#64. 7 Money Mistakes I Made When I Started My Practice (Ouch!)

Whooo boy. 

Sometimes, it’s a miracle this business of mine ever worked…. but it did, in SPITE of what I’m going to share with you today, lol. 

When I started my practice, I had to figure out everything on my own. With no such thing as coaches, masterminds, online courses, or even a business class in grad school, no one taught me how to run a business. 

Looking back, I can see at least 7 big mistakes I made, and not surprisingly - they were ALL about how I handled the money. 

Sharing those with you today.

In this episode, you’ll hear: 

1. How to separate business and personal finances
2. How to make sure you’re ready for taxes
3. How to handle client accounts and…

…most of all, why understanding how to handle the money side of things is vital to the success of your practice.

My hope is that by sharing my experiences and a few hard-learned lessons, you can avoid some of the pitfalls that I fell into.

~Wendy 
   xoxo

P.S. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a minute to share your 5 star review and a few words over on Apple Podcasts or even Spotify. If you’ve been meaning to do that, but keep putting it off, how about heading over there now? Then send me a screen shot so we can celebrate together! :)

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MENTIONED: 

Episode 63: The Power and Magic of Running a Soul Aligned Practice: An Interview with Maira Holzmann >> https://www.wendypittsreeves.com/blog/63

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FREE RESOURCE: 

Are you cramming client hours into a packed day? Working hard but feel like you're still not making any money? With decades of experience, I’ve found a LOT of ways to boost your bottom line, and I’ve pulled some of my favorites together into a free guide for you.

Download this today, check out what’s inside, then tell me which one you’ll try first.
31 Practical Ways to Increase Cash Flow In Your Private Practice

Chapters

• 0:00 Building a Successful Private Practice
• 13:25 Start and Grow Your Practice
• 21:15 Supporting the Show and Listener Feedback

Transcript

Wendy: 0:00

You're listening to Ideal Practice, episode number 65. Today, guys, we're gonna talk about what I did right when I started my practice. If you listened to last week's episode, you may think I was just a total mess, but I wasn't. In spite of myself, i actually did a lot of things right. Call it divine intervention, call it hard work, call it blind luck. Whatever it was, it worked, and it worked well. I'm living proof of that today. So I'm gonna share some of that with you today, because I think some of this will work for you too. So stay tuned.

Wendy: 0:42

["dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" Hi, i'm Wendy Pitts Reeves and, with over two decades of experience in the private practice world, i've built my six-figure business while learning a lot of lessons the hard way. This is the first podcast that shows you how to apply the principles of energy alignment and strategy to build a practice that is profit-centered but people-forward. This is the Ideal Practice Podcast. ["dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy"]. Hey guys, and welcome back. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of Ideal Practice. This is Wendy, and I am thrilled to be hanging out with you guys today. I hope you're having a great week. I hope life is rolling along for you. I hope you have had a win this week in your practice, because I know that you're doing a lot of things right too Sometimes, even if you don't know it. So I wanna share with you some of the things that I look back on now and I'm like. You know what. That was a really good move on my part. I didn't have any advisors, i did not have mentors, i did not have teachers when I started my practice Not really, i did go find that along the way, but I didn't have access to the kind of resources that a lot of us have today. I still managed to get some things right and I wanted to share that with you today, because some of this will help you reach success even faster. Does that sound good? I hope so, and if one of these resonates with you, let me know, because I want to uplift and encourage you as well.

Wendy: 2:33

So the first big thing that I did right back in the day, i did have a vision for what I wanted to create. It was very specific. It was an inspiration that had hit me and wouldn't let go, and it became my guiding light. It became the North Star for everything I did. From the very beginning I knew that I wanted to build a business that did two things. First of all, i wanted to provide a really wide variety of top notch, high quality services that would help all kinds of people in all kinds of ways. I wanted to be the go-to resource in my town for mental health. That was my original goal. But I had a second goal as well that I didn't necessarily state out loud, but it was very near and dear to my heart, and that was I wanted to help and support other women like me who wanted to run a business, because when I was starting my practice there just weren't any resources out there for women in business. It was pretty much a good old boys club, and I had become painfully aware of that. I wanted to change that, and so from the very beginning I had those two guiding principles that were behind every decision I made from the beginning, and you know what That served me well In many ways. That carried me all the way through until I sold my practice a couple of years ago. It ran like that's basically what I ran on for 25 years. That is important. Do you have a vision for what it is you want to build and, even more importantly, why you want to build it. If not, take some time to get clear on that.

