Mistakes Made and Lessons Learned: Building a Sustainable Group Practice

Gordon Brewer [00:00:00]: 

Now, I think there’s this unspoken stigma around money in that if you are making a lot of money or you’re doing well financially, then you’re not being generous, then you’re not being helpful because you’re keeping too much for yourself. You’re being selfish, you’re being greedy. All of those kinds of things are kind of embedded in that self talk and that self story that we tell ourselves. 

Linzy Bonham [00:00:29]: 

Welcome to Money Skills for Therapy , the podcast that helps therapists and health practitioners in private practice go from money confusion and shame to calm clarity and confidence with their finances. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by numbers or avoided looking at your business money, you’re in the right place. I’m Linzy Bonham, therapist turned money coach and creator of Money Skills for Therapy ists. Before we jump in, check out my free On Demand masterclass. You’ll find the link in the show notes or@moneynutsandbolts.com under masterclass. It’s the best first step to finally feeling empowered with money in your private practice. Let’s get started. Hello and welcome back to the podcast. 

Linzy Bonham [00:01:07]: 

Before we get into today’s episode, I wanted to share a review. The review says, Great podcast. Five stars. Linzy’s positive, competent and supportive style provides a framework to understand private practice finances and explore what holds you back for being as successful as you can be. Thank you so much Dr. M. Ivey for your review. I so appreciate you taking the time and for your kind words. 

Linzy Bonham [00:01:32]: 

And I think Dr. M. Ivey, you’re going to find today’s episode also very helpful when it comes to exploring what’s holding you back from being as successful as you can be. Today’s guest is Gordon Brewer. Gordon is lmft. He is a group practice owner in Tennessee and he is also the person behind the practice of therapy, the podcast and courses. And today, Gordon and I talk about mistakes that has made along the way of building his group practice. We dig into concepts of the difference between nice and being kind. 

Linzy Bonham [00:02:06]: 

We talk about stories around generosity and some of his own money stories that came into his early days of building his group practice specifically. But we also talk about how these things show up in all these different facets of our relationship with money. And we also talk about his having to change course and fix these mistakes and how he did that and what it was like to do that because we are all going to make mistakes when we are building our practices. I make mistakes all the time. Probably made some mistakes just within the last month and that is part of building a Business. So much of our success as business owners has to do with being able to stop, identify a mistake that is being made, and sometimes having to take big action to rectify it. So Gordon shares about his own experience of having to do that, what it took, how he did it. And I hope in that you will find inspiration today in being able to stop and identify maybe some of the mistakes you’re making right now and take action to actually change them, because that is what allows us to be successful in our private practices. 

Linzy Bonham [00:03:11]: 

Here is my conversation with Gordon Brewer. So, Gordon, welcome to the podcast. 

Gordon Brewer [00:03:22]: 

Well, it’s good to be here. Thanks for having me, Linzy. 

Linzy Bonham [00:03:25]: 

Yeah, I’m very excited to have you here. I had the pleasure of being on your podcast recently, recording with you, and it was one of those lovely things to connect with somebody whose name I’ve heard for years, and then to meet you and to have you be just as lovely as, you know, like, I, you know, as the folks who I’ve met said, it’s always nice to meet other folks who are supporting therapists and, you know, find just really great people there. 

Gordon Brewer [00:03:47]: 

Right, right. Well, you’re very kind. Yes. I really enjoy this format, and I’ve just met just tons of great people just like you all over the years, and I learn a lot. I learn a lot. 

Linzy Bonham [00:04:00]: 

Yeah, yeah. Which is one of the nice things about having a podcast is we just get to have great conversations that benefit us and also, you know, hundreds or thousands of other people. 

Linzy Bonham [00:04:08]: 

Sure, sure. 

Linzy Bonham [00:04:09]: 

So, Gordon, for folks who have not had the pleasure yet of hearing about you and the work that you do, could you give us a bit of an introduction? 

Gordon Brewer [00:04:16]: 

Sure. So, yeah, I’m Gordon Brewer. I’m a licensed marriage and family therapist, and I own a small group practice in Northeast Tennessee in a little, small metropolitan area called the Tri Cities and Kingsport, Tennessee, specifically. But, yeah, my practice is Kingsport Counseling Associates, and I have five clinicians besides myself that work for me, plus one admin person. And I made the decision, as I’ve gone along just to kind of keep it small. There’s a lot of different touchstones along the way where you have to make decisions, which we could spend a whole day talking about those different decisions you have to make along along the way. But also, people probably might know me from my podcast, the Practice of Therapy y podcast, which I’ve been doing since 2017. So I got into the podcasting world, I guess, really when it was just really starting to take off, and people. 

