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. 

Ryan [00:30:34] Any time. Always willing to talk about money. 

Linzy [00:30:35] Me too. Me too. For folks who are listening, if they would like to find you, get further into your world. Where can they find you? 

Ryan [00:30:42] Sure. So I work for United Financial Planning Group. I’m a planner there, but I actually have a personal site called Thinking Cap Financial dot com. And if you want to go to thinkingcapfinancial.com/checklist, I’m sure we put it in the show notes. Hopefully, you know, just leave an email and I will send you a checklist of things that a therapy owner should know should do from a financial standpoint. And by doing this, I mean it’ll put you 90% ahead of the game. 

Linzy [00:31:11] Yeah. And Ryan, are you personally able to work with folks anywhere in the United States? Is there a certain state? Like who can you work with? 

Ryan [00:31:20] I can work with anyone in the United States. If there is a state that I am not able to work with, I will file the one form to then work in that state.  

Linzy [00:31:28] You’ll do the one piece of paperwork. Cool cool. 

Ryan [00:31:29] There’s like three or four states out there, otherwise I can work anywhere. 

Linzy [00:31:33] Awesome, Great. So we’re going to put that link in the show notes. So if you want that checklist from Ryan, you can go over to the show notes and we’ll have the link there. Thank you so much for joining me today, Ryan, Thanks again. My conversation with Ryan really brings me back to once again reminding myself, reconnecting with how important strategy is when it comes to money. It’s so easy for us to be in that again day to day, week to week, month to month. This was a good week. This was a bad week. This is a good month. But money builds up over time. And the decisions that we make when we find the right strategic decisions for ourselves, whether it’s a sustainable amount that we can set aside every month for retirement, putting it into the right kind of account that makes sense for our financial situation, whether it’s like some of the little strategies we talked about, like actually paying your kid who already is actually helping you in your business to do work for you. Paying them in a way that’s going to save your money, your family taxes, or having the right tax structure that’s going to save your family money and then putting those things into investment towards the future, like those moves that you make on really like a monthly basis is how I think about those add up over not just like tens or, you know, dozens of weeks, but hundreds of weeks that you’re going to be working and thousands of weeks actually, and will eventually turn into a big financial result at the end of your career. But this suggestion that he had to around succession planning like kind of blew my mind a little bit in terms of private practice and like, yeah, you have built a valuable asset. So how can you, ten or 15 years before you’re ready to stop working, set yourself up to actually get some money back from all of the work that you’ve done, building a reputation, building a way of serving clients that people love. How can you actually turn that into something that can benefit you financially, help you create more financial stability at the end of your life, but also ensure some continuity for your clients when you’re coming into your retirement years and set up a new practitioner, a young practitioner, to thrive from the beginning of their career by letting them buy your business and do work in the great way that you do work. Take on a style that’s like your style so that your clients have that continuity of care. A young clinician gets a thriving practice from the start and you have more money to have stability and comfort in retirement. Very smart, very strategic. I really enjoyed my conversation with Ryan today. You can follow me on Instagram at @moneynutsandbolts. And if you’re enjoying the podcast, I would so appreciate if you would take 2 minutes, 2 minutes to head over to Apple podcast and leave 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. 

Ali [00:00:03] At the time, it was like the beginning of like the online entrepreneur. And a lot of people were investing in marketing and I invested in grad school and I had to put in on interest-free credit cards. Do this shuffle. Because I was not going full-time and I was building a business on the side. But I really think focusing on mastery was- it was a longer-term play. 

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 I’m having a conversation with Ali Shapiro. Ali Shapiro is the host of the top-ranked podcast Insatiable. She’s a holistic nutritionist. She’s an integrated health coach, and she’s also a rebel with a cause. Today, Ali and I get into- we go a lot of places. It was a really interesting and kind of far-ranging conversation, digging into talking about the money stories that we inherit, that we bring into our businesses, talking about their work and how it’s devalued. Talking about investing in mastery as like a financial investment that you can make, really investing deeply in your own skills as a great way to invest in yourself. Talking about empathy and money and connections between money and food. It’s a rich tapestry, in my conversation with Ali today, with lots of interesting stops along the way. I really enjoyed the conversation. Here is my episode with Ali Shapiro. So, Ali, welcome to the podcast. 

Ali [00:02:04] Thank you so much for having me, Linzy. 

Linzy [00:02:06] I am excited to have you here. We were just chatting off mic about our various connections to other amazing women that we have in common. So this is a treat to get to have a chat with you and talk about money and your relationship to money and your like trajectory and what you’ve done. So just to kind of set it up. Ali, I’d love to hear a little bit about what your trajectory has been as a health practitioner, a holistic nutritionist into now a coach. 

