How to Use Your Strengths More In Your Business

When I talk to therapists about marketing and running their practices, they often tell me they know they should do certain things they don’t like doing. If this sounds like you, it probably means you’re not fully embracing your strengths. When you don’t embrace your strengths, it’s very hard work to market and run your business, and all that hard work does less than you want it to. You may have heard some of this before, on a surface level. I have said many times that if you’re an introvert, you can focus on one on one networking with a smaller number of colleagues to develop deep relationships rather than spending times at large events. If you love to write, you can build your online presence using articles. If you’ve got a big personality, you can do public speaking.

Let's take this thinking to a deeper level.

How can you play to your strengths in every activity you do? 

Here's an exercise to learn more about your strengths and find out you could be using them more. 

Start by listing the business activities that are easy for you and that bring you energy. Include anything from balancing your checkbook to clinical work with clients.

What strengths do you lean on in these activities? Here are some possible answers:

• Ability to listen deeply
• Humor
• Analytical skills
• Creativity
• Attention to detail
• Energy for scholarly research
• Ability to engage with large groups
• Energy for clinical training
• Interest in trying new things
• Consistency
• Dependability
• Ability to come up with insights
• Ability to connect quickly with new people
• Ability to stick to a routine or predictable process over time
• Charisma
• Long attention span
• Story telling

Now list the business activities that you enjoy the least, and that drain you the most. Again, include any activity you do (or think you should do) for your business.

Look at the second list and see which of those activities you could do differently. How could you do these activities while using your strengths?

For example, a therapist might feel drained by public speaking because she tries to be charismatic and connect quickly with her audience. Those aren’t her strengths, so she does a decent job, but then collapses at the end. The strengths she uses for one on one networking and in her clinical work are deep listening and consistency.  I would help her use those strengths in public speaking and let go of trying to be different that she is.  She might create a presentation for smaller groups that uses written exercises in which participants answer questions independently. She might direct them to examine a deeper question in pairs. She might lean on her consistency by giving this presentation several times to different small groups.

Look at those activities you like the least and see how you could do them differently, in a way that leans on your strengths. 

Some activities just can’t use your strengths. For example, if your strengths are creativity and an interest in trying new things, you probably can’t use those in your practice record keeping. Look for ways to minimize those tasks or delegate them as soon as you can. That will free you up to lean even more on your strengths. 

Is it time to build your practice in a whole new way? Apply for a consultation with me. 

Thinking You'd Like to Create Leverage in Your Therapy Practice?

Lots of therapists I talk to are aware that at some point they want to do their practices to include more than 1:1 therapy. Is this you? Do you long for more freedom, more income, and the ability to help more people by creating leveraging? What I mean by leveraging is offering your services in a form other than one or two clients in your office at a time.  Perhaps you want to offer workshops or classes online or in person. Maybe you want to create a therapy center and hire additional clinicians. Maybe you want to write a book.

Now is the time to experiment and document. 

Start exactly where you are. Right now. Rather than waiting until you’re ready to write your book or create your workshop or program, start thinking differently about the work you’re doing in your office every day. Notice what works best with your current clients. If you’re creating some of your own interventions or processes, start writing them down.

As you experiment and document, you’ll begin to identify what is unique about your process, and that will help you see where you could potentially scale up. I’ll give you a fictional example. Let’s say a therapist has developed her own process for premarital counseling. She dreams of writing a book for engaged couples and selling it internationally. She can start by documenting the steps in her premarital counseling process. From there she might create some short articles about the way engaged couples can work through issues using parts of her process. She can put those articles up on her website and find out which topics are most popular. She can begin creating worksheets that help couples in her office work through her process. She can edit those worksheets as she discovers how couples respond to them.

What she should NOT do is begin by writing a book for engaged couples. The quality and relevance of her offer will be much higher if she has spent time experimenting, testing and documenting her process with real couples. She may discover that a book isn’t the right way for her to create leverage. She’ll be led by what she discovers rather than an abstract idea.

Do you wonder how you could create leverage? Look for opportunities to experiment and document the best of what you’re doing right now, right where you are.

Do you want to take your practice to the next level? Apply for a free consultation with me now.

