We may start out in private practice living in the land of reactivity, making it all up as we go.
But we don’t want to stay there.
Today, let’s look at Phase II, the Growth Phase of your business. Where are you now, and where might you go next?
In this episode, you’ll hear:
Where do you need to focus now to take your practice to the next level?
Give this a listen - and see what resonates!
~Wendy
Xoxo
P.S. “Okay Wendy - THAT was interesting….!“ If that’s what you find yourself saying as you listen, would you please share a little love with a 5 star review and a few words over on Apple Podcasts or Spotify?
_______________
THIS WEEK’S JOURNAL PROMPT:
- As you reflect on your practice and the way it’s working right now, what needs cleaning up? Where are the rough patches that need to be smoothed out?
- What could you add or revise in a way that would make things more effective for your clients, and more FUN for you?
_______________
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE:
_______________
MENTIONED:
_______________
FREE RESOURCE: The IP360 SCORECARD
As a coach of mine used to say, running a business is a full contact sport. There are SO many different parts of it to keep up with, manage, think about, and create - at every step of the way. How do you know what to work on first or where to focus your energy? How do you tell where your weaknesses are and where you're solid?
Well I’ve got you covered! The IP360 Scorecard, based on the 7 Pillars of an Ideal Practice, is designed to give you a practical, actionable, big-picture review of your practice as it stands. And you can complete it in less than 10 minutes.
Click on the link below to get your free copy today.
The IP360 Scorecard
Wendy Pitts Reeves, LCSW
Host, Ideal Practice
Private Practice Coach and Mentor
www.WendyPittsReeves.com
Wendy@WendyPittsReeves.com
We may start out in private practice living in the land of reactivity, making it all up as we go.
But we don’t want to stay there.
Today, let’s look at Phase II, the Growth Phase of your business. Where are you now, and where might you go next?
In this episode, you’ll hear:
Where do you need to focus now to take your practice to the next level?
Give this a listen - and see what resonates!
~Wendy
Xoxo
P.S. “Okay Wendy - THAT was interesting….!“ If that’s what you find yourself saying as you listen, would you please share a little love with a 5 star review and a few words over on Apple Podcasts or Spotify?
_______________
THIS WEEK’S JOURNAL PROMPT:
- As you reflect on your practice and the way it’s working right now, what needs cleaning up? Where are the rough patches that need to be smoothed out?
- What could you add or revise in a way that would make things more effective for your clients, and more FUN for you?
_______________
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE:
_______________
MENTIONED:
_______________
FREE RESOURCE: The IP360 SCORECARD
As a coach of mine used to say, running a business is a full contact sport. There are SO many different parts of it to keep up with, manage, think about, and create - at every step of the way. How do you know what to work on first or where to focus your energy? How do you tell where your weaknesses are and where you're solid?
Well I’ve got you covered! The IP360 Scorecard, based on the 7 Pillars of an Ideal Practice, is designed to give you a practical, actionable, big-picture review of your practice as it stands. And you can complete it in less than 10 minutes.
Click on the link below to get your free copy today.
The IP360 Scorecard
Wendy Pitts Reeves, LCSW
Host, Ideal Practice
Private Practice Coach and Mentor
www.WendyPittsReeves.com
Wendy@WendyPittsReeves.com
You're listening to Ideal Practice, episode number 88. Today I'd like to follow up on the conversation we started last week about some of the phases of development that you expect to go through when you own a practice, when you own a business. Last week we talked about startup, but once you've got your practice off the ground, once it's up and running and you are out of startup, then what? Well? I call that the growth phase of your practice. That's when you're going to do a lot of cleanup and that's when you're going to take it up to the next level. That's what we're talking about today. So stay tuned.
Speaker 1: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, hey guys, and welcome back. This is Wendy Pitts Reeves, your host here on Ideal Practice. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode and hanging out with me for another week. I'm so glad that you're here. How are you guys doing? Are you staying warm.