Gordon Brewer [00:05:16]: 

People really got interested in podcasts, but it focuses on helping clinicians like you do, Linzy, with really focusing kind of on the clinical side. I mean, the business side of running a private practice primarily. But I’ve also been delving into different clinical topics as well because I think that there’s a lot of crossover there between that and also I have a. In 2022, I started a podcast network called the Sitecraft Network. And that’s really for people in this space, either self help people that are doing self help or psychology or whatever. And also the business side of running a private practice just to give a platform for people to find us easily, more easily, and also just some cross promotion and support mainly. That’s what I’ve been doing. My podcast, the Practice of Therapy y podcast is we’re getting ready to come out with our 400th episode as we’re recording this with you. 

Linzy Bonham [00:06:20]: 

But yeah, so I’m excited about. 

Linzy Bonham [00:06:22]: 

That’s amazing. Yeah, that’s amazing. And I love that you also are diving into clinical topics because that’s something that I notice in myself doing this work with therapists that I think is specific and also needed is that we are doing business, you know, so some general business things do apply to us. You can read general business books and glean helpful things, but there’s also specific facets of therapy and the service of therapy and the ethics of therapy and the complexity that normal business rules do not apply to. We’ve kind of got, you know, we’ve got an extra set of considerations we need to be making as we’re making business decisions. 

Gordon Brewer [00:06:59]: 

Sure. 

Linzy Bonham [00:07:00]: 

Because we’re also working with folks who are very vulnerable to us. 

Gordon Brewer [00:07:03]: 

Right, right. And also I think too a big topic that comes up is just self care for therapists because we deal with very heavy stuff day in and day out. And so being able to look at caring for ourselves and then also just the added stress of running a business and that kind of thing just all can create a perfect storm, so to speak, for just being able to. The need for taking care of yourself. 

Linzy Bonham [00:07:28]: 

Yes. Yeah, it’s a perfect storm for burnout, I think, is what it is. And so, yeah, we need to be extra well to do this work. So you’ve walked this road for a while, you’ve built a group, you’ve got your podcast coming up to 400 episodes, you’ve got your podcast network. So you’ve done a lot, you’ve built a lot of amazing things. And something that I sometimes notice about folks who are maybe earlier in their business journey, maybe starting out in private practice or only a Couple years in is. It’s easy to look at people who are ahead of you and to assume that they have it figured out that they know what they were doing or always have known what they were doing, that they’ve walked this road perfectly. So today I want to dig in with you on the opposite of that, which is the mistakes that you’ve made as you’ve been building off the top. 

Linzy Bonham [00:08:15]: 

What are some of the mistakes that come to mind for you? Financial mistakes as you’ve been building your businesses? 

Gordon Brewer [00:08:20]: 

Yeah, well, let’s get the big, long list out. But there’s. Yeah, there’s been a lot of mistakes, but I think one in particular was when I. I made the decision, and this directly relates to the money side of things. When I made the decision to bring on other therapists into my practice, I had reached that point as a kind of a solo practitioner. I had a person who was. I was supervising, and she was starting to see clients and that sort of thing, and we were kind of operating independently. But I decided, okay, well, I’m getting full. 

Gordon Brewer [00:08:58]: 

I’d like to be able to benefit from the brand that I formed and all that kind of thing. And so I brought on people, and I initially brought on the people that were working for me just as independent contractors, because I thought, okay, that’s simple. That’s what I’ve heard about. And I don’t have to worry about, for those of us in the United States, the fica, the income tax stuff, and having to pay all that, and all those complicated things. But one of the things that I did is I thought, well, I want to be generous. I want it to be worthwhile for people. So I came up with, I thought, was a good split of the. What we refer to as the split as far as they get a percentage. 

Gordon Brewer [00:09:37]: 

Of what? Of the clients that they see. And so I just kind of thought, well, this sounds like a good, good thing. And so the big mistake I made was, is I didn’t really look at my numbers well ahead of time, and I just kind of randomly picked a percentage. And what I found as I was growing and the people that were working with me, their caseloads were growing and that sort of thing. And when it came time to pay them, I thought, oh, my gosh, this is a stretch. I was having to pay them out of what I produced in the long run, that was just not sustainable. So I had to kind of regroup and figure that out. 