Ali [00:02:33] Yeah. Probably the most useful place to start is like 2015, where I didn’t think I really had to think about my relationship with money. I started my business. I left my corporate job in 2007, and just that passion and wanting to help people was my business plan. 

Linzy [00:02:49] Yes. 

Ali [00:02:51] And I thought of myself as quote unquote, good with money. I came from a middle 11class background in the eighties and nineties when middle class was, you know, still a possible upward mobility path, at least in the States. It’s less and less so these days. And I had internalized those ethos of you don’t spend more. You cut back. You cut costs. And so I was- so I had run a business successfully profitable since day one, was hustling as hard as I could because I also was middle class. And so working hard was another ethos that that you really learned. And in 2015, I basically hit this wall of having a ton of clients, but being like, I’ve hit a ceiling with my time and also financial income. And part of this was realizing that when you’re doing something like therapy or coaching or even health, it’s not as valued as other things. 

Linzy [00:03:47] Yeah. 

Ali [00:03:48] Caretaking – we’ll just put caretaking and healing – is undervalued in our culture. And so I started and my accountant was like, look, you can’t cut back anymore. Like I was not- I’m not a spender, I’m a minimalist and I’m going to be good, right? And so I was sort of like, What am I doing wrong? What am I doing wrong? Kind of looking at myself, thinking I was missing something, missing something. And I came across this study from Dartmouth University that they were trying to study this like entrepreneurial gene. They were looking for an entrepreneurial gene, like what makes people great at entrepreneurship? And what they basically found – and this has been replicated in several other studies, is that it’s family money and the connection. 

Linzy [00:04:33] That’s not a gene. 

Ali [00:04:34] 80% of people who start businesses have family money and thus the network as well. And I went from all of a sudden, what am I doing wrong, to, oh, my God, you don’t have family money and you’re still here. So it was this like realization that a relationship with money was something that I had to, like, grapple with. Not that I was just good with money, but that I was going to have to, like, understand things that perhaps people who were born with money learned that I did not learn and that I was also terrified of. So that’s kind of my- and it wasn’t like I was in dire straits or anything. So because when you’re in dire straits, you dive deeper in, you know? 

Linzy [00:05:14] Yeah, yeah. 

Ali [00:05:15] But for me, I was like, I have to stop thinking like I’m middle class and that all I can do is cut back more. Right. How can I grow and spend in still a discerning way? Because I think one of the advantages of growing up middle class and not having a lot of capital in your business is you become a lot more discerning of money. 

Linzy [00:05:38] Yes. 

Ali [00:05:38] So that is kind of where I think really understanding that our relationship with money and being conscious of it like really took hold. And I had that realization and that. Aha. But also realizing like there’s some stuff I have to learn to quote unquote be better with money, not just good because I’m not in debt and I’m paying my bills. 

Linzy [00:05:59] Right. Yeah. And that’s an interesting kind of thinking there I’m noticing, like the middle class. It’s like, what do you do? You just- you spend less, right? Like, you don’t necessarily think about expanding all that much. And when you’re saying middle class, you’re like, I’m hearing more like, like lower middle class. Like, tell me about kind of what that looks like just for folks listening so they can think about like, Hmm was that me or is that different than my financial situation growing up? Yeah. 

Ali [00:06:23] Yeah. So my parents were city schoolteachers, which are even more underpaid than suburban schoolteachers in general. 

Linzy [00:06:30] Yes. Yes. 

Ali [00:06:31] And my parents, neither of them came from money. My dad actually grew up in the projects, a single family household, and my mom was one of nine kids and she was the first in her family to go to college. And she worked overnights and, you know, as a waitress and has really never stopped hustling. So I feel like my parents were comfortable with money once I was in college. 

Linzy [00:06:59] Isn’t that happened? I’ve noticed a trajectory in my own parents like their financial life and then my own financial life where they grew up working class. My mom grew up on a farm with very, very little money. Like, very frugal. Yeah. There you go. So very frugal. So that side of the family, it’s all about like frugality and like, you know, really just taking care of the things that you have because it’s not like more things are going to come along. Right. And then my dad grew up very working class, like auto mechanic, working class, right? So this very kind of like, rough like, you got to be tough. Don’t get paid a lot, but you got to work really hard with your body. You know, there’s like things like, I feel like alcoholism that goes hand in hand with that kind of like hard mechanical work. And so they kind of had this. And when I was growing up, they were kind of like moving up slowly while I was there. Now my parents are upper middle class, but I wasn’t there for that part. But it is interesting to see how like where we hit our parents life, like the arc that we hit, gives us a certain experience and we inherit a certain story from them while we’re like little sponges, you know, while the kids that can be very different than the way they might talk or think about money now as they’ve kind of worked through their financial trajectory, whatever that’s been. 

