plan and you’re putting that money into, you know, a solo 401K, a Sep IRA, especially if your income’s little lower. So you’re not taking- I don’t want to get into like Roth versus IRA, but as long as you’re putting that into a vehicle that’s reducing your taxes now, well, you now reduced your tax impact by $10,000 a year. And that, you know, is the number then that gets evaluated by the IRS. Right? 

Linzy [00:19:51] So, yes. Right. And then from that, you would not be paying taxes on that money. And there’s money that’s going to be coming back to you. Right. So there’s kind of like this – this might not be the right language – but I know at a higher level of finances, you can kind of build like a machine or an engine where it’s like, I do this and I get this benefit, but then I also get this thing back, I get cash back, and then I get to think about what I want to do with that cash that I get back. Do I invest again? Do I do something else with it? You’re you’re starting to get the rules working for you. 

Ryan [00:20:16] Right? Yeah, exactly. And that’s really what the planning process is, is putting all those, like, engines in place. But, you know, I mean, there’s there’s tons of stuff like that. Like, like more advanced business owners with kids. Like, you can actually give your kid a job and pay them a minimum wage. It has to be a legit job. But now you have passed on that money that you were making that you were going to give your kid anyways. 

Linzy [00:20:40] Right? 

Ryan [00:20:41] And they pay a much lower tax even if they get past the standard deduction. So there’s that. There’s all the business expenses. And, you know, we can talk about business expenses, but there are tons of bizarre expenses that are legitimate that you need to spend, that you get a nice little break from. And so, you know, not avoiding those, like, embracing those is important. 

Linzy [00:21:01] Yeah. Yeah. And I think for a lot of folks listening, the first step would be just starting to learn what those are, right? Like, knowledge is power, start to learn what are your options and there might be things that you know you already have. One of your children is helping you already cleaning your office or like helping you with filing or something like that, that you could legitimately be paying them for that work rather than giving them allowance later after you’ve already paid taxes on that money? 

Ryan [00:21:24] Absolutely. I mean, I have a seven-year-old and he’s not he he’s not capable of now. But as soon as he is capable of like I’m going to put him to work because one, he needs to learn a little bit of the value of a dollar. 

Linzy [00:21:35] Sure, sure, sure. Yes. Yes. 

Ryan [00:21:37] Because the money goes into his hands and out. But yeah, like I’m sure plenty of listeners have older. Like I you know, back when I was a writer, I knew a writer who’s like, she is a profound writer, Like, she’s written bestselling books and whatnot. When she does work for clients, she’ll have her 19-year-old kid just do the first run at the block, you know, And she pays the 19-year-old that and the 19-year-old knows exactly how she wants it. And so. Right. Yeah, that’s great. That’s great. You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don’t have to hire that workforce. Yeah. 

Linzy [00:22:09] So and with that, I don’t know if this is a question that it would be different in different states, but like, is there a minimum age for paying your own child? 

Ryan [00:22:17] It has to be legitimate. Like you don’t want- 

Linzy [00:22:19] Right. They can’t be seven. Yeah. 

Ryan [00:22:22] I mean, if, if my kid could truly file and like, be effective at it. Sure. 

Linzy [00:22:30] Okay, So there isn’t actually, like, an age, but has to be reasonable. I can’t I can’t be saying that my four-and-a-half-year-old is like mapping out my social media. That’s obviously not real. Exactly. 

Ryan [00:22:38] Yes. But like, you know, there’s been cases I just know that there’s been cases where business owners pay their kids like a lot of money for technical help because the kid understood computers and was a whiz at it. And the case would go to the Supreme Court even, and they would say, hey, I mean, this kid is as legit as an employee as you can find. And it was it was deemed to be okay. Yeah. So. 

Linzy [00:23:07] Yes, it does have to be legit. I am Canadian and Canada too, like they’re- they really cracked down a couple of years ago on income sprinkling. So making sure that, you know, we- I have a corporation that if you have anybody working for the actually doing legitimate work like you have to show some sort of record or evidence they’re doing real work and my spouse does work for me. He does our tech and he does payment stuff and he does he just filled out a form for us, for the IRS that we had to do. You know, another team member brought it. I was like, Oh, that’s a Rodrigo job. If it’s bureaucracy, that’s our man. And I got a call from, you know, the Canadian Revenue Agency, the CRA. Saying, like you need to. What does he do? Like, you need to prove to me that he’s doing the right things. And I was like, Oh, he does things I literally don’t even know how to do. Like, it’s so legit, but it needs to be like. 

Ryan [00:23:49] Cause and you need to have a record. 

Linzy [00:23:50] Because you do need to be able to answer those questions on that phone call to make it really clear that this person’s doing real work for you. 

Ryan [00:23:56] Yeah. And the records, the bookkeeping has to be. Yes. 

Linzy [00:24:00] Yeah. 

Ryan [00:24:00] But those are more advanced strategies. 