Linzy Bonham [00:10:20]: 

Yes. 

Linzy Bonham [00:10:22]: 

Yeah. 

Linzy Bonham [00:10:23]: 

Which is not fun. Right. Like, at that point, because. And I see this so Often, I don’t know. I’ve so rarely seen a group practice owner who actually sets a sustainable split from the beginning, which I think is our nature as caring people. And I think often what I see group practice owners do is they look at other situations that they perceive to be inequitable or bad or that actually were, you know, like, bad situation. They’re like, I’m not gonna do that. So they set a split that’s much more generous, is the term that you used, than what is typical without. 

Linzy Bonham [00:10:56]: 

Yeah, as you say, like running the math and seeing. Because, you know, what I’m hearing is as your business was growing and there’s more and more money coming in, it was still incredibly tight to run payroll. Like, more money coming in the door didn’t mean that money was there for what it actually needed to do. 

Gordon Brewer [00:11:10]: 

Right, right. And I think a big part of. When you look at the motivation behind that, I think for a lot of us, when we got into. Got into practice, just in general, maybe we work for an agency and that sort of thing. And as you start learning and listening to the chatter, well, they’re bringing in this amount of money, but we’re only getting paid X amount of money. And that just doesn’t seem fair. And so that was kind of the story I was living with, is that I wanted to be generous with that and wanted them to keep a lot of what they were producing, which, again, is a very good thing. But it’s not sustainable. 

Gordon Brewer [00:11:51]: 

You end up losing money, and if you’re losing money, you’re not going to be able to stay in practice. You have to just kind of understand that. 

Linzy Bonham [00:11:59]: 

And I’m curious for you because I think there’s kind of different sometimes levels or facets to what drives us to make this kind of decision. Because I see this, this is so common. I think that this is one of our Achilles heels as therapists in business. I’m curious for you, that motivator to be generous, is that about a certain value you’re trying to live out? Is that about trying to avoid a specific negative story? Like, do you know what really drove that for you specifically to make that decision? 

Gordon Brewer [00:12:29]: 

Well, I think as much as anything is, I wanted it to. I’m a helper. And that’s part of my. Like you said, that’s part of my core values, is that I want to be helpful to people and. And I enjoy helping people connect and I enjoy helping people be successful. Any of us that go into the therapy field, that’s kind of an underlying thing. And so that translated over to the people that were working with me. The other part of it is just the whole money mindset that I think a lot of us get handed just growing up, depending on how we grew up and that sort of thing. 

Linzy Bonham [00:13:08]: 

And I think there’s this unspoken stigma around money, and that if you are making a lot of money or you’re doing well financially, then you’re not being generous, then you’re not being helpful because you’re keeping too much for yourself, you’re being selfish, you’re being greedy. All of those kinds of things are kind of embedded in that self talk and that self story that we tell ourselves. And so a lot of it was just really kind of getting past that, of recognizing that, okay, I’ve got to make money in order for the other people to make money, in order to stay in business, in order to help people. Because unless you got. You’re a nonprofit and you’ve got millions of dollars of grant money coming in, it can’t be sustained. So you have to make a profit in order to keep going. 

Linzy Bonham [00:14:02]: 

Yeah, yeah. Because if you don’t have a profit, you. You’re going to be kind of giving it all away at the beginning and then have to close. 

Linzy Bonham [00:14:08]: 

Right, right, right. 

Linzy Bonham [00:14:10]: 

And if we think about the actual impact of that over time in terms of, like, clients served and people having stable employment, and then also you. The impact on you of having to recover from that burnout and rebuild something else, I would argue that there’s much less good that happens in the world when we kind of like, give too much and then have to stop and regroup and build something entirely new all over, all over again. Yeah. And the term generous is sticking out to me because I hear generous as a motivator for it. I’m also thinking for some folks, it’s about, like, justice or equity or even like a class identity of like, I am not a rich person. This is not who I am. I want to be. If I become that, then I’m a bad person. 

Linzy Bonham [00:14:51]: 

Yeah. It just occurs to me there’s just so many, so many stories that lead to this exact same mistake, kind of depending on our specific mix of money stories that we’ve grown up with. 