Ali [00:08:07] Totally and the conditions are different. Like I had cancer as a teenager and my parents health care bills because they were at a teacher’s union were manageable. Yes. And I think about that now. If that were to happen to someone in my family, I mean, that would- that might bankrupt us. Right. So it’s like they had those in America. We had much more of a middle class then and a safety net that is no longer there. So, yeah, even like we’re trying to decide where to send my son to school and it’s like, well, we just went to public school. Like, I had never thought that I would send someone potentially to private school. Yes, but the state of public education and we live in a city. And so it’s like all these different decisions that I never thought like- never even considered based on the changing culture and safety net in America, what has not been invested in is now coming home to roost. 

Linzy [00:08:57] So yeah, that is such an interesting distinction too, between those like again, systemic, like what’s been happening systemically. So it’s like your parents had this certain kind of health care as part of their employment that creates a certain kind of stability. So there was less cash, but there was more insurance there, there’s more safety. And now what I’m hearing is like, you know, there’s more cash like maybe in your situation or lots of folks have more cash, but there’s less safety net for a lot of people who are in, you know, regular kind of employment. They’re not taken care of in the way they used to be. So there’s a different kind of instability there. 

Ali [00:09:29] 100%. 

Linzy [00:09:30] More cash in hand, less safety. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, thinking about your business, like what has been for you the key to financial success and like getting where you are today? 

Ali [00:09:45] Yeah, I think the first thing is I focused on mastery. So when I was coming, when I was coming up, I went into a holistic nutrition school and it was amazing in that I didn’t go there to change my career. I went there to try to like end my disordered eating and heal. I had all these health issues from my chemo that I didn’t know. It was like ten years and I was- IBS, depression, all these things. But so- that was great. But at the time it was like the beginning of like the online entrepreneur. And a lot of people were investing in marketing and I invested in grad school and I had to put on an interest free credit card because I was not going full time and I was building a business on the side. But I really think focusing on mastery was- it was a longer term play. Like I’m like, I want to do this for life. 

Linzy [00:10:31] Yeah. 

Ali [00:10:31] So that was really helpful. And that also helped my marketing. I was clear in my marketing. I had a true market differentiator, like I could truly make- offer something different, not just put a bunch of bells and whistles on it. So once I felt like- and again, you don’t have to wait until you feel masterful, because every year I’m like, Oh sure, I said- five years ago I would have said it differently or I feel I have more skill. So I think that was really important. And I think in that mastery it enabled me to scale the change process, which is highly individualized. My process meets people exactly where they are. So it’s not a formula, it’s not tools, it’s not rules. Because what I want actually to do is free people and make them feel that they can make more what we call, like psychologically flexible decisions. So it’s not about telling them what to do, it’s guiding them to their own agency. And so figuring out how to scale that, especially into groups, has enabled me to work less, make more, and also give me the- afford me the ability to be accessible to people who need scholarships or whatnot, because I do not believe that, you know, well, if someone wants it bad enough, they’ll find it, they’ll make it work. 

Linzy [00:11:45] Just get another job to take your course. 

Ali [00:11:47] You know. And I don’t want them to do that. 

Linzy [00:11:49] No. 

Ali [00:11:50] And I know how hard people work for their money. So I think that mastery enabled me to then get strategic of groups. And the interesting thing is, thinking of talking about systemic issues, especially in America and I would say North America probably where you live as well. Is this like even the way the health care system is set up? It’s like individual sessions, like that’s what you do. But, you know, when you really think about healing, especially the work that I do, being in a group with other people accelerates it. So understanding again that it’s this win, it’s this triple win for your business, your clients, and your bottom line. 

Linzy [00:12:25] Right. 

Ali [00:12:25] Of having something that you can scale that meets people exactly where they are. And so I think that- and then once I was able to, again because I still don’t just shell out money to spend on anything. Once I was like, oh, this is really working. Then doubling down on what works for me to get clients. And it’s like podcast interviews like this and teaching, and so focusing, doubling down on what works and not what like every new shiny, Oh, you need this, you need this idea. 

Linzy [00:12:55] Shiny objects. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Ali [00:12:57] Is really, I think, able to slowly grow into in the nervous system world like they name it titrating, where you’re like slowly building your capacity. And that is what I see, you know, happen for me. Like when I started doing groups, it was like, okay, I went from like around 60 K a year to like 80, 90, right? It was like, oh, okay, yes, I can, you know, and now I can spend a little bit more on this and that and then it’s like, okay, then I’m over six figures. But it took me up until like 50, 60 to get mastery that I was comfortable with, with what I was, the value I was offering. And then testing out how do I grow that? And then once you know what works, then you just double down on it.  

