[00:00:00] Robin: Concepts that work for people, especially now in this day and age, is automation. Take yourself out of the equation. So if you get paid on every Friday, automatically set up some sort of debit from your account to your investment account or your savings account, where you are not the middle person. It’s gone without you touching it.

[00:00:21] Robin: So it’s out of sight, out of mind.

[00:00:30] Linzy: 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.

[00:00:51] Linzy: Hello and welcome back to the podcast. Today’s guest is Robin Valadares. Robin is a physiotherapist and a personal finance educator. He is the founder of Financially Fulfilled Physio, which he would like to note, do not be tricked by the name. He works with all kinds of therapists and health practitioners.

[00:01:10] Linzy: And today Robin and I dig more into the personal side of finances. We talk about some of the barriers that stop folks from working on their personal finances, much of which come from, surprise, our education that we receive. We talk about some of the behaviours that we can have as humans managing money that make no sense, but are common, and some interventions, behaviours, let’s say, to put in place, to start to break

[00:01:38] Linzy: habits of overspending, or oversaving. Yeah, what are some key things that you can put in place to stop yourself from doing things that you regret later? Robin and I get into that today, as well as how to set yourself up to do the things that you want to do. to do, that might be difficult to do.

[00:01:54] Linzy: And then we also talk about some of the systems to manage personal finances, ways to stay in touch with your personal finances, yeah, lots of great pieces here today about the personal side of money for health practitioners. Here is my conversation with Robin Valadares. 

[00:02:22] Linzy: So Robin, welcome to the podcast.

[00:02:25] Robin: Hi, Linzy. Thanks for having me. 

[00:02:26] Linzy: I’m very excited to have you. We share some very specific identifiers in being health practitioners who have bridged off into finance and who also live in a very specific region of Ontario.

[00:02:39] Robin: That’s correct; odd how similar that is. 

[00:02:41] Linzy: It’s nice! So Robin, before we start to dig in today, can you tell folks a little bit about yourself and what you do?

[00:02:49] Robin: Absolutely, thank you, so traditionally I’m a physiotherapist, here in Southern Ontario. I’ve been practicing for the last 13 odd years in private practice. Going into practice, I realized that I had no knowledge on personal finance or money because it wasn’t really brought up in any former traditional education that I encountered.

[00:03:05] Robin: And despite doing it for a few years on my own, the pandemic gave me a great ability because the clinic was closed at the time to really focus on myself and the work pursue a passion that I’ve been mulling over, but didn’t necessarily have the time or the impetus to do so. So I developed the business called Financially Fulfilled Physio, at that time in 2020, geared towards healthcare practitioners, therapists, on their relationship with money and how to let money use for yourselves so you can improve your life and have a more meaningful or fulfilled life.

[00:03:32] Linzy: I think, COVID, despite the fact that it was awful and terrible, I did notice there was this window that opened, right? To like, do these other things, to pivot or explore something that maybe you wouldn’t have had time or permission to do otherwise. This was your COVID side hustle, that has grown.

[00:03:52] Robin: Correct. When in your adult life were you given the permission, whether out of your hands, to pursue something that you wanted to but couldn’t 

[00:03:58] Robin: do? Otherwise you make some sort of excuse saying I’m too busy, X, Y, and Z. 

[00:04:01] Robin: I was literally sitting at home watching YouTube videos for hours. Because I have things to do!

[00:04:06] Linzy: Might as well build this second business. So I am curious then in the work that you’ve done with healthcare professionals, what do you find are some of the biggest financial challenges that they face?

[00:04:17] Robin: I think as tactical as it is working with money, I think it’s the mindset piece that people really struggle with. It’s the concept where when you’re in healthcare, the majority of us, can’t speak for everybody, but we get into the job because it’s rewarding to help people improve their lives, whether it’s physically or mentally.

[00:04:31] Robin: So oftentimes we put their needs above our own because school has taught us to do so. But there’s a point in your career, whether it’s earlier or later, that you realize that it’s not sustainable to keep yourself second on the priority ladder. Where you realize, hey, I can’t do this forever, nor do I want to.

[00:04:46] Robin: I have to pursue other options or live maybe a more balanced or integral life, but that’s where money comes in because it’s the heart of all our decisions. But if we don’t have that relationship with money and think about it as a second nature, not the primary focus, then we realize that, hey, we can’t do this. We push it off saying it was going to work out in the end, and we start later in life and we know the benefits and the detriments of not compounding well, how that affects you later on.

[00:05:10] Robin: So I think mindset is probably the biggest challenge that we struggle with as healthcare practitioners and therapists.

[00:05:16] Linzy: Yeah, certainly. I mean, I think there is a commonality amongst most healthcare professions. It’s about taking care of your clients. It’s about, like, maximizing your schedule, getting as many folks in as possible, whatever that looks like.

[00:05:26] Linzy: I’m sure as a physio, you see way more folks in a day than I would ever see as a mental health therapist But it’s really just this, like, give, that we’re trained in, without getting that education. Folks who listen to the podcast have heard. You know, I talk about this many times because it’s so foundational, that it’s, not only do you often come into these fields because you care about other people and you want to help, so you’re already a helper type, but then the education that we get just reinforces, like just help people focus on being good at these things.

[00:05:53] Linzy: Don’t really worry about yourself. The money will follow. Or don’t even think about the money. It’s just not even spoken of. 

[00:05:59] Robin: Correct. 

[00:05:59] Robin: It’s like a noble pursuit, but then we realized that life doesn’t really reward everything as you’d want it. You have to take some sort of action on yourselves, whether you entrust your finances to a professional, you learn about yourself. I think the key focus is getting some sort of knowledge base and taking immediate action. Can’t push it off.

[00:06:14] Linzy: Yeah For folks then who are in this space of noting that they’re working, working, working, they haven’t been paying attention to these things and you focus in on personal finances, more than I do. I tend to say in the business space, you’re looking at personal finances.

[00:06:26] Linzy: So thinking about, you know, retirement and paying for schooling and paying down debt, those kinds of things. How do you suggest that folks start to address some of those barriers that are in the way of even starting to think about these things?

[00:06:39] Robin: Awesome question, because I get this often. I think there’s two points to look at it. One is a snapshot in time where you currently are, and then think about your future self as a secondary point. We’ve all gone through goal setting, whether it’s smart goals, but we often don’t do it for ourselves. We do it for our clients in terms of what we want to do.

[00:06:54] Robin: So I think, hey, where do I want to I see myself in X amount of years, whether it is on a beach, or working in a side job, or working in the practice you’re doing, maybe not many hours, and how do I work back from that goal to today, the present? And then you got to take a snapshot thing. Where are you financially?

[00:07:09] Robin: In terms of your house, how is it set up? Not a physical house, but your financial house in order. What are your expenses like? What are your incomes like? What are your debts like? And where can I attribute certain allocations of money based on my goals? And for me, it was a challenge because when you have to take a deep look into your own finances, you reveal to yourself a deeper part of yourself that exists, but you pay no attention to. What are my habits like? Show me where your habits are, I show you where your money’s going, right?

[00:07:33] Robin: So whether it’s Starbucks I might spend it on, Lululemon pants, takeout… Whatever it is, I’m putting those needs instead of my own and my future self so if you understand where you are starting from and then where you’re going, it really helps you in that trajectory or that journey to reach those goals.

[00:07:46] Linzy: Right. So really, yeah, connecting with that future self and what they need, so setting yourself up for them, but I’m also hearing, becoming much clearer on where’s your money actually going. Cause this is something that I hear often and I’m sure you too, is like, I’m working so hard.

[00:08:00] Linzy: I’m making the best money I’ve ever made. I have nothing to show for it. Right? Like the money disappears. But the money’s going somewhere and I am curious, yeah, like what are some of the trends that you see in those behaviors? Where is the money going for many people? You mentioned Starbucks, Lululemon, Takeout.

[00:08:15] Robin: I think it’s a clone of lifestyle creep and for those who aren’t familiar with that concept, it’s a concept that when you’re early in practice, you might earn a certain amount. So you spend in kind of your earnings for the most part; you might not go into debt. But as you earn more, you might inherently, consciously or subconsciously, feel more wealthy

[00:08:31] Robin: and with more wealth comes the concept of keeping up with the Joneses where you feel more pressure to do what your neighbor’s doing, whether it’s taking your kids to Montessori school, buying a Range Rover, living in a certain neighborhood, and then that spend meets up with your increased earnings.

[00:08:45] Robin: So your difference, or your delta, between the two doesn’t change. It’s not like you earn more and spend less and then you have more to take home. You spend more and you have about the same, nothing changes…

[00:08:56] Linzy: Yeah, and that lifestyle creep is so insidious. I live it all the time. I know. I’ve been reflecting on that. I was just saying to my partner the other day, I remember in my 20s, I remember one tax year particularly where I got my tax return, and I had made 11, 000 that year. That was my income for the whole year!

[00:09:14] Linzy: I didn’t feel like I was, like, terribly poor, and I’m sure I had parental support. I think they would buy me a winter coat every couple years. That helps. Rent was cheaper; life was cheaper at that time but even still, I wouldn’t say, if I look at the difference in my earnings now, that I am actually like 10 times happier or more fulfilled than I was then by earning 10 times more money because the money just goes other places. I find for myself a lot of my expenses are about property ownership and like doing the work on the house that we haven’t done for the last few years, and it’s like, okay now we got to do the furnace and now we got to do the water heater, and we went on an insulation spree over the winter holidays, just insulating everything.

[00:09:50] Linzy: Taking care of things that do need taking care of but every single time we go to the Home Depot, we drop $150 bucks which is money that I never had in my 20s, and I never even thought of spending. But now I have the money, so I just spend it. We just go. We see something, we’re like, oh, that’s, yeah, that would solve a tiny problem that we have.

[00:10:04] Linzy: We’ll just buy it. Yeah, the money just disappears.

[00:10:07] Robin: And it’s not typically a bad thing saying like you’re spending more frivolously, just like with your responsibilities later in life, whether it’s kids or in the home, they come with expenses. So you have to be smart, and judicious with your allocations, so you can actually

[00:10:19] Robin: achieve your goals rather than working hard and what I hear in my capacity maybe not the same with your capacity in your profession is that burnout’s a real thing less so in physical practice manually but a lot more in terms of the realm of mental health where you’re taking on the burden of working with an individual and then also living life on your schedule where you might have other issues you’re dealing with too.

[00:10:38] Linzy: Yes, absolutely. And so we want to make sure that money is actually taking care of you, and helping you build stability, so that you can be well while doing this really demanding work. So I’ve been doing a little bit of reading about economics that was my, like, geeky reading that I did over, the winter break

[00:10:53] Linzy: Robin and I are recording this shortly after the winter break, so I’m still getting my feet under me, missing my days on the couch. I read two books about economics over the break. One was _How Economics Explains the World_ by Andrew Lee, which was excellent,

[00:11:05] Linzy: in terms of a primer on just like this is economic theory. This is how economics explains these things that seem disparate and disconnected. They actually are all explained by the way that money works and the way that people work. But then the second book I picked up is on behavioral economics, which is a book called _Predictably Irrational_, which is a great

[00:11:23] Linzy: primer on behavioral economics. And it’s about the fact that like, yeah, sure, we have these theories of what should happen and what makes sense, but like, people are not rational. People are irrational, right? And we make decisions all the time that don’t actually make sense on paper, but that like, emotionally makes sense.

[00:11:40] Linzy: So I’m curious, for you, like, how do you suggest that folks start to work with this side of things, like these financial behaviors, these like psychologically based behaviors that that lead us to to overspend or over save and do things that don’t actually make sense for us.

[00:11:57] Robin: And it’s a tricky concept because it’s really your ability to take a step back and watch yourself in 3D from like a bird’s eye view of how you react to certain decisions, but it takes some introspection and some maturity to do so. And I think it’s if you know yourself well and say, look, I’m always an impulse buyer

[00:12:12] Robin: wherever I’m at the dollar store, that last aisle, I’m buying chips and candy. Don’t know why, because I’m waiting in line to check out, but if I didn’t have to wait, I wouldn’t buy it. 

[00:12:18] Linzy: hmm.

[00:12:18] Robin: A concept that works for people, especially now in this day and age, is automation. Take yourself out of the equation. So if you get paid on every Friday, automatically set up some sort of debit from your account to your investment account or your savings account, where you are not the middle person.

[00:12:32] Robin: It’s gone without you touching it so it’s out of sight, out of mind. Another skill set is having maybe a 24 hour rule, seven day, or a 30 day rule where I think I want to buy a set of these nice pants. I’m going to wait 24 hours before I purchase it. I’ll put it in my cart. And if I feel emotionally in that position where I want it versus where I need it, then maybe I’ll purchase. Then going out to seven days for something more expensive. Let’s say I’m going to buy a new couch and that’s going to be a hefty purchase. Do I actually want the blue color couch, or am I happy with this other type model? So it’s knowing yourself particularly well. And for me I work on delayed gratification, which I think is an absolute superpower. That’s the concept with the marshmallow test where you’re given something now but you can double it if you want to if you wait a little bit. And if you have that not only for material items, like you buy from Amazon, the delayed gratification is the pursuit of minimizing what you’re spending on right now with the goal of pulling that forward into the future, enjoying your life later on. The reverse is, hey, I’m going to pull from the future, like taking on debt, or buying things in the future but buy now, pay later, so I’m feeling gratified today. And I can assure you that’s not a good way to live because you’ll get to the point where hey, I’m 50 years old. I have nothing to my name. Now I have to work because I need to work versus I want to work and you don’t like the job as much.

[00:13:45] Linzy: Yeah yeah and that automation piece is really powerful and I remember Ramit Sethi, who has been a financial educator for, I don’t know, 15, 20 years now. He was kind of the first person that I really saw when I was starting to think about online business.

[00:13:58] Linzy: Cause he’s also in that space, but he talks about this, just like automate, automate, automate. Take yourself out of the middle. Because we know that we don’t make sense. Right? But we can sit and make a decision of like, okay, when I look at my year, this is how much my paychecks, I’m expecting them to be.

[00:14:12] Linzy: This is how much I want to save. I kind of joke with my students… Let the robots do your bidding. Because we know that if we get in the middle, we’re going to be like, ah, well, but this month, I actually could, really like, you know…there’s a sale at LLB and I’m talking about my own weak spots here.

[00:14:26] Linzy: For instance, this month in my own family, January is when we have to sign up for all the summer camps. As insane as that is, January is summer camp season so it’s like, I know there’s going to be like 1, 600 bucks of expenses coming out, which makes it really tempting to pull back and not contribute to those other goals, right?

[00:14:41] Linzy: But overall, if I still automate it and still contribute to those other goals, I will make it work, like, I will find a way to still pay off our cards at the end of the month. But yeah, if I put myself in the middle, I’m going to make it more complicated than it needs to be in a certain way. 

[00:14:55] Robin: And you know you make decisions differently if you’re tired, hungry, happier, like these emotions do affect our decision making skills. So take yourself out of it. 

[00:15:05] Linzy: Yeah, absolutely. It makes me think about the HALT, which I think is like, it’s actually for addiction, right? which is like hungry, angry, lonely, tired. Like, are you any of these things? Like, stop. 

[00:15:14] Robin: Then P.S. is pain and stress on top of that? 

[00:15:16] Linzy: Yeah, totally and so, you know, the delayed gratification piece, you’ve mentioned a couple like strategies here.

[00:15:22] Linzy: Let’s dig into those a little bit more, or brainstorm some ideas. Because in Money Skills for Therapists, I teach folks about budgeting, right? And budgeting in the business, is helpful to think about like, okay. How much in the year are you going to spend on professional development?

[00:15:33] Linzy: Because I find my folks who learn from me tend to be people who want to take every course that comes by. Every course… whether it’s clinical, whether it’s business, whether it’s on marketing, on Instagram, you know, is shiny and exciting and so for instance, setting a budget for the year to say, in the year I’m going to spend 3, 000 total on trainings allows them to have, a plan for that money,

[00:15:54] Linzy: But there is also that in the moment of: I want this now, this is in front of me now. And what I’m hearing you suggest here is more like what I would think about as maybe money rules. Where you have a certain rule of how you behave to stop yourself from doing the things that are going to hurt you.

[00:16:11] Linzy: So I’m hearing that delaying is a money rule, and you mentioned delaying like a shorter or longer period of time. So can you give an example maybe for folks who are listening to whom this might be a new concept? What would be some concrete examples of those money rules? Like you mentioned for dollar amounts, different periods of time.

[00:16:27] Robin: Correct, so like smaller purchases, and it’s all relative depending on how you look at it. So let’s say I’m looking for a new set of pants, and I have plenty of pants at home, but there’s a new one on sale, and I’m like, oh, this looks good and summer’s coming down the corner.I want to buy these; I don’t need to buy these.

[00:16:42] Robin: So I, I look at ’em like, okay, is that a good deal? I’ll put it in my cart. Let’s say it’s 7:00 PM that night. I just ate, and I’m emotionally quite happy. Then I’ll wake up the next morning, take a look at the cart. I’m like, “These pants, they’re nice, they’re not needs, because I have plenty of pants.” So I’ll push it back. Can I allocate that $100 somewhere else that would better serve me than the set of pants. I know in four weeks time I might want another pair of pants because I’m trying to fill some sort of hole I’m not getting elsewhere. So I think purchasing or buying is going to buy my 

[00:17:11] Robin: happiness, and it doesn’t. 

[00:17:12] Linzy: Right, yeah, well, and that’s such a great example, and also you know, an insight to that piece underneath. It makes me think about Gabor Mate, he’s a Canadian doctor. You know him. Yeah, he’s brilliant. And he has that book about addiction called _In the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts_, which is about his work in Vancouver, working with folks with severe, severe addiction.

[00:17:32] Linzy: And the hungry ghost is a Buddhist concept, right? Of like this kind of hole at the center of us and, you know, what I’m hearing you refer to here is that what I think about as, you know, a hungry ghost kind of thing where, like, yeah, we’re trying to fill something that really isn’t about pants.

[00:17:45] Linzy: It’s not about the pants, and the pants are not going to make it better. There’s some other emotional need there and so stopping to identify that is something I’ve talked to my students about. The phrase that I use sometimes is like, what is the need under the want? 

[00:17:57] Linzy: I remember one of my students’ pants being the exact example during the pandemic she was like, just kept buying black stretchy pants and it’s like, how many pairs of pants can one woman really wear? You already have more pants than days of the week, but what is it about?

[00:18:09] Linzy: And it’s like the black stretchy pants are about comfort, right? And permission to relax. Something being softer or easier because the pandemic as a parent, especially, is really hard. Your kids are at home; things are uncertain. There’s a lot of stress. So it’s like, okay, it’s not really about pants.

[00:18:22] Linzy: Right? It’s about needing comfort and reassurance and permission to take care of yourself. So stopping to, to name that. And I’m curious for yourself, you know, in the work you’ve done with folks around personal finance, what do you see as, like, some of those holes that people are trying to fill by buying things?

[00:18:39] Robin: I think one of the components is societal pressure to look a certain way, act a certain way, because of your profession and whether that’s hey, I have to make sure that I have the latest phone, the latest computer to do my charting on. I have to look a certain way and be dressed out in a certain way because if I don’t I’m looked down upon based on my peers. It might not be as pertinent in our profession of being manual therapists for the most part but other fields, let’s say you’re a physician There’s definitely that sense of: hey I’m a certain status, whether it’s consciously or subconsciously and I have to act and behave like that status because society deems that people in this profession look a certain way. It’s getting over that concept. 

[00:19:19] Robin: And you’ve got to be like a contrarian to do so. You have to say, hey I don’t care what society deems. I know my worth. I know what I can provide. I can look presentable but I don’t have to look very expensive and presentable, and it’s going to take for my future self to look at a certain way right now.

[00:19:31] Linzy: Mm hmm. Right, yeah, because that’s where you’re really paying the cost is when you are doing something to fit in that you can’t actually afford, right? You’re stealing from your future to have that certain car or, and cars are something that I think about a lot because cars are something that really don’t matter to my partner and I.

[00:19:46] Linzy: I’ve been lucky to marry somebody who also is like, eh, why would we buy new cars? That’s crazy, but that’s a great example of something that costs just so much more than almost anything else you can purchase. It’s second only to homes in terms of the amount of money you spend, and yet folks will make quick snap decisions because it’s shiny, it’s pretty, it’s like your neighbor’s car down the street and then spend $50,000 of money that they don’t have. I mean, I don’t know anybody who buys a car in cash, so committing to a loan for 10 or 20 years.

[00:20:17] Linzy: And we have a young friend who recently bought an electric vehicle and when we did the math with him. He’s paying almost double for this vehicle, which is already not a cheap vehicle, but the money seems cheap, but you’re actually just costing your future self money, you end up paying twice as much for the car in the end.

[00:20:34] Robin: On an asset that depreciates. On money now that you could put to work and compound, that we know money today is a lot more valuable than money tomorrow because of inflation.

[00:20:41] Linzy: Yes. Absolutely, yes, yeah, and let’s talk about that concept for a bit because I’ve talked about that on the podcast in the past. But this compounding piece, because this is something that is much more relevant in personal finance than it is in business finance, because business finance, usually we’re not investing in terms of investing, you know, in stocks, right?

[00:20:56] Linzy: We’re investing in ourselves, we’re investing in our team, but the money works a little bit differently, but yeah, let’s talk about compounding and the value of taking action now. 

[00:21:06] Robin: Absolutely. Two things you’ll see with any sort of graph on or compound interest calculator is the key variable is to start early because time is your superpower. The time will outweigh certain additions to your investment accounts later on. For example, let’s say you started 20 years old and you’re only investing $1,000 a month, because what 20-year old has $10,000 to invest a month, right?

[00:21:25] Robin: But let’s say that same person, I’ll call him Jack, goes up against a lady named Jill, starting at age 30, or even age 40, with 5 to 10 times more initially than Jack did. Guess who, at the age of 65, is going to have more money? Not Jill, even though she has 5 or 10 times more than Jack’s starting amount, because he started 10 years or 20 years earlier.

[00:21:45] Robin: So time is a huge variable with compounding. We struggle with this as humans because we usually think linearly. Our brains don’t work very exponentially. So the first 10 years of investing, you’re not going to see a huge amount of growth. But I assure you, the last 10 years, if it’s 30 or 40 years, is huge growth, and whatever you do now will impact later. So that’s the first one, starting early. The second one is do not stop. Contribute often and it doesn’t mean that you have to contribute 100 every single month. Something as little as 10 a week, 20 a week, will compound. So you have to contribute often, don’t stop investing, and start early. Those are the two variables that really help your compound growth.

[00:22:23] Linzy: Right, yeah, and that starting early, can be tricky to hear if you’re 45 and you’re like, damn it. But basically, it starts today. It’s kind of like that saying about “the best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago.” The second best time is today. Because it really is like that kind of visual right of what seems so small today over 10 years, it becomes huge, and just huger and huger all the time. So yeah, and I love that idea of “just start with something,” right? Like even if it’s 20 bucks a week, cause what I see is when we start with something like 20 bucks a week, is we also see ourself doing the thing, which in itself has really positive like mental health impacts of just seeing yourself taking action, even if it’s not the ideal action, even if ideally you should be setting aside

[00:23:04] Linzy: $1,000, $2,000 a month, and you’re only setting aside $100, you’re still building that machine, you’re building that pathway, and as more money becomes available, it’s going to be easier and easier to contribute to those investments. But as you say, too, time is your greatest factor, so putting aside 20 a week this year is going to serve you better than setting aside a few hundred bucks, 10 or 20 years from now.

[00:23:27] Robin: Exactly. You build that habit. And I heard a quote yesterday that might be quite pertinent today is, “if you focus on doing the hard things, the hard habits, life will be easier on you. If you focus on the easy habits, life will be hard on you.” And this is a good concept of that. You’ve got to do the hard things if you want a better life.

[00:23:41] Linzy: Right, yeah, and automate those things. So you don’t have to be manually making that decision, over and over again because that’s something, too, in the behavioral economics book that I’m reading that he talks about is like the pain of spending.

[00:23:51] Linzy: There’s a pain to spending money. So if you automate it, you don’t have to actually make that move right? Like it’s your past self who is thinking about the future has set it up so it automatically happens and you don’t have to actively make that decision, over and over again.

[00:24:06] Robin: Exactly. And this might speak to the conversation you had with Julie recently was how money that you earned is treated differently than money that is given to you. So how do you allocate that effectively? When you know you’ve earned this, you put the time and effort in, you know how much that costs in your personal life.

[00:24:19] Robin: Don’t mistrust it and be frivolous with it. Just like if you have credit cards, you’re like, I’m using my credit card, I’m not handing over cash, therefore it’s not real money because I can’t see it or touch it. I’m going to spend it differently. Being mindful of how you’re spending. 

[00:24:30] Linzy: Yeah and I think, you know, being in touch, as you say, with the energy that went into earning this money, like this money is, a distillation of your time and energy, right? Like you gave up X amount of your time and your emotional energy, if you’re a mental health therapist, that you didn’t have for yourself and your family, to earn this money. So respect that, right. and use it in a way that actually is going to make your life better. which maybe another pair of Lululemon pants is not going to do, maybe, I don’t know. Depends how many pants you wear in a day. Not too many.

[00:25:01] Linzy: So, I’m curious then, you know, thinking about this piece about our behaviors, what are some habits or routines that you’ve seen really working for folks to help them build wealth? Are there other things you would add to the list of: how do we really start to turn around the way that money is working for us?