Linzy Bonham [00:15:01]: 

Right, right. And I think too, just looking at, even going farther back, at looking at our family of origin and just what we grew up and the message that we had about money. Growing up, I grew up in, My dad was a pastor in my family, kind of the underlying message around money was that money comes through the generosity of others. Being in business was not. That’s not what we do kind of thing. That was kind of the message. And then learning later in life, my dad was just not a great money manager. He didn’t learn that skill. 

Linzy Bonham [00:15:38]: 

And so, you know, if there was something. I’m dating myself, but in that. The era that my dad was operating in is that as a pastor of a church, you were dependent on the members of the church or the members of the congregation to provide for you. And that’s. That’s how they set it up, too. I mean, they didn’t. They would have a parsonage, you know, where they provided housing and a stipend and that kind of thing. So there was not really built into that an ability to build equity, so to speak, and assets. 

Linzy Bonham [00:16:11]: 

You just survived and you. You got fed and you had a roof over your head and that kind of thing. And there wasn’t a lot of extravagance built in with that. And so as you think about that, that’s a whole message about money that can. Can feed a lot of the things that. That people do. 

Linzy Bonham [00:16:29]: 

Yeah, absolutely. And something that strikes me about that is, is that story about generosity was true for your dad. Yes, your dad did rely on the generosity of his parishioners because they didn’t have to give him a certain amount of money. There was not actually a contractual agreement. You come this many Sundays, you pay this much for Sunday, or this is your membership fee. It’s like he had to rely on people feeling generous in order to get paid. And so for him, generosity and money were hand in hand in terms of the job that he had. And then I’m hearing, you know, that then you inherited that story and kind of took it into this different space as you became a group practice owner. 

Linzy Bonham [00:17:05]: 

You’re right. Exactly. Yeah. 

Linzy Bonham [00:17:07]: 

So I’m hearing that that was one big mistake. You said you had a list, and I want to hear more of the list. Yeah, yeah. 

Gordon Brewer [00:17:12]: 

So, yeah. And I think. I think the other thing was, is just very few. I think there are a few graduate programs that are starting to teach business and money skills and that kind of thing. But knowing how to run a business, particularly a small business, and understanding this whole idea of knowing your numbers, the accounting, the bookkeeping, all of those kinds of things. I didn’t know those things, and so I had to learn them. But once I started learning them, there were. It really got pretty exciting then because I thought, oh, this is how this works. 

Gordon Brewer [00:17:51]: 

This is how this all fits together. And I think a pivotal moment for me on just the money side of things was when I read the book Profit first by Mike Michalowicz, just thinking about, oh, okay, if I structure things this way, this is going to make my life much easier and take so much stress out of making sure there’s enough money there for the things that needed to be there for taxes, for paying your employees, for reserves, for slow times. And all of those kinds of things were kind of built into that system. And so I think that was a big learning curve for me because other than that, like I said, I was paying my people too much, number one. And so I was struggling to kind of make payroll every month as far as covering that for people. The other thing, too, and this is kind of a little bit of a not so much a money thing, but it does relate to money, is knowing how to hire the right people in a group practice. Because I made some hiring mistakes and also not setting expectations early on for people. And so I had a therapist that I had hired that I kept on too long. 

Gordon Brewer [00:19:11]: 

They were not following through on things. They weren’t getting their session notes done, and they were not collecting from clients and just all kinds of stuff like that. And I tended to bury my head in the sand about that because I wanted to be nice. So a mistake I made was being too nice about things and also not setting expectations on the front end and then holding people accountable for that. 

Linzy Bonham [00:19:39]: 

Yes. This is a bit of a theory that I’ve developed just recently. It’s an observation of myself and also my students, my therapists, who I work with is, I think, many therapists. The first struggle that we experience in terms of boundaries and being nice in private practice is with our clients. Right? We want to be nice. We don’t want them to have to pay more than they can afford. And so we make assumptions or we let them set a very low sliding scale price with us. That’s usually a very early in practice mistake. 

Linzy Bonham [00:20:05]: 

Right. And then, yeah, we maybe, like, don’t set a lot of boundaries and clarity around your treatment plan. You really do need to come every two weeks or every week of creating those boundaries. And then what I do find is once we work through those things, which take time to work through that first level of being able to hold boundaries and be clear with our clients. For therapists who then get to the place where they want to build a group practice, then we repeat those same mistakes in a new way with our team. Because now we want to be a good boss, and now we have to work through these stories about what A good boss is. 