Linzy [00:13:41] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I love that reframing, of mastery being the root of this. I just, I just literally yesterday started reading Deep Work. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that book, but I have a friend who’s been telling me to read it for years, and she finally visited me in person and we were literally in a bookstore together. So I was like, okay, now I’m finally going to get the book that you’re physically present with me. And I read it last night, and even just the act of reading the book, I was like, Oh, I’m getting the slowing down and deepening even just by like not being on my phone and reading this book and taking it in. And the argument of that book is we’re so distracted now. There’s so many shiny things that call our attention all the time. Everybody’s promising like a solution to all these problems that may or may not be problems you have, but like they’ll convince you that that’s a problem you have, that our attention is so divided that the ability to stop and focus and deepen and like learn really deeply, learn something so you can really master something is becoming increasingly rare and increasingly valuable. That’s the argument of the book, right? It’s like less people are doing it, so there’s less people who are also masters of what you’re doing. And so that’s really in demand when you can really be like, I own this and I have like really spent so much time with this and like teaching and finding the way to teach this that really lands with folks and like developing the right container or the way of doing the work. It’s so, so valuable because I think most of us, we’re moving too fast. Yeah. You know, you’re, you’re trying to do everything at once, which means you do everything with like an eighth of your attention. 

Ali [00:15:10] Yeah. And I think, too, sometimes I can at least speak for myself as like, you know, what got me into this? And my passion was like, my disordered relationship with food. But then I work through that and I see at least in the coaching world, I won’t say for for therapists, a lot of people, once they work through their stuff, they’re like well I’m pivoting, right? It’s like. 

Linzy [00:15:29] 100%. 

Ali [00:15:30] Yeah, Yeah. And I get that. Yes. And I mean, I have deepend, you know what like- I now train people in stubborn change or complex change. And so I still need an edge there. But it’s like getting better at that and still offering it in a way that it still interests me where it’s like my work is more about psychological safety. So like I can still talk about food, but it’s the reasons people turn to food, the reasons people have trouble with change. And so it doesn’t mean that you can’t change. It just means like I think what the deep work is saying is like, how do you bring the mastery with you into something else? And I, I do think in the online world, the climate of our culture is exactly what you’re saying. It’s like, let’s move on, let’s go fast. Like, I’ve got this. I figured it out. Yeah, It’s just things- my husband always goes, Ali, things are going to take the time they’re going to take. And I’m like, I hate that. Yes, but yes. 

Linzy [00:16:24] Right. You know, it’s like, yeah. 

Ali [00:16:26] And it does take I mean, it took me like ten years of mastery, you know, and and all that stuff, But it’s really rewarding. Now, 16, 17 years in, I feel like it’s like the oak tree metaphor. Like it’s really the solid roots are taking care of me, right? And it’s like, okay, like, you know, I think at least in coaching and I don’t know about therapy, but it’s like, Oh, you think you should be good and be able to charge. Like you have all these people telling people, just charge more and like you’re worth it. It’s like, wait, there’s a value in the market too, to what you’re offering. Yeah, but also you would never go to a corporate job and think that you’re the top or the best within two or three years. Yeah. Like, you know, there’s this, like, distorted like. Yes, there is. 

Linzy [00:17:08] Yes. 

Ali [00:17:09] There’s a lot of like also, I think people, therapists and coaches, often undercharge- the ones who are really good. 

Linzy [00:17:15] If you’re really good, you’re probably not charging enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s so true. Because I think also, you know, when you are really engaged with something deeply, you also know how much you don’t know, which means you tend to focus more on what you know you don’t know. You tend to devalue what you do know. And you’re like, well, like I hear this all the time from folks where it’s like, Well, I want to raise my rate until I do this like whole other modality training that’s like, Dude, you’ve got this modality which you rock at already just because you’re not trained in the new hot modality that’s come up doesn’t mean you’re not amazing at this rate. Like, but just like there’s something, there’s something about holding still and like sinking in that I think can be really difficult as a healer. And sometimes I think too, with the folks that I tend to support, they do tend to be perfectionistic. So if something gets kind of easy, then they’re like, Well, I have to move on to something else that’s hard. Like they’re looking for the hard, they’re looking for the hard. But like, I love what you’re describing here where rather than a like pivoting away where it’s like, well, I know have a good relation with food, so that’s not interesting anymore. I’m going to move on to this other topic that’s now interesting to me. It’s like you can sink into that topic and look at how to, like, teach. What I’m hearing in part is like, now you’re teaching more of like what’s underneath that issue and you’re teaching it in this new, different expanded way. So there’s still lots of newness there, but you’re still you’re staying in your your content expert area that you’ve spent more than a decade honing knowledge in. 