[00:25:18] Robin: Lovely. And to go back to the analogy we learned earlier about starting now in terms of snapshot and think about personal finance as a journey. Think about you on an actual boat, and you’re sailing across the sea. What do you have to do to ensure you achieve that goal of reaching your destination? The main thing you have to do is check in often with yourself. You’re not going to check the compass once when you set sail and not check it again until you get there. Makes zero sense you’ll be off course, especially if you’re off course by a little bit.

[00:25:42] Robin: It will compound that result in terms of the aperture of that direction, so what I mean by that is what I do with myself, and I implore to my students or my clients is have these check ins with yourself and make it a frequent thing whether it’s once every two weeks, once a month. So, you know, hey, I’ve done this habit.

[00:25:58] Robin: Now, what’s the repercussions of it? Positive or negative? Have I developed a certain trajectory to my goal? Whether I can reconcile my accounts, I can make sure the allocation is there. Do I still want to invest in this? Do I still want to save in this? Do I still want this goal? But if you don’t check on it, you’re going to wait 12 months and you’re like, Ah, I should have gone back and checked it because I don’t want that right now, but I’ve wasted six months or 12 months of compounding where I haven’t checked in. For me. It’s every two weeks. Saturday morning cup of coffee. I’m there from eight to nine o’clock. I’m knocking this out because I know at the end of the year. I’ve achieved my goals based on what I’ve done during the year.

[00:26:29] Linzy: Right yeah and it’s that you’re not talking about looking at it every day or every hour. I’m hearing: every two weeks. This is what I would call money time or a money date. If you’re partnered, it’s also a good thing to do with a partner to look together at your money, but just like checking in on it.

[00:26:45] Linzy: I think setting and forgetting it in terms of automations is helpful to have good behaviors, but then also check to make sure that you’re actually getting what you want out of these things, is what I’m hearing. Like: is this still even making sense for where you are?

[00:26:57] Robin: Yeah, because our decisions change all the time. Remember if you decided last January 1st, and where you decided maybe June 1st, and December 1st. I think your decision might have changed over the course of the year because life has changed.

[00:27:06] Linzy: Yes. Right.

[00:27:07] Robin: You should update it accordingly. 

[00:27:09] Linzy: That makes sense. I am curious, too, Robin, with that, do you have any particular tools that you like or that you recommend to your students for personal finance? Like, are you a fan of budgeting software? Is it spreadsheets? Is it having things written down on paper?

[00:27:23] Linzy: Like, what does the actual data sorting through look like?

[00:27:26] Robin: I love the question. For me, I’m old school and what I generally do is when I write stuff down or type things down, I feel that pain a little more than when I get a spreadsheet of where it’s gone. What I mean by that is when I say, okay, I spent X amount of dollars, I’m typing into my budget on Saturday morning that I spent this, I have to actually actualize what I’m doing there. Realize that, hey, $175 going to this allocation. When I use a software, it takes the effort out of it. It’s more convenient, but you’ll see all their items. You’re like, oh yeah, I forgot that I spent X amount there. Oh, I forgot about that because it’s easy to forget about these things.

[00:27:58] Robin: But at the same time, it does take that time and or speed and convenience. So it’s up to you and how you really work. For me, I write it down. I make it a manual process, but that’s more time and effort. For an individual getting started, you might sync up to a certain platform where it already downloads based on the feeds you have and then you can have a little summary and that’s your first foray into knowing where you’re going and then you can decide whether that’s a strategy you want to do yourself, manually or automated.

[00:28:19] Linzy: Yeah. Yeah, because what I find with the manual, as you say, is like, it does give you that real processing. Like, it almost like it moves through you, the information, right? Like, you see it, comes through your brain, has to come through your arm and out your hand. So there’s a real processing of like, oh, I spent, woo, yeah, how does that feel for me?

[00:28:36] Linzy: So there’s a real kind of actual physicality to it. But the downside, you know, that I find, and as you’re mentioning, is, because it’s manual, sometimes folks fall behind. And then when they fall behind, that can be overwhelming and that can be a reason to avoid. So yeah, I think, yeah, it’s going to depend on what is going to be the bigger payoff for you.

[00:28:52] Linzy: Like, is it having it automated so that it’s there for you? Or is it going to be the value of you, like, really manually processing it? So, yeah, and that changes.

[00:29:01] Linzy: When I was in my 20s, I went away to university with a spreadsheet that I had made and I would manually put in all the stuff that I had spent and had these different little boxes. It’s like, this is my eating out money. This was my clothes and I would type it in. And yeah, I was definitely very in touch with my numbers, but it was manual and I was in my 20s and probably single at that time and just going to university, and didn’t have a kid, and I had time to do that. Now I wouldn’t necessarily see that for my life and my lifestyle now. That wouldn’t necessarily be feasible or a great use of my time. So I’ve got these automated systems, but I do totally feel what you’re saying, it does become a little bit easier to breeze by things when it’s automated.

[00:29:38] Robin: Super. Especially let’s say it goes three or six months. It’s down the line. Oh yeah, I forgot I spent that. Can you remember the purchase now from eight months ago on a random Tuesday? I couldn’t tell you. 

[00:29:48] Linzy: No. No. No. Sometimes we have things come into our You Need a Budget and I’m like, what is that? And it was from three days ago. You know, life can be busy. It’s easy to forget. So there are pros and cons of different kinds of systems. Robin, thank you so much, for coming onto the podcast today.

[00:30:02] Linzy: It’s been wonderful having you. Thank you for bringing these personal finance insights to us and for folks who want to hear more from you, who want to get further into your world, where can they find you and follow you?

[00:30:14] Robin: Absolutely. Thank you again, Linzy, for having me on. Anytime I get to speak about this stuff, as you probably learned, I love talking about it. I’m really passionate about it because I think it really can impact your life. So if you want to learn more about me, I have a platform called Financially Fulfilled Physio.

[00:30:26] Robin: Just type that into Google or your search platform, you’ll find me there. I write on a weekly basis, on Sundays, just my forays into personal finance and hopefully can provide some value to the audience and then there’s some spreadsheets that I use or some things that might help you throughout the process, which you can find on my website, but that’s the main way to get ahold of me.

[00:30:42] Robin: If you want to email me, I’m quite open to email. It’s info at financiallyfulfilledphysio.com. 

[00:30:47] Linzy: Wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us today, Robin.

[00:30:50] Robin: Welcome. Thanks everyone.

[00:31:02] I really appreciated Robin’s perspective today, and I especially appreciate his mentioning of some of those behaviors that you can put in place that support budgeting or intentional spending. I believe I’ve heard referred to before as like money rules, where it’s just a set guideline on how you make financial decisions.

[00:31:22] And I think especially when we’re prone to impulse decisions, and overspending, having just some clear guidelines for yourself of when X, then Y, can start to slow you down and get you out of those automatic behaviors that you don’t like, that aren’t serving you. So as he mentioned the idea of, if it’s a small purchase, let’s say if it’s less than,between 50 and a hundred dollars, you give yourself 24 hours. Put it in the cart or make a note of it, but come back to it 24 hours later and see, do you still want this thing?

[00:31:54] Or was that about an emotional need at the moment that you thought about buying it, but is no longer there, that has now been fulfilled in some other way. Cause you got a good sleep, you had a good meal, you had a good talk with a friend and suddenly that extra pair of pants doesn’t seem so important.

[00:32:06] Or as he said, with larger purchases, giving yourself an even longer timeline, right? Of, “I’m going to give myself a week to think about this couch.” Or sometimes in my own budget, I think about, “I’m going to put this next month.” We will decide next month if this is something that we want to buy.

[00:32:20] It’s not in this month’s budget, but we’ll make a budget category for it and we’ll see if we still care about it next month because often things that are exciting in a moment, aren’t so exciting later and it becomes clear with a little bit of space. That’s not actually a great use of my money. As Robin says, there’s somewhere else that would be better to spend my money.

[00:32:35] I’d rather see this money going towards my investments. I’d rather send this hundred bucks to my investments and see it go there instead of going to Amazon or I’d rather, buy this great gift for my partner, and see them take great joy for a bit, rather than buy something else that I don’t actually really want or need.

[00:32:51] So, lots of opportunity to be more mindful with your money and to start to align your money with your values when you practice just slowing down, stopping yourself, and thinking about what those roles could be for you is a great way to start with building these kinds of skills in terms of managing your money.

[00:33:10] So, so appreciate Robin for bringing forward that idea today. If you are enjoying the podcast, you can both follow me on Instagram @moneynutsandbolts and you can tell a friend about the podcast. Tell your physio friends, for instance, or other kinds of health practitioners who might be in a different field than you about the podcast. I’m really proud of this podcast and the conversations that we’re having here. I think that they are speaking to things that we don’t get to talk about too often, and I know there’s lots of folks out there who would benefit from hearing these conversations and hearing great people like Robin.

[00:33:46] So, please tell your friends and colleagues about the podcast that goes a long way to helping other folks be part of these conversations. Thanks so much for listening today.

[00:00:00] Linzy: Hello and welcome back to another Feelings and Finances episode of the Money Skills for Therapists podcast. And these are our short and sweet Friday episodes where we answer questions from you, the listeners of the money skills for therapists podcast. Today we have a question from Nick, and here’s Nick’s question.

[00:00:17] Nick: Hi, Linzy. My name is Nick. I recently started my private practice. I’m now private pay. Before that, I was insurance based. and so my question is, I guess, something that is now coming up for me. I’m doing a lot of work on things like money mindset, and marketing, and all of these… Just learning so much that I didn’t have to do when I was insurance based.

[00:00:43] But something that keeps coming up is some parts that aren’t feeling good enough and I can’t do it and I should just go back to insurance. Like it’ll be a money stressor but what’s sitting underneath that is a lot of like parts, negative core beliefs. So how do you hold on, and keep going and not… For me, it would feel like a backpedal to go back to insurance.

[00:01:11] It’s really not even an option. So it’s just, it’s really scary, to kind of hold on. Needing more clients, needing more money, and all of the parts that are getting poked at during the process. So I would love to hear your thoughts on how to just build that distress tolerance for how different it is being private pay than insurance based. Thank you for the work that you’re doing.

[00:01:43] I’m really enjoying your podcast, and I hope that we get to talk more soon. Thank you.

[00:01:49] Linzy: Okay. This is a great question, Nick. I mean, the first thing that… My first response, which is kind of a joking response but also not a joking response, is therapy. So I’m thinking about my own journey, Nick, with kind of playing a bigger game to put it a certain way, in business, you know, and moving into a space where you’re like, this is what I’m offering and this is the value of it.

[00:02:14] And this is what I’m charging. And that’s not for everybody. You know, all the things, as you say, that we have to do, in your case, you’re talking about, being private pay rather than insurance. I’ve experienced a similar thing just in terms of courses, and what I charge for them and having to be real about what it costs to run a business, and pay a team.

[00:02:30] And there is so much opportunity, as you say, just ample, never ending opportunity for the parts of us that hold negative beliefs, parts of us that, as we know, are about survival, about keeping us safe. It’s so much opportunity for those parts to just go bananas. You know, like they get so activated by the exact kind of project that you’re doing where you are saying, no, I can’t be small anymore in this way. Financially, I need something else, or emotionally, I need something else.

[00:03:06] I don’t know exactly what has brought you to the journey of deciding to be fully private pay, but we are having to be seen and to be big and to, as you say, weather the uncertainty that comes when we ask for more. And when we communicate to the world that no, what we are doing is worth more, and we’re willing to wait for the folks who recognize that and the folks who are willing and able to pay us for that work.

[00:03:35] It is scary. So how do you weather that? How do you build that distress tolerance? This is where, again, therapy is your friend. If you are not already working with a great therapist, this is a good time to do it.When I first started building this version of my business, of Money Nuts and Bolts, and really had my neck stuck out, like it felt like I was in a really neck stuck out position, I talked about it in therapy all the time. It’s so activating. It brings up so many parts of us that are like, no, no, no, no, no.

[00:04:05] Just go back to that safe thing that you were doing before. And yeah, it had its costs, but like, this isn’t worth it. This is too scary. And it’s going to bring up the not good enough, the fear of being attacked. Just so many things… I know for me, I had a lot of fear, stepping into this version of my business, of trolls on the internet, that it wasn’t safe to be seen in this way.

[00:04:24] I was going to get hurt emotionally, it would cost me, certain friendships or relationships, which in some ways it did. You know, some of those things are true, but they are worth it. Right. And so for you, I would encourage you to work with those parts of yourself, whether it’s with a therapist or with your own skills, this is a time to take extra good care of those vulnerable parts of yourself.

[00:04:47] Whether that is through journaling, visualizing, naming, talking about, being with, just creating that internal distance inside, you know, in a parts work kind of framework of noticing that part. What age is it associated with, does this part of you know that the conditions in your life are different now, and that so many skills that you’ve built, and so much education that you’ve received, does this part of you know about all those things when it believes that you’re not good enough?

[00:05:12] Has it been updated on all of the things that you’ve done to get to this particular place in your career? You know, that kind of time orientation work with those young parts of us, and the compassion and the kindness and taking care of them, could be through art. You know, could be through just talking honestly with other friends and business owners that you know.

[00:05:32] But letting those parts of you have space, because if we try to just squash them down and override them, we know that they just pop up in different ways, right? They don’t go away. We need to help those parts of us catch up with where we are in life. Catch up with you, and why you have made this decision.

[00:05:50] What has brought you to this place? Because it wasn’t just all of a sudden. You know, there’s been a whole journey that has brought you to this place, Nick, where you’ve decided to be private pay and to go off insurance panels. And you don’t want to go back to insurance panels. And you probably shouldn’t, you know, if there were good reasons for leaving them, but that part of you… Those parts of you, probably multiple, don’t know that story yet.

[00:06:12] So that would be part of it, is therapy, being with those parts of you, allowing them to catch up to where you are now, letting them know that you’re an adult, and you’re safe, and you’re making strategic choices, and you have supports. So that’s the core emotional side of the work. On the practical side, thinking about the distress tolerance, I would think about: what are the actions that you can be taking on a regular basis to build your practice that let you see that you’re taking action, right?

[00:06:40] That don’t make you feel powerless or stuck, but let you see, okay, I’m doing these things. So in marketing, this is where we get into the kind of the business strategy side of it… In marketing, there are activities that we do that generate certain results, and we need to be doing these activities, even if they’re not going to immediately give you a client.

[00:06:59] So you have your activities that are kind of your lead generators, right? That let people know about you, whether that’s speaking at community events, networking with colleagues, building a newsletter, showing up on social media platforms where you’re building your audiences, that let people see you and remember, “Oh yeah, Nick, they’re so great.

[00:07:17] I would love to work with Nick” right? You’re reminding people that you exist and you’re letting your colleagues know, this is what I’m doing now. This is who I’m serving. So they think of you the next time they have a client in front of them that’s not the kind of person that they serve, but will be perfect for you, right?

[00:07:31] Those are your lead generation kind of activities. You’re getting the word out there. Then there’s going to be the actual things that you do that allow folks to see you, learn about you, contact you… your website, you know? Then there’s going to be people, moving further down the funnel, who contact you through the website, they book a consult… Do those people who book consults actually turn into first sessions?

[00:07:54] Do your first session turn into six sessions? These are kind of like in broad strokes, the different stages of the marketing funnel. And as you’re building your practice, it’s important that you’re taking action to get leads into your world so folks know about you, to get those concept calls booked, to turn those consults into clients, to keep those clients for six sessions, or whatever your baseline would be.

[00:08:17] Seeing yourself doing things on a regular basis that are having an impact in your practice will also help to sooth those parts of you because they’ll see like, okay, things are happening. You know, you’re going to be able to actually show yourself that progress is being made by taking strategic action in these areas.

[00:08:32] So, stopping and thinking about: where is there a deficit right now? Where do you need to be putting more activity? Is it that people don’t know about you? Is that you’re attracting the wrong people so they’re not converting? Or is something else happening further down the funnel where you’re losing the right people?

[00:08:48] Putting that kind of strategic focus on your business allows you then to also build a business that works, and lets all parts of you see that you are doing this, and it takes time, but you are taking action, and you are making choices that are having clear impacts on the business, and you are going in the right direction, right?

[00:09:07] So we want to soothe, but we also want to be strategic. So I suggest a mix of those two things, Nick, in whatever quantity you need each of them.And that will allow you to keep going, and take the steps that you need to take to build the practice that you actually want, which you’ve already embarked on by making this decision.

[00:09:27] So lastly, I will say congrats, Nick, for doing something big and scary. And I wish you lots of groundedness and fortitude and also strategy to build the practice that you really want. Thank you so much for sharing your question with me today. If you, like Nick, also have a question that you would love me to answer on one of these Feelings and Finances episodes, all you need to do is click on the link in the show notes or head over to our podcast page, moneynutsandbolts.com slash podcast. You will see a little box there where you can just hit record, introduce yourself, and share a question with me. I would love to answer your question on a future episode of Feelings and Finances. Thank you so much for joining me today.

 [00:00:00] Felicia: Rather than pretending as if there’s not a power dynamic, where can we engage with the power that we have in a way that is helpful and not harmful? You know, the reality is that we do have responsibilities in our practices as the owners, whether it’s solo or group practice, that are our responsibilities.

[00:00:22] And in my opinion, we should not be trying to make those other people’s responsibilities.

[00:00:29] Linzy: 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.

[00:00:49] Hello and welcome back to the podcast. Today’s guest is Felicia Keller Boyle. This is Felicia’s second appearance on the podcast, and today we dig into group practice. So Felicia is a coach and mentor to solo therapists but we talk on the podcast about how we’ve both increasingly been doing more and more work and giving more and more support to group practice owners.

[00:01:13] Today we talk about marketing: when you have a group practice, how do you have to market differently than when you have a solo practice? We talk about some of the ways group practice owners can get in their own way when it comes to filling up their clinicians, and how to start actually getting it so folks will want to work with somebody who is not you in your group practice.The idea of group practice owners charging more than their clinicians who work with them and, we had a little bit of a discussion slash debate, about it cause we have different thoughts about it, but I think she might have convinced me.

[00:01:44] So, you can stick around until the end to hear that part of our conversation. I so enjoy speaking with Felicia. It was a treat to be able to connect with her again today, under the guise of recording a podcast. She had lots of interesting things to say, on the marketing side of private practice.

[00:02:00] Even if you’re not a group practice owner, there’s so much in this today about the importance of clear marketing, creating clear boundaries and containers for clients. Lots here that also applies to solo practice. Here is my conversation with Felicia Keller Boyle.

[00:02:14] So Felicia, welcome back to the podcast.

[00:02:25] Felicia: Thanks for having me. I’m really excited to be here.

[00:02:28] Linzy: Yeah, one of the great things about having a podcast is it just gives me an excuse to talk to people that I like. We were just talking off mic about how it’s probably been two years since we talked last, which was not my plan at all. so it’s nice to have an excuse to just be able to chat with you and chat about the things that we’ve been working on.

[00:02:44] I think we have a lot of overlap. We’ve kind of grown in similar directions. but yeah, this is just one of the selfish reasons that I have a podcast is to talk to people like you. Yes.

[00:02:53] Felicia: I’m on the same page. I feel like I’m about to do something in my podcast coming up that is very similar, like having more guests on. It’s been so many solo episodes, but I’m also like, okay, how can I have more fun and use this as an excuse to have interesting people and I think it’s great for listeners too, because it’s sort of like you get two thought leaders in a space, two people you’re interested in hearing from, and they, you just get to eavesdrop on their coffee chat. That is just so incredibly valuable.

[00:03:22] Linzy: Yeah. It’s like conversations that we would have anyways.

[00:03:25] Felicia: Yeah!

[00:03:26] Linzy: But we’re recording them, and maybe a little bit more polished and maybe slightly less swearing. Maybe.

[00:03:30] Felicia: Mmm, yeah, maybe slightly, yeah,

[00:03:32] Linzy: Yeah.

[00:03:33] Felicia: To be seen.

[00:03:35] Linzy: Time will tell.

[00:03:36] Felicia: You’re so right, because we have been growing in similar ways. We want to talk about group practices today, because we’ve both been working more with group practice owners. I’ve been finding it super interesting.

[00:03:47] I feel like the business model is obviously way more complicated than solo practice. There’s a completely different set of problems to solve. And I’ve just been having so much fun working with group practice owners. And I know you have, too.

[00:03:59] Linzy: Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. And I was saying to you off mic that I wasn’t planning necessarily to work with group practice owners. It kind of evolved organically, but I’m so glad that I am. am because I find that the folks who we attract, who are group practice owners tend to be not just smart and confident and accomplished and all the things that you need to have figured out to get to the point of being able to build a group, but also are very thoughtful, and kind, and trying to solve the big problems in business, which is, how do you take care of other people while taking care of yourself?

[00:04:30] How do you build something sustainable? How do you understand which numbers matter? Which is, of course, like what I’m helping folks to understand. And it’s just such impactful work because of the ripple effect that you have when you own a business and you’re supporting a team and then those team members are supporting dozens and dozens of people is it just has such a huge impact on your community, the way that you run your group, and the decisions that you make in that space.

[00:04:55] Felicia: Absolutely. The impact is huge and the sense of responsibility and also leadership. That’s something that I talk about a lot with my group practice owners: that it’s just not the same conversation with solo practice owners, but with group practice owners, there’s this whole other element of leadership and responsibility that can be really confusing for group practice owners.

[00:05:17] I’ll be really curious to hear some of the problems that you’ve encountered in working with your clients, but yeah, group practice owners are just grappling with so much. They still want to be fantastic clinicians. They want to not exploit their employees or contractors.

[00:05:33] They are dealing with a lot of the same things solo practice owners deal with around like, where do I co-create and collaborate? And where do I just take responsibility for the decision in this area? And I feel like that’s a place where… I’m thinking of some different clients where that was a really big thing that we had to work on is, no, this is your decision.

[00:05:54] This isn’t a thing that you’re deciding on collectively. , we need you to know what to do here. So…

[00:06:00] Linzy: yes. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, there are differences that need to happen in leadership and one of the areas that you focus on with your folks that is not so much what I spend time on with my folks is marketing. So I wanted to start by talking about marketing in group practice. What do you see is different about the way that group practice owners need to market?

[00:06:20] What are the adjustments they need to make when they move into being a group practice owner rather than just marketing a solo practice, which is probably where they started.

[00:06:27] Felicia: right. So one of the things that… Once I say it, it’s going to be so obvious, but I can’t tell you how often this actually occurs, which is: a therapist has a successful solo practice. They decide to hire clinicians, but if you go onto their website, once they’re a group practice, it’s as if they are kind of shoved other people onto the website.

[00:06:49] And a lot of the group practice owners I work with, I would say pretty much all of them, they’re at the point of expanding into a group practice because they don’t want more clients on their caseload. And yet the website is still totally focused on them. And so I think one of the main things group practice owners have to do is they have to essentially lend their clout, and their reputation to their clinicians.

[00:07:17] They have to transfer some of that trust onto their clinicians, because if they don’t do that, then they’re in this weird position where they’re like, I don’t get it. I’m having trouble filling this person’s caseload. And it’s like, well, it doesn’t look like you’re trying to fill their caseload when we go to your website, honestly, because it’s still you.

[00:07:36] And last you told me you don’t want more clients. So, what is going on here? Right? And so again, it seems so obvious. I’m sure people listening to this are like, Oh, of course. But a lot of group practice owners are thinking, well, I’ll just hire a new person, but they haven’t thought about how do I need to actually change how my business functions.

[00:07:56] Yeah. And marketing is just one part of that. I also really love talking about how the sales process is different, but that’s one of my takes on the marketing.

[00:08:05] Linzy: Yeah, it is a different brand that you’re creating. It’s not a plus one on your brand. It’s not like: Linzy plus this other person who you can see because I’m full. Yeah, but I do think that…

[00:08:16] Felicia: Messaging.

[00:08:17] Linzy: Yeah. And it’s of course natural that we do that because I think, too, that fits into a larger narrative that I see around folks who step into group practice thinking that it’s going to be easy, which is like, Oh, you’re just adding somebody who’s going to like take overload, somebody you can just send those people to.

[00:08:31] But yeah, as you say, it doesn’t work because people go to your website, they see you, they fall in love with you and then they call you and you’re like, Oh, well you can see George and they’re like, who’s George?

[00:08:39] Felicia: This other lady, this random guy named George. And they’re like, who the fuck is George? You know?

[00:08:46] Linzy: Yes. Yes.

[00:08:47] Felicia: Yeah, that is a huge issue. And so I really work with my group practice owners to see are you excited about this clinician? If someone calls the practice and wants a therapist and they say, Oh, I really wanted to work with you,

[00:09:04] can you honestly and comfortably say, you know what? I really like this person. I’ve chosen them for a reason. I really trust their work. And I would recommend that you set up an appointment with them. If you can’t say that about somebody you’ve hired, then they shouldn’t be a part of your practice. And I think a lot of group practice owners are almost trying to do both. It’s like, okay, I want to make more money, so I’m hiring someone cause I know that’s how I’ll make more money, but I feel conflicted about giving them clients, in a way, or when push comes to shove, that’s what kind of comes out.

[00:09:35] Cause it’s like, Oh wait, if you can’t fully get behind this person. Then we’ve got a bigger problem here, and they shouldn’t be a part of the practice. So you either need to check your ego and figure out what’s going on that you can’t promote this person.