Gordon Brewer [00:20:41]: 

Right. 

Linzy Bonham [00:20:42]: 

Right. And not wanting to be like a mean, demanding boss. But then we end up, I think, in these poor boundary situations with our team quite easily. I see this pattern all the time. I see it in myself, as I said, too, and I see it in my students. 

Gordon Brewer [00:20:58]: 

Yeah. As I tell my own therapist, I’m a recovering people pleaser. And so, you know, one of the great greatest things you can learn with that is the word no. 

Linzy Bonham [00:21:08]: 

Yes. Yes. 

Gordon Brewer [00:21:09]: 

And you talked about setting boundaries with clients. I think one mistake, too, that people will do is they will, even when it comes to scheduling, is they won’t stick to their schedule. Can you not see me at such and such a time? Well, okay. And then that just creates a precedent that just can lead to a lot of burnout and a lot of. 

Linzy Bonham [00:21:32]: 

Yeah. Because in those small decisions, I believe we often think we’re being kind. You know, we think that this is the kind thing to do. Like, oh, they can’t come that day. They want to see me at 6. Sure. Like, it’s only once or it’s fine. I don’t want them to miss their session. 

Linzy Bonham [00:21:46]: 

So we think we’re being kind. But so quickly that leads to resentment and exhaustion. And I’m thinking with our team members, too, when you’re mentioning of not holding them accountable to expectations, also very quickly, you know, your feelings about that person are not gonna be very positive. It’s not gonna be a positive relationship for you anymore. And so, like, is that actually kind? You know, I think that that narrative falls apart quite quickly with the immediate impacts of not having clear communication with our team. 

Gordon Brewer [00:22:18]: 

Yeah. And one thing I’ve heard is the difference between being nice and. And the different. And being kind. You know, being kind to someone, you set expectations and they know what to expect from you and they know what the boundary is and they’re not hit with any surprises. Whereas being nice just. People can tend to run over you and can just have no boundaries whatsoever. I mean, it’s not a great comparison, but it’s much like being a parent. 

Gordon Brewer [00:22:49]: 

You can be nice to your kids and be friendly to your kids and never say no. But guess what’s going to happen? You know, it’s not going to. It’s not going to turn out well in the long run, but you can. But if you’re kind and you set boundaries and you treat people with dignity and all of that sort of thing, that’s a much better outcome. 

Linzy Bonham [00:23:09]: 

Absolutely. And, you know, again, not the best comparison because obviously other therapists are not children we know that. Just thinking about another example of clear communication where there’s a power imbalance. Right. That’s another similarity between parenting and being a boss is like, you’re having communication, but ultimately one of you actually has the majority of the power. I just got some resources from my own therapist who my partner and I are seeing for some parent coaching around parenting our child. And she gave me a list of. I think it was basically ineffective communication and effective communication. 

Linzy Bonham [00:23:39]: 

And something that especially millennial parents, which I fall into that bucket that we tend to do, is we don’t want to tell somebody what to do. So we ask a question, but the question is really a command. But we stated as a question like, hey, hey, hey, Auggie, do you want to put on your shoes? I’m not asking if he wants to put on his shoes. Really, I need him to put on his shoes. We need to get out the door. Right. But because I’m not actually holding that and I say, do you want to put on your shoes? If he says no, what am I going to do next? Now I’m frustrated because I want to put on his shoes, but I didn’t actually tell him he needs to put on his shoes. I made it seem like he had a choice, but he doesn’t have a choice. 

Linzy Bonham [00:24:15]: 

Right. So there’s a disservice there that we’re doing that creates confusion and friction and then all sorts of residual emotion when we’re not actually being directive, but we really need to give directions. It’s not a question of, like, well, do you think you could see 10 clients a week? The actual statement there is, I need you to see 10 clients a week. Can you make that happen? How do we make that happen? If you can’t make that happen? We need to talk about what that means. But I think, again, in our efforts to be nice, being nice can actually be quite unkind in the end. 

Linzy Bonham [00:24:45]: 

Yes. Yeah, yeah, exactly. 