Ali [00:18:37] And I think you put bring up such a good point about us, those of us who are healers. If you’re a healer, you have a creative spirit. I mean, that is what healing is, right? And I think what gets mixed in is this like, I need a creative challenge. But if I view perfectionism or I have beliefs that it has to be hard, which often money, money beliefs or like, you know, if you’re middle class, look, yes, it has to be hard. 

Linzy [00:19:00] Yes, work is hard. 

Ali [00:19:01] But I think it’s discerning like, oh, there is this creative impulse that to like, deepen. And then my protection strategy, I call them protections, like perfectionism is a protection strategy, right? It’s like, oh, that’s making me go in a different direction. Versus like for me, it’s like, okay, the challenge in my business was engagement. Once people found me, they loved it. They’re like, This is what I been looking for. I didn’t even have language for it. And then sales are just like, you know, I don’t do that. I call it the bro marketing sales where I like pressure people, but I always had a challenge with the top of the funnel because I like to go deep. I like to go nuanced. 

Linzy [00:19:36] Yes, right. 

Ali [00:19:37] And so it’s like, okay, redirect that creative challenge towards the part of your business that isn’t working right. 

Linzy [00:19:43] That needs the attention. 

Ali [00:19:44] Rather than like pivoting. And I think with what I found because I used to think like there were all these new modalities and all this stuff and granted in my certification, it’s the entire blueprint of change. And so there are tools that fit into that. But I found that the deeper mastery you have, you can see where your mastery is already aligning with what’s marketed as new and interesting, right? It’s like, Oh, I’m just saying this in this way, or yeah, this can augment this, but it’s not that I have to like leave my current expertise and I have value in that current expertise. I would just encourage people to find where the business challenges and use their creativity there. 

Linzy [00:20:23] Right. Yeah, Yeah. You don’t have to walk on to some other, you know, topic content area. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I think that this- there’s something here too, Ali, that I think is applicable to money in general too, which is I think sometimes it’s like that steadiness that really adds up over time, right? Like the steadiness, like the putting away $500 a month that adds up over the course of five years and ten years. And then as we want things to be like fast and exciting and new and financially, people want to like invest in the thing that’s going to make them a ton of money at once, right? Like we look for the flashy, the shiny object. You know, sometimes when people get into investing, I don’t think folks who listen to us, but certainly a lot of people in the investing world, it’s like, go for the stock that’s going to win. Like it’s like gambling, right? It’s gambling. It’s not actually investing. And there’s a lot of patience with money and I think a lot of patience with what you’re talking about of like really honing mastery and like staying there, living there, continuing to deepen that. That really, really pays off long term. But it’s not this incredible explosion of like suddenly you’re a multimillionaire. It is like it’s steady and it’s sustainable and it’s what actually gives you stability in life. 

Ali [00:21:31] Totally. I always tell people- like food is the simple piece and like, it’s boring, like investing in your finances like this. Everybody wants the quick rich, the quick thin, you know, it’s like, but it’s the boring stuff of like putting away in your step away from, you know, like maybe I mean, I have one client who doesn’t understand the stock market, so she invests in real estate, but it’s just like slow and steady, boring stuff. But it’s also like, I think sometimes money, food, anything we really want to change. It’s so charged and it’s like, you know, there are these boring, non-personal foundations that everybody has to do and you just have to stick with it. 

Linzy [00:22:12] Yes. Yeah. Build the systems. Build the habit. Yeah. I’m like, you know, what I see with money is when folks work on it, I think there’s so many parallels between money and food. 

Ali [00:22:21] That they’re both taboo. 

Linzy [00:22:22] Like, Yeah, and what I see is at first when folks approach it, there’s like lots of charge, lots of stories, lots of like, you know, childhood trauma. Like there’s lots that’s there and it feels really intense. And then as folks work through those things, build skills, start to take apart those stories. It becomes kind of neutral where it’s like, fine. And then on the other side of fine can be kind of like exciting because you’re like, Oh, I’m seeing how this like regular thing that I do is adding up, but it’s like it becomes not charged, right? And in a way that’s not as interesting, it’s not as compelling. Like you take something that was like really intense and we make it like it’s kind of a pretty much neutral to low-key positive part of your life that you can derive joy by doing the right things, but you’re not that joy every day. It’s like it just takes the pain out of it. And that’s not always exciting, you know, compared to the stories, you know, compared to the fresh diet that’s going to make you lose 40lbs, you’re gonna be a whole new person, right? Or compared to the like, you’re going to make this new course and you’re going to make $500,000. You going to be like, you know, wealthy overnight. Those are more compelling than I think what the actual healing with money looks like. And I suspect food is similar. 

Ali [00:23:27] Oh, totally. And I love that you said it’s about neutrality because that’s what truce with food is about. It’s like I’m not going to tell you to have peace with food. My food is medicine. Like, let’s just stop the battle and then see what you want it to be. 