[00:09:49] Linzy: Yeah,

[00:09:49] Felicia: Or, if it’s actually an issue where you don’t trust this person’s worth, then they have to go. We can’t be wishy washy about that.

[00:09:55] Linzy: Yeah, that’s really interesting, and I think that first piece is really important, the check your ego piece. Because I do think one trend amongst us therapisty types is, sometimes we’re a little full of ourselves. We would never… A little, a lot. But not in a way that would be obvious, but in a way that deep down there is a part of us that believes that we’re the only one who can do the work that we do as well as we do.

[00:10:18] And it is true that nobody does the work that you do like you do, but it doesn’t mean you’re the best one at doing that work. It just means that you’re going to be a better fit for certain clients than the person next to you, but also they’re going to be a better fit for other people. Right? But I do think that comes down to a bit of a martyr thing, a bit of a hyper independence thing.

[00:10:35] I need to fix it. I need to do it. Like being the helper, forgetting that, hey, we’re actually in a whole field full of those people. We’re in a whole field full of like the over functioning parentified child. You’re not the only one in the scene, but that piece is really, I think important for folks to reflect on.

[00:10:52] Is it true that this person isn’t as good as you at this work, or do you still somewhere have this belief that you’re kind of the only one who can really do this work well?

[00:11:01] Felicia: Right. Exactly. And so if that’s the case, if you still really feel that way about your work where you’re like, no, I’m really the only one who can do this, then you shouldn’t have a group practice, period, because you will end up in the situation where time and time again, you are feeling frustrated because you can’t figure out why it’s not growing, and why you aren’t filling these people’s caseload.

[00:11:22] And it’s like, if you’ve got this sneaky ego thing that’s telling you that you’re the best… and listen, I am all for bragging. This is something I teach my clients how to do. Like we should be celebrating ourselves. We should be talking about how great we are. And like you said, we need to check our egos.

[00:11:39] There’s a lot of ego in our field. And I will say there are ways that’s gotten in my way in my therapy practice, right? I have to check that. But yeah, we really have to be able to get behind our clinicians in group practice 

[00:11:53] Linzy: Mm hmm. Mm

[00:11:53] Felicia: if we don’t, it’s going to be a terrible experience for everyone all around. Yeah.

[00:11:58] Linzy: Absolutely. Yeah. So that connects then to earlier you mentioned about how the sales process also looks different, like the marketing needs to look different, but so does the sales process. So tell me what looks different about the sales process for group practice?

[00:12:11] Felicia: Yeah, so this was such a fun problem for me to help one of my clients solve. He was in a scenario where he had this clinician for a while, a little bit before we started working together. And at the very beginning of our working together, we really focused on streamlining his caseload, making that simplified.

[00:12:31] And then once that was accomplished, it’s like, okay, now that you’ve cleared up your calendar, your caseload personally is just not chaotic anymore. Let’s look at filling up this other person’s caseload. And one of the issues that we saw was someone that we just talked about which was like this person Felt as if they were kind of shoehorned into the practice rather than like celebrated and promoted as somebody who, you know, any client would be lucky to work with right?

[00:12:56] It was kind of like, oh, there’s this person, and then there’s this other lady, and I’m like how do you think that feels to the clients? He’s full, but you could work with her. It’s like that can’t be the vibe because that doesn’t feel good to people. The other thing that was happening is we needed to dial in the client onboarding process.

[00:13:13] So one of the things that I work with my clients a lot around is the client journey from start to finish. So marketing is kind of the first point of contact. It’s how you get eyeballs on your business. And so often for therapists, we almost skip the sales part. We don’t recognize that as a really crucial step for the client.

[00:13:32] We’re like, Oh, I market, and then I get a client, and then we’re working together. And I get a client part is like, whoop, so neglected. And so what we really worked on in his practice is he hired an admin and I trained her in a sales process. And they were able to go from really struggling to fill this person’s caseload to filling it really quickly after that, which was awesome.

[00:13:57] And then getting to a point where it’s like, Oh, okay, now I can hire other clinicians. So that was a massive turnaround. 

[00:14:03] So I think a lot of the things that I would advise for a solo practice owner when it comes to their sales process also transfer to a group practice owner, but I would say the main objection to overcome if you are making the transition from you know, a fairly successful solo practice where you as the owner are well known, you have a great reputation, people are calling because they want to work with you.

[00:14:27] The main objection you’re going to need to know how to address is basically why can’t I work with a group practice owner, right? And so I think you need to, again, be able to talk up this clinician that you’ve hired in a way that’s ethical and responsible, we’re not trying to force people to work with somebody they don’t want to work with.

[00:14:46] But I think, again, you need to be able to say,, this is somebody who I really trust. I hired them on purpose. In the case of one of the group practice owners that I really workshop this with, he had an admin that he hired to handle this process, which was also really helpful because it meant that the onboarding process was streamlined.

[00:15:05] When they reached out to the practice, there was one person who was responding to them. And prior to that, it was pretty chaotic. I was like, okay, so what happens when someone contacts the practice? And it’s like, well, I might respond to them, or my wife who I’ve hired as an admin might respond to them or, and I’m like, okay, so there’s like no

[00:15:22] Linzy: hmm. It’s like anything could happen.

[00:15:25] Felicia: Anything could happen. Are we tracking this? Where’s this information going? And so that was a big part of it is: if you don’t already have a clear process in place for handling client inquiries as a solo practice owner, and then you try to move to group practice, that lack of system is going to become a much bigger issue.

[00:15:47] The practice got bigger; the problem got bigger. So we definitely wanted to solve that. That’s one of the things that we did. And then again, addressing that question of, oh, but you know, I’m calling because I want to work with this group practice owner. 

[00:16:00] Linzy: Yeah.

[00:16:01] Felicia: And so, in the case of this particular group practice, it was true that the group practice owner was supervising this clinician.

[00:16:08] Linzy: Yeah.

[00:16:09] Felicia: So if someone wanted to work with him, they could say, , he is supervising this clinician and ensuring that their work is really high quality. You can really get behind her.

[00:16:21] And the main thing is just come in for a first session and see how that feels. I find that is really effective whether you’re running a group practice or you’ve got a solo practice, just really making the next decision that the client needs to make really simple.

[00:16:36] Linzy: Right. Right. Yes.

[00:16:39] Felicia: And if you can’t say to someone on the phone, I would encourage you to come in for a first session, then either you need to work on developing your confidence, or that person’s just not a good fit for the practice, and you need to refer them out. But if you can’t say to somebody, I think I could help you with this problem, or I think, you know, this clinician would be a good fit, I’d love to help you schedule that first session with them, then you’ve got a bigger problem.

[00:17:00] Linzy: Yeah. Yeah, and it does make me think about the sales funnel. Because again, therapists, as you said, we kind of gloss over the sales part of what we do. Partially it’s because if you’ve done good marketing, and somebody knows, this is who I want to see, they speak to my problem. Like if you’ve got a website that already addresses a lot of the questions, then often as therapists, we don’t have to do a lot to sell partially because we’re so specialized.

[00:17:23] Ideally you are specialized. It’s like that person already is pretty much ready to buy, so to speak, when they get on the phone with you. Right. So really you’re just going to have your initial consult chat or talk about a time. They’re going to get a good enough vibe. They’re going to agree to come for that first session.

[00:17:36] So we are selling, but it’s easier when you’re selling yourself, and you’ve already put all this energy into marketing yourself. But when you have a group, as you say, they are coming for somebody who probably hasn’t… they don’t have the whole website about them, right? They maybe have like a one page bio on your site, or they’re calling the group because they want to talk to somebody, right?

[00:17:55] And then there does need to be some process and clarity around, this is the right person for you and this is why there needs to be a little bit of selling, right? And that is what actually helps somebody get in the door is you being able to legitimately sell somebody or your admin being able to legitimately sell somebody because you’ve made good hires, and you know these are good therapists, and you know they can help this person, and you know this is the right person, and then what I’m hearing from you, the marketing language that I’d put it in is they need a clear call to action.

[00:18:22] There needs to be a clear next decision, not multiple next decisions, not, well, think about it and think if you’d want to come weekly or bi weekly, and we’ve got this spot, and this spot, or call around, or their next decision is do you want to come in for an appointment with this person? Just come in, and try an appointment, and see how it feels. And then they just sort of decide, do I want to come in for an appointment or do I not?

[00:18:42] Felicia: Exactly.

[00:18:43] Linzy: You have to take away the burden of 10 decisions when really the most important one is that they take the next step down your sales funnel, which is come have that first session and see if it’s a fit.

[00:18:53] Felicia: Right. Exactly. One of the marketing maxims is like a confused mind doesn’t say yes.

[00:18:59] Linzy: No, I’ve never heard that.

[00:19:01] Felicia: Yeah. So, and you basically just described it, though, a confused mind doesn’t say yes. If we’re saying, you could do this or this or this or this, and I was just having this conversation actually right before this call with a one on one client, which is, our clients don’t necessarily know how therapy is going to work.

[00:19:18] Unless they’re already a therapist themselves, they’re probably not an expert on therapy. And I think a lot of the times, we do this all over our practices, but we do this thing where we don’t want to force the client to do something they don’t want to, we don’t want to put pressure on them.

[00:19:32] And so we kind of lean way back and we’re like, well, I don’t know, what do you want to do? It’s like wait a minute, do you not know what we should do? 

[00:19:41] Linzy: Yes, right. Yeah, yeah.

[00:19:43] Felicia: Am I supposed to be deciding these things? And I think even if we’re not fully conscious of that, on the therapist end, if we’re not fully conscious of doing that, even if the client isn’t fully, you know, they’re not thinking actually in their mind, wow, I don’t trust this person, I do think it creates a lack of safety and trust, where it’s like, there are absolutely places to co-create and collaborate with your clients in the therapy itself.

[00:20:06] But if you don’t know, if you can’t, with conviction say, Hey, based on what you said, and based on what I know about this clinician, I think it makes sense for you to come in for that first session. If you can’t do that, then there’s a problem.

[00:20:19] Linzy: We’ll be like, oh, I don’t want to say that because I don’t want to put pressure on them. It’s like why would they know that’s how this should work?

[00:20:25] Felicia: You know, I’m glad you’re doing a video because i’m using my hands so much right now I’m, I realize people listening cannot see my hands But yeah, it’s like we need to recognize our role as the therapist in this process and stop putting that burden on our clients because it ends up confusing them It ends up making them not feel safe.

[00:20:47] It ends up making us look like we don’t know what we’re doing, frankly. And if we’re a group practice owner, not only is that impacting us, we’re struggling to fill our clinicians’ caseloads, and then we’re so confused about why, right? And like you said earlier, you know, there’s a whole range of like the way people run group practices from, formulas or processes that are very exploitative of the employees or contractors. To ones like another one of my clients I had, where they were paying a clinician they hired double what they were paying themselves even though this clinician was not doing more work.

[00:21:27] Linzy: It was just a really this clinician didn’t want to exploit anybody. And so they didn’t know that they were setting themselves up to basically be working for their employee. And anyway, so there’s a whole range of that, but if you want to fill your clinicians’ caseloads, then you really, you or the admin needs to be able to say yes, based on what you are saying, potential client and this therapist, I think you should come in for a first session.

[00:21:55] Mm hmm.

[00:21:56] Felicia: That is not unethical or inappropriate to say to a client.

[00:21:59] But I think a lot of times we’re afraid that if we even take that kind of a stance, that we are somehow becoming unethical and that needs to get cleared up because we are so getting in our own ways. And we are robbing the clients of the help that they need, right? We’re creating confusion

[00:22:16] Linzy: Mm hmm. 

[00:22:17] Felicia: getting in the way of them actually receiving the help that would be so beneficial for them. And so when I think back to, you know, that group practice owner that i’ve been referencing a lot not the one who was working for her employee.

[00:22:31] But, what ended up happening with so many of the changes that we made is not only did his clinician end up earning more money and getting to have more clients, he also earned more money.

[00:22:43] Linzy: Hmm.

[00:22:44] Felicia: And more clients got served as a result of making these changes. The people who needed the help got the help. We removed those barriers. And so it was literally a win, win, win. And that was one of the things I’m so happy about.

[00:23:01] Linzy: Yeah, absolutely. And, part of me is thinking and what made that happen is they learned how to make the sale. Right? Which is not what people want to hear. That’s not what therapists want to think about. But you’re so right. I think when we are also really critical and troubled by power hierarchies,

[00:23:19] and we’re so aware of systemic oppression, we can be so troubled and burdened as therapists, because we’re so aware of everything that is wrong about the world. But we are doing a disservice when we’re not just owning the value, basically, because that’s what you’re doing. If you are trying to fill somebody else’s caseload, or if you’re a solo practitioner and you’re just having that conversation yourself, it is in everybody’s service for you to say, Hey, I think that, you know, what you’re looking for is what I do.

[00:23:47] Can we book a first session so you can come in and chat? Or would you like to book a first session with me? It’s so simple, right? But yeah, but I can feel…I almost remember the parts of me, I think, that would have been afraid to do that. Like you’re somehow, exerting too much power over somebody, but yeah, they’re coming to you because they need help.

[00:24:02] And if you make it foggy and unclear as to whether you’re the right person to give them help, or how they can get help, or whether they should be looking somewhere else, then they’re not getting help. And that’s ultimately Why they’re coming to you in the first place, right? And I think about that too in group practice leadership, as you say, when you move into that leadership role and now you have to make decisions and it’s not always a discussion with your employees or contractors to be like, well, what are you, what do you think?

[00:24:25] What if we did this? It does make me think about sturdy parenting, sturdy leadership. So I consume a little bit of Dr. Becky kind of stuff. This is like a parenting thing. And she talks about this idea of being a sturdy parent, right? And the same applies in leadership where it’s just like when you have your feet solidly under you and you say: this is what we’re doing, this is why we’re doing it, if that needs to happen… And you can really hold with clarity what’s happening, even if parts of you are in doubt or even if you don’t know for sure if it’s going to work, but you can say we’re going to try this.

[00:24:59] This is the reason we’re doing it. That is grounding for everybody. Right? When we start to get all wishy washy, everybody’s like, wait a second, is nobody in charge here? Are we adrift at sea? So yes, as much as it can be scary to play that role, that is a role that does need to be served if you’re running a group and it’s not just a collective where everybody has exactly equal power and equal responsibility.

[00:25:21] Yeah, you are the boss, so you need to own that.

[00:25:24] Felicia: Absolutely. My brain is going in so many different directions right now. But, first of all, just yes to everything you just said. One of the things that really blew my mind about power, and a different way to think about power, is the flow of attention. And I’m not going to get too much into it, but there’s this author that I like named Kasia Urbaniak, and she has a background working as like a dominatrix and studying like Taoist principles for a really long time. So she’s got a really interesting combo of backgrounds.

[00:25:59]  But one of the things that she talks about is, there are power dynamics present in every single relationship at all times. And one of the things that we’ll do is we’ll almost pretend that’s not happening.

[00:26:14] And we think that power dynamics are inherently bad, but I really like her definition of it because it thinks about power on a more fundamental level, which is where’s attention being directed? So when we’re the group practice owner, or we’re even on our own solo practice, rather than pretending as if there’s not a power dynamic, where can we engage with the power that we have in a way that is helpful, and not harmful? You know, the reality is that we do have responsibilities in our practices as the owners, whether it’s solo or group practice, that are our responsibilities, and in my opinion, we should not be trying to make those other people’s responsibilities.

[00:27:00] It should not be my client’s responsibility to decide what my office hours are. It shouldn’t be their responsibility to decide what I am going to charge or what my cancellation fee is going to be. They don’t know my life circumstances and what would be appropriate. They don’t know my energy levels.

[00:27:20] That would be a really weird decision to put onto them. And so I think we can just be so confused about where our responsibilities lie. And it ends up creating, , it might be tolerable for a bit because a lot of therapists build their practices in these ways. We end up, kind of deferring to our clients and giving them responsibilities that really should be ours. And that might be okay for a while because maybe we’re young, we’ve got a lot of energy. We’re very optimistic. We really want to do this work. But after years and years and years of making decisions in concert with clients and having them weigh in on things that are fundamental is what we’re charging and what our policies are when we’re working, after years and years and years of deferring to someone else, that starts to wear on us.

[00:28:08] And that’s where therapists ultimately are burning out and leaving the field

[00:28:12] Linzy: Because we didn’t take the time to recognize our responsibility in the first place. Yes. Right. Because part of power is responsibility.

[00:28:22] Felicia: Right.

[00:28:23] Linzy: Yeah. I think about that as I think about my own practitioners that I work with when I get body work done. This is an unkind way to say it, but I am like a physical idiot. When people are like, oh, this muscle’s really tight, I’m like, Is it?

[00:28:35] I’m not somebody who has great intuition on what I need in terms of treatments or whatever. So when I go see a practitioner, say a massage therapist or an osteo or whatever, if they don’t tell me, okay, based on what I’m seeing, I think you should come in every two weeks for like two months, or you should come in once a week for a few weeks.

[00:28:53] If they don’t tell me that, I literally have no idea how often I should be going there. And then I’ve got this weird responsibility on me that I’m literally not qualified to hold because I don’t know what treatment looks like. If I’ve got a muscle that gets really angry sometimes, should we be going really hard on that?

[00:29:08] Should we be going easy? Should I be seeing you every month for maintenance? I don’t know. And so unless that person is actually confidently expressing to me a treatment plan, I notice that I end up walking out and I’m like, I guess I should see them again, right? I’m not an expert in osteopathy or the musculoskeletal system.

[00:29:27] So yes, as a client, I can think about how that feels, too. And there does feel like this, Oh, I thought they were the boss, but maybe I’m the boss, but I should not be the boss of this

[00:29:36] Felicia: Right. One of the ways I was successful in my own private practice is because whether or not I could have languaged it that way, I realized this fairly early on. That, oh, I get better results when I take charge in certain areas. When I take charge, when it comes to the particular frame where I’m like, these are the times I can meet.

[00:29:59] It’s not like, hey, it’s totally collaborative. Let’s sit down and look at our calendars together. You pick when I’m going to work with you. It’s like, no, I can see you at this time or this time. Those are your options. My fee is this. Do you want to work together or not? That, I think, instilled actually a lot of trust in people. Now when it came to what’s going to happen in the session together, right?

[00:30:22] Of course, there were some boundaries around that there’s certainly some things we were not going to do, but apart from those things, almost everything else was on the table. And that’s where there’s a lot less power. That’s where there’s a lot more co-creation and collaboration. But when it comes to some of these other things where I’m like, Hey, these are the options.

[00:30:39] It’s very straightforward. I’m only giving you a few decisions to make. That’s it.

[00:30:44] Linzy: Yes.

[00:30:45] Felicia: And I feel, for so many people, there’s a sense of relief. It’s like, Oh, they only had to really focus on the important thing, which is, do I want to do this or not? Not, am I suddenly deciding how to help you run your business?

[00:30:58] Linzy: Yes. Yeah. You’re creating the container. And then they don’t have to make those decisions. They just have to decide, does this feel good? Do I want to keep working with this person? And that’s their decision that they get to make.

[00:31:07] Felicia: Yeah.

[00:31:08] Linzy: I mean, going back to that group practice intake piece, the referring to somebody else piece…

[00:31:14] Something that I see folks do sometimes as group practice owners is they price their own fee as different than the folks who work for them. Generally, a hundred percent of the time, they have a higher fee than the people that they hire. What is your take on that strategy as a way to set up your practice fees?

[00:31:33] Felicia: This was one of my favorite issues that I helped one of my clients address because I was asking him, what do you think this is communicating to the client? When someone comes to the practice and they see you, you, you, you, you all over the front page and all of the testimonials are about you.

[00:31:50] And then they call and they talk to someone and they’re told you’re full but they can work with this other lady. And then they’re also told that working with her is 100 less. What do you think a buyer, a customer, a client would think about the quality of support they’re going to be getting working with this person?

[00:32:09] Even after we addressed some of those other things, before we got to the price, even just the price alone, I think, had a big impact. And so,pricing psychology has a real impact on people’s decision making. And I think group practice owners need to be careful about having rates for their clinicians that are dramatically less than theirs. I don’t think there’s necessarily a reason for employees at a group practice to have lower rates.

[00:32:35] Linzy: Okay.

[00:32:36] Felicia: I mean, I think it would be interesting to see, can we have all of the clinicians have the same rate as the group practice owner, and see what happens?

[00:32:43] Linzy: Yeah. And when you’re thinking that, because I’m, I’m thinking about some examples, because I know many people who do this, right? Where it’s like the group practice owner has a higher rate. Often they’re very in demand. And then their clinicians have a lower rate. And I’m curious, from your perspective, is it about how big the difference is between those rates?

[00:33:00] Let’s say for instance, my rate is 225 and my team, they charge 200. I communicate the same?

[00:33:09] Felicia: No, I think that would probably, that wouldn’t do as much damage. But I also would question if it’s that close, why not have it be the same? Because here’s the thing, like, yes, there are some people who are going to be calling who are like, oh, I know this group practice owner and I’m calling because I’m still imagining I can work with them.

[00:33:26] But let’s say that you’re getting traffic to your group practice website because of some SEO work you did, or because of word of mouth, right? And so when someone lands on the website, if it’s done effectively, it shouldn’t necessarily be like the group practice owner plus all these other people.

[00:33:42] It should be like, here is a group practice that you can work with. And if I am the potential client looking at that, why would I go in thinking that some of these people are more valuable to work with than others? You are planting that seed in my mind as the client if I don’t already have that. Because the reality is, a lot of potential therapy seekers are not necessarily… like, do we all need to be therapists when we’re working with clients as therapists?

[00:34:10] Yes, duh. Absolutely. But are clients oftentimes dissecting our credentials and paying super close attention to that? No, what they want to know is, can you help me with my problem?

[00:34:21] Linzy: Mhm.

[00:34:22] Felicia: First and foremost, that is the question that clients are trying to answer throughout their decision making process. Can you help me with my problem?

[00:34:30] Linzy: Mhm.

[00:34:31] Felicia: And it doesn’t necessarily matter to most people exactly what those letters are after somebody’s name. Or exactly how long they’ve been in the field. If we can say responsibly, yes, I think this person can help you with their problem, and we can have that strong conviction, then all the other stuff is way less important.

[00:34:51] I think it’s kind of a funny thing that we’ve decided… This is one of those places where we know some things that our clients don’t know. And so we’re assuming that they’re going to have the same opinions we have, and they just don’t. So that’s what happened with this group practice owner. There was a big disparity. And I was like, are potential clients asking about credentials? Are they needing to know the exact number of years of experience? The answer to that was no. But what they were seeing was this massive discrepancy in the fee. And then they were thinking, Oh, this must not be as good quality.

[00:35:23] So we had him raise his clinician’s fee. And again, that was a big part of her caseload filling up a lot 

[00:35:30] Linzy: faster.

[00:35:30] Right. Yes.

[00:35:31] Felicia: So again, a win, win, win. Clients got the care they needed. He made more money. The clinician made more money.

[00:35:37] Linzy: Yeah. Cause I’m hearing objections internally. Some of my objections.

[00:35:42] Felicia: Oh, I would love hear 

[00:35:43] Linzy: them.

[00:35:43] One that I’m thinking about is sometimes I know folks who, they’re a group practice owner, and they’ve really established themselves as a premium therapist. Like they’re very in demand.

[00:35:52] Maybe they have a public facing brand. Maybe they’ve written a book, right? That kind of thing where they can command a very high fee, and maybe they’ve done some of their own personal fee raising before they become a group. Like they’ve raised their fee to 300 and nobody’s cared and then they raise it to 375 and they’re like, Oh shit, still nobody cares, because they have developed that level of, reputation, I guess,

[00:36:12] and then also obviously are working with a clientele who have enough money that they can afford that. And I’m thinking, I don’t think the other folks in their practice could charge that fee, right? Could command a fee that high because they don’t have the same level of personal brand built, right?

[00:36:26] So that’s something that I’m thinking. I’m like, yeah, what do you do in a case like that where somebody has already built up to a premium fee level and then they’re bringing on other people? Yeah, tell me.

[00:36:35] Felicia: So my question is, maybe it’s more of a question. My question is if that is true, why aren’t they lending that clout to their clinicians.

[00:36:45] Felicia: Right? 

[00:36:45] Linzy: Mm 

[00:36:46] Felicia: If it’s so true that they can command these high fees that they’re super well respected, why aren’t they saying, Oh, you respect me.

[00:36:55] Here’s someone who I would vouch for. Why isn’t that happening? Why are we just going, Oh yeah, this person has a lower fee. That’s the missing ingredient regardless of the range of fees that a group practice owner might have for themselves and for the clinicians who are working for them. That one piece is so often missing is that we’re not taking advantage of that and saying, yeah, and I’ve got all these incredible clinicians working for me and this is someone who I think could be a good fit for you.

[00:37:25] Of course, you need to go meet them, and see how that feels. And again, if they’re providing supervision, if they’re in regular contact with their clinicians, and there is that direct guidance,

[00:37:35] Linzy: Yes.

[00:37:36] Felicia: Then it’s even more so the case that we’re like, oh, I’m supervising them. I don’t know that I would say supervising to a client because they may not know what that means, 

[00:37:44] Linzy: Yeah. 

[00:37:44] Felicia: But I would  say, you know, I am mentoring this clinician. think they could be a really good fit.

[00:37:50] Linzy: Mm

[00:37:50] Felicia: Maybe a client wouldn’t necessarily tolerate exactly the same fee, but again, I don’t know that clients are thinking about it the same way we are. We have come up in an industry where our years of experience and our hierarchies internally are super important.