Speaker 1:Depending upon where you are in the country, that might be a bigger challenge than normal. Y'all know that I hail from East Tennessee, which is a pretty moderately placed climate, but I tell you we got a heck of a storm this past week, one of the biggest we've had in a long time and although where I live I only got maybe two or three inches of snow Not that big a deal but Gali in Knoxville, which is about half an hour away from me, they got like eight to 10 inches, which is a fricking lot where I live, and it's been super cold, like around zero degrees Fahrenheit the last couple of days when I woke up in the morning. Let's just say that's. That didn't happen here. So, as a friend of mine in the climate world said, things it's global weirding. I think one of her friends says that global weirding. That is certainly the case. But anyway, I hope you're staying warm and dry. I hope your power is staying on. I hope you're not having to go anywhere. You don't have to go if you are in the parts of the country that are dealing with all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:But let's talk about what we're going to cover today, because I've got some interesting things I want to go over with you and I was thinking about this and the context of some work I'm doing with one of my coaching clients. I've got a client that's only been in practice for a couple of years now, which is, in my mind, kind of a baby practice. She has indeed already gone through all the things that I talked about last week. She's already gone through the, the getting the systems in place, getting the money set up, figuring out how she was going to serve and where she was going to serve and who she was going to serve. She's done all that, but she is firmly in the phase that I want to talk about today, which is the phase of I'm calling it the growth phase. In a lot of ways it's the cleanup phase, but it really is when things begin to start happening for you. And in her case, she's already had some really great opportunities where she's been approached by organizations in her area to do some big work with them, to do some group oriented work that is really right up her alley and very, very fulfilling for her. And just in the last few weeks she was approached by some colleagues who had an opportunity to do some contract work with some local organizations that had tremendous potential. There was a really good chance that they could do some very important work working with an underserved population that was going to be making a big difference and that was going to be helping the practitioners and providers and people who were working with that population. So it was multiply fulfilling in all different kinds of ways.
Speaker 1:But it was a big opportunity, or at least it sounded like a big opportunity and we had to talk that through a little bit like was this too much? Was it even feasible what these folks were proposing? Did it make sense for not only her skill set and her interest, but for where she is right now in the practice, in her own practice development? How was it going to work out financially? Was it profitable? Did it make good financial sense? Was it worth it to invest the time and energy into it?
Speaker 1:But the bigger question to me as we were talking it through was how does this fit with where you see your practice going? You've got this great opportunity to provide a service to a very specific place, which is awesome. How does that fit with what you've already got in place in your practice and with the other things that you want to do, because if you, my friend, are anything like myself or most of the entrepreneurs that I work with, you'll find that, as your practice begins to take off, there are lots of ways you can help people and there are certain things that are more appealing to you than others, and you will find it's a creative wonderland, like you really can do just about anything you want, which is both a curse and a blessing, because you can do pretty much anything you want. So there's always this question about when you're thinking about a new initiative. Does this make sense for where I am right now? Is this the right use of my time and energy? Does it make financial sense? How does it impact the rest of my practice? Well, we were talking that through and it was a really great conversation and it made me think about this phase of development that many of you will find yourself in In the beginning.
Speaker 1:Here's the thing in the beginning, when you're just getting your practice off the ground, we are so focused on figuring out quote, all the things, unquote that we tend to live in the land of reactivity. Right, we are just making it up as we go. Do I offer evening appointments? Hmm, I guess I do now because I need business and you need an evening appointment. Sure, I'll see you at eight o'clock on a Tuesday, why not? We are super reactive because we're so hungry to get the business in and to start helping people. We tend to throw things together. We cobble together systems that just get the job done, even if it's a little messy.
Speaker 1:Wait a minute, what happened? Your card got stolen and now you had to cancel it. Okay, well, can you bring a check to the next visit? Or a cash, like, do you have a new card you wanna put on this? Like, let's figure it out, we'll find out. You just come on in, we'll figure out a way for you to pay. Like, we don't know how we're gonna handle all that. And sometimes y'all, we run right smack dab into a situation that will show you. It will show you that you've got to figure out a better way.