Your Money Issues. Disorganized Finances: Part 5 of 5

Having disorganized finances is an issue that hurts a lot of therapists in private practice. If you struggle with shame around this, it might help to know you're not alone. The timing is perfect to talk about this because it’s tax time. Many of you are getting your tax information together right now. I just did mine a couple of weeks ago and sent it off to my accountant. When you’re preparing your taxes, you are reminded that it’s vital to be financially organized.

When you don’t have functional and consistent systems for handling your practice money, it’s hard to grow. Here are the minimum numbers you need systems for:

1. Tracking business expenses
2. Tracking bills to be paid
3. Tracking collected and uncollected fees

When you have a hole in those systems, you lose time and money. You also experience a yucky feeling of overwhelm. Disorganization leads you to spend time trying to track down the numbers for client receipts, lose money when you don’t claim all your business expenses, pay some bills late, or lose money in uncollected fees.

People often ask me if they should use particular software for managing their practice finances. The software you choose is less important than the consistent habit of using the system you have in place. If you’ve got a spreadsheet and a calendar, you can track the numbers you need. Now I’ll go over the minimum financial organization you need to have if you’re in private practice.

Tracking business expenses

Daily or weekly:

• Keep a big envelope for your business receipts for each year. File your receipts in that envelope every day or every week so that you don’t lose track of them.
• When you receive receipts online, label them or put them in a special email folder so you can find them easily. You’ll need all of these records if you get audited. 
• Categorize your expenses. If you use a program to track your finances, go in and choose categories for every business expense. If you don’t do this daily or weekly, you’re likely to forget what some charges were for. Use categories that you’ll use for your schedule C at tax time. If you don’t know what they are, ask your tax professional. If you do your own taxes, look up Schedule C categories.

Monthly:

• Add up all of your expenses so that you have a picture of how much you’re spending in each category and overall. If you’re using a program, you can have it generate a report. If you’re using a spreadsheet, you can still take care of this quickly.

Yearly:

• File the past year's big envelope. Start a new big envelope.
• Add up all of those monthly numbers for each category to create your schedule C.

Bills to be paid

• Always use a separate account for business expenses.
• Put any bills you can online and on auto pay. Keep a list of these so that you’ll notice if any aren’t automatically paid. You don’t want to accidentally get behind on a bill because your credit card expired.
• Keep all incoming paper bills in one place. Once a week pay bills, write a note of the date you paid, and then file those bills right away.

Tracking collected and uncollected fees.

Daily:

• Use one system to record the sessions and fees you collect every single day. The simplest system is to use your calendar, and make a note right there of what your client paid and whether there is any fee to be collected. Be consistent with your record keeping so that no uncollected fees fall between the cracks.
• Generate any requested receipts. This system makes generating those receipts for your clients very easy.

Monthly

• Use a spreadsheet to add up all collected fees (be sure not to include any sessions for which fees weren’t collected). Record this monthly number.

Yearly

• Add up all of the months of collected fees and that is the number for Gross receipts for your Schedule C.

Of course there's more you can track, and over time you may choose to use a more sophisticated set of systems. First get really consistent with these basics, and notice the peace of mind it brings you to be more organized. 

Is it time to get some help with building and managing your practice? Apply for a free consultation with me. 

Your Money Issues. Plan For Lean Times: Part 4 of 5

If you’ve got a private practice, you've got a very small business. That means that if 5 clients graduate from your practice in the same month, you’ve lost a big chunk of your income. If you get sick and need to miss a week of work, you’ve lost a big chunk of your income for that month. If referrals slow down for a period of time, you may have a lean month.

 The first time my therapy practice declined, I panicked. My inner critic let me have it, and I didn’t have enough experience to know that this was one lean moment in a growing business. Because I didn’t have that perspective, I also didn’t know how to make practical decisions about my business. I’m happy to say that I don’t panic in my business anymore. I know how to plan for the leaner times.

You can plan for those lean times too. How do you do that? 

I’ve got a mindset answer and a practical answer.

Here's the mindset answer.

You’ve got to learn not to take it personally when you’re in lean times. You’ve got to learn not to panic and not to make any impulsive decisions based on that panic. Your inner critic will grab on to lean times as an opportunity to let you have it.

 Here’s some of the (stupid) stuff your inner critic might say:

• You were silly to think this would work out.
• You’re never going to make this work.
• This is the beginning of the end for you.
• This decline in income is a reflection of your value.