[00:38:08] There’s a lot of almost like hazing our younger therapists.

[00:38:12] Linzy: Yes. Totally.

[00:38:13] Felicia: Ha, ha, ha. Now you get to be not paid well. And oh, you can’t charge more than your supervisors or mentors. There’s a lot of that, like keeping newer people down.

[00:38:23] Linzy: Small. Yeah.

[00:38:24] Felicia: I don’t necessarily think the rest of the world sees it that way.

[00:38:28] Linzy: Uh huh.

[00:38:29] Felicia: I think we’re shooting ourselves in the foot.

[00:38:33] Linzy: That is so interesting. I’m going to have to sit with it, but I think you might be right. Sure. Of course.

[00:38:39] Felicia: I’m sure there are limits, right? I’m sure there are limits, but I think it would be interesting to test this theory. And so far, I have good evidence working with my own clients that this might be a thing we’re making up and we, as a field, are maintaining that our clients are not necessarily interested in maintaining.

[00:38:57] Linzy: And it does make me think about quality over quantity in terms of what makes a group healthy as well. Because some of the work that I do with folks in Money Skills for Group Practice Owners is help them understand how their group practice numbers work. And I’m thinking if you had a smaller team where everybody is charging 200 an hour rather than some people charging 125 and some people charging 175 and then the owner charges like, I wonder how those numbers would actually shake out at the end of the day and, yeah, like what the health of that business would look like.

[00:39:23] And I suspect, based on things like crunching numbers and understanding expenses go up when we have a bigger team. Sometimes you have to have a big expense go up because you have a big enough team, you have to move into a bigger space. There’s a lot of expenses associated with having larger team sizes.

[00:39:35] Everybody probably would be better off if they just borrowed the clout of the owner, if the owner’s built a lot of clout. And then everybody is better off and the clients are paying sometimes only nominally more than they would have been. But as you say, yeah, if we get over ourselves and our own hierarchies, then maybe this stuff doesn’t actually really matter so much.

[00:39:52] Felicia: Yeah, I know. Let’s do an experiment.

[00:39:55] Linzy: Yes.

[00:39:56] Felicia: to see what happens. But yeah, I have, I have reason to believe that it’s not as big a deal to the public as it is to us because they just don’t get it. They just  want to know, again, can you help me with my problem? Period.

[00:40:10] Linzy: Yeah. 

[00:40:10] Felicia: You’re like, and we have ethical responsibilities to ensure that we are, you know, in a place where we can provide the work, and be therapists.

[00:40:19] But all of the other stuff on top of that. is just a lot of ego that is carried over from all the gatekeeping that we do that is oftentimes… we know that that’s happening, but the public isn’t necessarily aware of this entire intricate system that we’re all maintaining within our industry.

[00:40:38] Linzy: Yeah. 

[00:40:39] Felicia: And so I think we need to question this impulse that our clients are seeing it the same way. Cause, again, unless they’re other therapists, more often than not, they are not seeing it that way. And again, if you cannot get behind your clinicians and say, I would vouch for this person, then something needs to change about that.

[00:40:59] Linzy: Absolutely.

[00:41:00] Felicia this is great. Thank you.

[00:41:04] Linzy: For folks who are listening who want to get further into your world, where can they find you and follow you?

[00:41:10] Felicia: Yeah. So I’m on Instagram at the bad therapist. I have my own podcast called The Bad Therapist show. It’s everywhere you listen to your podcasts. My website is the bad therapist. coach. And I have a free fee calculator tool that I created called the magic sheet. So if you want to get that free tool and be on my email list and know what’s going on, that would be a great thing to do.

[00:41:34] Linzy: Beautiful. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.

[00:41:37] Felicia: Yeah. Thank you.

[00:41:38] Linzy: Felicia brought up some really interesting and also some challenging ideas today. So appreciate her perspective on these things. Definitely has troubled slash, maybe shifted my thinking on a couple of things today in our conversation about group practice, but certainly this piece about the importance of creating that clarity for clients.

[00:42:11] Reducing as much confusion as possible, be it in that initial intake conversation, be it in yourself that you, yourself are clear you’re really gonna wanna work with this clinician. They’re amazing. Lending them your clout, lending them your reputation that you built by setting a free structure that doesn’t put you way above the folks who work for you.

[00:42:30] And just creating that clarity by really owning your expertise and your role in the relationship, owning the power, rather than pretending that you and that person are on equal power footing, but using the power that you have as a therapist to help people by being clear. If somebody’s a great fit: Would you like to book a first appointment?

[00:42:49] I think that this could be a good fit. Would you like to come in and have your first appointment? Rather than being wishy washy and creating space for confusion and uncertainty for folks. We are not helping people when we are not being clear. And after my conversation with Felicia, before recording this outro, I jumped onto a call with one of my Money Skills for Therapists students, and we were talking about cancellation policy, and I pulled up an old document from my own practice when I rolled out a clear, regular appointment spot system, and I had to pat myself on the back a little bit looking at that document in light of the conversation I just had with Felicia about how clear I was in the document, and how informative it is in that document of explaining why I was rolling out regular appointment slots, I explained how it works in therapy, and what folks need to thrive in therapy, and what I need as a therapist to thrive in therapy, which in this case is a regular schedule and predictable income.

[00:43:41] I don’t think I mentioned the income part, but we do a favor to folks when we actually own our expertise and when we tell them honestly that we think that we can help them because we do. That is actually doing people a favor and when we are afraid to do that, we actually just, you know, as Felicia would probably say, get in our own way, and certainly create doubt in that person, even though they might be a great fit for us.

[00:44:02] So lots to think about there. I so appreciated Felicia’s insights today, and getting to see her again on the podcast. You can follow me on Instagram at Money, Nuts and Bolts. And if you are enjoying the podcast, please tell other people about it. tell folks that you went to school with, tell your neighbor down the hall, and also you can watch this episode and all of my episodes on YouTube.

[00:44:25] YouTube. I don’t exactly have like the YouTube lighting and the look down. It’s not really my scene. But if you like to watch people talk and watch Felicia and I’s hand movements, our episodes are now also on YouTube. So you can watch the video, if you are more of a video person. So thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. 

[00:00:00] Linzy: Hello and welcome back to another Feelings and Finances episode of the Money Skills for Therapist Podcast. These are our short and sweet Friday episodes where we answer questions from listeners of the Money Skills for Therapist Podcast. Listeners like you, the therapists and health practitioners and coaches who want to be having these conversations about money.

[00:00:24] Today’s question is from Alice, and here’s her question.

[00:00:27] Alice: Hi, Lindsay, my name is Alice and I’m an LCSW in the DC metro area, Northern Virginia to be specific. I transitioned from a corporate career of about 20 years into the therapy field and was launched into the world of private practice while I was finishing up my supervision hours for my LCSW about a year and a half ago due to a layoff.

[00:00:55] So I was laid off from my corporate job and have really been drinking from a fire hose, navigating all there is in being a business owner, getting licensed. I’m currently in the process of opening my own private pay therapy practice, and figuring out how to leverage the corporate experience and how that’s informing the way I view my business and my finances.

[00:01:22] I made a lot of money in my corporate job. and was a W2 employee and had great benefits, and trying to figure out how to balance the needs of my clients with my own personal needs, and not wanting to participate in systems that I feel are oppressive to therapists, but still making a living and surviving as a single mom, of two teenagers has been a real challenge.

[00:01:51] I grew up with money stuff, like most people. My parents filed for bankruptcy when I was 16, mostly due to issues with my mother’s shopping addiction and mental health related hospitalization bills. And so I think that the scarcity mindset is something that is really impacting me on a day to day basis.

[00:02:14] I’m in therapy. I’m doing all the things to work through it, but I don’t know. I think something a little bit more laser focused on the money piece, and maybe what I need to be doing and what I’m missing, would be amazingly helpful. And again, I think especially as a career transitioner, because I think that.

[00:02:32] It’s a little unique in this field. Somebody who is kind of this mature adult who’s had a life, you know. I’ve owned houses, I’ve done the things, and there is a little bit of a starting over here and a learning curve that is daunting. I really appreciate your podcast. It’s been a wonderful resource for me.

[00:02:50] Thanks so much.

[00:02:51] Linzy: Okay. So there’s a few things in this question. You’ve got a lot of layers here, Alice, as we all do. And so the first piece I’m going to think about is that starting over piece. Yes, you are coming into your therapy career later in life. As you said, you’ve done many, many adult things. You had your corporate career, you’ve owned homes, you have teenagers.

[00:03:10] And so the first thing that I would encourage you to do is make sure that you don’t discount that as you are setting yourself up as a private therapist. I often see folks coming into their, you know, second career or maybe third career, coming into being therapists in their, you know, 40s, 50s, 60s.

[00:03:30] And they have that kind of newbie lack of confidence, right? Of feeling like, well, this is new. Sure, I’ve done other things before, but I’m new at this. and so they consider taking insurances that are really low, or working with online therapy providers who pay them almost nothing, because they have that same scarcity and desperation that many of us have coming into private practice, which is basically the, I call it the, will you be my client feeling?

[00:03:59] Will you be my client? Will you be my client? That’s how I felt when I started my own therapy practice. And they end up making decisions that financially are not sustainable, right? So signing up for systems that are oppressive… I’m not sure if you’re referring to insurance or what specifically you’re referring to there, but end up signing up for, yeah, insurance panels or online providers that would actually never, ever, allow them to have the money that they need to pay for their lives.

[00:04:23] So for you, especially as a single parent to two teenagers, your life is expensive. I have no doubt. And so part of it is stopping to ground, using your corporate skills, Alice in, yeah, how much money do you actually need to make? Right? Like let’s reverse engineer this practice. You are not 25. You’re not living in a cheap apartment, you know, you are an adult with a full adult range of responsibilities and your kiddos might be going to school.

[00:04:50] in the next few years, you know, there’s expenses there. So start by thinking about your own needs of how much do you actually need to make in your household each month to cover all of the needs therein. So starting with that number. And whatever that number is, then you can start to reverse engineer a practice out of that number that will actually work.

[00:05:11] Right? Because so often when we’re new, we start by setting up a practice that will never work, no matter how many clients you see. For instance, if you’re getting reimbursed 50 an hour, from an online therapy provider, and you need to be making nine or 10, 000 a month in your household to cover your bills, that math will never work, right?

[00:05:30] Like you can never work enough sessions to actually make 10, 000 a month after taxes. So, lean into those corporate skills that you have. I don’t know exactly what you did in the corporate space. But think first about what is the amount of money that you need to make? What is your take home paycheck?

[00:05:44] Easy math that can be done is using like a profit first kind of model of, okay, if your take home paycheck is going to be, let’s say about, 50 to 60 percent of the money you make, you’re going to be setting another 20 percent aside for taxes. That’s 20 percent of all the money coming in the door.

[00:06:02] You’re going to be setting aside another 15 to 20 percent for operating expenses, work out those numbers and see: what is the number that needs to be coming in the top then to meet all of those different obligations, right? To meet your household needs, to meet your tax obligations, to cover your business expenses? And you’re going to get a number.

[00:06:18] Once you get that number, let’s just say that number is. I don’t know, 12, 000, 13, 000 a month, and I’m making it a high number here because I know you have teenagers. Teenagers are expensive. and again, you are a seasoned adult. You are not like a 22 year old coming right out of school. Then you can reverse engineer.

[00:06:36] Okay. How many sessions a month does that have to be, thinking about giving yourself some time off? So, you know, stacking those a little bit more. So for instance, Alice, if you discover upon playing with your numbers that you need to bring in 13, 000 a month, coming into your private practice, and you want to be working, let’s say you want to be working 48 weeks of the year.

[00:06:59] Okay, so I’m going to take 13, 000 a month as the revenue that needs to come in.I’m going to multiply that by 12, so that means your practice needs to be making 156, 000 a year. And then

[00:07:09] I’m going to divide that by 48, because we don’t want you working 52 weeks a year. We want to know, if you’re working 48 weeks a year, you get four weeks off. How much do you need to be earning? So you need to be earning 3, 250 a week, over those 48 weeks that you’re working.

[00:07:24] And then I’m going to either divide that by the fee that you want to charge, but more ideally I’m going to divide that by your ideal number of sessions. So let’s say your ideal number of sessions is 15, then you’d be looking at a fee of 215 per session. If you could work 18 sessions, you’d be looking at 180 a session.

[00:07:42] So this is where you’re just really taking time before you get into the feelings, and the starting over, and the stress. Setting that aside for a moment just to work with the math. Like what does the math tell you? And this math tells me that, for instance, if your fee was 180 a session, you could work 18 sessions a week times 48 weeks in the year.

[00:08:07] And that would give you, in this example, 13, 000 a month coming in. Some of that will go to your taxes. Some of that will go to operating expenses. Some of that will go home to you. So it’s just taking the time, Alice, to zoom out and ground yourself in the numbers, and then using all of this life experience you have and all of this corporate experience to set up a practice that will actually work when it’s working.

[00:08:31] Right? Like, let’s build it to work from the very start. Then, it’s going to be about grounding in your life experience and your wisdom and knowing that you are, no, you know, no spring chicken, maybe. You have life experience, and setting up a practice that markets yourself as such. Right? You might be new to therapy, but you’re not new to life.

[00:08:53] So making sure that you are targeting a niche of people who will be able to pay you the fee that you need to be paid to be financially stable. Speaking directly to those people, owning your expertise, not trying to serve everybody, but you know, zooming in on that niche of people that you know you can absolutely change their lives, and it is without a question worth 180 an hour of their money, or 225, or whatever fee ends up needing to work…

[00:09:17] Really owning your wisdom and your life experience. and that’s really valuable. And then targeting clients who are going to value the fact that, you know, you are somebody who has lived life… Thinking about who those clients are for you and maybe they are folks who work in the corporate space or maybe they are folks who are older and going through life transitions… You know, I don’t know what type of work you do what type of niche. But really owning your expertise as you set your fees so that you are setting up a practice that works for the very, very beginning. So that is my suggestion.

[00:09:49] You know, you are at a beautiful point right now of building a practice where you haven’t yet probably set up a lot of things that you’ll regret later you are building. And even if you have a few clients, and once you do the math, you realize, okay, I’m undercharging these clients. You know, you can still pivot

[00:10:07] At any moment, and make sure that the new clients that you attract are at that higher fee. You can raise your fee when it’s appropriate for, you know, the clients that you already have, so that you’re building a practice that actually works. Own your expertise; own your corporate knowledge; own your business experience. And build something that’s really going to take care of you and your kids.

[00:10:27] And also thinking about, again, the fact that they will be going to school potentially in the next few years. You’re going to need to retire in, you know, 20 years or whatever. Building that all into your practice from very, very beginning. And the fact that, you know, you’re stepping out and you’re already listening to this podcast, and I have no doubt, accessing other business resources,

[00:10:46] is great start. And this is where too, Alice, I will say, this is what we cover in Money Skills for Therapists. So as you’re building your practice, that would also be a support that’s available to you. You could always look into working with me and my team in Money Skills for Therapists to get support with all these pieces of setting up your numbers to really make them work for your practice.

[00:11:05] This is not something you have to figure out on your own. But I’m also hearing that you’re really experienced and competent. And so here’s my suggestions for your starting places to get this practice set up. I am sending you all the good vibes, for a successful 2025 for you, as you build a practice that can really take care of you and your family.

[00:11:26] If you, like Alice, have a question you’d like me to answer on one of these Feelings and Finances episodes, all you have to do is click on the link in the show notes. It will take you over to our podcast page where you can see a little recording app. All you need to do is press record and share your name, a little bit of context, and your question, and I would be happy to answer it on a future episode of Feelings and Finances.

[00:11:48] Thank you so much for joining me today. 

[00:00:00] Anastasia: I do feel very empowered by knowledge, and so I think that will give me a lot more confidence in marketing in some of the places where we can have a little more of that impact, or build that buffer, or reach demographics that can support our model and build a foundation for us. I think that will feel a lot more accessible to do at that point.

[00:00:29] Linzy: 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.

[00:00:50] Hello and welcome back to the podcast. Today we have a coaching episode with Anastasia Canfield. Anastasia owns a practice called Creative Remedies, which focuses on supporting neurodivergent, queer, BIPOC folks around issues of trauma and offers many, many multidisciplinary services, specifically focusing on music and art and expressive arts, in the work that they do.

[00:01:17] Anastasia comes today with a tension that so many of us live all the time, which is that struggle of serving these folks that they love to serve, who often do not have financial means to pay out of pocket for these kinds of services with being able to provide, in this case, a good wage and benefits for her team.

[00:01:40] This is a group practice, so it’s not just Anastasia who has to think about her financial needs, but also the needs of an entire team that she is paying and wants to make sure that she can keep up with cost of living increases and grow into offering more benefits. So serving marginalized folks largely, but also wanting to make sure that she’s taking great care of her team.

[00:02:01] And there’s an inherent tension there when it comes to money. So Anastasia and I dig in today to diversification, what she’s already done in terms of different ways that money is coming into the practice. We get into how she is using her time as the owner of the practice, and the most strategic ways to use her time, and talk about exploring places where impact can be made.

[00:02:22] This is a great episode for any group practice owners who are struggling with the same tension themselves between serving folks, and also paying their team well, but also these same things apply to solo practice owners, because it’s the same tension at the end of the day. How do we make sure that we’re able to serve folks well who we’d love to serve, while also making sure that our own needs are being met?

[00:02:42] Here is my coaching episode with Anastasia Canfield.

[00:02:48] So Anastasia, welcome to the podcast today.

[00:03:02] Anastasia: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

[00:03:04] Linzy: Yeah, I’m really happy to have you here. And, knowing a little bit about your question already, I know it’s one that folks in our space are troubled with a lot. So I’m excited to get into it today. Tell me about what you want to spend our time on together.

[00:03:17] Anastasia: Yeah. So there’s a few moving parts. I am a group practice owner, and my practice is about five and a half years old. I’ve been in a field longer than that, but we are a creative arts therapy practice. So we offer a number of different services, and unfortunately, some of them are not always reimbursable by commercial insurance.

[00:03:39] And there are certain limitations to Medicaid and things like that. So for the most part, some of our services are self pay only. And, like I mentioned, I’m a group practice owner, so I have staff and my dilemma is how to be accessible , as for all of our services, how to pay my staff fairly and well,and how to do that with, relying,in a lot of cases, on self pay.

[00:04:09] Linzy: hmm. Yeah. So this balance of helping your clients meet their needs, where they’re at financially, but also making sure your team is actually taken care of.

[00:04:17] Anastasia: Mm

[00:04:18] Linzy: Because there’s a tension there, in terms of money needs to come in to pay your team. Okay, so tell me what this is looking like so far.

[00:04:24] How have you set things up so far to try to meet this tension?

[00:04:29] Anastasia: Yeah, I’ve already diversified a lot of our income, and that’s worked decently well so far. I’m always looking for more ideas and stuff, but right now… I’ll start maybe with our, with the services that we offer, and explain a little bit about, the reimbursement for each of those and that, I think will give a little more context as to, some of the places where I need maybe a little more help or some pain points.

[00:04:54] So, I’m an LPC board certified music therapist and registered play therapist. So we offer mental health counseling, music therapy, play therapy. We also offer some other services like adaptive music lessons and traditional music lessons. We do some work out in the community, and then we also have an office space.

[00:05:13] That’s where I’m at right now. And we also offer some online offerings as well. So what we currently have going on is we’ve got our self pay, for music therapy specifically, I think is where some of the biggest issues are, because play therapy and mental health counseling, is reimbursable with commercial insurance in Colorado.

[00:05:35] However, music therapy is not.And there are some Medicaid waivers, so some very specific types of Medicaid that reimburse for music therapy. But for the most part, that service is self pay. Right now I have three music therapists working for me. And they’re reimbursed through the Medicaid waivers, self pay, and then our services that sort of round out some of the financial concerns are some community contracts that we have with some facilities.

[00:06:08] So, some senior living facilities, assisted care facilities, some adult daycare programs, and some respite care programs. And occasionally we have some, some nonprofits that ask us to come in and do a group or things like that. and then our music lessons. However, for our individual music therapy services, we don’t have a cap on our sliding scale.

[00:06:33] We do pay what you can. I also have some interns that offer some pro bono services. But as you can imagine, those things fill up pretty quickly. And then also, by the end of their internship, we have to do something with them. So we have to figure out the financial piece there. So, we have mitigated some, some financial constraints because of the community contracts.

[00:06:56] However, those are subject to their own budgets. , And sometimes they lose funding too, or in the case of one contract that we had, it was grant funded for a period of time, and then they no longer had the grant funding, and then our hours went down.

[00:07:13] So those things are helpful whenever we have them, but we’re subject to all sorts of variables that could remove that funding at any point in time without any notice., And my, staff, I also try to consider their caseload, , min and max I try to also consider their burnout, or potential for burnout and all of this as well because, of course, there could always be more hours that someone could take on.

[00:07:40] Linzy: Yes.

[00:07:41] Anastasia: But that is not necessarily sustainable either. So, there are more hours on paper that someone could take on.

[00:07:47] Right. Yes. Yes.

[00:07:50] Linzy: Okay. Yes. Okay. What I’m hearing so far is that you have done an excellent job diversifying, as much as possible,

[00:07:58] Anastasia: Thank you.

[00:07:59] Linzy: Within the kind of pitfalls that come with this type of diversification, like grants coming and going, and contracts ending, and all of that painful, basically non profit stuff, that the nonprofit sector has to deal with at all times, which I will say is extra exhausting, as, you know.

[00:08:15] Anastasia: I imagine so.

[00:08:17] Linzy: Well, I think you know. and that’s an extra stressor that comes for folks in that nonprofit space is that you can’t control whether money’s even going to be available. You could be providing an amazing service, but if a grant ends, a grant ends, right? And then there no longer is the money to pay for your folks to do the work that you’re doing.

[00:08:34] So with all of this, then, I’m curious, with the mix of things that is happening, all these great diverse streams of income that you’ve built, what is happening with your numbers? What are your numbers looking like in terms of money that’s left over at the end of the month? How much are you able to pay your team?

[00:08:49] Tell me about that.

[00:08:50] Anastasia: Right now we are growing. And so at this moment in time, we’re in a little bit of that sticky spot of… I brought on a new therapist at the beginning of the summer. We had a therapist who just started actually this week. So overall,our numbers have been trending upward.

[00:09:10] But anytime I think that there is a hire there is some instability for a little while. So, we are breaking even.But obviously that’s not sustainable. I do see that once we have a new therapist, with a full caseload… Our therapist who came out at the beginning of the summer is pretty full already. 

[00:09:29] She’s doing pretty well. I do see that once this new therapist is full, that we are going to continue trending upward. Now, another piece of this is we do accept Medicaid, and in the state of Colorado… I know some states are a little bit different than the state of Colorado where we are, we’re not able to bill for no shows or late cancellations.

[00:09:52] And so, that is a pain point that we’re facing because, that is one of the more accessible ways that we’re able to provide services, too, because it’s covered 100%. But then if people don’t show up, then we don’t get paid.

[00:10:06] Linzy: Yes. Okay.

[00:10:10] Anastasia: That has led to a little bit of our instability at this moment, too, because we just started taking Medicaid this year, which has had its ups and downs for sure.

[00:10:21] So I would say we’re breaking even as a general statement. But I do keep a pretty close look at our books. And, summer is always a tricky time, too. So right now, We have some therapists who, they themselves have not necessarily broken even, for their income versus expense. There is a little bit of buffer that has, not necessarily put us into a deficit, if that makes sense. 

[00:10:52] Linzy: That’s in a larger business, there are going to be times where you’re digging into your buffer and then other times when you’re building your buffer and that’s great that you had that there because it means that you’re not going into debt during those quieter months in the summer, which are almost inevitable.

[00:11:05] I hear from very few therapists who don’t experience some type of summer lull. So, you know, just want to reflect, yeah, how great that is that you have built that buffer. Because that does mean that you’re able to weather those without it becoming a crisis. Because I would say, to some extent, those ups and downs are inevitable, right?

[00:11:23] And so part of it is that we build the financial stability. So a down doesn’t mean a crisis. It just means, okay, this makes sense because we lose a little bit of money every July. But we know that in September things are going to look like this, right? And as you build your business history, and if you keep track of information, you’re going to start to understand exactly what those trends mean year over year.

[00:11:40] But yeah, just want to give you a high five, and recognize and love the use of the word buffer. Mwah. Perfect. So with this, then, I’m hearing a general upward trend, but kind of breaking even, what do you want to look different? What are you not happy about when it comes to your group practice finances?

[00:11:56] Anastasia: Yeah, I know this is the case pretty much everywhere, but the cost of living is going up so rapidly so that even if we’re breaking even in, you know, arguably in some ways we’re actually losing money because of the difficulty to sustain the same trajectory that our cost of living is.

[00:12:16] And, so, I worry that the rate that we grow is still not going to be enough to keep up.

[00:12:26] Linzy: So your team’s wages are not going to be able to grow with the cost of living increases.

[00:12:31] Anastasia: Exactly. Yes. Yes.

[00:12:33] Mm hmm.

[00:12:33] Linzy: And it’s true. If we’re not getting a raise of, I don’t know what the number is right now, but if it’s 5 percent a year, which is a raise most of us don’t get!

[00:12:39] Anastasia: Mm hmm.

[00:12:40] Linzy: Then we are earning less year over year.