Linzy [00:23:39] You get rid of all the bad stuff. 

Ali [00:23:40] Yeah. And I think sometimes that fantasy thinking is part of like the flight nervous system reaction. Like, I can’t be with what’s real. It’s like I just have to, like, escape into fantasy again. That can sometimes be productive in our past, but it’s like, you’re right, it’s just like, boring. But I think it’s freeing at the same time. It’s like once something’s neutral, you have choice over it in a way that, you know, I mean, I have this whole theory about just we’re all so addicted to intensity, so we’re like, addicted to the fantasy, then the crash and burn and yeah, but I think a lot of that is like, again, this is kind of a tangent, but is that creative energy that needs to come out, but it can just be funneled in and that’s what I think entrepreneurship is like. So once you can get out of your stories and it’s like it can be this constant creative container if you know how to channel it and like what is the real problem versus the problem for manufacturing to keep this intensity, you know, going. 

Linzy [00:24:39] Yeah, you’re getting out of like crisis mode. Yeah. Just kind of like strategic like, okay, this could use some more attention. How do I aim my energy towards this in a thoughtful, strategic way? Yeah. Yeah. 

Ali [00:24:50] And I think all of us crisis, I mean, talking about money, like, I remember like, you know, my parents didn’t get paid in the summer and it was like, are we going to make it through the summer? Yeah. So it’s like that is what I was used to was like this. 

Linzy [00:25:02] Oh my gosh. 

Ali [00:25:03]  And I would often find like I’d get money from a big launch, right? And it was like, I would definitely make sure I had enough money till the next launch. Right? But then it was like, I’m going to buy this. I’m going to buy this. Oh, I’m staying in that. Like, now I need to look for quarters in the couch because it’s the end of summer. 

Linzy [00:25:21] Yes, yes, yes. And I think that’s such a great example of like riding that roller coaster of intensity rather than the stability, because your parents, as an example, and this is true for for private practices as well. Right. For folks listening. Is like there are these high seasons and low seasons. And after you’ve been in practice for a couple of years, like you know what they are like, you know when your client population, like if you work with kids, you know, in the summer, everybody’s off. Like you’re not going to be seeing folks so much. You can strategize around that. But generally speaking, you’re going to know the ebbs and flows. And once you know the ebbs and flows, you can create systems that create stability. You can even that money out. So you’re like, I’m going to get the paid pay the same every month, whether it’s July or, you know, March, I’m going to like create that stability so the money’s there. But without stopping to do that work, you know, you do end up like riding these waves of like this month I’m a success, this month I’m a failure. Rather than the middle which is like things are good, things are like working out. Yeah yeah. Letting go of the intensity I think you know is a step in the healing. 

Ali [00:26:20] 100%. That’s a great way to say it. Yeah. 

Linzy [00:26:22] So I’m curious with where you are now having like, you know, walked the path that you’ve walked and started to create these, you know, because you’ve got one too many offers or maybe one offer, you know, you’ve expanded the way that you make impact. And I’m hearing did a lot of work around your own relationship with money. What is your current money edge? 

Ali [00:26:41] I think my current money edge is trusting that it’s okay to have more money. I know that sounds weird, but it’s often part of I think healing our relationship to money is understanding that a lot of people who historically have had a lot of money have used it not in great ways to have the power in money in not great ways. But understanding that it’s okay to have more. Even if I don’t absolutely need it, like all my basic needs are met. I mean, granted, as a business owner, you’re always having to keep the marketing flywheel going and all that kind of stuff. But 15, 16 years into this, like I’m pretty secure that my business is going to continue to be successful. I mean, things obviously change. But it’s like, I don’t really need more, but I want more security. I want more. Especially since becoming a mom, it’s like, you know, you have these like- if something happens, your day, your work productivity goes to nothing. So my life is a lot more – now that I have a child – like unpredictable. And I do want to go on like boujee vacations, you know? I mean, I don’t- I’m not really a things person, but experiences. And so I think that’s really of like understanding that you don’t have- you’re not going to be an asshole, you know, if you make more and more money. And you can be- I think sometimes I fear that I won’t relate to the people the way that because one of the things I love about myself is I can relate to people and I don’t care how much money people make or that’s- my dad, kind of always we learned about systems and structures, and growing up, my dad kind of, I don’t want to say he was like laughing at people, but the striving, he was just like, Where is everyone going to, you know, like moving money and stuff. So I don’t think people are better if they have money or anything like that. But I do worry about like, can I relate in the same way? Because even when I first started out, it was like, okay, am I going to really be able to afford the guy that I want to buy? You know, and I was like, I have the luxury. I don’t have to wait for it to be on sale. Like I can just spend money. So it’s like I already can’t relate to the old me. Do you know? 