Here’s the mindset you need:

• I’ve got a strategy to make this business work.
• I expected this to happen, and I can handle it.
• This is a blip in a long-term business.
• There may be something to learn from this, but it isn’t about my value.

In order to move towards that mindset, get support from a coach or from people in your life who have succeeded in business.

Now for the practical answer.

Plan for cancellations, illness, vacation, and attrition.

Cushion your schedule so that you have more openings than you may think you need. This helps you make up for those times when you will have fewer sessions. Plan to have a few more sessions than you think you need to meet your income goals. Plan to make 10 or 20% more than your goal, and that will make up for the months when you don’t hit your goal. 

Have an emergency fund.

 Financial wizard Suze Orman often says that people need at least a 6-month emergency fund. Your private practice needs its own emergency fund. As soon as your practice is full, start putting away just a little bit each month until you have at least 2 months of practice income saved. That cushion will help you make good decisions when the next lean time comes. You’re not likely to lose all of your practice income at once, so a 2-month fund will take you a long way.

Maintain your boundaries and your policies in lean times.

Don’t get loose with your policies or fees in an attempt to keep or bring in clients. Those mistakes will only make it harder to build and maintain a solid practice.

 Use your lean months to market your practice.

I talked last week about the importance of investing in your practice. In lean months, don’t cut back on marketing. When you’re sick, you eat the healthiest food so that you can get well quickly. Treat the lean times in your practice that way too.

Need help building your practice? Apply for a free consultation now. 

Free Webinar: Improve Your Website Now

You want to fill your practice. You've got a website or you're ready to create one. There's so much information out there about how to build an online presence for your psychotherapy practice, and you don't have time to weed through all of it. I'm going to help you get started in just 30 minutes. You'll walk away knowing how to start making your site better. Will you learn everything you need to know about creating a great online presence in 30 minutes? Of course not! But let's get started.  

Make your website more effective at attracting YOUR ideal clients right away.  

In this free webinar, you'll learn how to 

• Create an effective headline for your site
• Fix the most common home page mistakes
• Create the kind of language that helps YOUR clients know you're their therapist
• Get more potential clients to become actual clients

Get your most burning questions answered too! 

 LET'S GET THIS DONE TOGETHER.

You can build a private practice full of motivated, cash paying clients. This is one important step in that direction. 

JOIN ME FOR THIS FREE WEBINAR:

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SIGN UP TO GET PRACTICE BUILDING RESOURCES EACH WEEK AND TO HEAR ABOUT ALL OF MY FREE TRAININGS. We'll never share your email, and you can easily unsubscribe at any time. 

Your Money Issues. Not Investing: Part 3 of 5

For five weeks, I’m talking about the most common money issues that hold therapists back in private practice. Last week I helped you identify how you may be looking away from the financial realities of your business. This week I’m talking about the issue of not investing in your business.

When you invest in your business, you give it the nutrients it needs to grow. Some ways therapists invest in their businesses are furnishing a nice office space where their clients can feel comfortable, paying for the best ongoing clinical training, hiring a business coach, hiring a professional to help you create a client attracting website, or paying for practice management software. These are investments rather than just ways to spend money because they help you attract and serve your ideal clients. They help you grow your business rather than just maintain the business you already have.

A lot of therapists say they will invest in these things when they have more money. The problem is that it takes a long time to earn more money if you don’t you’re your businesses the nutrients it needs to grow. 

Are you afraid to invest in your business?

If you’re making decisions about your business from a mindset of fear, scarcity or deprivation, it’s hard to invest.

Here’s a way to get into the right mindset to make smart investments:

Picture your business as successful and profitable. Picture yourself as a therapist serving plenty of your ideal clients, perhaps with a wait list. Now think about the investment you are considering. Does it support that vision? Does it bring you to that reality more quickly? If it does, invest as much as you can. If not, invest elsewhere.

When I hired my current business coach, I couldn’t easily afford her. As I was making the decision of whether or not to sign up with her, I used the process I’m describing here. I asked myself if working with her would support the vision I had of my business. I asked myself if working with her would help me earn more than what I was investing. My decision became easy, and I signed up.

I’m not suggesting you spend thousands of dollars creating a fancy website or buy that most expensive sofa. I am suggesting that you follow your calmer, wiser inner voice and strategically and mindfully invest in the future of your practice.