[00:12:40] Anastasia: Mm hmm.

[00:12:41] Linzy: Yeah. And we’ve, we’ve definitely experienced a huge cost of living spike this year.

[00:12:47] So what I’m hearing then is your team needs to be paid more,

[00:12:52] Anastasia: Yeah.

[00:12:52] Linzy: Right? For you to be able to grow their wages year over year so that they’re not earning less.

[00:12:55] Anastasia: Mm hmm, mm hmm.

[00:12:57] Linzy: Okay, so that’s a piece that you know is not working. Is there anything else that you’d want to change?

[00:13:02] Anastasia: Pragmatically, that I think is the main thing. I know there’s a marketing piece here and stuff like that that I probably need a little more of my own education and things on. But I guess also continuing to diversify our resources and our income, and also in the event that there are changes to Medicaid, that’s also on my mind, since that is something that does fortunately reimburse 100 percent for music therapy. But if that were to change, since it is a very niche service, that is something that at any point in time, you know, with any sort of federal or state budgetary changes could be slashed.

[00:13:42] And I realized that. And so that’s something I would like to, I guess, get ahead of in the event that were to occur. And I hope that it doesn’t. And then we just have other options out there. But, yeah, I think, the wages for my team and also continuing to build out their benefits packages.

[00:14:01] That’s something I would also like to do. And the diversification, like getting creative in order to diversify our services.

[00:14:10] Linzy: Okay. So with your team then, in terms of their earnings and expenses, like I’m hearing you’re aware of when certain team members are not profitable for the business.

[00:14:21] Anastasia: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

[00:14:22] Linzy: numbers laid out for yourself. Do you know what a clinician’s caseload needs to look like to get them to a wage that is the wage that you want to be paying folks?

[00:14:33] Do you have a sense of what needs to happen to get you where you need to be with each employee? Yeah, so what does that need to look like? What does a caseload need to look like?

[00:14:42] Anastasia: Yeah. I’ve built it out a little bit differently depending on the roles of our staff. I have a lead music therapist who has a slightly different caseload expectation because she’s also doing some other things, she’s running our social media, doing some other outreach and advocacy things.

[00:14:58] She’s our main community based therapist as well. And so her caseload needs to sit at between 20 to 25 contact hours a week for there to be profit, that I feel comfortable with. And the summer has been tricky because a lot of individuals have taken vacations and stuff like that.

[00:15:21] And so that has kind of come up underneath that expectation. And unfortunately, we lost some of our community contracts due to some budgetary changes and things. So there’s that. I aim for one to three contract hours in the community a week because we charge a little bit more obviously for a group and then for travel time and things like that.

[00:15:43] So one to three of those groups a week within that 20 to 25 contact hours for her. Then, our onboarding therapists aim for 23 to 28 because they’re mostly going to be, just doing the work, just doing therapy. And then,, they get paid an hour of admin time for every four contact hours.

[00:16:09] That roughly leads to about 35 work hours a week. So there’s a little, little buffer there, too. If they want more clients, then there is a little room for that or other projects. So, and that is obviously if everyone shows up to their appointments and all the things happen.

[00:16:30] Linzy: So, I mean, this is excellent clarity that you have, in terms of what needs to happen. I think the next question that I would be thinking about, given that you know what it takes to kind of keep the lights on, run things, break even, is what could be changed about these numbers and the way that you’re filling folks caseloads to make it that little bit more profitable that we were talking about?

[00:16:52] To create that breathing room? Which I would argue breathing room to give them raises, cost of living increases, but also to create more breathing room for the business itself, to make sure you have enough buffers because the bigger we get, the more liability we have. It’s like the greater the risk, the greater the reward.

[00:17:10] And so I’m also thinking about the stability of your business itself when we’re thinking about the money that needs to be earned. What do you think looks different that would make. one of these positions more profitable? Where are tweaks that could be made in one of these positions?

[00:17:25] Anastasia: One of the things I’m currently working on is building out more community based contracts for some of the other therapists, because when we do have those, we have our rate and we don’t waiver on that. The individual clients,we’ll do our sliding scale, pay-what-you-can option.

[00:17:43] So a few more of those a month would be helpful. Also, maybe getting more music students because that’s another area where we don’t offer pay what you can. We have our rate, and that’s what we charge.I am also still seeing patients myself. and so that that helps.

[00:18:02] I would like to stay on the lower side of my patient load so that I can navigate some of these other things. I do pick up some extra hours from time to time if needed for the business. However, that’s short-term. I try not to, you know, lean too far into that.

[00:18:18] And so those are some things that come to mind right now. Some other things that we do that aren’t necessarily revenue generating at the moment, but have been successful is that I go and do mental health screens at various music festivals, art festivals, and talk to people about our services there.

[00:18:36] And so we tend to get some people signed up for consultations, actually, in those places. So we do get a boost , Whenever we have , those offerings,

[00:18:45] Linzy: Okay,

[00:18:47] Anastasia: In terms of other places, we do increase our rates marginally each year as well, about five to 10,for each of our therapists hourly rates each year. So that helps a bit going into the new year.

[00:19:00] What’s been on my mind and, actually would be helpful, I think, to talk about, is increasing our groups on site. We only have one group currently on site, and I know that groups are a place where we can sort of have virtually infinite ceiling, or lack of, lack of a ceiling, I guess.

[00:19:19] Um, and, I am nervous about making promises I can’t keep with having staff start a group that maybe is not well attended. And then I actually ended up losing money rather than making money there. So I guess, maybe there’s some mindset things for starting some group things.

[00:19:37] Linzy: Because what I’m hearing you’re already aware of, which is great, is it’s natural for group practice owners to have the tendency to just work more themselves, just pick up more client hours, because usually we’ve created a group because there’s already so much demand for your services, that it’s easy to just flex that muscle that you know.

[00:19:54] But you’re absolutely right that the more strategic avenue is for you to spend your time growing the offerings and doing the marketing. You’re mentioning when you go to music festivals, you always get a bunch of consults. So for, you know, however long that musical festival is, for X amount of hours of your time, you can be getting several new clients who stay with the practice for years, maybe.

[00:20:17] Right. And so that’s something to think about when we think about your time: what are the most valuable uses of your time to solve these problems, like in the machine, right? If we think about your practice as a machine, which is the metaphor that I like to use, you’ve done many, many things to create stability and health in this machine already, right?

[00:20:35] You’ve diversified, you’ve built in a fee increase. So there’s all sorts of things you’re already doing to make sure that there’s going to be money coming in. But what I’m hearing is two things. One is spending time to get really clear on what are some little tweaks you could make that would have the biggest impact, right?

[00:20:53] So like your music lessons, for instance, if you really promoted the music lessons, since those are out of pocket and you could get 15 more music lessons a week, what does that do to the overhead of the business? And after that therapist or employee is paid what’s left in the business, right?

[00:21:07] What is the overall profitability of that kind of service, and kind of turning the dials where they’re going to have the biggest impact. Cause there’s always a thousand things we can do. Right? And I can hear that your brain is very good at thinking about all these avenues. And there’s some value in all of them.

[00:21:22] But there’s always going to be certain avenues that are more strategic in terms of the use of your time. So I’m hearing: marketing. You know that marketing is an area where you could spend more time and do more growth. Because if you can get your marketing machine working, if you could get SEO working, or Facebook ads, or start to build a strong local brand presence beyond what you already have, go to more music festivals…

[00:21:43] That is going to have a much bigger impact for your group than you seeing more clients, right? That’s that scaled impact. You know, we’re talking about with the groups too: it’s not infinite, but certainly there’s a scaled opportunity with groups that we don’t have with one to one.

[00:22:00] So if you put your energy into really focusing on: I’m going to get three groups off the ground over the next year, right? And phase them out, but really put your marketing energy into advertising in the schools, you know, running Facebook ads, really experimenting with how to fill these things, that is going to have a much bigger ripple effect in your business than anything you can do with one on one.

[00:22:24] Either that your clinicians can do with one on one or that you individually can do one on one, right? But it takes more of your work to make it happen because it is getting into that marketing piece. What do you notice when I say this? Yeah.

[00:22:37] Anastasia: There are some nerves that come up. Some anxiety. Yeah, that’s an area that, I think I’m, I’m better at than I think I am. I have a lot of marketing ideas, but it never feels natural.

[00:22:50] Linzy: Yes, it’s not your zone of comfort.

[00:22:53] Anastasia: Mhm. Yes, exactly. And so it feels very… And I realize that in the world that we live in, this is necessary, but it feels very salesy. It feels very dehumanizing… I guess another piece, too, is also wondering, in the investment of… I’m okay with investing time, but investing money feels anxiety-provoking as well into ads and marketing and things like that. Whereas I know that’s a catch-22, because sometimes you have to spend money to make money.

[00:23:25] And, I think my anxiety around my own… I guess my own insecurities, my own disbelief and self doubt about my marketing strategies. I project onto, well, if I put money into this, I’m just going to lose it. I think that’s the association that I have.

[00:23:42] Linzy: Okay. Okay. So I’m hearing two, maybe three things there. The first one is, salesy is a bad word. Mm hmm. Can you tell me more about being salesy? You use the word dehumanizing, which is a strong word, I will say. Tell me what comes up when you think about sales.

[00:24:02] Anastasia: Yeah. there’s some associations, I think, to it not always being honest or forthcoming, and that there is an ulterior motive, and that it’s difficult to stay ethical.

[00:24:17] Anastasia: And I realize that, you know, scope of practice and code of ethics is kind of different, across the board. But there’s some general, sort of facets that, beneficence, non maleficence, justice, things like that, that I struggle to reconcile sometimes in the marketing process.

[00:24:35] Linzy: hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I’m curious for you, what is your ulterior motive?

[00:24:44] Anastasia: I’m getting people’s services and getting my staff paid.

[00:24:47] Linzy: Yes.

[00:24:48] Anastasia: I’m trying to live a life that I am not struggling.

[00:24:51] Linzy: Okay. Well, thank you for laying out your evil plan for all of us to hear. Because this is, you know, all you’re describing… of course, there are many examples of this, like duplicitous sales. You know, pyramid schemes. I don’t know. Of course, sales can have an ugly, terrible side. And of course, it can be a place where people abuse power.

[00:25:13] What I’m hearing is you have a practice that provides music therapy with a goal of trying to make it as accessible as possible for folks who cannot pay out of pocket. And in order to do that, you need people to also buy your services, which means that they’re also getting great service that they can afford to pay for. Right? Is there anything nefarious in that mission?

[00:25:37] Anastasia: No.

[00:25:38] Linzy: What do you think of when you think of that mission? Or would you put it differently? When you think about your mission, why you built this practice, what you’re here to do, and what you and your team do all the time, how would you describe that?

[00:25:50] What is that for you?

[00:25:53] Anastasia: Our catchphrase is that we are enhancing healing and learning through creativity. And I truly believe that the arts and creativity is where people thrive and that’s where they can be their most authentic selves. And that doesn’t necessarily have to be through the arts.

[00:26:10] I think creativity transcends a lot of different domains. And that is the realm through which we all are on the same page in that regard that creativity is where people can find their true selves. Stand authentically and live the life that they want to live through creativity.

[00:26:32] And at the same time, we want to be able to provide that, within reason, of course, as best we can, to anyone who wants to access that, or would be benefited by accessing that. Not just people who are within a certain demographic, or a certain age range, certain class or anything.

[00:26:56] I worked in inpatient psych and worked at a state hospital prior to starting my private practice. And so, I saw the benefit that my creative services offered to our folks there. And many of them were homeless. The overwhelming majority were on Medicaid, Medicare. 

[00:27:18] And so while that can’t be replicated in private practice, I wanted to try to close that gap as much as possible because as soon as they were discharged, they didn’t have access to those services anymore because of these barriers. So the mission there is, yeah, these creative services that are typically, out of range, for lack of a better term, for a lot of people, but also such a healing, opportunity and such a, an empowering place where people can be their authentic selves.

[00:27:47] Linzy: So what I’m hearing then is if you find people who can come and pay, they’re going to have these profound healing experiences, and also they’re going to make it more possible for your practice to provide these services to folks who don’t have the cash to pay for these services, right? So having those folks come and paying you, you’re doing them a great service, but also you’re able to do more service in your community. What do you notice thinking about that and thinking about the sales that will help to make that happen?

[00:28:19] Anastasia: It feels a lot of ways.

[00:28:23] Linzy: Sure.

[00:28:24] Anastasia: Nerve wracking, hopeful. There’s definitely, you know, I guess fear of the unknown, sort of, stepping into and kind of trusting the process, of feeling of apprehension.

[00:28:35] Linzy: Yes. Yes. Yeah. And I mean, you’re at a point in the business, there’s a phrase that’s coming to mind for me, which is, what got you here won’t get you there.

[00:28:46] Anastasia: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

[00:28:47] Linzy: You’ve been able to build a practice with success, without having to do Or really show up in the marketing space a lot, right? And you’ve been able to serve folks at a pay what you can model, which is wonderful.

[00:29:00] And in order to get you to the point where also your team can get paid better, and where also you can start to provide benefits, there’s new things that need to be brought on board, right? And there’s the two pieces, you know, that we’ve talked about here so far. There’s the looking at where those differences are going to be made.

[00:29:15] What are the little things in your practice that could go a long way? Music lessons probably being one of them. Groups probably being another. But then there’s also the piece of you stepping up and doing this marketing and using your time and talents to bring tons of people towards the practice, and fill up this great team that you’ve built.

[00:29:35] Anastasia: Yeah.

[00:29:36] Linzy: Yeah.

[00:29:37] So, I mean, thinking about your next steps, I will say that in my mind, there’s this part of me that’s like, I have a spreadsheet in Money Skills for Group Practice Owners that’s all about this, but it’s very complex and it takes a long time. So I wasn’t able to get into it with you today because it looks at all the different variables.

[00:29:51] So there’s equations here, right? There’s numbers that you can work at deeply understanding. And I know that’s part of the picture is taking time to understand your numbers. And starting to look, and play some scenarios of okay, what if we did this? What if we did this?

[00:30:04] I’m going to say that that’s part of your next steps, right? Is to get even more into your numbers, which it sounds like you’re already doing a great job of, right?

[00:30:11] What do you see as your steps after that? Once you identify what you need to do, where the impact will, will happen.

[00:30:20] Anastasia: I do feel very empowered by knowledge. And so I think that will give me a lot more confidence in marketing and some of the places where we can have a little more of that impact or build that buffer, or reach demographics that can support our model and build a foundation for us. I think that will feel a lot more accessible to do at that point. I think that will further round out my workflow as well, Because as we’re talking about this, I’m realizing that sometimes I don’t, well, oftentimes I would say, I’m sort of reactive in our financial stuff in general. And you know, whenever we lose a contract, like: oh, that’s whenever I start ramping up the marketing or trying to reach out to other places at that point.

[00:31:09] And it’s connecting some dots for me that I probably need to break out my schedule to be focusing on all of these things for generally a certain amount of time with some flexibility as as needed, but also building in the time to invest in the things that will have a higher, I guess, return on investment.

[00:31:31] And will further support us in the long run rather than just, kind of trying to mitigate things as they come up.

[00:31:39] Linzy: Yeah. And what I’m getting from you is you clearly have a strategic brain. you’re already doing so much of this, so now it’s this piece, it’s almost like the difference between tracking what’s happened and budgeting.

[00:31:49] Now it’s about getting a little ahead of yourself, right? Like looking into the future, just that little bit more.

[00:31:55] Planning a little bit more for things that probably are going to happen, like at some point, this contract over here is probably going to end. So what else can we start to, where else can we start to plant seeds now, right? To have something else lined up. Starting to look ahead with your numbers and do some of that proactive planning.

[00:32:10] We’re going to run a group in the fall and we’re going to run a group in the spring and I’m going to start planting seeds around all that now. it seems to me like you really would have the capacity to do that. So now it’s just getting that, as you say, into your workflow, making that part of your duties as the CEO and the CFO of your group practice.

[00:32:26] Anastasia: hmm. Yes, absolutely. And that was not even something that dawned on me until kind of sitting there and thinking about it.

[00:32:33] Linzy: Yeah. So coming to the end of our conversation, Anastasia, what are you taking away today?

[00:32:39] Anastasia: Excitement. I was excited coming in, too. I am on your mailing list, and I’ve watched a lot of your webinars and stuff. And actually some, a lot of the things I’m already doing are because of the things you’ve put out in the world. So thank you.

[00:32:52] I feel very, very grateful. I’m very excited for this.

[00:32:55] I feel a little vulnerable, a little raw. You know, in our society, it’s hard to talk about money in a very, forthcoming fashion. And so definitely feeling that, but also feeling empowered, and feeling like there is opportunity, rather than, this is not a common thought process, but I do kind of wonder, is there going to be an end to this practice one day? Is it going to get to the point where, yeah, cost of living, you know, things just cannot add up. And this has really quieted that voice.

[00:33:28] Linzy: yeah.

[00:33:28] And I think you’ve built an excellent foundation. You’ve got a great machine going, so now you get to tweak it, and improve it. And, set it up to do these extra things now that you want to do.

[00:33:41] Anastasia: Thank you. 

[00:33:41] Linzy: Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, Anastasia.

[00:33:44] The words that really come to mind for me from this coaching episode are clarity and strategy. Anastasia has already gained so much clarity in understanding what’s happening with her team’s numbers. And now there’s just more opportunity to get even more clarity on where impacts could be made, and then making those strategic choices in the business, making moves to make an impact and using her time strategically, too, to do that. It’s so easy as group practice owners to do what you’ve always done best, which is be a clinician,and to lean on that skillset of being a clinician whenever money is tight.

[00:34:28]  I see group practice owners do this all the time and it makes so much sense. But as the owner of a group practice, the best thing that you could usually do is actually activities that are going to help all of your team get new clients, right? Or serve those groups, or in her case, look for funding.

[00:34:46] And so it’s those bigger moves that we can make only as the CEO of the practice, as the leader, that are the ones that are easiest to avoid because they’re not comfortable and familiar. They’re not what we know best, but they’re also the most impactful places that you can spend your energy as the leader of a group practice.

[00:35:02] So very excited for Anastasia. I can see that she’s so close to being able to have that practice look how she wants it to look. And I’m really confident that she’s going to get there. And if you, like Anastasia, are a group practice owner who is looking to get more clarity on your group practice numbers, really get them working so you can see your vision really coming to life in terms of taking care of both your clients and your team and yourself. I’m going to put a link in the show notes for the Money Skills for Group Practice Owners waitlist.

[00:35:31] We run that course once or twice a year, and it is all about helping you become the empowered financial leader of your practice, helping you understand your numbers deeply, knowing where you can make an impact and giving you the support and the tools and the guidance to make the moves that are really going to make your business sustainable and allow you to thrive and really be successful.

[00:35:52] To see that vision that you’ve always had come to life. So the link for the Money Skills for Group Practice Owners waitlist is in the show notes. If you jump on that list, you’ll hear about it the next time we open the course.

[00:36:03] If you’re enjoying the podcast, please tell your friends or colleagues about it. It’s the best way for new folks to find us and listen. And you can also follow me on Instagram at Money Nuts and Bolts. We share our regular content on there all the time.Thank you so much for joining us today.

[00:00:00] Linzy: Hello and welcome back to another Feelings and Finances episode of the Money Skills for Therapists podcast. These are our short and sweet Friday episodes to answer questions from listeners of the podcast like you, the therapists and health practitioners and coaches, who are part of our community.

[00:00:20] So today’s question comes from Cierra, and here is her question.

[00:00:25] Cierra: Hey, Linzy. My name is Cierra, and I’m a group practice owner with a background in the public sector. One of the money related challenges that’s weighing really heavily on my mind is navigating the tension between my own evolving money mindset and the perspectives of some of the clinicians in my practice.

[00:00:44] Coming from the public sector, I’ve had to work really hard to shift my own beliefs that all therapy needs to be free and accessible into recognizing the value of private pay and the sustainability and care that that can offer. I’ve built my practice with fairness and empowerment at its core, and I strive to support both the clinicians and the clients we serve in ways that feel balanced and ethical.

[00:01:08] However, when it comes to clinicians in my practice pushing back on business decisions and suggesting that I’m “just in it for the money,” it really begins to stir up old doubts, and I feel conflicted. On one hand, I’ve worked really hard to create what I feel is a sustainable model that I am proud of, but on the other, I understand the deep seated concerns around accessibility and fairness in mental health care.

[00:01:32] Linzy: So my question for you is how can I continue to support others in their money mindset journeys, especially, you know, when there is a value difference between them and mine, while remaining confident and grounded in my own perspective as a group practice owner. Thanks so much. Thank you so much for this question, Cierra, and it is a tricky one. There’s multiple pieces here that you’re having to navigate leading your group practice, and I’m hearing that you’ve done a lot of work on your own relationship with money, and recognizing the value of therapy, and moving out of a model where it should be free and accessible to everyone, which to be clear, I actually do think that at the end of the day, therapy should be free and accessible for everyone, but somebody needs to pay for it.

[00:02:19] So in the absence of a government actually paying for health care for the folks who live in a country… Like the country of Canada, for instance, does pay doctors for health care. In the absence of that, money has to come from somewhere. Thinking about your question, there’s a couple things that come to mind for me.

[00:02:37] The first is about your role as a group practice leader, as a leader and a boss, and a coach for your own team members. So the first thing that I’m thinking about is, you know, if your team members are really grappling with their own ethical questions around accessibility, and maybe they’re pushing back on you…They’re making this about you, and projecting onto you, in terms of you running the business, that you’re all about money, I would look at how can you explore your team members in digging into their own beliefs and their own internal conflict around money. And take it out of something that, because it’s kind of abstract or not explored, they can project onto you.

[00:03:25] I know in my own team, we have regular one-on-one meetings. You might be meeting with your own team one on one, or they might have a clinical supervisor, depending on the size of your practice. But, this is something that could be actually explored with your team members as an area where they could be supported.

[00:03:42] Because if they are looking to be accessible and charge lower fees, maybe it’s really important that they stay on insurance, or they want to have sliding scale available, or pro bono, depending on how your practice is set up, chances are that is actually going to be impacting their income.

[00:04:00] If you have any kind of split or set wage that is going to be in relation to, you know, the fee that is collected for them, that will be impacting how much they are getting paid. So I would explore with them, or have your clinical supervisor explore with them, what are their financial needs?

[00:04:17] What do they actually need to be well financially? You know, what do they need to be able to send their kiddos to school, to take care of their basic everyday needs, to have financial security, to be able to save for their futures? It doesn’t mean necessarily getting to the numbers, but recognizing that they do have financial needs, and then how do they balance that as a clinician with their desire to be accessible, right?

[00:04:40] Is there actually, for your specific clinicians, a sweet spot there, around them being able to see half folks on insurance, half out of pocket, and that helps them to meet their own accessibility standards, right, but also get their financial needs met? Or is it that when they take time to really look at their own financial needs, their financial needs are actually in conflict with them being able to work on insurance?

[00:05:05] You know, within each of your clinicians, there’s their own relationship with money and their own internal conflict, and their own conflict that they’ll have which would be much like yours and mine and everyone else who has had to sit down and really do this work. It’s just the conflict between our own needs, and our own desires and wants to have a life that is safe and fulfilling and allows us to actually enjoy our lives and take care of the people that we love, and balancing that with being accessible, right?

[00:05:35] And helping other folks, and having them access therapy, right? So that internal conflict that you have worked to overcome, they are also experiencing that internal conflict. And with you being the leader of your practice, you are going to be an easy target to project their own internal conflict and feelings about money onto.

[00:05:55] It’s easy, when you are in a position of leadership, to be made into an object upon which all of those feelings can be projected. That if you are, you know, charging enough that the business is stable and profitable, that you are doing something wrong, but really this is about your clinician’s own relationships with money.

[00:06:12] So that’s the first thing that I would think about is how can you,or your team members, support your clinicians in starting to clarify their own relationship with money and their own needs and making sure that they’re setting up their own caseload and their own schedule so that they’re okay, and yet they’re also able to do the work that they love to do, right?

[00:06:32] What does that look like for each of them? So I would start with that, that’s my first thought. My second thought is that it is common, as the leader of the practice, as I just mentioned, that folks are going to project their stories onto you. Part of that is that you are the one who’s actually running the business side of things, and you’re the one who has to see the numbers and make those tough decisions around, okay, we can provide this, but we can’t provide that, because for everybody to get paid, and for the bills to get paid, and for you to get paid as the financial leader for all your time running the business,

[00:07:06] every dollar that comes into the business has a lot of jobs to do, and you see that because you’re the one who’s sitting down with the numbers, you’re the one who sees when the bank account gets low, you’re the one who is having to make these larger strategic financial decisions, and your team isn’t.

[00:07:21] And in many cases, folks end up working in a group practice, the folks who are going to stick around, they are there because they don’t want to think about those things, and they don’t want to make those hard decisions and be more involved in the business side of things. They want to focus more on the clinical side of the work. I’ve noticed over the years, it took a while for some of my friends and peers in group practice to start to realize like, oh, the folks who want to work with me long term, they’re not actually entrepreneurial. They’re not folks who necessarily are going to be as driven and as ambitious and as willing to do the kind of like, ugh, parts of things, as the person who chooses to lead the practices.