Linzy [00:24:02] Yeah, they are. They are. Yes, yes, yes. But a great example of some of the things that maybe folks haven’t thought of that might already apply to them. Those who are listening, this zoomed out perspective then that you have as a you know, a financial planner, is so valuable for therapists because I think so often we’re in kind of just like the week to week, month to month, year to year. So what is the importance of thinking about the business like really long term and how long term should we even be thinking about our businesses? 

Ryan [00:24:30] Yeah, So I mean, that’s kind of the unique aspect of planning is because we are not just evaluating your finances today, we’re evaluating it 20, 30 years down the line, right? We’re evaluating it for when if you are not here, like what’s going to happen to the money and whatnot. And so we see the full picture. And also because of what I do, I talk to people who are in an early-stage business, but I also talk to people who are late-stage. And therapy is kind of unique in that I talk to people who want to retire by 55 and I talk to people who never want to retire as long as they can move. And because of that, what I see is two issues. One, the lack of retirement planning, as we kind of discussed already. And then the second one is a lack of succession plan. And I think this is because there’s a lot of, you know, private practices. One person, private practice groups are practices out there and they can’t imagine the practice working without them. And that’s fine. There are certain people who could never work with an individual. And so you have to counter that in the planning process. But I also encourage therapists to kind of think about their business long term. And in terms of what- if there was someone to buy that because let’s say there’s someone willing to buy your practice for $200,000, you know, ten years from now, that could be the difference between you having a comfortable retirement and you having a very uncomfortable retirement. And so that $200,000 can be gigantic, but it’s not like a short-term thing, right? You have to build the business to be sold. You can’t just be Linzy Bonham, LLC, as you know. It has to be a name and it has to be some marketing behind it. Maybe there’s a partner, maybe there’s not, but you just have to have something. And I also encourage people to think like this because, you know, they’re just like demographically in the United States. I think Canada as well. There is a massive shift in terms of like workers right now where there’s like an older workforce that is moving out and a very young workforce, huge workforce, moving in. And so you have a mix of sellers and mix of buyers. And so it’s a really good time to kind of think about that because you need to treat your asset like an asset, the one that you’ve been building for 20, 30, 40 years, let’s say, by the time you’re ready to sell. And there is a group of young, eager therapists who you can mentor and guide and help them kind of work with patients like you work with your clients and therefore your sort of like skills and knowledge kind of move on that way. 

Linzy [00:27:17] And do you see that mostly being something that makes sense for folks who have group practices, like where you’re also, you know, you’re selling a business where there’s other service providing? Or do you also see that as being possible for solo practitioners? 

Ryan [00:27:28] Yeah, So I think it’s possible. Like again, I’m not a lawyer and I just see the long-term impact of people and I can guide them and sort of how I view a business sell. But I believe that a lot of solo practitioners could position their business to be sold. Take it, take it this way. Say you are ten, 15 years from wanting to retire and you realize you’re ten, 15 years away and you’ve worked by yourself through this entire time, but you have built a brand. It’s not just your name attached to some letters and you have been marketing that brand. And so what you’re doing is building a system to create like new clients. Okay, so now that you’re ten, 15 years out, if things are going well, let’s say you will. You hire someone, like one person, just one person. And you don’t look at this person. You look at them as an employee at first, but you also look at this person who could potentially replace you down the line. Yeah. 

Linzy [00:28:27] Yeah, exactly. 

Ryan [00:28:28] And there are ways to build partnerships in a sense that like there are there are buy sell agreements where you can set up the the sale agreement long before you’re ready to sell. So you are selling the business at a time where you’re not being rushed to the hospital or no longer there.  

Linzy [00:28:48] Yes. 

Ryan [00:28:49] And meanwhile, you can structure the payment where the business is being used for the new partner to pay you for the business. And so because of that, like, there’s some great ways where even if you’re willing to, like, create some marketing around it and really build a brand and add that little mentorship aspect, you could it is very, very possible. And if you need a coach for marketing, you know, there are plenty of coaches out there as well. 

Linzy [00:29:17] Yeah, yeah, yeah, certainly. That’s such an interesting idea and such a, I think, an untapped financial opportunity. Right. And like, and what I’m hearing with that is that’s not something you can just decide to do because you’re 70 and you’re like, whoa. I’m like, beyond done, right? This is something you start to think about 15 years out, ten years out, and that’s where you could, if you are working under your own name, you can shift to a company name and start and start marketing the brand instead of yourself. Bring in a partner. Like this is like long a long term strategy. But what I’m hearing is it could be a very, very fruitful strategy, which could have a huge impact on your retirement. 

Ryan [00:29:50] And now, you know, there are more buyers out there as well because there’s tech companies getting into the space and they may want your practice just for the clients. And so it does create opportunity, but it is a long term thing. And I think honestly, when someone gets 25 years in, I think it’s an invigorating thing because you need a change. Yeah, you need to kind of spice it up. And then- my wife had a therapist who passed away and it took her three years to find the other- her next therapist. And this is a way to help your clients as you are thinking of moving away as well. 

Linzy [00:30:28] I love that. Well, Ryan, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.