Wendy: 4:25

The second thing that I did right off the bat is that, when I look back on it was a little bit of luck. It was just a name on the door at first, but I knew somehow that we needed an actual name for our practice. I don't know what it's like where you are, but in my town there were plenty of providers out there who just had their own, like it was, you know, joe's practice and Mary's practice, like that kind of thing. I knew I was going to be building a group and I knew I needed to give the public a way to find us and it wasn't just going to be the name of my city and counseling practice, like it wouldn't be like that. It was a hook, it was a label, it was an identity From the very beginning.

Wendy: 5:13

Just the name of my practice was something I wanted people to be able to grab a hold of, be able to say easily, spell easily, find easily, and that would communicate a certain feeling to them. Back then, that's how people found you in the phone book. Today, that's how people find you online. Well, it was a name that could grow as the business grew and though I didn't know it back then, that name was really the beginning of a brand and over the next 15, 20 years, that brand, it really came to mean something. It stood for something in my community.

Wendy: 5:54

What's behind the name of your practice? It doesn't need to be clever, it needs to be clear. It needs to be something that your people will get and connect to. All right, you need a name. The third thing I got right.

Wendy: 6:13

Part of this was just out of desperation. Part of it was because I had enough self-awareness to know better. I studied. I didn't know what I didn't know, but I knew I had to learn. Now, when I was a lot younger, when I was like in college or right after, you know, in my young adult, early career days, the word business used to put me to sleep but went. I didn't care about all that. I'm a social worker. I cared about social work. But when I started my own practice, suddenly it began to matter. I knew even then that decisions I made on a daily basis would affect what kind of money I've made and what kind of impact I had. So I started reading books about running a private practice or about small business. I attended classes and workshops with the.

Wendy: 7:08

Now, as the internet came online and we began to have access to digital support, i started following blogs, listening to podcasts, joining Facebook groups essentially, like many of you, soaking it up anywhere I could. Yeah, i studied, i learned. I became a student of business. I learned about the business side of a practice and began to develop. It took a while.

Wendy: 7:34

This was none of this was fast, but I began to develop a strong business mindset. That is what I see missing in a lot of my coaching clients. If you are a clinician, you are an energy healer, you are some kind of a wellness professional. Your first call, i know, is to serve your clients and help them get better. But you are a business owner, my friend, and you have to learn how to start thinking like a business owner. That's a big part of the conversation my clients and I often have. That's something I had to learn to do too.

Wendy: 8:15

The fourth thing I did was I made myself get out and start meeting people in person And y'all. I don't know where you fall on the spectrum, but in terms of introvert versus extrovert, if you looked at my Myers-Briggs scores, i've scored as high as you could score on the introvert end of that spectrum. I could honestly live in a tree house and never talk to people for like weeks at a time and honestly be just fine. Yeah, it's kind of a problem, but I knew even back then that I had to get out there and meet people, so I used every possible opportunity to network. If there was a program or an event even loosely related to mental health or counseling, i was there. Trainings, workshops, chamber of Commerce, mixers, trade shows I was there. If it was a community event where I could meet a lot of people, i was there. Even volunteer work became a form of marketing, although I didn't know it back then, but it was Eventually, because I consciously dove into participating in my local community. I got to know people and they got to know me. I created a footprint. I established a following.

Wendy: 9:42

Now, in today's world, we tend to rely heavily on our online presence, and that does matter. It is important. I am not blind to that, but I often feel like we forget how important relationships in real life are Y'all and your community, unless you have a strictly online practice that is nationwide, that is not in any way geographically based. If that's the case, then this may not matter so much for you And I do know some of you that's the case. But if you have a local, if you draw clients from your local geographic area, you've got to get into your community and get to know people, because when they get to know you, they are no longer afraid. And when they are not afraid, they will call you when they need help. That's what happened to me. That will happen to you.