[00:07:57] You often end up with different types of personalities. So for those folks who are working for you, who may be people who never want to run their own practice, who don’t want to have to deal with the unpleasant side of the business and the money, part of it is thinking about, then, how do you support them in having their needs met to make it a positive workplace

[00:08:18] so that they are able to show up and do what they love to do and see their clients, and have their own financial needs met enough, but also so that they understand that there are business things, and there’s bigger decisions being made, that are being taken care of for them, The folks who are going to stick around are working for you because they don’t want to work for themselves, right? So there is a piece there of recognizing maybe a different kind of personality, a different kind of motivation, between you and your team members and thinking about how do you help to meet their needs?

[00:08:47] How do you address the fact that like yep, there are these like bigger pieces to the business. There are these business pieces that we are taking care of, you know, that is one of the great things about you being here with us is we are taking care of these financial pieces. We’re taking care of supplying the toilet paper, doing the advertising, taking care of the administration, and making sure that folks are really feeling cared for in that way so that, they can focus in on their clinical work.

[00:09:14] Because they’re possibly the types of folks who are never going to want to actually have to make these like really hard decisions in the big picture. So there’s a couple of different ideas there that I’m talking about. But to recap, the first is to look at how do you support your team members to, work on their own relationships with money so they start projecting onto you, and then how do you take care of them so that their needs are being met, so that the reason that they’re there, which is that they don’t want to deal with the money, is being taken care of, and they’re able to just show up and be great clinicians, right?

[00:09:42] And that’s about creating a positive workplace as a group practice owner. These are all things that we dig into and explore in Money Skills for Group Practice Owners, because it’s a vast and complex world, as you know, Cierra, and it sounds like you’ve done a great job of building a practice that you are proud of. But I think recognizing that this is your clinician’s own stuff, and then taking care of the needs that you can take care of

[00:10:03] is going to go a long way. The final thing in this equation, of course, is your own groundedness in the decisions that you have made. Right, and how do you keep that kind of, emotion and doubt and noise and internal conflict that belongs to your team members, how do you keep that from undermining you and the decisions that you’ve made?

[00:10:22] And it sounds like you’ve been very thoughtful and intentional in building a practice that is values aligned, and in valuing your own work. And you’ve probably done that work of having to really accept your own financial needs, and the financial reality that we live in. And so my question is, how do you surround yourself then with people who also are in the same place as you?

[00:10:43] Right, who get what you’re going through? Other group practice leaders who’ve made similar choices, and have done that hard work, and have landed in the same place as you. Surrounding yourself with that community of people who love to lead and are happy to do the business side of things, and therefore have also put themselves in the position of being group practice owners.

[00:11:02] That’s one of the things that’s really nice about courses like mine, Money Skills for Group Practice Owners, and other group practice courses, is you do get to be in the company of other folks who can remind you and reassure you, that like, no, you have made these decisions for a reason. We have to do these things for a reason.

[00:11:16] Even if our teams don’t understand, it doesn’t mean that you’re making the wrong decision. So surrounding yourself with a tribe of folks who get you. would be the first thing that I would think about with that. And then the second thing would be just really taking care of yourself, right?

[00:11:30] Making sure that your needs are being met emotionally so that you can ground and center back in yourself, whether that’s giving yourself enough time off, nurturing yourself in other ways, like having time to be out of work, and out ofthe noise, the cacophony of personalities and emotions that come when we have a bigger business, and there’s just a lot of people going on. Just making sure that you’re really taking the time to ground back in yourself, ground in what you know so you can show up and be a leader, because you are bringing something different to the table than your team members are, and recognizing that your personalities and needs are different, is going to be helpful in being able to take care of them without having their questions and their internal conflicts

[00:12:12] undermining you and where you are and what conclusions you’ve come to in your own money work. So thank you so much, Cierra, for your question. It’s a great one. It’s something we could probably talk about for hours, but those are my initial thoughts and keeping yourself grounded in the decisions that you’ve made. If you, like Cierra, have a question that you’d like me to dig into on an episode of Feelings and Finances,

[00:12:36] all you need to do is click on the link in the show notes. It will take you over to our podcast page, you will see a little widget, super simple, that just says, record a question for Linzy, or something very similar to that. All you need to do is press record, share your name, share a little bit of context, and share your question, and I would be happy to answer it on a future episode of Feelings and Finances.

[00:12:57] Thank you so much for joining me today.

[00:00:00] Amity: It’s figuring out your North Star and aiming towards that and you have all the skills and all the tools within you and now outside of you to access to do whatever you desire to do and to change the world and make it a better place.

[00:00:30] Linzy: 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, Lindsay Bonham, therapist turned money coach and creator of the course Money Skills for Therapists.

[00:00:50] Hello and welcome back to the podcast. Today’s guest is Amity Cooper. Amity is a seasoned entrepreneur with decades of experience before becoming a trained mental health professional and she’s also an entrepreneurial coach. And today Amity and I talk about tech in therapy. We dig into what are the technologies that are available to therapists.

[00:01:14] We talk about discerning which texts you want to use, but ultimately the fact that there probably is a technical solution to most problems that you are having in your therapy practice. And we ended up having a little bit of a discussion too, about techno optimism. Is tech good for us? Is it bad for us?

[00:01:33] Something that’s definitely on my mind as I’m a parent is I’m thinking about my son’s development, and his social development, and what does technology mean for us in general as humans in the world. Interesting conversation there with Amity as somebody who is very much in this space. And ultimately, we ended up talking about the importance of therapists being involved in these tech conversations.

[00:01:54] You know, these tools and these apps, they are happening no matter what. And we often underestimate our expertise that we have to bring to the table, when it comes to the development of these kinds of tools. Here is my conversation with Amity Cooper.

[00:02:10] Linzy: So Amity, welcome to the podcast.

[00:02:22] Amity: Oh, thank you so much for having me here. I’m really excited about our conversation.

[00:02:27] Linzy: Me, too. you are bringing a topic today that is a topic I do not know a ton about, which is we’re planning to have a chat about technology in therapy. So I wanted to start, with kind of a, a toe dip question as we get in. For folks in private practice, therapists and health practitioners, what type of tech should they be thinking about and should they have in their private practices?

[00:02:55] Amity: I love this question. And let me just say that, for many of us, it’s going to be different. We have different type of practices. We have our different skillsets that bring to bear on any choice. Whatever technology we bring into our practices, it has to fit us first and because they’re tools , they’re not running the show.

[00:03:16] We are. So I just have to give that disclaimer to it because there is a plethora of softwares and actual physical tools that we can apply and utilize in our everyday life. Now I’m wearing multiple hats. There’s the hat that we put on to be the business owner. And we think about all of the different software programs that run our back offices seamlessly.

[00:03:43] We can use AI to kingdom come if we want for all the different tasks that make the boring things less boring because we don’t have to think about them that much anymore with these AI agents, it’s generative AI that I’m speaking about. So we have all of these integrations that are taking place where software is being able to talk to each other.

[00:04:09] So different software platforms are now interconnected and entwined so that we, as the human being, are just pushing a button and following through our particular workflow process, but we have the software and the tools to produce that 24/7. So I hope that sort of rounds that one component out.

[00:04:33] When you start to put on your clinical hat of work. There are about three, three to four things that I see on the horizon that are already being used, but we’re slow to adopt in this industry. First and foremost, let me say what the lowest hanging fruit is: video. I mean, we have multiple new generations of video and access to using social media and all of these video telehealth services at large.

[00:05:09] We have really grown in the last five years when we look back, and we couldn’t even imagine. We didn’t even know what the word Zoom was in 2020 and look at us now. I mean, this is incredible. We’re on Squadcast, and there’s numerous different products available for us. So I want to stress to the clinician out there who is really comfortable in their therapy

[00:05:35] seat, explore and sort of expand because telehealth is here, and you can run, and you can reach people at scale with video services. So I think this is a good reminder that we can take it to the next level. But that next level is going to be determined based on what you want and what you need in your desk.

[00:05:56] Okay. So then the next sort of cluster of tools that I see are these interactions with wearables. I’m wearing my aura ring. Okay, so this is a sensor-based accessory, and it can be from your glasses to your aura ring to the fabric you wear.

[00:06:18] The sensor tools that are available at our fingertips and specifically through our smartphone is a game changer because now we have diagnostics. We get real time biofeedback on a particular therapist and a client’s homeostasis. We can monitor those in real time now. Oh, the other thing I was, I couldn’t remember what it was. It’s called Muse. They look like Wonder Woman headbands, and you put them on, and it gives you biofeedback on your meditation.

[00:06:57] Okay. Now you can take that data on a professional level and you can track somebody’s progress on their mindfulness practice. So I think there’s all these ways in which digital therapeutics are infiltrating and coming into the therapy room in a way that really adds value and interest and care and attention that clinicians… We’ve been limited.

[00:07:25] We’ve been limited by what we observe. We listen to the intonation. We listen to the voice. We can look at affect. We see if somebody is depressed or anxious or manic, whatever that may be. But now we have the data to back it and to validate it in a way that we’ve never had before. So that is an exciting entry point into these exponential technologies.

[00:07:53] Linzy: Yes.

[00:07:57]  Amity: We’re seeing that there is an economical step up for you as a clinician. If you were unsure about what you should be trying.

[00:08:07] Linzy: Cause as I think about, the folks who, I work with in Money Skills for Therapists, and probably many of the folks who listened to this podcast, those first two pieces of tech are almost, just, part of the air we breathe right now, right? Like your clinic management system, be it like Jane or, or Simple Practice or Therapy Notes.

[00:08:23] There’s many, many out there. They’re so helpful, and they automate so many things that can be a total pain in the butt. And I think, my observation is, most therapists are using something like that. There’s still folks who are not into it. There’s still folks who, want to do, more of, like, the handwritten notes, and those are folks who I find tend to either have low confidence with technology, like, they’re like, I don’t know how to do that, I don’t how to learn that, but also folks who have low trust in technology.

[00:08:49] Amity: It’s just this is… this is my system, and I’m good with that. Don’t mess with me.

[00:08:54] Linzy: Yeah. So, but I do find the default is that most folks are using a tool like that. And then the second type of tool you mentioned, the video, as you say, has like exploded onto the scene. I remember offering Zoom sessions as a backup if folks couldn’t make sessions, and this would have been in 2018 and that was like, weird, like that was a very strange, unusual thing to be doing. And I remember meeting a therapist who worked only online in 2018 and being like, what do you mean?

[00:09:18] Like you, you only see them on the internet? It was so, so strange and like little did I know that two years later that would be All of us, that would be everybody, for so much time. So yeah, that video piece certainly has also become quite ubiquitous. Most folks at least used it for a while with their clients, if they’re not still doing some of that now.

[00:09:37] But this third piece you’re talking about… This is new. This is something that yeah, like I stopped practicing therapy. So I feel like I left the therapy space before this was even remotely around, which is yeah, this biofeedback, bio monitoring. Yeah. Yeah. and you’re talking about Muse.

[00:09:53] Amity: Actually, somebody that I went to high school with was part of the Muse development team. How cool is that?

[00:09:57] Linzy: Isn’t that interesting? Yeah.

[00:09:59] Um, Yes. But this information, because what I’m hearing you say is, before we’ve had to rely on our clients self reports of like, how anxious were you this week?

[00:10:08] How is your sleep? But now there’s actually information that they can choose to have tracked that actually creates data. We’re not just basing on somebody’s self report and their impression of how things went, which might vary, because we all are very subjective.

[00:10:22] Amity: Subjective, right? We don’t know. We don’t know. Now we have the backup. We have data. We have the information, we have the algorithms, we have everything. And there, there’s a wonderful, there’s a couple of new tools just off the cuff that I, then I’m thinking. One there’s a lot of new services, SaaS services, out there for note taking.

[00:10:43] So it’s transcription services, things like that, that are specifically applicable to our industry. So that’s something if note taking is just the thing you hate to do. Try this out. I mean, just the podcast world has exploded, and you think about how you’re creating all of this content.

[00:11:07] Now you can record or video record. You could get permission from your clients. And you can do transcription services. Now, that is a tricky situation. That’s not going to be for everybody. And of course, there are all ethical rules and regulations for this. And I’m not saying just go out there willy nilly doing this.

[00:11:27] But if this is a curiosity for you, there’s a tool for that.

[00:11:31] Linzy: Yes.

[00:11:32] Amity: You know, I think that’s what I think we both need to stress. there’s a tool for that.

[00:11:36] Linzy: Yeah.

[00:11:38] Amity: There’s a way to make your life simpler.

[00:11:40] Linzy: Hmm.

[00:11:41] Amity: Or easier and more efficient. So you’re not constantly on top of these things. These things are supposed to alleviate the busyness so that you can be with your clients up close and personal and knee to knee the way you want to be.

[00:11:59] Amity: So, I think that’s the disclaimer to all of this.

[00:12:02] Linzy: Yes. Yeah. There are options out there. It’s not for everybody, but like the notes is a great example. like I was just chatting with a student in my course this morning about how she’s having trouble getting to her notes, and getting to the other administrative pieces of the business.

[00:12:15] Amity: And she’s got ADHD in the mix, which I find many, many folks, who I work with in my course are women who’ve discovered at 40 that they’re like, Oh, shoot, I have ADHD. This explains so much about my life. That’s a whole nother topic, right? I mean, diagnosis in adulthood, my goodness,

[00:12:33] Linzy: So, like where something like notes can become a massive stressor and hang over your head and make you feel very ineffective, and just be this constant area that you’re, your critic, your inner critic is going to tell you you’re failing in your practice…

[00:12:45] There are tools that can facilitate that. And, so there are options, right? We, we don’t necessarily have to do all the grunt work anymore. And if there’s an area of real pain that’s undermining your professional confidence, there might be an option for something to, to help to ease that.

[00:13:03] Amity: that. Absolutely. And this is what is so amazing about today. The world that we’re living in. I’m a cautious optimist, but, I have to say as an innovator… I’m entrepreneurial. Okay? And that entrepreneurial mindset is always scanning and looking for openings and opportunities.

[00:13:24] And the world that we’re in right now, we’re unlimited in all our potential and our services, and this is why I feel so thrilled and purposeful about talking about exponential tech because it’s disrupting our industry. We have a technological and clinical gap in our world that we’re facing. The world is speeding ahead, and all of these companies and technologies are advancing and our industry is so slow to catch up, and I want to bridge that digital divide And I encourage

[00:14:07] everybody that I talked to really looked at this as just an amazing frontier to step into. And to scan across the landscape and really take in the view because it’s changing, and we can be part of that conversation. Traditionally, and I think you’re probably aware of this. I mean, traditionally, the institutional powers that be really just have told us how it’s going to be.

[00:14:33] They set the certifications. They set the course, and the pace. Well, technology doesn’t work that way. It is, they have an idea and they figure it out and it’s a minimal viable product

[00:14:47] Linzy: So your job, I see this as our job as clinicians, is that we have to be in alignment with all of these new tech companies because the digital therapeutic space is exploding and they’re coming to us in arrears… They’re coming…

[00:15:07] Amity: After the fact, after the product has already been developed, and they go, Oh, we should fact check this.

[00:15:12] Amity: This is a perfect case of hallucinations that AI has. When you start to input data into a large learning language model,

[00:15:23] Linzy: Yeah.

[00:15:24] Amity: they’re just pulling in and taking in the data that’s inputted into them, processing it, and regurgitating it back.

[00:15:32] It’s a process response structure, and that’s a loose description of it, right? I might not be perfect on that, just give me grace.

[00:15:42] Linzy: Sure. Sure.

[00:15:43] Amity: But they have found with the studies is that there’s biases that are built into these algorithms

[00:15:50] Linzy: Of course. Yeah.

[00:15:51] Amity: My point is, how do you correct those? how do you change the way this algorithm regurgitates the information that it

[00:16:02] experiences? And that means that we have to have the experts, the people that understand these nuances, involved in the research and the development.

[00:16:13] Linzy: Yes. Yes.

[00:16:15] Amity: I think that’s where I’m going. It’s like we have a responsibility here to be co creators with this new tech.

[00:16:20] Linzy: Because, the norm that I see more is that, as you say, they come to us later. They’re like, Hey, there’s this thing. Is this good? Does this make sense? Because yeah, there isn’t the same sense of ethics in that world. That’s not what they’re there for. Whereas what I find with the therapy space, and I’m thinking specifically about the mental health therapy space, we can be so almost paralyzed by questions of ethics, right?

[00:16:43] We’re like, is this okay? I don’t know. Yeah, I, I see a lot of stuckness that can happen with us because we are so, so, so focused on being ethical. But what I’m hearing you say is, basically, we’re getting left behind, right? All these technologies are being created, and if we’re not in there being part of these conversations, like if we don’t have a seat at the table, these technologies are going to happen anyways,

[00:17:04] and we’re still going to be beating our brows over whether it’s okay to use a tool to make this part of our practice a little bit easier, and what all the implications of that could possibly be.

[00:17:16] Amity: Exactly. And then we’re going to say, it’s not a sound product. And that’s our own fault.

[00:17:23] Amity: That is something that’s, the onus is on us for that. Because we were never part of the planning, or the discussion, or the integration. And so I, it’s a call out, not only to us to step up into that role. Okay, as advocate, as innovator. Okay? But it’s also a call out to these digital companies whose purpose are two things. They want to make money, but they also want to create and innovate and bring new tools to the world. So there is a, a back and forth, a titration between these things, but ultimately all we all want the same result.

[00:18:07] We want to advance humanity. We want to solve this mental health crisis. The tools that are available today will definitely help us at scale.

[00:18:17] Linzy: I’m hearing you say that you’re a reluctant optimist. Was that the phrase you used? I’m getting techno optimist vibes from you. I’m to have to say. Yeah. I feel like you might be more than a little bit reluctantly optimist because I also, I’m probably more on the techno critic side of these discussions.

[00:18:34] And, and I’m also, I’m doing a lot of active thinking right now about these things. Cause I also have a child who’s five. So it’s like, What do these technologies mean for social development, brain development? If we’re engaging in these technologies, what are we not doing? I have a lot of these questions and I’m, I’m a big fan of, of Cal Newport, who is kind of like somewhere in the centrist.

[00:18:53] He’s a centrist in all ways, but certainly has techno criticisms. And I’m reading Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation right now, which is pure tech

[00:19:01] Amity: Oh, I’ve heard of that.

[00:19:01] Linzy: criticism. Like he’s not at all optimistic or positive about the impacts on mental health of technology. So this is kind of refreshing to hear you have so much hope around this as a therapist who understands technology.

[00:19:14] Because I think there, a lot of folks would actually make the argument that in many ways, technology has created a mental health crisis, right? Has made us more lonely and isolated, and made us think that we’re connecting with people, but we’re, we’re actually more disconnected. I am curious, and we were not planning to talk about this, but I’m just so curious, as somebody who’s in this world, what is your response to that kind of…?

[00:19:35] Amity: Okay, I’m going to go all the way back to the Gutenberg Bible and the printing press. Okay? Okay. I, I look at the whole discussion around technology is, are we a lemming or not? Like this fear, a Luddite, right? A Luddite had an uprising because there was all this new tools and advancements in manufacturing and development, right?

[00:20:03] Factories. And they fought it because it was against what they knew. Okay. Now I look and then I go back and I think about the development of the Gutenberg Bible, and I think about how the majority of society at that time was illiterate. And then all of a sudden you have a book that is able to share life, and humanize the experience that we’re all having individually. And we can share it and we can access it. I look at technology as our own printing press, right? It is mission of

[00:20:43] Linzy: Yes.

[00:20:44] Amity: And it’s happening regardless.

[00:20:47] Linzy: If we like it or not.

[00:20:49] Amity: It is. We’re moving in this direction. There is singularity that is coming around. This is where A. I. All of this information is running up and meeting in the middle with humanity. Okay, It is destined to be where A. I. is going to be take on a human like form, if you will, like the sentient abilities that we have.

[00:21:19] These machines will eventually start to get there. When is that going to happen? That’s for Ray Kurzweil, the futurist to really discuss, but like we’re on this path.

[00:21:28] Linzy: Mm hmm.

[00:21:29] Amity: So we have to be engaged and part of the design build process.

[00:21:35] Linzy: Yes. Yes. And I’m curious, what could that look like? Like for folks who are listening, and they’re like, okay, yeah, it’s true. It’s happening no matter how we feel about it. This technology is being developed. There’s lots of folks who are very, very smart, in the tech space who are interested and curious and, and innovating and wanting to make these things.

[00:21:51] How do we as therapists claim a spot in these conversations? Should the folks who are listening who also have some tech vision or skills be going out and working to create apps themselves? Should we be emailing companies that we hear are developing a thing to be like, Hey, you need to talk to me because I am an expert on this area.

[00:22:09] How do we insert ourselves?

[00:22:10] Amity: That’s a great question. And, yeah, we can say a lot of you should be doing this, this, this…One thing is, companies are always running pilot programs. They’re always running studies and research, and it’s government entities, too. So I think that there are ways in which you can offer up your expertise and be part of the advancement of science.

[00:22:36] So I think there’s that. I think there’s a couple of crowd sourcing platforms like Citizen Science. Citizen Science is a platform where you go and you say, Okay, I’ve done this kind of research. I’m adding to this conversation.

[00:22:52] Out to the crowd. You put it out to the community at large, and there’s feedback, and there’s engagement, and there’s this wonderful community of like minded individuals who want to just improve humanity. And so I think you can do it on a small individual level, all the way up to a massive scale, however you see fit.

[00:23:16] It’s your life. You decide.

[00:23:18] Linzy: Yes. And I think, too, something that I notice with therapists sometimes is we tend to undervalue or underestimate our expertise. You know, therapists, certainly the type of folks that I end up attracting, tend to be perfectionistic. We focus more on what we don’t know than what we do.

[00:23:33] We’re like, Oh, yeah, I’ve been doing this for 20 years. But, you know, there’s this other thing I don’t know how to do or… Part of what I’m hearing is, own your expertise, right? Own what you know. Own the fact that you’ve done possibly thousands of hours of clinical work with folks around a certain diagnosis or issue, and bring that to people who are making things that know literally very little to nothing.

[00:23:55] Cause the other thing that I think about is a lot of folks that I see in Money Skills for Therapists, and in my audience in general, it’s kind of like, sometimes you get to that point where you’re like, my private practice is full. I’ve kind of like capped out here, but I feel like I have more to offer.

[00:24:09] Maybe those folks should be actually looking to develop technology, like make apps, get into using these tools. Cause I’m thinking like the combination of I’m going to talk directly about that person, the combination of your expertise and your sense of ethics and your understanding of what doesn’t work,

[00:24:27] plus somebody who can develop technology, you can make something incredible that could really positively change people’s lives. But if we’re not inserting ourselves into these processes, then our expertise is left to the side of the road.

[00:24:40] Amity: I, yes, absolutely. And, you know, it’s interesting because when you look at our demographics, we are a group that we’re one of the most highly educated, top performing professionals in the world. We hold second degrees. We have so many unfair advantages. Really?

[00:25:08] If we’re talking from a marketing standpoint, just, I mean, we’re highly educated. We’re great listeners. Oh my gosh, our emotional IQ is like through the roof, and yet we sit there, and we’re some of the lowest earners in professional service industries. And we’re still questioning whether or not we’re good enough.

[00:25:33] Like it is unbelievable to me and I just, it doesn’t sit right with me internally. I just, I’m like, you have so much to give and share with the world. Go make an app. And who’s to say, I mean, the reality is I do most, mostly career coaching, transition coaching, and at this point in my life, I look at if I were to speak to somebody who has been a clinician for 20 years and they’re wondering about what’s next, the world’s your oyster.

[00:26:08] You can do anything you want. You can imagine and be and develop anything you want because you have skills that are desirable in the marketplace and are

[00:26:18] Linzy: Yes.

[00:26:19] Amity: So good.

[00:26:22] Linzy: That’s a really helpful perspective because I know your professional history was outside of the therapy industry for many, many years. And I think when we are inside just one industry for our whole careers, we don’t necessarily realize what we have going on as a group of people that other industries do not have going on.

[00:26:37] And this is what I’m noticing as some of my students and peers step into, say, the business space, and talk about the impacts of trauma, and they’re like blowing everybody’s minds at that table. Like all these highly successful people, look like they have their whole life figured out, are just completely baffled and amazed by the information that’s being shared with them, which is information that for that clinician is like something they talk about literally every day, multiple times a day.

[00:27:04] It’s just like, obviously everybody knows this, but anyways… But they don’t . So, yeah, I think that that, especially coming from you, is a good affirmation for folks listening. You know so much more than you think you do, and you have so many more skills than you think you have.

[00:27:18] Amity: You have so much to offer the world. And, I challenge you all to, to think about what’s holding you back for making that impact or whatever. Now, I also tend to think in grand scale. Okay. So, the work that we do is so personal. And not everybody wants to be out there making an app.

[00:27:43] Not everybody wants to be the advocate and the promoter or to serve thousands of people. The intimate details about being knee to knee with somebody, or screen to screen with somebody…It’s magical and it’s a gift and it’s humbling. And I am so appreciative of that. And I know that if I can make a difference in one life, I feel really honored and part of that, a greater piece.

[00:28:12] So I guess what I’m trying to stress is it’s figuring out your North star. And aiming towards that. And you have all the skills and all the tools within you, and now outside of you, to access to do whatever you desire to do and to change the world. And make it a better place. So I think, if I could leave with that, that, that would be it.

[00:28:40] Linzy: Yeah. Beautiful takeaway. Amity, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. This was a very inspiring wrap up to a conversation about tech and therapy. For folks who are interested in learning more about you, learning how to work with you, where can they find you and follow you?