Speaker 1:This winter storm made me think about that. This doesn't happen in as much nowadays, I don't think, but back in the day when I ran my group practice, when winter storms like this would happen, I can't tell you how often various practitioners that I knew would be like I've got to cancel. All my clients and their phone numbers are at the office and I can't even get out of my driveway If all of your clients contact information is written down on some lovely confidential piece of paper in your desk. That doesn't really help you. If you're at home and you need to get ahold of people to cancel, right, those are the kind of weird little bumps in the road that we're gonna hit that tell you ah, there's a system here I need to fix, there's something here that needs my attention, there's something here I need to fix. Well, if any of that sounds like you, I want you to relax, because this is actually completely normal and it is very much a part of the maturation, the maturing process of practice ownership. So, if your phone is actually ringing pretty well and you are plenty busy, it just feels like you're constantly playing catch up, you're fine, you're doing just fine. This is exactly where you wanna be at this point. And if you feel like you're constantly playing catch up or there are parts of your practice that just aren't nearly as much fun as you thought they were gonna be well, then that tells me that it's time for you to begin easing into this next phase of development, the growth phase, because this is when you you can kind of slow down a little bit. It's up and running, you got money coming in, you got people. Slow down a little bit and let's get a handle on this crazy adventure that you find yourself on. All right, let's do that Now.
Speaker 1:For those of you who've been following me for a while, if you have already heard this, you can pretend like you're not listening right now. But for those of you who are relatively new, if you haven't already done so, I do invite you to go download a free tool I have that will help you kind of take stock of where you are in your practice development. It's called the IP360 Scorecard. That's the ideal practice, a 360 degree view of your practice. You can get it for free, easy peasy. Download it. It'll take you maybe 10 hours that's funny 10 minutes to fill it out and it will give you a really pretty quick and clear bird's eye view of where the parts are in your practice that could use a little help. You can get that really quickly.
Speaker 1:All you have to do is go to Wendy, my website, wendypitzreeves wendypitzreevescom, forward slash 360, the number 360. And you'll see a page there that describes it and you'll see it's really obvious how to go ahead and get it. Download that, be sure, and do the double opt in. You gotta do so. You make sure you get to it, download that and see what it tells you, and I would love it if you would email me and let me know what you learned from that, cause I really love hearing what this shows you. Now I do wanna tell a couple of y'all. I got some emails this week from someone who was having trouble getting this downloaded. If you run into some kind of technical glitch, by all means shoot me an email, wendyat wendypitzreevescom, and I'll look into it or I'll have my assistant look into it. Sometimes weird little things happen in Google, so you never know, but it should be pretty straightforward. Anyway, wendypitzreevescom, forward slash 360, if you'd like to get a copy of your scorecard and figure out where you are in this whole phase of development thing, all right.
Speaker 1:So let's take a closer look what I want to do. When I think about this phase of development. There are there's lots of places to hone in on, but I'm going to share with you the three places where I see the work tends to be at this part of the journey. That tends to be in lots of things around the money side of your practice. That's kind of an always thing, isn't it? This is where the marketing side of your practice gets a little bit more important and this is where mindset can get tricky as well. So I want to dig into each of those areas and I want to talk about where you might find yourself right now and where you might need to go. All right, that's where that's where we're going here today. I think this is going to be really helpful. So let's start with the money side of things. I always come back to this because this is what trips us all up so often. So, on the money side of your practice the money making, the income, the revenue producing side of your practice let's talk about where you probably are.
Speaker 1:If you are in the growth phase, of development, you probably have plenty of referrals and your client caseload is probably looking pretty good. You may not be quite as full as you want, but you are heading in that direction. You may be over full. You may have more business than you know how to keep up with. Whatever it is, you're in a relatively good place in terms of numbers. You got clients and there's a really good chance at this point that you've kind of figured out your initial pricing structure. You at least have some idea of how you're getting paid.
Speaker 1:If you're a psychotherapist, you have decided at this point whether or not to do insurance or self pay or some hybrid of those two. You probably have already decided whether or not you are going to take credit cards or you're just going to do checks and cash only. You may have decided at this point whether you're going to offer some kind of a sliding scale or some kind of a discount for certain situations. A lot of that is probably already in place because you've got clients right. You had to figure some of that stuff out. But it is also at this point that I find a lot of us are at risk for making some mistakes that can get you in trouble or that can just make things a little sloppier, a little messier, a little harder for you than they should be.