Is it time to build your practice in a big way? Apply for a free consultation now. 

Your Money Issues. Looking Away: Part 2 of 5

For 5 weeks, we’re looking at the common money issues that hurt therapists in private practice. Last time we looked at your money set point, the amount of money you expect to earn. Now we’ll talk about another money issue that holds therapists back: Looking away from your money reality.

If you have this money issue, you don’t know about your money reality and you don’t want to know. You are using denial to deal with your fears about money. As therapists, we know how well denial works. Not so well.

See if you can answer these questions:

• How much did you earn last month?
• What’s your average fee?
• How much are your monthly business expenses?
• Do you have any uncollected fees?
• How many people contacted you to ask about working with you last month?
• Are your numbers easy to assemble at tax time?

If you can’t easily get at the answers to some of these, and if your heart rate just sped up in reading the questions, you may be looking the other way about your money.

Looking honestly at your finances is kind of like getting a colonoscopy. Whatever you find, you’re better off knowing.

Even if you think you can’t handle the truth, I know you can. It may be painful and it may bring up shame. That’s so normal, and you are in good company. I have helped a lot of therapists work through that shame so they can take charge of their finances.  Facing the reality of where you are right now leads to freedom. When you stop putting energy into keeping the truth out of sight, you get to use that energy for growth. You lose that creeping feeling of guilt that says “I really should look at my numbers” and you gain the ability to make better choices.

I worked with a woman who hated looking at her money. She didn’t know the answers to any of the above questions.

At first she insisted on building her practice without getting a clear look at her finances. She had a little bit of success with that approach, but fairly quickly leveled off in her income. Then I encouraged her again to look at her finances while leaning on my guidance. She found out how much she was spending, how much she was earning, and what her actual average fee was. This helped her understand what she needed to earn to have more than enough and live with more financial abundance.

This knowledge gave her the motivation she needed to raise fees for new clients and market her practice with more energy and consistency. This is what she needed to break through that income barrier and make a good living. It took courage as well as support.

I want that for you too.

If you need some help breaking through an income barrier, apply for a free consultation and find out how I can help. I’ve got group and individual programs to help you bust through your money issues and grow your practice. 

Your Money Issues. What Do You Expect To Earn? Part 1 of 5

You help your clients work through money issues, but you may not have worked through your own. If you are in private practice, then you are a business owner. That means it's crucial that you work through those issues. Sometimes therapists focus solely on the clinical side of private practice. That's understandable. We didn't become therapists for financial reasons. The business side of your practice also needs attention and respect.  If you don’t work through your money issues, you won’t do well as a business owner, no matter how wonderful you are as a clinician. 

In this series I will go through the top 5 money issues I see therapists struggling with in their private practices. When I help therapists work through these money issues, they are able to dramatically increase their earnings. 

The first money issue is having a low earning set point.

“I don’t expect to earn more than ……”

How much do you believe you can and should earn as a therapist in private practice? This is your money set point. You may think you know your set point, but your body will tell you for sure. 

Try this exercise:

You’re going to think about earning different amounts of money and listen to your body’s response. Start low, with an amount of money that you think you could easily earn.  Say to yourself “I earn ... per year.” Listen to your body as you say this. Then add five or ten thousand dollars to that amount and say it again: “I earn…per year.”

Keep increasing that number and listen to your body. Your set point is the place where you begin to feel uncomfortable. You’ll feel some tightness in your chest or a pit in your stomach or perhaps tension in your neck.

It is very unlikely that you’ll earn more than your set point. Even if opportunities are right in front of you that could bring you above that income level, you unconsciously sabotage those opportunities.

Perhaps you sabotage your earning potential by keeping your fees low, showing discomfort when you discuss fees, getting sick so that you have to miss work, or forgetting to call a potential client back for a few hours. The opportunities for sabotage are endless, aren’t they?

The solution to this money issue is to raise your set point. Often acknowledging your set point begins to make a difference. Explore what is keeping your set point low. Many therapists have to work through some of these statements to work through their set point issues:

• It is not safe to earn more than this. My friends or family will not like me. I will mismanage it. I won’t know who I am.
• I don’t deserve to earn more than this. I am not worthy of more than this because I’m not smart enough, or (fill in the blank) enough.
• I would be disloyal to (fill in the blank) if I earn more than this. I have an unspoken agreement to keep my income lower than this.