Linzy [00:28:46] Yes. Yes. 

Ali [00:28:47] So I think that relate ability and and having enough are really my edges. 

Linzy [00:28:52] And I am curious like, have you noticed in yourself, I’m hearing this like lack of relating and it also makes me think of like a lack of empathy. Right. Like sometimes when we we forget what it’s like to be suffering, right? Or to have to make really hard choices. I’m curious, like, what have you noticed about that as you’ve had more like, just straight up extra money available to do whatever you want with in your life? Yeah. Do you feel like you still. Yeah. Do you have that empathy? You remember what it’s like? 

Ali [00:29:19] Yeah. I feel like I love that you asked that question because I actually feel like I have more empathy in a way because I know how much I had to work to get here. But I also know how much privilege enabled me to get here. I mean, I have- I came from a very loving home. I didn’t have financial, you know, investments in my business. But I had yeah, I mean, my dad was like, are you sure you should leave your corporate job? But my mom was like, Go for it. You know, like, I’ve had support. Yeah. And so I feel like I know all the work if you do not come from money. And again, even if you do come from money, maybe your family lost money. But if you don’t come from money and you want to improve your financial standing, I feel like because I’ve lived it, I know that it takes so much more than just work. Yeah, yeah. And that kind of stuff. So I and I find myself like, you know, being able to donate more- not I mean, I read somewhere in social justice, like charity is actually justice. And I was like, yes, I love that review. So it’s like, okay, I can put, especially as a mother of a toddler, I don’t have a lot of time to volunteer, but I can now put this money where, you know, I want to. So I think that empathy has like increased. But I also say that with like, I don’t like to share like some people share how much they’re spending online. I’m like, I don’t I don’t want people to know, you know. 

Linzy [00:30:40] Just saying yes, yes, yeah. 

Ali [00:30:42] I also I don’t know if it’s just like a an old taboo of money. Like like it’s also like, why are we all sharing this? Like, how do you know? 

Linzy [00:30:51] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I, you know, I also I’m I’m a fan of, you know, talking transparently about money. I don’t tend to lecture on social media, but, like, that’s not my that’s not where I share anything. Yeah, like, I never announced that I had a kid, and then later I was like, well, I can’t post pictures of my two year old. Now people be like, Who is that? So I don’t I don’t live in that space personally as an individual. But yeah, I do, I do think it’s powerful because there is this like we don’t know what the person next to us is doing, right? And then what I’ve noticed is like we make up all these stories about what they’re doing or we- I mean, what I would really love to see if people share is like, I spend this much this month. This is how much of it was debt or this is how much I actually managed to like service on my debt or because this is the other thing, right? Is like we see folks spending. I’m thinking about social media as an example here, and we assume that they have something figured out that we haven’t, that they’ve cracked some sort of code, that they’re able to afford these incredible things, even though we have similar businesses and like, why can’t I? I can’t afford like an amazing trip to, I don’t know, Bali or whatever, but it’s like the way the numbers shake out and I’m like, folks are accumulating just a lot of debt, you know, no judgment on that. Like debt is strategic. You know, people can use debt however they want, but it’s not it’s not as simple, as straightforward as it might look. Right. There’s more to the story. It’s a more nuanced, complex story than we get to see. Yeah. 

Ali [00:32:07] And that’s why learning that like 80% of entrepreneurs had family money, I was like, Yeah, Oh, I don’t even know. People are making this from their business. I mean, you know, like, I used to be like exactly what you said. Why can’t I do that? Why am I drudging to grad school on Friday night. Yeah, totally. 

Linzy [00:32:22] Yes. You’re comparing like your reality to their like highly curated like selective part of the story. It’s an apples to oranges comparison. 

Ali [00:32:30] Well, and one- I don’t know if you’ve heard of Kelly Diels but she is- I love how she talks about like I never thought of this until I learned this what she said like I think it was like ten years ago or maybe I can’t remember all this time anymore, but how a lot of those signals of wealth manufacture like fake authority. And I never thought about that. Like it’s- we have this unconscious belief that, like, if you make more money, you somehow know something or you’re better. Right. Because at least in America, I mean, I think it’s crumbling. But the meritocracy belief of like, if you have a lot of money, you’ve earned it and you work for it. 

Linzy [00:33:06] Yeah, you’re better then. Yeah, you’re. 

Ali [00:33:08] Better than versus like the hardest working people in America are the poorest. 

Linzy [00:33:14] 100%. Yes. Yes. 

Ali [00:33:15] But I never thought of that as like, oh, showing that wealth makes people think like, I just haven’t connected it, you know? 