Linzy Bonham [00:24:47]: 

Yeah. And I love that distinction there. So, you know, I am curious, Gordon, thinking about these two examples that you’ve given us, these two mistakes, you know, of first of all, the kind of overly generous around compensation and then trying to be nice and not setting clear expectations for your team. How did you turn these things around and what did it take for you to turn these things around? Because I’m sure there’s many things, therapists listening right now who either applying this to their clients or who are group practice owners who are thinking like, oh, no, I’m doing those things right now. How did you fix this? 

Gordon Brewer [00:25:20]: 

Yeah, yeah. So one thing is, with what I was paying my therapist is I made the shift from having just contractors to having all employees. And so what I did to make that shift is I had to do a lot of prep for that. Because if you’re, if you’re paying employees, you do need to make sure you’ve got a reserve there. And so I did a deep dive into the numbers of looking at, okay, what is my practice is an insurance based practice. And so what we get paid per session varies. So I had to figure out what the average per session we were bringing in actually was. And so then I looked at that, and then I looked at what I would need to pay out as far as taxes and all that kind of thing. 

Gordon Brewer [00:26:11]: 

And I came up with a number. And so I knew when I was going to make the shift that I was going to probably lose some people. And I just had to accept that. But that also gave me the chance to kind of start over a little bit. Yeah. 

Linzy Bonham [00:26:30]: 

And that is a transition that I find some group practice owners have a huge amount of fear around. Is switching from that contractor to employee model partially, I think it’s because folks kind of overestimate what is required to be an employer versus a contractor. They think that contractor, it’s kind of like we were just talking about the nice versus kind. They think that it’s nice to have contractors because then the contractors can do what they want and they don’t have to worry about taxes and whatever. But there’s all these clear benefits to having employees instead. What have you noticed is the difference for you now that your team is made up of employees rather than contractors? 

Gordon Brewer [00:27:03]: 

Well, for one thing, I’m able to offer them more. As far as we now have, we have health insurance, we have all these benefits. And so that was basically how I presented it to people. Is that, okay, I know you would probably want some health insurance, you would want to have a retirement plan and you’d want to. And so I just did a comparison sheet. You’re making this as a contractor on average, and this is what you’d make as an employee. But out of what you’re making as a contractor, you’re also having to pay this much self employment tax and this much of this and that. And it actually, when it all came down to it, they came out better in the long run and that they were getting more for what they were doing than they were before. 

Linzy Bonham [00:27:50]: 

Right. 

Gordon Brewer [00:27:50]: 

And also just switching from a contractor model to an employee model, you have much more control over what they do. Because as A contractor, at least here in the United States, you can’t really dictate how they do their job. 

Linzy Bonham [00:28:05]: 

Yes. Which I do see is a struggle with group practice owners that I work with and money skills. Group practice owners, once we start to do that, deep dive into their numbers and they realize like, oh, wow, this person is seeing, seeing two clients a week. It’s costing me this much money in overhead and admin team and my own time to employ them, but they’re only seeing two people. With a contractor, you don’t have actually a lot of ability to enforce how many folks they see. And so again now you end up in this situation where they have this flexibility and yet it’s not sustainable. What you’re doing here is. Cannot go forward. 

Linzy Bonham [00:28:41]: 

But as employees, you’re able to say, these are the expectations. This is when I need you to work. This is what the work needs to look like. Because it makes me think too, about quality of service. When you are an employer, when you’re the boss and they’re your employee, it’s very clear that you have a say over kind of how they work and the quality of their work, which is important because this is your brand and you want to make sure clients are getting good care. 

Gordon Brewer [00:29:02]: 

Right. And so I think as much as anything, it was also just being. I was just somewhat transparent with people saying, okay, look, the way we’re doing it now, we can’t sustain this. I’m not. We’ll have to close the doors in a year if we keep doing it this way. And I think a big thing was, is that I was able to keep some of the aspects of being a contractor in terms of flexibility of schedule. You decide what you. How many clients you want to see. 

Gordon Brewer [00:29:32]: 

But in order to be get the benefits, the health insurance, you need to see a minimum of 20 clients a week. You know, just being able to be transparent about the numbers and kind of show them how all that works to some degree and educate them on that. And so in the long run, it worked out all right. I lost. I’ve got one of the people that originally started with me, Krista. She’s a rock star and she just, she stuck it out and. But also she’s the kind of person that is. Which again, in thinking about your hiring, not to get too far off on a tangent, there are people out there that would really just want to see clients and not worry about the business side of things. 