[00:28:57] Amity: Oh, please, please, please come find me at clinical career collective. I created a professional development company for us to tech up and care wide. Get out into the world. And I run an e course that is called Do This First, where you learn over the course of seven days, all about the nuts and bolts and the foundations of business, and then I throw in and I sprinkle in a bunch of this new technology that’s coming online for you.

[00:29:29] Linzy: Wonderful. Okay. So we’ll put the link to that in the show notes and thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today, Amity.

[00:29:35] Amity: Thank you for having me. Great conversation.

[00:29:38] I so appreciated Amity’s optimism and also realism, that this tech is happening, whether we like it or not, so the importance of us being at the table. And it does bring me back to something that I often come back to when it comes to all of these facets of business, which is, it is about being with.

[00:30:10] Linzy: Right? Being curious. These tools are out there. Are there tools that could be helpful to you in your practice? Are there technologies that could help your practice? Do things end up hindering instead? How can we use the tools that exist in ethical ways? Not everything is going to be for everyone. And if it’s not broken, you don’t need to fix it, right?

[00:30:27] Like if you love taking your notes by hand, and you have files in your filing cabinet full of written notes, and that works for you. There’s no reason to change it. But if you are finding that there are sticking points, problems that can be solved, you know, it gets me thinking about, in Money Skills for Group Practice Owners, we end up talking about systems and doing system audits, and talking about the questions of what could be automated, what could be delegated?

[00:30:49] How do you take certain tasks off your plate so you’re able to focus on the areas where you really have an impact? And obviously tech helps hugely with this. It helps us automate. It helps our clients book themselves online. It helps them change their own appointments. So we don’t have to email back and forth.

[00:31:03] There’s AI tools to help you write your notes. There’s all of these things, but being curious about what is helpful to you, what aligns with you, what feels good, what doesn’t? But not turning a blind eye to what’s out there, but really looking at it, with wide open eyes and discerning what could be helpful for you to practice, and what do you want to leave to the wayside.

[00:31:22] But I do also love Amity’s call to action that if you do feel called to be part of this technology and be part of these conversations, there’s lots of ways that you can do that. And you are probably sitting on a bunch of expertise that would also make a great technological tool that would help to make a great app, right, or could be integrated with some of these biofeedback tools, for instance, to really help folks in this world.

[00:31:46] So also another area there that you can have a bigger impact in the world, if that’s something that you feel called to. So lots, lots of interesting pieces to chew on from this conversation today. If you’re enjoying the podcast, you might also enjoy some of my freebies. If you head over to moneynutsandbolts.Com, we have a resources page with lots of free resources. We’ve got some mini courses, we’ve got guides for almost anything private practice, finance related that might be challenging you. We have things on mindset and taxes and paychecks, giving yourself a regular salary. So head over to money, nuts and bolts.

[00:32:22] com and check out the resources tab, to grab yourself some beautiful free resources to keep yourself moving on this money journey. You can also follow me on Instagram at Money Nuts and Bolts, and you can watch this episode on YouTube. I keep saying it at the end. I should say at the beginning, but I’m saying at the end of this one, so you can remember for the next episode, all of our episodes are also on YouTube.

[00:32:44] So you can always check them out on video if you want to see our facial expressions. And if you want to see me drink a bunch of tea, which I always do during podcast recordings, and all of the hours of the day, you can do that on YouTube. Thank you so much for joining me today.

[00:00:00] Linzy: Hello and welcome back to another Feelings and Finances episode of the Money Skills for Therapists podcast. These are our short and sweet Friday episodes where I either answer questions from you, the listeners of the money skills for therapists podcast,or I share some other little like 10 minute nugget of financial wisdom for you to take into the weekend with you.

[00:00:21] So, today is our third part of the biggest mistakes that I made in my own private practice and this is my final mistake that came to mind for me. I’ve got some other things that I’m going to talk about in our next episode, that I did right that I’m really glad I did right but this is my third mistake and it’s… it’s a doozy. And it was not setting a sustainable fee.

[00:00:44] So, I remember when I went into private practice, part of going into private practice was that I was basically fleeing my agency. So I knew that I needed to quit my agency. I knew that my mental health couldn’t really do it any longer. I was going on a trip to see my brother, which gave me a natural transition point.

[00:01:03] I’ve used these natural transition points a few times in my career. This is one of them, where I knew I was going to go see my brother. That was really exciting and special. My brother lives on the other side of the country from me. And so I decided this would be a nice natural transition point to stop working at this agency.

[00:01:19] And then when I’m there, I don’t have to worry about work. And when I come back, I can start my practice. And I can step into my practice. So it was a nice little buffer going out west was going to give me. But that meant I had to act

[00:01:31] pretty quickly by the time I made that decision. I’m fairly sure I gave three weeks notice and then, of course, people are naturally asking, what are you going to do? I knew that I probably wanted to start a private practice, but mostly I just needed to tell people that I was doing something. I couldn’t just say I’m running out of here as fast as I possibly can.

[00:01:49] It was sensible that the next thing I would do was start my private practice. And because people were going to ask, I… It almost felt like pushing me into starting that private practice right away. Because I felt like I needed to have an explanation besides just like I needed to get the heck out of here.

[00:02:03] So I remember speaking with somebody in that agency who was older than me, had a lot more business experience and wisdom, and her advice to me was: don’t set your fee too high. She was like, don’t… Set it at like 90 an hour, like no more than that. And as somebody coming into private practice, I was like, yeah, that yeah, I shouldn’t ask for too much money.

[00:02:22] That would be bad. And so I didn’t quite take her advice, but I was pretty damn close, and I set my fee at 100 an hour.

[00:02:29] So this is about 10 years ago now. I believe I started my practice in 2013. So a hundred dollars an hour. Now, when I got into practice and I started working, a hundred dollars an hour doesn’t go very far if you’re like me, and you can’t see a lot of clients.

[00:02:46] I talked about this in the previous episode about the mistake that I made around scheduling, trying to see too many people, or trying to see people at the wrong time of day. I don’t have a huge capacity as a therapist. I know there are folks listening, and there’s folks that I’ve known, who can see 20-25 clients a week.

[00:03:03] That always blows my mind because my embodied response is the deep belief that I would drop into a coma if I did that. I just cannot understand, I cannot imagine, it is not at all within my capacity to see 25 clients a week. My maximum was 16, usually I did 16. Even better would be 12. So, when I set that 100 fee, as I started to build my practice, and I started to hit that natural limit of like, oh, I can’t really see more than 16 sessions a week, or I start to get exhausted, I had entered into a math equation that did not work.

[00:03:43] So I’m going to play with this math equation right now. if you’re watching on YouTube, you get the pleasure of watching me look at my phone calculator, which is sometimes my top used app, which is really geeky, and I’m kind of proud of that. But 100 an hour… so I’m going to put 100 an hour into my calculator right now.

[00:03:58] I’m going to put in 16 hours a week, which is me working full tilt. Probably 16 sessions for me would have also included some hour and a half session, so it’s probably something more like 18 hours of actual session work. But I’m going to make it a little bit less because, of course, my folks get sick. I get sick. People miss sessions.

[00:04:15] I’m going to multiply that by… I’m going to multiply it by 47. So that’s like four weeks actually off and then I’m going to give an extra week there for illness and people missing sessions. I’m just making the numbers a little more conservative. Actually I’m going to make it 46 because let’s be real. People don’t always show up, and there’s two weeks of normal holidays in any given year.

[00:04:37] And then if you’re actually going to take time off as well, or get sick, which is, you know, something that I like to do sometimes. Okay, so I’m going to do a hundred dollars an hour times 16 sessions a week times 46. These numbers are still probably optimistic. That makes my revenue for my practice for the year 73, 600, but that money couldn’t have all gone home to me.

[00:04:57] I was running a business. I had rent. I think my rent was about 850 a month at that time. So I’m going to multiply it by the normal Profit First amount of 0. 7 percent actually going to me. That’s assuming 30 percent goes to operating expenses. So now I’m like taking up the portion of the money that actually would have gone to running the business.

[00:05:15] And that puts my potential salary, if everything goes exactly to plan, at 51, 520. 51, 520, was a lot of money, in the 1980s. But now, and I’m increasingly seeing this working with therapists all over North America, that is no longer enough money to really have your needs met, in this modern age of inflation.

[00:05:43] So basically I had set up a practice that if everything went perfectly, and I took some time off and I was sick a little bit, but my clients basically showed up 95 percent of the time, I could only make about 50, 000 a year. That’s not enough. It’s not enough to be able to save up for a down payment.

[00:06:02] It’s not enough to be able to save for retirement. It’s certainly not enough if you have kids. And I have heard it said now that a middle class family, a true middle class income, now would be about 300, 000 a year. So each parent, if it’s a two income household, contributing about 150, 000 pre-tax each, puts you into a comfortable middle class. Life has gotten a lot more expensive.

[00:06:27] So in setting my fee at 100 an hour, because I didn’t want to charge too much and ruffle feathers, I set up a practice that could never actually really take care of me. And I felt that for several years, and for folks who have watched the masterclass, or worked with me in Money Skills for Therapists, you will have, you know, heard me talk about this, kind of reaching that limit and realizing this, this practice isn’t actually going to be able to take care of me.

[00:06:51] And so for me, eventually, doing some fee races was necessary to get me to the point that I could actually be okay. Right? Because being okay financially isn’t just about covering your needs today. It’s also about being able to actually save some money for the future. And with saving money for the future, with investing, the money that you save today is always more valuable than the money that you’re going to save two years from now.

[00:07:13] That is the magic of compound interest. And if you want to learn more about compound interest, you can check out my episode from last season with David Frank, where he helped to explain the difference between simple interest on investments and compound interest. Compound interest is powerful, and when we can put money away for retirement in our 20s and 30s and 40s, that money grows much more and goes much further than the money we’re going to put away in our 50s and 60s and 70s, right?

[00:07:38] So having a sustainable practice isn’t just about covering your bills now. It’s being able to put money into investments. It’s about being able to invest in a home. Real estate is another form of investment. And there’s, you know, debate about what’s better, but ultimately it’s generally a good thing to spread your money around.

[00:07:56] And for me setting that fee at a hundred dollars an hour was never going to get me there. And it was only when I started raising my fee –and this is about my personal expenses –once I started raising my fee to 150 and eventually 175, which is where I ended off my fee several years ago now, that I was actually making enough money that I could be well, show up for my clients and be the good therapist that I wanted to be and have my current needs covered,

[00:08:20] and the future. Setting up a practice at a hundred dollars an hour for me could never have done that, and didn’t do that. And I gradually made that change to get me to where I wanted to be, but I did it too slowly. I raised my fee. My first fee raise was 10, up to 110. You know, I thought I was going to barf.

[00:08:37] I thought everybody was going to fire me. Nobody did. But at the end of the day, that didn’t actually make the financial impact it needed to. It’s for me when I got into that 150, 175 range that my financial needs could actually be taken care of with the capacity that I had. So if you’re listening right now, and you’re wondering about your own fee,

[00:08:54] you can play with the numbers in a really light way, in the way that I just did. Just think about, okay, if most of your clients show up in a week, let’s not say all of them show up, though, how many hours a week is that that you can work? What is your hourly fee, or what is your hourly reimbursement from insurance

[00:09:08] if you’re an insurance panels? Multiply that by the amount of weeks in a year that you actually want to work, take away the money that it takes to run the business, and you’re going to see a number that is basically your potential salary. Is that salary enough to cover your needs for the place that you live?

[00:09:24] the specific situation of your family, your specific medical needs, saving for the future, kids’ education, retirement… Getting sober about that number is not fun, but if we’re not sober about it, then we are diluting ourselves, unfortunately. And when we can start to see what our fee actually means for our salary, for our cost of living, then we can start to make informed decisions about how to make the business actually take care of us, which I’m very passionate about.

[00:09:53] So, that is my big mistake that I made out the gate. and I wish that I had raised my fee sooner. It would have given me the compensation that I actually needed to take care of myself, doing that hard work that I was doing. If you have a question that you would like me to answer on one of these upcoming episodes of Feelings and Finances, all you need to do is click on the link in the show notes, or head over to our podcast page, you’ll see a little link, submit a question for Linzy. Just click on the record button, introduce yourself, give a little context, and record your question.

[00:10:23] And I should say, those questions are edited. So, if you are nervous about getting it right the first time, don’t worry about it. You can start recording, and you can pause, you can start over, you can re-record if you want to. But you can also just keep asking your question until it comes out right.

[00:10:39] Trust me, I did not record this podcast episode in one take. There are many edits that have happened to make me sound articulate. And we can do the same for you. Ashley, our editor, makes me sound articulate and like I don’t have to start over, which I do regularly. And she will do the same for you.

[00:10:56] So do not worry about getting it right on the first take, but I would love to hear your question, and I would love to answer it on an upcoming episode of Feelings and Finances. Thank you so much for joining me today.

[00:00:00] Tracey: I’m really kind of digging into my numbers, figuring out what makes sense to be paying my employees, and I want to look at where I can increase revenue 10%, cut expenses 10%, 5%, and kind of get to my sweet spot.

[00:00:29] Linzy: 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, Lindsay Bonham, therapist turned money coach and creator of the course Money Skills for Therapists.

[00:00:50] Hello and welcome back to the podcast.Today’s podcast episode is a coaching episode with listener Tracey Steger. Tracey is an acupuncturist. She owns a group practice with two associate acupuncturists. She also has some administrative staff. And today Tracey and I dig into a question that many, many, many of us have asked many times, which is, where is all my money going?

[00:01:12] So, even though Tracey’s business has grown, and they are seeing 65 to 70 clients a week between her whole team, there is not any money to show for it. So today Tracey and I dig into her numbers a little bit, but really at a hundred mile view. We really zoom out on her numbers, look really big picture to understand generally what’s happening with these numbers, identifying places to be curious, places to tweak.

[00:01:36] And something that Tracey and I dig into as well is when we have things not working in our businesses,it’s really easy to fall into these parts of us that are kind of these burn it down parts, right? Like really thinking about our escape fantasy, just burning it to the ground.

[00:01:51] This isn’t working. I should just go back to solo practice. I should drop out of this profession altogether. And something that Tracey and I explore is the fact that her numbers are actually closer to working than she thinks they are. And that’s the case for so many of us is when our numbers aren’t working,

[00:02:06] rarely is it actually the dumpster fire that we think it is. Usually there’s places to make tweaks. Right? Like little changes that will get you to the numbers that you want to see, right? The machine is generally set up well. It’s starting to tweak the way that that machine is working to give you different results.

[00:02:23] So we play with some of that, that curiosity and exploring where she can start to explore how tweaks can be made. A really important skill for all of us as we’re trying to assess what’s happening in our business. Here is my coaching episode with Tracey Steger.

[00:02:38] So Tracey, welcome to the podcast.

[00:02:49] Tracey: Thank you for having me.

[00:02:50] Linzy: Yeah. I’m so glad that you are here. So Tracey, let’s set a little bit of context for your practice and where you’re at, and then we can dig into what’s going to be most helpful for you today. So tell me a bit about your practice.

[00:03:04] Tracey: Yeah. So I own an acupuncture clinic in Maple Valley, which is just like an hour outside of Seattle. I’ve been in practice for 10 years now, and I currently have two acupuncture employees, one office manager, and then another part time front desk. And we see about like 75 to 80 patients a week.

[00:03:28] Linzy: Wow. Okay.

[00:03:29] Okay. Yep.

[00:03:30] Tracey: Quite a few.

[00:03:31] And I feel like as we’ve grown and we’re seeing more and more patients, that I feel like I have more and more expenses. And I’m at the point where I’m like, do I just go back to just me? Because that felt a lot easier in a lot of ways.

[00:03:47] Linzy: Okay. Okay. Yeah. So tell me about what would be helpful for us to zoom in on today. What is not working?

[00:03:52] Tracey: Definitely, like, I feel like we’re seeing more clients. We should be making more money. But then I feel like it’s getting lost

[00:04:03] Tracey: somewhere. There are some leaks somewhere.

[00:04:05] Linzy: Money is disappearing. Because we have this idea, naturally, that as your business grows, more money coming in the door means obviously there’d be more left. There should be more for the business, more for you. But I’m hearing that’s not, not what is happening.

[00:04:19] Tracey: Yes.

[00:04:20] Linzy: And you’re even considering like, should you just go back to just yourself?

[00:04:23] Tracey: I think about it. If I didn’t love my team so much, I would very much consider it because I, I just feel like it was easier and it was like, I see this many people a week. I make this much money and now that’s not the case.

[00:04:38] Linzy: Yeah, yeah, I think we all have our escape fantasies from the business model that we’ve built. Sometimes our escape fantasies are accurate, like it might actually be true that it would be more efficient for you to work alone. Sometimes they’re just like the things we tell ourselves would be better that maybe wouldn’t actually be better.

[00:04:54] I’ve had an escape fantasy before about working at the Costco bakery. I don’t think it would actually be better than what I do but I think it’s a nice place to work. they’ve got great benefits. So yeah, so it’s about, yeah, I’m hearing like your brain is turning to this like maybe I should just go back to how it was before. Yeah, okay. Okay, so 75 to 80 patients a week. So I’m curious, Tracey, right now, how, if at all, are you tracking your numbers? Like where do you know what money’s coming in, what money’s going out?

[00:05:24] Tracey: I kind of track through Jane, and then also in QuickBooks.

[00:05:27] Linzy: Okay, okay, so you’ve got your revenue in Jane then, your income, Jane being practice management software, and then you’ve got expenses in QuickBooks. So we do have those pools of information. How up to date is that information for you? Jane’s going to be up to date because you’re using it with patients.

[00:05:43] What about your QuickBooks?

[00:05:45] Tracey: It’s up to date.

[00:05:46] Linzy: So we have numbers. Do you want to look at numbers together? That would make me so happy. Okay. So you do have the ability to share your screen. you’ll see at the bottom, so you can take a minute to cue up your QuickBooks and cue up your Jane, and then we’ll poke around together.

[00:06:01] Tracey: Awesome. And do you want, like, the last month or year to date?

[00:06:09] Linzy: Let’s look at the first five months of this year. cause you probably don’t have like the month to date is not going to be a complete set of numbers yet. Do you think your main numbers are complete?

[00:06:21] Tracey: I think they are. Yeah, because my bookkeeper… We have closed the books through May.

[00:06:27] Linzy: So let’s look at January through May so we have a nice, like, five month snapshot.

[00:06:31] Tracey: Perfect. January to May.

[00:06:34] Linzy: And you know what? Actually, let’s do December through May, because then we catch the holidays. Let’s look at the low times, too.

[00:06:41] Right?

[00:06:42] Tracey: Let’s do it.

[00:06:43] Linzy: So that gives us a nice six month period to look at.

[00:06:46] Tracey: Cool.

[00:06:47] Linzy: Okay, beautiful. So we’re in your QuickBooks now, which is where your expenses are captured, and we’ve made a six month picture, right?

[00:06:55] We’re looking from December to May, so we’re catching the holidays, right? Like, sometimes we like to exclude the downtimes when we’re thinking about numbers, because they’re not as fun.

[00:07:02] Tracey: I know. 

[00:07:03] Linzy: But they are important. They are part of the picture all the way till May. So we’ve got a good six month period, which is, as we’re starting to get to know your numbers, that is a good amount of time to start to look at, to have a zoomed out perspective of like between higher months and lower months, what starts to look normal and average, right? So I see in that time there was 164, 000 of money coming in that quickbooks knows about which is probably going to be money coming in minus like your processing fees for jane like credit card fees

[00:07:32] Tracey: Yeah. There’s all these expenses.

[00:07:35] Linzy: Then there’s all yeah, go and go. Okay, so let’s take a look. We’re gonna do, a bit of an analysis here just to see, yeah, what’s going where from a really big picture perspective, right? Like, these are numbers that obviously are much larger than what you have to look at on a monthly basis, but they let us see Again, between those highs and lows, how do things work out?

[00:07:53] So, that very top number, if you can go to the top again, Tracey, I’m going to grab the number coming in the door. So in that period of time, you had 164,341 in revenue. So that’s money coming in the door. It’s probably after credit card processing fees, but that’s fine. That’s what you have to work with.

[00:08:09] So, Then we’re going to go down. Does that seem low or high? Are you pausing on that?

[00:08:15] Tracey: Oh I was… I think that’s without.

[00:08:18] Linzy: Okay. It’s before.

[00:08:19] Tracey: The way I do it, I add it back in as income and then it out.

[00:08:22] Linzy: Great. Okay. So you’ve got that in there. Okay, great. yeah. So when we go down here, then let’s look at your expenses. So your expenses, we have like supplies, which for acupuncture is something additional. That’s an additional thing that you have to pay for as somebody who uses supplies in your work.

[00:08:39] So we’ve got supplies, advertising. I see that there’s some tax paid there. Like that’s a business, business tax…

[00:08:46] Tracey: you know? Okay. Yeah. We’ve got insurances. Okay. Not a lot though. 

[00:08:55] Linzy: This is just like your overall practice insurance. Some interest paid, probably on like a credit card.

[00:08:58] Tracey: Yes, that’s another…

[00:08:59] Linzy: Okay, yep, yep, that’s in the mix. Okay, so I’m going to pull those expenses out separately from payroll because then we have payroll down below, right? So if you scroll down to the bottom of this

[00:09:09] section, there we go, total expenses. So I’m just going to take those total expenses, and looking at that number, I can see why money’s not feeling great because this is a bigger number

[00:09:19] than the number at the top. So we’re going to look into that in a second. So it’s 172, 325. I’m just going to subtract what I see there as your staff expenses, right? because you’ve got those in a separate little section. So I see here that your operating expenses, like the money to run the business, is 50,693 for that six month period.

[00:09:42] Your payroll expenses are 121, 623. Okay, let’s just scroll down and just see if there’s anything else on here.yep, so it’s showing a net loss in that time of 8, 000. Does that ring true? Is that your lived experience?

[00:10:01] Tracey: It is, and this, like, December, January, February, I actually had, let go of an employee and hired somebody else in November and it took us like four months to get her credentialed with all of our insurance panels, so things are looking brighter currently, but, this is still…

[00:10:23] Linzy: This captures that period of time where there was a new practitioner that you were building her caseload. Okay. Okay.

[00:10:29] yeah, Okay. So when we look at this, just to give a general sense of numbers, again, this is a nice zoomed out perspective. It’s good to hear that you know your numbers are trending in a better direction now.

[00:10:39] But let’s just take a look at… to answer this question. Where’s the money going? Why does it feel like you have no money? So when I take your operating expenses and I divide it by the money coming in the door, your revenue, your operating expenses are about 30, I’m going to say 31%, it’s 30. 8%. So 31 percent for OPEX is pretty good.

[00:11:00] Like that’s pretty typical, for operating expenses. Do you have a space that you rent? I would assume so, yes. Virtual acupuncture, not a thing. Yeah.

[00:11:08] Tracey: Not a thing.

[00:11:09] Linzy: Okay, yes, okay, So including all of that, when I look at your staff expenses, I see 121, 623. I’m going to divide that by the number coming in the top, and I see that that’s 74 percent.

[00:11:24] Tracey: Mm hmm. And that includes myself on payroll as well.

[00:11:29] Linzy: Yeah, so that’s you, too.

[00:11:30] So, that’s that 8, 000 loss is that in period time. It’s like you spend 105 percent of what came in the door in this particular period. That happens sometimes just to put that in context, like there’s going to be periods in the business where more is going out the door for various reasons rather than coming in.

[00:11:46] But in the six month period, that’s how those numbers shook out. So let’s zoom in on staff. and your staff expenses. Tell me more about how you’ve structured your, payroll.

[00:11:58] Yeah. So my employees… Well, the office manager and the front desk are paid hourly.

[00:12:06] The acupuncturists are paid a base hourly rate plus a bonus per patient.

[00:12:13] Linzy: Okay. So tell me about their base rate and the bonus per patient.

[00:12:17] Tracey: So, for the acupuncturist, it’s 20 base rate. I just felt like, you know, if there’s cancellations I felt weird about people being in my office without being paid if they’re, even if there wasn’t patients. So that’s our base. And then for, first acupuncture visit, it’s 40 as a bonus.

[00:12:38] And then for return visits, it’s 25.

[00:12:41] Linzy: Okay.

[00:12:42] Tracey: Bonus.

[00:12:43] Linzy: Okay. So the 20 base rate, is that an hourly rate? Is that what you mean?

[00:12:47] Tracey: Yes.

[00:12:48] Linzy: So like if I’m in the office for five hours, I’m going to get a hundred dollars for being there.

[00:12:53] Tracey: If nobody shows up.

[00:12:53] Linzy: Even if nobody shows up. Okay. Okay. So, I’m curious, like, tell me what led you to set up that particular model. I’m hearing you felt bad.

[00:13:03] Tracey: Yeah, I set it up that way because I did, and I haven’t really done this, but if there was downtime to then have other tasks that they could do, if that makes sense. And then also to have time, so like they could, spend 30 minutes finishing up their charts at the end of the day and still have that as part of the payment.

[00:13:24] Linzy:Okay.

[00:13:24] Tracey: The idea then is you’ve built a base rate so that they could be doing other things. It’s like you don’t want them to be like, wasting their time, hanging out at the office, I’m hearing. but that this hasn’t necessarily always happened that that other work has been found.

[00:13:38] Yeah, I mean, they’ve been consistently busy enough

[00:13:44] to where that, hasn’t been an issue, yeah, and I think the, one of the bigger, like, overarching issues is, like, me wanting to pay a living wage, and we’re 75 percent

[00:13:56] insurance. And just declining reimbursement rates.