Wendy: 10:36

The fifth thing that I got right that I don't know how I knew to do this. I focused on service because that's who I am, that's how I'm hardwired, that's how I know a lot of you are. But I did ask for the business. I don't know how I knew to do this, but when I was spending time at those events, when I was at the Chamber Mixer, when I was exchanging a business card, when I was somebody, when I was at a trade show, i always made it a point to ask for referrals With other professionals. I would say, hey, if you ever need a therapist or a counselor over my way, keep me in mind. Like that's what I would say to people, to colleagues, right, but with the general public, like I helped with Habitat for Humanity. I served on a couple of women's builds.

Wendy: 11:30

I was very active in the adult education nonprofit in my town. There are lots of different things that I did With those kinds of situations. I would just say to people things like you know, if you ever need anybody who needs help, just give me a call. Even if I can't see them myself, i'm glad to help you come up with ideas. So I became a go-to resource personally And then over time, my practice became known for the same thing. I focused on service, but I asked for the business Pay attention to that. How often do you tell people? do you ask people to send you people? How often do you say I've got openings? by the way, if there's anything I can help you with, let me know. Okay.

Wendy: 12:17

The sixth thing I did that really really paid off for me was I gave a lot of talks. Now some of you are going to roll your eyes and you're going to say, yeah, no way, wendy, i'm not doing that. But I encourage you if there's any part of you that has ever given a presentation and survived to think about this Just this week or not this week. Last week, one of my coaching clients gave a presentation to her professional organization in her region. It was online. It was a webinar. She'd never done a webinar before. She had taught before and liked teaching. This was still out of her comfort zone. It turned out to be such a huge success. She had something like 67, 68 people register, and I want to say 50 something showed up, and of those, she's already had someone who has invited her to do the exact same presentation at their workplace. Don't you know that's going to turn into business for her. Yeah, it is. Well, i did the same thing.

Wendy: 13:25

I gave talks everywhere. Most of them were free. A few were paid because somewhere along the way I hired a coach to teach me how to do that. I didn't know how in the beginning. My very first coach I hired to help me learn how to get paid to speak, but I gave tons of free talks. Parents, support groups, church groups, civic clubs, community groups, schools, chambers, women's groups, nonprofits, you name it. I talked. I would talk to anybody who would let me. The topics that I spoke on were simple, they were practical, they came straight out of my work, they helped people understand what I did and they provided real value in the moment. Like I remember one of the more popular talks. I did a lot of talks about parenting with teenagers, because that's kind of what I was all about. At the time I gave a talk to a mother's a preschoolers group about what depression looked like, because that was a huge issue with that group.

Wendy: 14:23

So here's the thing When you give talks, people get to know you. You're going to be the first person they think of. When they know somebody who needs what you do, or when they themselves need what you do, they're going to call you. I'm telling you I cannot. I can't say this enough. Giving talks is huge and y'all Sunday school classes, your Kiwanis club, your chamber people there are all kinds of groups that are looking for speakers all the time. Don't, don't miss that. If that's at all a part of your skill set or one you're willing to develop, don't miss that.

Wendy: 15:01

The seventh thing that I did that was helpful in the beginning. Now I don't know if I would do this today, but it helped me and it might help you. I did bring on partners from the start. In the beginning, i had business partners who were totally in alignment with the vision that I had for practice. Now I asked somebody to join me originally, and then somebody else invited me to join them and we joined forces and that became the core of what turned into a really thriving group practice. Working together with somebody else. In the beginning, when I didn't have much confidence, that gave all of us the mutual kind of support and companionship and confidence that we needed to grow. It helped relieve stress. It gave us a way to share overhead costs and sometimes we would offer workshops and groups together. It enabled us to expand the services that we wanted. That really helped me to get a practice going in the early days.

Wendy: 16:00

Now I don't have partners anymore. Today I have enough confidence to handle this on my own, and over time, indeed, those partners changed because our visions evolved and people wanted different things right. Nothing wrong with that at all. So my client changed. My client basis changed. My interests have changed. My practice has too. Yours will too, and I'm not going to say that you necessarily need a partner If you can do this on your own. Actually, i encourage you to do it on your own, but I do think that helped me in the beginning. So I don't regret it. A lot of those early partners are still among my best friends today and still are like advisors to me even today, sort of along those same lines.