Gordon Brewer [00:30:14]: 

And so that’s where Krista is. She doesn’t care about the business side of things. She’s not interested in that. But I love seeing clients and I love seeing, doing the clinical work. And so I’m just going to focus on that. 

Linzy Bonham [00:30:26]: 

Yes. Yeah. And that is as a group practice owner, I think your ideal kind of hire, Right. Somebody who just loves the clinical work, is so happy that you’re taking care of all these other parts that they have no interest in. You can take great care of them, give them benefits, create a great positive work environment, and it’s a very mutually beneficial relationship, Right? Yeah, exactly. I am curious, Gordon, thinking about the switch that it took. I’m hearing you were transparent with your team, which you kind of laid it out. How was it for you personally to have to lay out these numbers for your team, make this announcement? I assume it was kind of a bit of an announcement. 

Linzy Bonham [00:31:05]: 

Do you remember what that process was like? 

Gordon Brewer [00:31:07]: 

Well, I think when I recognize that, okay, I’m not going to be able to sustain this if I keep doing what I’m doing and being very realistic about that. One of the things, fortunately, that I did early on and had the foresight to do, which was a good thing, was as I made sure I had put a lot of money in reserve. When I first went into private practice, I was really doing it very part time in that I was still working for an agency. Also, when I left the agency, I had another kind of part time administrative job that I was doing. And so I had income coming in, so I knew I had a steady state source of income. And so I devoted my first year in private practice as a solo practitioner of just taking that money and setting it aside. And so with just kind of that plan of, okay, at some point I’m going to go into this full time, but I want to make sure that I’ve got a reserve there. So that if I had struggled with getting clients or people didn’t call or for whatever disaster might happen, I was ready for that. 

Gordon Brewer [00:32:18]: 

So that was a big part of how I made the transition is I knew I had that in reserve. And also, like I said earlier, is accepting the fact that, okay, if I make these changes, I might need to literally start over from scratch as far as building the practice. But I also knew that, okay, I can build the practice, I’ve done it. And I knew that we have the client base and the fact that we, we were insurance based was gonna, it was gonna kind of work. 

Linzy Bonham [00:32:49]: 

And so, yeah, and I, I have seen this happen. I’m thinking in a couple of my group practice owners, my students in money skills, group practice owners, who basically end up actively or the end result is that their practice kind of burns to the ground and then they have to rebuild it. And that is a scary moment as a business owner, seeing like your team say, like, no, actually I’d rather go work for, for Alma, or no, I don’t want to see more than two clients a week. But it gives you the chance to rebuild something that’s actually sustainable. And what I’ve observed with them too is the new team members who come in, they don’t know about the bad boundaries before and the other split that existed. You do get this fresh start when you have a big turnover because you get to build the practice. Right. Knowing all that you’ve learned along the way. 

Linzy Bonham [00:33:35]: 

So a bit of a rebuild. And I’m curious for you, was it kind of like an exodus that happened at that time or did many folks stay on when you made that transition? 

Gordon Brewer [00:33:43]: 

I went through some ups and downs. I mean, I had, like I said, I had Krista, who’s been with me the longest, she stuck through it. But looking back now at that transition, none of the people that were here then are there now. And so, but what it allowed me do is to build something that was actually more appealing to people. You know, I thought this other way was, was a good way, but actually what I came up with later on was much better. And so the people I’ve had, I have now have been fairly long term employees and so they’ve stuck it out. 

Linzy Bonham [00:34:19]: 

Yeah, because it sounds like what you’ve built now too is taking care of people at a deeper level. Right. Like when you have a team of contractors, it’s like, here’s all the money, do whatever you want with it. And some folks want that. And most of those folks will eventually be solo practitioners. Let’s be real. Yeah, right. Like as soon as they start to develop the confidence and skills to build their own business, they’re going to go make as much money as they can on their own. 

Linzy Bonham [00:34:39]: 

But what I’m hearing is you’ve managed to now build something that it really is taking care of your team. Right. Like with you’re mentioning like health insurance and still like having that flexibility and I’m thinking probably your team environment, other benefits you’re offering and that ultimately is much more appealing and sustainable than contractors being kind of given the maximum amount of money. 

Linzy Bonham [00:35:01]: 

Exactly. 