Identify the fears and beliefs that are keeping your set point low so that you can release them.

Tune back in for the next 4 weeks to read more about the money issues that might be holding you back. 

Is it time to build your private practice in a big way? Apply for a free consultation with me now. 

Don't Let Your Inner Critic Hurt Your Therapy Practice

I just talked to a therapist who does wonderful work with her clients, and she’s got a lot of impressive training and experience. She’s been putting herself out there more recently, increasing her visibility and investing more in her business.

She’s was motivated, steadily increasing her marketing, and then suddenly, CRASH, she says, “I don’t feel like a very good therapist. ”

We could have seen this coming. Your inner critic is likely to show up when and where you’re doing something brave or new.

When you first started out as a therapist, your inner critic was probably around a lot in the therapy room. I know mine was. Part of me was in the room with my client, and another part was thinking, “My supervisor would know what to say right now. That wasn’t a good intervention. I’m never sharing this part of my tape.” (This was back when we used tape recorders).

After being a therapist for a while, that inner critic quieted down in the therapy room. You started to feel more confident about your clinical skills a lot of the time. Thank god for that.

If you’re doing something new, like marketing in a new way, making yourself more visible, or claiming your expert status, your inner critic starts talking more loudly again. As my business coach often says “your ego has a new chew toy.” That voice may just be there to protect you. your inner critic is trying to protect you from disappointment. If you don't put herself out there, you can’t possibly get rejected. It might be there because it is an echo of what a parent used to say. Whatever it's purpose or reason for being, it doesn't help you in your business. 

Acknowledge that inner critic and don't take it's message too seriously. It isn’t very smart. When we respond to that inner critic and say: “yes, I was expecting you,” it has less power. You can’t necessarily root out the inner critic, but don’t let it make any business decisions. When your inner critic acts up, make a note of it. Write down what it has to say. If you get this stuff on paper, you will begin to notice how little new information it holds. Your inner critic is saying the same thing as it always does. It's probably saying the same things most people's inner critics say.   

“Someone else could do this better.”

“People will think you’re stupid (or cheesy or boring or…)”

“You're a fraud”

“That was a dumb thing you said.”

“You’re a failure”

Therapists tend to be really good at prioritizing personal growth and not great at prioritizing self-promotion or business building. I am taking a stand for you bringing those two things together. Use your process of growing your practice to be a vehicle for personal growth.

Is it time to build your practice to the next level? Apply for a free consultation now to talk about how I can help.  

Need A Better Home Page For Your Therapy Practice?

When you write the copy for your therapy practice website, especially your home page, you should always speak directly to your ideal clients. The entire purpose of your home page is to convince that person in his or her moment of need to take the next step to work with you. Get comfortable with ignoring everyone else. Focus on what your ideal clients are thinking and feeling in the moment when they are ready to hire a therapist.

 Here’s a little exercise to help you get started in creating that language.

Think of one therapy client you enjoyed working with or were fulfilled by working with. If you could work with someone like this every day, you would love your practice.

 1.    How would that person describe the pain she was in or the problems she was experiencing when she realized it was time to find a therapist.

2.    How would she describe the hope she had about how therapy could help?

 Answer those questions for at least 3 different clients until you see patterns or trends. Use your answers to help you create your home page.

 Your home page will speak to two main things: PAIN and HOPE. You’ve got to cover those before you describe anything about you or the therapy you offer.

 Which one should you start with: pain or hope?

Think about which your ideal clients tend to identify with. If you treat depression, your ideal client is extremely aware of pain, and will likely feel understood by seeing pain described first. If you provide premarital couples therapy, your clients may resonate more with hope.

 Why shouldn’t you focus on you or your services on your home page?

Your ideal client isn’t going to your page because they want therapy. No offense, but almost no one wants therapy. What your client wants is relief from pain or increased happiness or fulfillment. When she has read through half of your home page, before she does any scrolling down, she should feel more understood. When she feels that you get what she’s going through, she’ll breathe a little bit more easily. Then she’ll be ready to find out a little bit about you and what you offer.

 Do you need some help creating a great, client-attracting website? Apply for a free consultation now.