Wendy: 16:44

The eighth thing that I would say I did right back then was I did look for and find mentors. Now, back then this was way before the coaching industry had taken off, that term wasn't even around. But I've always, like throughout my life, i've always been someone who would learn from people that I admire And I have never been afraid to seek that out. I mean, even as a young, as a young adult, even as a teen sometime. I've always been someone. I'm not afraid to go to somebody and say I really love the way you do X, y, z. Is there any way that you could show me how you do that or tell me more about that? I have never been shy about that And in my experience people are eager and willing to share that I am when people ask me for that kind of thing. I've always loved that right.

Wendy: 17:37

So I would reach out to, for example, senior level clinicians who were in private practice and I would ask them for lunch or a phone consult. I would ask them clinical questions and about their business practices. That was immensely helpful to me. Or in the early days. At one point, one of my colleagues started a consultation group, which I joined, and I was a member of the same consultation group that met twice a month y'all for 20 something years. We finally disbanded when the pandemic hit, but we had been meeting literally twice a month, every every first and third Tuesday, from 10, 30 to 12, like clockwork, for literally decades. That was incredibly helpful.

Wendy: 18:25

Running a practice can get a little lonely sometime. Don't be afraid to ask for help from each other and from those that you admire. And, although it goes without saying, if I was starting a practice today, i would take a course, i would join a mastermind, i would hire a coach. That wasn't available to me back then, but, by golly, today I wouldn't even think about doing this without taking advantage of those kinds of opportunities, cause it can just make everything so much better, so much easier. Yeah, and I think the last thing I want to share is that I I would say that one of the last things I mean there are so many things I've done right, like I'm not even including in this list that when I made the decision to to shift away from insurance and into self-pay, when I made the decision to start hiring coaches. I did do that. When I made the decision to add packages into my work, when I began to develop online courses, like all of those are things that I did right too, but that was much, much, much later in the process.

Wendy: 19:31

What I'm sharing with you today are what happened in like the first five years 10 years that I was in business. But the last thing I want to share with you today is that, above all else, i just kept going. I stayed with it. As with any business, there have always been highs and lows. There were times when I made lots of money and there were times when I could barely pay the rent. That was part of the process. There were times when I had difficult staffing issues that I had to address.

Wendy: 20:05

It was not always, you know, unicorns and roses. Things happen, things work, things don't work, things don't work But when those times hit, i never even thought about quitting ever. Not once did I ever think this was a mistake. I should never have done this and want to go get a job Never. I looked for help, i brainstormed solutions, i journaled, i meditated, i turned to my friends, i paid people to help me. I did whatever I had to do. I figured things out, i learned and I grew as a human being, as a clinician and as a business owner.

Wendy: 20:49

I hope, and I think I know that you are the same. You don't quit either. You might stumble a little bit. There might be days when you wonder what the heck you're doing, but you too, i believe, are the kind of person who's going to keep going and growing Right. Yeah, i think you are too Well. I'd love to hear from you This is short and sweet today.

Wendy: 21:15

Is there anything I shared with today that really resonates with you, and is there anything I've shared today you'd like to hear a little bit more about? If there is, shoot me a DM on Facebook or an email message, reach out to me and let me know. I love hearing from you. And if you don't mind a little shameless plug, i'm going to share one last thing before I wrap this up. If this is helpful to you, if you learn from these episodes, i would love it.

Wendy: 21:43

If you would consider supporting my show. You don't have to do this, but some of you, i think, might want to. If you go to my podcast and you click on the show notes for this episode, you'll see down near the bottom there's a place that says support the show. You can actually on your own sort of subscribe with a small monthly donation as little as $3 a month which would just be a nice little way of showing a little love and let me know that this is helpful to you. I really appreciate that. I appreciate you more than you know And I would love to hear what do you feel like you're getting right in your practice? Reach out to me, let me know today. Have a great week, everybody. That's what I got for you today And I will see you next week right here, same bat time, same bat station, on the next episode of ideal practice.