Linzy Bonham [00:35:02]: 

Gordon, thank you. This has been so helpful to hear your learning and I think for people listening too, it’s so nice to know that somebody who’s been so successful as you are and has built so many great things, has also had to learn through some trial and error. 

Gordon Brewer [00:35:17]: 

Right. And I would say, and I tell people this, people that might be starting out in private practice, never compare your beginning point to someone else’s middle point. Because. Yeah, because this whole story we’ve been telling today has said, okay, that was my beginning point. And I made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot the hard way, as I like to say. And so. And you’ll make mistakes and just I think it’s important to look at it. Okay, what am I learning from this? What can I do to change courses, to change paths and that sort of thing. 

Linzy Bonham [00:35:50]: 

Precisely. Yeah. But it’s only by actually doing and, you know, building that we can make the mistakes and move on from them. 

Linzy Bonham [00:35:56]: 

Right, right. 

Linzy Bonham [00:35:57]: 

So, Gordon, for folks who are listening, who want to get further into your world, learn more about what you do, can you tell them where to find you, tell them about your podcast? 

Gordon Brewer [00:36:05]: 

Sure. The easiest way is just simply go to my website, practiceoftherapy.com and you’ll find the links there to get in touch with me and that sort of thing. You can email me@gordon practiceoftherapy.com and also find us on social media, on Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn, I think our main focus areas. And so, yeah, you can find us there. 

Linzy Bonham [00:36:32]: 

Great. Thank you so much for joining me today, Gordon. 

Gordon Brewer [00:36:34]: 

Well, thanks for having me, Linzy. 

Linzy Bonham [00:36:43]: 

I really appreciate Gordon sharing some of his own mistakes made on the podcast today. It’s always so helpful to hear folks who have figured it out talk about what they’ve had to go through, what they did wrong. And I do think that what he shared about today, you know, both that mistake of offering too much financially, which you know, you can do as a solo practitioner by setting a fee too low for your clients, you know, thinking about their financial situation before you think of your own. Or you can do it in the context that he was talking about, of offering too generous of a split. When you employ other therapists, that is just such a common mistake for us. As Gordon and I talked about, as helper types, our tendency tends to be to over give. So that’s always something to maybe stop and be mindful of before you set a fee or if you’re bringing on a team member for the first time, before you set a feature that split, stop and ask yourself, am I being overly generous here? Am I giving too much? And what would actually be the sustainable version of these numbers? Because I think that as therapist types, our tendency is going to be to over give. So maybe just assume that you’re over giving and stop and look at how you can actually make a sustainable offer, whether it’s to your clients or to team members, so you don’t have to go and change it later and have hard conversations of I need to raise your fee by $50 an hour or I need to change the way that we’re doing splits because this just isn’t working. 

Linzy Bonham [00:38:08]: 

I also love him sharing about that challenge that he had, you know, with some team members around, setting expectations and boundaries and being clear about what he actually needed from his team. I know that in my myself I have experienced that. You know, that’s certainly a growth edge for me. And I see that with so many, many of the group practice owners that I work with specifically around, you know, having to learn how to be a boss. Most of us in group practice, we are baby bosses, to put it a certain way. We’ve probably been bosses for less than five years and there is so much to learn in those early years of being a boss and so many mistakes that we’re going to make. I know that I’m certainly doing my own learning and growing in this area and I think, you know, Gordon’s so story about having to correct fees with his therapist, have that hard conversation, having folks come and go, realizing that some folks just aren’t a fit. These are all really helpful learnings that I think many of us will go through and maybe we can learn from from Gordon and make some of these adjustments even sooner than he was able to. 

Linzy Bonham [00:39:11]: 

It’s always nice to hear from folks who are just a few steps ahead of you or many steps ahead of you to see if we can adjust course a little bit sooner, get ourselves into that sustainable version of our practice that much sooner. So appreciate Gordon coming on the podcast today and you can check him out on the practice of therapy. As he said, he’s almost at 400 podcast episodes. Just such a lovely warm human. So you can check him out. Thank you so much for joining me today. I’m Linzy Bonham, therapist turned money coach and creator of Money Skills for Therapy ists. If you are ready to go from money confusion and fear to feeling clear and empowered, my free on demand masterclass is the best place for you to start. 

Linzy Bonham [00:39:50]: 

You’ll learn my four step framework to get your private practice finances really working for you. Register today using the link in the show notes or go to moneynutsandbolts.com under masterclass. I look forward to supporting you.