[00:14:00] Linzy: Because this is what I’m wondering is, how do these numbers shake out? Like what, do you get reimbursed by an insurance company for an acupuncture session?

[00:14:08] Tracey: I mean, on average, for a return visit, so I averaged, like, all of the visits for new and return all together, it’s 100 per visit.

[00:14:17] Linzy: Okay.

[00:14:20] Tracey: If they see people back to back, they can see three people in one hour.

[00:14:26] Linzy: So it’s a hundred dollars a visit and they could have up to three visits in an hour.

[00:14:32] Tracey: Essentially there is, yeah. So it ends up being like, I think like two and a half in one hour. Cause we see people on the 20.

[00:14:40] Linzy: Yes. Okay. Okay. Yes. So yeah, two and a half in an hour. So like, it sounds to me like there’s actually pretty high earning potential for folks if they’re full. Yeah. So I’m curious then, with this, like, have you run the numbers to see for one of your average employees, how much they end up bringing in in say a month and then how much gets paid, first of all, directly to them.

[00:15:02] Tracey: I haven’t done that.

[00:15:05] Linzy: Because with this, what I’m hearing, Tracey, and this is something that I so appreciate and admire and also very much relate to, is like, you don’t want to be an exploitative employer. Right? And I don’t want you to be that either. Right? So you’ve set it up to try to

[00:15:17] make sure that you are thinking about the value of your folks’ time and making sure that they are getting paid a living wage, not just like a scraping by wage.

[00:15:25] And that is totally doable as long as the money coming in the door can cover that, right? And so like, generally speaking, when we’re looking at group practices, for the wage, like for the payroll for your employee, we usually don’t want to see an employee’s payroll being more than like 55-60 percent of what they are bringing in.

[00:15:50] Right. So that’s a guideline. That’s not a hard and fast rule, but it’s like a starting point. Like if you run the numbers and it’s 75%, then we know like, okay, this is where the problem is because the money that they bring in the door, it has to pay them, but it also has to pay for expenses in the business.

[00:16:05] And then there also has to be something left over to pay you and your administrative staff is part of that business. Right. So you also have an administrative team. So it’s kind of like with that one person’s wages,, our general focus as an employer is making sure that they get paid, but also your admin team needs to get paid.

[00:16:23] The bills need to get paid. And you need to get paid for your leadership work, right? Like for that CEO, hopefully CFO, chief financial officer work that you’re doing that you’re not getting paid to see a patient because you are working on running the clinic instead, right? So there’s like a lot of work that those dollars have to do. And something that i’d be curious about is right now what work are those dollars doing, right?

[00:16:48] So taking time to look at your employees. This is a complicated equation. I’m going to tell you that. We have a tool in Money Skills for Group Practice Owners, which is our group practice course, which is extremely robust and complex that helps you think through, like, okay, this is how much the overhead is for everybody.

[00:17:05] We’re going to divide it between all the employees. So, each employee, if they are paying in equally, has to cover like 600 bucks to run the office before anything else even happens, right? And then they have to pay 500 towards the admin team wages, right? And then the money that’s left gets divided between them and some profit going back to the business, which is the oxygen of the business, right?

[00:17:27] And so when we set up our numbers, it’s not easy to think it through this way, and it’s not fun, but this is the work that these dollars have to do, right? So I’m thinking, for you, that would be a next step. Another wondering that I have is your admin team overhead. Like, how much is your admin team costing per month?

[00:17:45] How much are those folks getting paid?

[00:17:48] Tracey: My office manager is getting paid 27 an hour and then the other, like, front desk super part time is 23 an hour.

[00:18:00] Linzy: And so how many hours a week are those folks working, or how much are you paying them a month?

[00:18:04] Tracey: That’s a good question. Maybe like 30 hours a week.

[00:18:08] Linzy: Okay. For your, your full time admin or between both? Okay. 30.

[00:18:13] Tracey: Kind of between both. My super part time just restarted and she’s taking some hours from the other admin.

[00:18:20] Linzy: So she’s taking some work off their plate. Okay. 

[00:18:25] Tracey: Maybe 30, 35 hours a week total.

[00:18:29] Linzy: So would we say 30 is for your main admin and then five for your front desk, something like that.

[00:18:35] Tracey: We could say that for now. Yeah.

[00:18:37] Linzy: Cause this is another piece for us to look at, right, is, these support teams are so important, and also, they add up, right? And so it’s just making sure that we’ve built the numbers away, that there’s enough money for them to get paid.

[00:18:49] So, 30 hours a week at 27 hours, if I multiply that by 4 weeks, and I’m doing 4 instead of 4. 33 to make it more conservative, assuming that they’re sick sometimes, or they take a day off. So your admin then would be, her base wage is 3240 a month before any taxes. Is she a contractor or an

[00:19:09] Tracey: employee?

[00:19:09] Mm hmm.

[00:19:11] Linzy: Okay, yeah, so before those extra, taxes that you pay, and any other benefits you have for her, and then your front desk at 23 hours a week, times 5 times 4, is 460 a month. So those two positions together are, 3240, 3700, and between taxes and benefits, I would probably add another, 10 percent to that, So if we do that just for So you’re probably looking at 4, 070 a month for your admin team.

[00:19:42] Tracey: Okay.

[00:19:43] Linzy: Does that number make sense?

[00:19:45] Tracey: Yeah, that feels right.

[00:19:47] Linzy: Yeah. And if we just look at that number, like I’m just going to take that number. You can really dig into your real numbers and really see. I’m kind of trying to get like that zoomed out.

[00:19:55] We’re getting the hundred mile view, right? So if I look at over six months, you’d be paying your admin team 24,420. If I divide that by your revenue for a six month period. Then your admin team is about 15 percent of your expenses.

[00:20:13] Tracey: Okay.

[00:20:14] Linzy: Which I would say is a bit high.

[00:20:17] Not that you can’t stay there, but it does make me wonder about what would happen to your numbers if you were able to add another practitioner.

[00:20:25] Tracey: Yes.

[00:20:26] Linzy: The beauty of an admin team is they allow practitioners to be supported and just focus on their work and like they run the show. And when you add another practitioner, chances are that’s not going to mean you have to add many admin hours if any at all, right? Just adding one more person, but you’re adding one more person into the team to generate that revenue to pay for everybody, right?

[00:20:47] It’s kind of like your group practice together. It’s like you’re all pulling money into a pot that has to take care of everybody. It’s kind of like you have to tip out the kitchen, right? Like if you work at a restaurant. That’s kind of like your admin team. They’re doing that behind the scenes work, but enough money has to be getting generated that they are also getting paid.

[00:21:02] Paid, right? And there is sustainability there. So

[00:21:05] Tracey: Yeah. That makes sense.

[00:21:06] Linzy: As I’m thinking about this, Tracey, like there’s numbers here for you to run and play with. Something that I’m curious about is as you’re thinking through this, like, what are you noticing about thinking about like diving into these numbers in a more focused way and seeing what’s happening?

[00:21:21] Tracey: Yeah, I am kind of excited to see, I think, I mean, adding another practitioner would be great. It’s more of like a timing of, you know, we only have so many rooms, so really only one person can be there at a time, but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t have, you know, hours into the evening if we wanted to expand there a little bit. And also, maybe this is different for a therapist, but I feel like 15 percent sounds pretty good. Like, just knowing everything that my office manager does, you know? Like, laundry, insurance billing, you Yeah, for sure. Yes.

[00:22:05] Everything. So that actually, like, to me, I’m like, okay, that makes sense.

[00:22:09] Linzy:Yeah, and with these numbers because like, as we look at this, there’s ranges on what a healthy practice’s numbers look like, right? But generally speaking, your staff is more around 65%, right? You’re at 74 percent right now. Your OpEx could stay about the same, frankly. But it’s like, We look at what tweaks to get you to that place where it’s just like that little bit more breathing room because right now I’m hearing you don’t have breathing room.

[00:22:36] Linzy: There’s nothing left over. In fact, it’s been the opposite where you’re actually losing. So all this money is coming in the door, but it’s actually going out faster than it’s coming in. So I can completely understand why you have this thought of going back to solo practice where it’s simple.

[00:22:51] Because with group practice, what I have found, Tracey, is there’s these sweet spots. There are certain sweet spots where a certain combination of numbers works and it’s not always necessarily more is better, right? Because as you say, if you brought on three more practitioners, you would run out of space.

[00:23:05] Right. Right. You’d have to move into a bigger office. Right now we’re looking at more expenses, and you would probably have to bring on more admin team. So it’s like, as you say, it’s like the revenue goes up, but your expenses would also go up, right? So it’s looking at where you are right now, what are some of the tweaks that you can make to bring up that revenue a little bit or bring down some of your team expenses a little bit, you know, without doing anything kind of drastic?

[00:23:30] Are there some little tweaks you can do there?

[00:23:33] Tracey: I mean, definitely considering, I mean, not with the contracts that are in place now, but if I was to hire another person…

[00:23:40] Linzy: Mm hmm. Yes.

[00:23:41] Tracey: like instead of just making up numbers that I decide I’m going to pay them to actually look at the numbers and maybe go just based on a percentage of what they bring in.

[00:23:52] Linzy: Mm hmm. Yes.

[00:23:54] Tracey: Versus the hourly plus the bonus.

[00:23:56] Linzy: Because sometimes, too, what I notice is like when we have these more complex systems, it’s like we’re really trying hard to be fair. Right? Like you’ve really thought about how to be fair. Like you want to make sure they’re not wasting their time. You want to make sure they’re rewarded for a new client.

[00:24:10] You want to make sure that they’re also paid for everybody they see. So you’ve got this blend of like a base rate, so there’s a bottom that’s safe, but also they’re getting rewarded for working more, which speaks to, you know, you really being thoughtful and trying to really set up a system that takes care of your team.

[00:24:27] But sometimes at the end of the day, a simpler system actually just works better. Right? In terms of even for them.

[00:24:33] Tracey: Yeah.

[00:24:34] Linzy: Because I’m curious for you, what kind of bandwidth is involved in running payroll and keeping track of who’s owed what?

[00:24:42] Tracey: Yeah. I mean, I have a system down now with a spreadsheet and I just go through the Jane schedule and kind of count up the different types of appointments.

[00:24:51] Linzy: Okay.

[00:24:52] Tracey: And it’s not

[00:24:53] too bad.

[00:24:54] Linzy: You’ve got a system. Music to my ears. Yes, yes. So as we’re thinking about this, like what I would be curious as you’re looking at your practitioners is, is there a way for revenue to go up like 10 percent in the practice, right? That would be one place where if you have wiggle that creates that profit, right?

[00:25:12] Is there a place for expenses to come down a little bit? A little bit of wiggle. Is there a spot to add another practitioner? Now adding practitioners also adds more of what we call like, base expenses, right? So when you add somebody, for instance, you’re using Jane, which I love very much. So you are going to have to add another user on Jane, right?

[00:25:32] And like, you’re gonna have to pay for another person on your payroll. So there are expenses that show up as soon as we hire somebody, regardless of how much money we make. And this is why onboarding. can be costly, right? So it’s thinking about this, too. It’s not always necessarily adding a new person that actually tends to be the more expensive option when you already have a team.

[00:25:49] But it’s like, yeah, is there a little bit of wiggle room there, where you can encourage folks to take one more client or you make a new partnership and you maybe change the schedule around a little bit. So there’s room for a couple more clients a week, just starting to be curious as to where there’s a little bit of room because your, your numbers, they are not working now.

[00:26:07] But also they’re not like dumpster fire numbers. You know what I mean? Like they’re close, they’re close to working. So it’s starting to be curious about what are the little things you can do to tip them over to that point where you are now profitable. and right now it’s like, you’re off by, basically you’re off by 15%.

[00:26:24] Right. Cause you like, you had like a minus 5 percent over that period of time. We want to see a plus 10%. So you just need to be 15 percent more efficient.

[00:26:33] Tracey: I think kind of going after the patients that owe us

[00:26:38] Linzy: money

[00:26:38] Mm hmm.

[00:26:39] Tracey: more aggressively. I struggle with that a lot. And then I think maybe looking into I mean, I have a bookkeeper and I’m honestly really not totally sure what she does that I pay 355 a month for.

[00:26:56] Linzy: Great question. Yep. Yeah. Starting to look critically at those things. And I will say for that piece around client payments, like having to chase folks, there’s also maybe some curiosity that you could have there around your systems. Can you keep cards on file?

[00:27:10] Do folks get charged when they arrive at their appointment, Or charged automatically at the end? Like how do you streamline? or is it copays that you’re owed?

[00:27:18] Tracey: Mostly like when we haven’t heard from insurance and they end up owing like fully deductible, and then they are not clients anymore and…

[00:27:27] Linzy: yes, yes. So having a policy for that, like anticipating that, right? Because that’s one of those things where it happens enough times you’re like, Oh, this isn’t a fluke. This is going to happen. So having a policy around having card on file, you know, like figuring out what

[00:27:39] makes sense. Yes. Beautiful. And then you just inform folks, Hey, this is what you were owed. Thank you so much for your service. We are charging a card on file as per our policy. You know, we look forward to seeing you again, like making that a neutral part of your business because those accounts receivable, that money that you’re owed also is going to be part of this picture.

[00:27:55] Right. At this point, it sounds like you can’t really afford to have money out there that’s supposed to be in the business.

[00:28:01] Tracey: Right. Yeah. And I feel like it could be that. I mean, at least 5%.

[00:28:06] Linzy: Yeah. Which puts you to the break even, right? And then there’s just like that 10 percent to find to put you into profitability and have those buffers, extra money starting to build up rather than money disappearing.

[00:28:17] Tracey: Mm hmm. Yes.

[00:28:20] Linzy: So Tracey, this has been quite a zoomed out conversation because there’s like a lot here. What are you taking away from our conversation today? What do you see as your next steps?

[00:28:29] Tracey: Really kind of digging into my numbers, figuring out what makes sense to be paying my employees.And I want to look at where I can increase revenue 10%, cut expenses 10%, 5%, and kind of get to my sweet spot.

[00:28:49] Linzy: Beautiful. Yeah. I think you are much closer than you think you are. And we always have those parts of us that are like, burn it down, run away. But at this point, I don’t think that point, like that part of you has enough evidence to actually do that. I think…

[00:29:03] Tracey: I know, yeah. And I, like, another part of the puzzle is like, I actually, I only am in the office and see clients like one and a quarter days a week so I can be home with my

[00:29:16] kids, so like, that’s really important.

[00:29:20] Linzy: Yes. And that’s all part of the picture, right? And that’s also something that will change as your kids get older. They won’t want to hang out so much. They won’t need you quite as much. But yeah, as you’re thinking about this chapter of your life too, it’s like, yeah, how do you just set up this business so that it’s paying you enough?

[00:29:33] Cause you’re also getting paid in time freedom, right? In time with your kids that you can’t get back, which is also extremely valuable.

[00:29:39] Well, thank you so much, Tracey, for coming on the podcast today.

[00:29:42] Tracey: Thank you.

[00:29:43] My conversation with Tracey reminded me both of the complexity and simplicity of group practice finances. On one hand, all of the different tiny decisions that we make add up to give us this specific result. And there’s so many places that we can make tweaks, right? We can make tweaks in terms of our policies on how many clients our employees need to be seeing to be considered part time or full time, right?

[00:30:16] Linzy: Like, what does a caseload look like? What does full mean? We can make tweaks in terms of how they’re getting paid. As Tracey talked about, she could look at tweaking instead of an hourly base pay with an extra wage on top for every client, she could look at doing a split, right?

[00:30:28] There is all of these places to make changes where a small change can sometimes make a big difference, and this is why we have Money Skills to Group Practice Owners, and a team tool that we have in that that lets you really get into those granular details because sometimes it’s the smallest tweak that suddenly makes your numbers work.

[00:30:45] So on one hand there’s like that complexity and it can feel very opaque, trying to figure out how to fix something in a business that has that many moving parts. On the other hand, there is this simplicity, right? It’s like we look at her numbers from a big picture perspective. We see, yeah, you know, a hundred and a five percent of what it was earned was spent.

[00:31:01] So that’s why there’s this 8, 000 loss. This is why it feels like there’s no money because there’s no money, but we know generally speaking that we want to see, you know, our wages around 65%. So how can you look at bringing that down? Or how do you look at bringing up your revenue enough, so that you hit more of that 65 percent number?

[00:31:17] There’s also these zoomed out views that we can take that let us know where to start, right? So there’s so many places to intervene and I’m excited for Tracey as she digs into her own numbers and spends time with them and starts to see where can some tweaks be made to make up that 15 percent difference and get her to that profitable place where the business will have oxygen and actual money left over.

[00:31:37] If you’re also a group practice owner, and you are feeling overworked and underpaid in your group practice, I do want to mention my free opt in for group practice owners. It’s called, fittingly, How to Stop Feeling Overworked and Underpaid in Your Group Practice. It’s a free guide that empowers group practice owners to feel calm and in control of their finances.

[00:31:56] So if you are a group practice owner who also feels like you’re working harder than ever in your group practice and worrying about money and feeling that weight of paying not only yourself but an entire team, if you’re ready to take action and become the empowered financial leader of your business, then you should check out this free guide.

[00:32:11] I will put the link for it in the show notes. It’s how to stop feeling overworked and underpaid in your group practice. You can follow me on Instagram at Money Nuts and Bolts. And if you’re enjoying the podcast, it’s super helpful if you can tell your colleagues, It could be folks in other professions.

[00:32:25] If you’re a psychotherapist, and you have a great friend who’s an acupuncturist like Tracey is, tell your other folks that you know in the health practitioner fields about the podcast so they can be part of these conversations, too. Thank you so much for listening today.

[00:00:00] Linzy: Hello and welcome back to another Feelings and Finances episode of the Money Skills for Therapists podcast. These are our short and sweet Friday episodes where I either answer a question from you, the listeners of the money skills for therapist podcast, or I share a little nugget, just a little short takeaway, about private practice and finances for you to take into the weekend.

[00:00:22] And today’s episode is one of the latter.Today, I’m going to talk about the second of the big mistakes that I made in my own private practice. And that mistake is one that pains me to think back on, because this is a really important thing for me and what I need is it was setting a schedule that did not actually suit my needs. So, there’s a few elements to this mistake for me.

[00:00:48] One was trying to see too many clients. That’s a big deal for me. And then the second piece is seeing clients at a time that didn’t really actually work for what I needed as a practitioner. So number one, seeing too many clients. When I was in private practice, there was this idea in my head. that a full caseload, you know, for a full time practitioner was like 18 or 20, something like that, right?

[00:01:14] So it’s like four clients a day, five days a week. I knew that if I did more than four sessions a day I tended to basically be a zombie afterwards. My partner would comment on this. If I had done a day where I, you know, tried to squish somebody in, fit in an extra appointment because I couldn’t get somebody somewhere else, and if this is, something that’s relevant to you, you might want to listen back to the previous Feelings and Finances episode about setting a regular appointment system and how I wish I’d done that way sooner.

[00:01:39] One of the costs of not having a regular appointment systemis trying to squish people in here and there, so that you can still see them in a given week. And whenever I would schedule a day that had even five sessions, I would deeply pay for it. Like, I energetically did not have it.

[00:01:57] It was not in me. I would basically be depleting myself emotionally and I would get home and be a zombie, basically. This is something that I did before I had kids.

[00:02:07] When I became a parent, I had to really take an audit of how much work was generally costing me emotionally. And at that point I actually had to realize that I couldn’t be the parent that I wanted to be and continue doing the clinical work I was doing. But, this is an even more pronounced version of that which is kind of playing with my own limits and overstepping my own limits in terms of how many clients I could see.

[00:02:30] So for me, four clients a day, I would have called it my sweet spot. My partner would tell you adamantly that it was actually three. If I saw three clients in a day, which might be like an hour and a half session and two one hour sessions, so let’s say three and a half hours of sessions or maybe even four hours of sessions.

[00:02:46] But if it was only three people, when I got home, I still had energy in the tank. I could still be playful and want to make dinner and maybe want to do something. But when I would see more than four clients a day, it was at great cost to myself. And it’s one of those lessons that I had to learn over and over and over again, like so many humans, where, you know, I hadn’t done it for a while.

[00:03:09] I hadn’t seen a five client day in a while, so I would do it again just to remember exactly why I didn’t do it, which is, it’s so emotionally exhausting for me. I would pay for it on many levels. So that was one thing. Overbooking myself. Trying to see too many clients in a day or too many clients in a week. On weeks where I would have 18 sessions, I would go into the weekend very, very depleted.

[00:03:30] Like I kind of gave away all my goodness throughout the week. and then the weekend I would just spend basically recovering. I used to have what I called nothing days. This is before I was a parent. Not an option anymore. But I would have nothing days where I would just basically zone out for half a day, like just like watch Netflix all morning.

[00:03:47] mostly I think it was probably watching Netflix if I reflect on it, but where I would basically be going into like a hypo arousal, like, you know, it was rest, but it was rest because I was depleted, to try to just get back to some level of functioning again. As a parent now, I can’t do that. So I have to be a lot more thoughtful about my energy in general.

[00:04:05] The other thing that I wish I had done sooner, a mistake that I made, was seeing clients outside of the hours where I was really actually a good therapist. So seeing clients in the evenings, trying to accommodate evening sessions, you know, catch people when they were done with work, because it worked better for them, obviously, it was more convenient for them.

[00:04:25] It felt like an easier way to get a client to say like, sure, yeah, I’ll see you at 530 when you’re done work. But for me, this is a joke that I still make… And it’s a joke, and it’s also true. I’m pretty dumb in the evening. I really run out of cognitive energy as I get into the evening, and at a certain point I started to realize that even my 4:30 sessions were not getting the same quality from me

[00:04:47] as my daytime sessions, right? So yes, I was able to see these folks. I was able to fit them into my schedule. We were able to have a clinical relationship, which was great, but I definitely was not my best. Like they were not getting the best of me. And I was tired, and I was kind of ready to go home.

[00:05:02] But I had committed to doing like really vulnerable, important work with somebody instead, right? And it’s never good for us and it’s never good for our clients if we don’t want to be there. If you’re exhausted and you are already thinking about dinner or thinking about a phone call you need to make later that night, you are not giving somebody your best service, and

[00:05:22] they would probably actually be better served by even somebody else rather than us when we are in that state. So, stretching myself beyond my schedule limits and trying to see too many clients cost me a lot of energy over the years. It made therapy into something that was burdensome emotionally, because I was giving too much of myself away.

[00:05:44] And as I started to be more honest with myself about my limits and, of course, having a full caseload allowed me to do this more easily, right? Because I did have enough demand, and I had a wait list. When I got to that point and I could actually reflect on what actually works for me, I had to accept the fact that I really

[00:06:04] was not doing well on any sessions after 4 p. m. Like 4 p. m. was actually my last spot of the day, and for my last couple years of being a therapist, that was my last appointment slot of the day, right? I did four sessions a day I had two in the morning two in the afternoon or maybe one long one in the morning three in the afternoon, always had a lunch break, and my last session finished at 5, when I still was giving quality, quality therapy to somebody.

[00:06:30] I wasn’t bending myself to try to accommodate them, and in doing so actually giving them worse service and exhausting myself. So, for folks who are listening, if you’re finding yourself in this schedule trap, I know it can be a tough one to unwind from… There’s all sorts of stories and scarcity thinking and objections that can come up internally.

[00:06:51] But at the very least, I would encourage you to be honest with yourself about, are you actually doing your best work? If you’re seeing six or seven clients a day, is client six or client seven getting the same quality of work as client two or three? What is the cost to you emotionally of the schedule that you have set in terms of quality?

[00:07:11] In terms of quantity of sessions, and also in terms of the timing of your sessions? AndI’m a big fan of incrementalism in general. So if you’re not in a space where you’re ready to make some big move around no longer working evenings or something like that, are there little changes that you can make that would start to give you your energy back?

[00:07:30] Let you have more energy for your life, and also let you see yourself doing really good work. I think that one of the things that can contribute to therapists having a hard time thinking about charging the fee that they actually need to be well is If we don’t feel great about our work, if we see ourselves feeling burnt out and depleted, it’s hard to value it.

[00:07:50] And you’re probably still making a very big positive impact in your client’s lives, but you’re certainly not thriving, right? And you’re not feeling yourself really in that, that zone of being really good at the work and enjoying the work. Because when we are depleted, when we’re overextending ourselves, we are doing the work, but we’re doing so at great cost to ourselves.

[00:08:09] So if you are in that space, I would encourage you to think about how do you start to tweak your schedule a little bit, you know, take away one or two evening sessions, see a couple less clients, give yourself a light Friday. What can you do to start to get more of a taste of what a balanced schedule would feel like for you.

[00:08:25] So you can start to give some energy back to yourself, back to your life. And in doing so your clients will actually get better care from you. So it is a win win, and it is something that I wish I had done much, much earlier in my own practice. If you have a question for me for one of our Feelings and Finances episodes, all you need to do is click on the link in the show notes, or head over to our podcast page and you just, you’ll see a little button there.

[00:08:50] It says, do you have a question for Linzy? Or something like that… You just need to click the button, share your name, share a little bit of context, and share your question. And I would be happy to answer your specific private practice finances question, whether it’s more emotional, more practical, more technical, on one of our upcoming episodes of Feelings and Finances.

[00:09:11] Thank you so much for joining me today.