Linzy [00:33:22] Mm hmm. Yeah. There is a certain type of, like, privilege that you’re trying to access or that could be accessed by showing this off in a certain way. Makes it look like you are doing really well or. Yeah. Yeah, you’re. It’s kind of this is a thought that and I don’t know if this is going to fit, but I’m going to I’m going to share it. I read a great article from a writer that I follow, a British writer, and she talked about how when people share about losing weight, it’s like I had a baby and like, you know, they’ve gained like 20lbs for having a baby. And they’re like, I’m just not happy with my body. Your body’s fine. I’m just not happy with my body. I want to get back to where I was. And she was like, We have to be honest with the fact that, like, people are trying to reclaim thin privilege, like that’s what they want. They want to go back to the privilege that they used to have and like go back to the system that privileges folks whose bodies who look a certain way and they want to regain that privilege. And I think about that sometimes with like wealth signaling is like you by sharing this, like you’re saying, like, I have privilege, like I am privileged, I have earned this, I am better than I am what is right And like, yeah, what are you trying to accomplish with that? Which is like, I ask myself a lot when I share anything on social media as part of our brand is like, What am I trying to do? What am I trying to get out of this? Asking yourself that question because it’s yeah, it’s like complicated, thorny stuff. 

Ali [00:34:37] It is. And you know, it’s funny that you bring that up because I’m listening to this podcast called Classy right now, and it’s all about class, which is all about money, you know, and obviously in America, especially about race as well. But yeah, you were talking about how most people want to believe they’re in the good moral center. You know, so it’s like and I’m like, oh, my God, That’s how I felt. That was part of my money blind spot is like, I’m good because I’m not making so much money and exploiting people. Right? And it’s like my business could ever I mean, you can always exploit. I pay you, like, by. 

Linzy [00:35:10]  Whatever. Yeah. 

Ali [00:35:11] But then you don’t want to be seen as like poor and quote unquote bad, you know. But he was talking about how, like even people who are like, uber wealthy, they think they’re in the moral center, you know, like. Yes, But it’s like the problem. What we have to do is just take morality out of it. 

Linzy [00:35:25] So much to think about, so much to talk about. But we should start to finish up. Ali, thank you so much for joining me today on the podcast. If folks are interested in finding you and following you, where can they do that? 

Ali [00:35:37] Yeah, yeah. So I run a truth coaching certification, which helps people learn the structure of complex change. So whatever, they’re trying to help with people so they can scale to groups and incorporate their tools in everything. And you can find that at AliShapiro.com/truth-coaching-certification, it’s trauma-informed, it’s ICF approved, and then they can sign up for my web, you know my newsletter listed Ali Shapiro dot com and then I have my own podcast, Insatiable, but that’s more about food and the root causes of why we battle food. And then I’m on Instagram and @AliShapiro, but I’m not there all that much because of what we’ve talked about. 

Linzy [00:36:20]  Thank you so much for joining me today, Ali. 

Ali [00:36:31] Thank you, Linzy. This was so fun. 

Linzy [00:36:46] I loved this focus that Ali has on mastery and really sinking into your mastery and what you own. And what I was thinking about is really distinguishing between deepening your skill set and really sinking into a niche. How that is different than taking every exciting clinical training that comes your way. I really want to distinguish those things because I think that as healers, as therapists, as health practitioners, like I mentioned in the episode, you know, we so often focus on what we don’t know and we so often want to be better. You know, there’s another piece there which we often feel not good enough. We’ve often our caregivers as a way to feel valued. There’s so many layers to it that can lead us to trying to do everything for everybody. And what I love about what Ali suggested of really investing in yourself is what I see. There is a deepening of your skills, really sinking into your niche and really owning your niche deeply and being the best at what you do rather than trying to be able to do everything. And I think that not good enough can lead us to try to do everything because we see our colleague down the road who’s doing this like really cool therapy that we want to be able to do too. Or there’s a new modality and we want to know how to use it and be able to be part of those conversations. But when you really hit on what you’re really good at, what you love to do, there’s so much there to dig into and explore. And I also loved Ali’s suggestion of just like staying there and you can deepen the work that you’re doing. You can do it differently. You can work with that same population or work with that same topic in a different way. You can turn to therapy, the work that you do into like workshops, groups, a course, you know, it doesn’t mean there’s not new learning and creative stuff to do, but kind of staying in that one place and getting really good at something financially and energetically is a really good investment for you to make. So, so many, so many things that I could be reflecting on here after my conversation with Ali, but just really, really enjoyed my talk with her today. You can follow me on Instagram at @moneynutsandbolts. And if you’re enjoying the podcast, I would super appreciate if you would leave me a review on Apple podcasts, can jump over there. It will take you literally 3 minutes. If it takes you more, you can email me about it. I’d love to hear about it, but I suspect it’s going to take you only 3 minutes to leave a review on Apple Podcasts so other folks can be part of these conversations. Thanks for listening today.