Speaker 1:Because this when your phone is ringing off the hook or you've got plenty of business coming in, you also have all different kinds of client requests and all different kinds of special needs requests, and this is when you can find yourself offering sort of off the top of your head discounts. Here and there, it may be where you find yourself offering a higher rate or raising your rate in some places but not in others. You may find yourself especially if you've been at this for a few months, or maybe even a year or so you may find yourself avoiding the money talk with clients who are a little bit behind on what they owe you. There's lots of little ways that, in a moment here, a moment there, a decision made out of emotion, made out of reactivity in the moment, can get you into a situation when you've got a bit of a mess on your hands, a money mess that's pretty common at this phase. Well, here's where I feel like you might need to go, if indeed that is the case for you.
Speaker 1:This is when you want to work on establishing a more clear boundary around what kind of discounts you're going to offer, if any, and when. For example, maybe you've got people coming in at three or four different levels of pricing because of the off the cuff things you've said to a client in the moment, right, well, maybe it's time to clean that up a little bit and bring everyone up to a certain minimum level. Or maybe you only offer two of those kinds of discounted slots, or four. Count how many? If you've got a full practice, or even a semi full practice, how many of those are you getting full fee for? Or if you are getting third party reimbursement from an insurance company, how many are being covered by that? How many have you offered some kind of a random arrangement with? How many of those, and are they all the same or are they all different? That's a place for cleanup y'all, because every one of those especially if you have a lot that are really different.
Speaker 1:All of that is something you have to remember. It's an energy drain for you and you will find yourself over time getting a little frustrated and maybe even developing a sense of resentment about some of that. So if you're up and running and your practice is going well, now is the time to start cleaning some of that stuff up. Figure out what the floor is on your pricing, like you never seen anybody for less than a certain amount. Figure out how many slots you're willing to offer a discounted rate. Set that number. Figure out how many you've already got in place and don't take on anymore until you are within that number.
Speaker 1:All right, this might be the point where you want to establish a super bill process. So if you've got people that maybe they are paying out of pocket but they do have access to insurance benefits, that would help them. Maybe this is where you develop your super bill, your growth, your receipt that they can use to apply for a reimbursement. There's lots of ways to do that, maybe. Maybe all that's just fine You're rocking and rolling, all that, you're fine. Maybe it's not about solving a problem or cleaning up something that's a little messy. Maybe now is the time that you create your first package. That's an opportunity, right. So, financially, that's kind of where I see you here.
Speaker 1:There are other things you could be working on. It could be that this is where you finally get your tax saving structure figured out. This could be where you get in the habit of your quarterly payments, something like that. You will know what you need to work on next, but in my experience, there's a lot around discounted payments and how we collect. This is where we need to sort of clean that up and get a little clearer about our boundaries and our expectations. All right, that's the first area I wanted to focus on.
Speaker 1:The second one is about your marketing. Now, if you've got plenty of business and the phone is ringing or you're getting emails or people are scheduling. You might be thinking I don't need to do any marketing. We need to tell you the truth. Things are kind of going great. Well, I'm not sure about that, because my question is are you getting the kind of referrals you want? Are you getting referrals about clients that you are super excited about working with because it is such a good fit for you?
Speaker 1:Here's where you probably are at this point. You've told a few people about your practice. Maybe you've attended a few events here and there. You might have printed up business cards, maybe even filled out an online profile of some kind. You might even have a basic website up, like through something like Squarespace or Wix or Brighter Vision some of those kinds of companies that offer templates. It might be that you've kind of got the foundation of a public presence in place, and good for you. If you've done that, that's awesome, because people need to have a way of finding you and knowing about you.
Speaker 1:However, if you are in the growth phase of your practice and let's say you've done all that then it's time to take it up a notch, right? So let's talk about some of the places you might need to go at this point. First of all, if you don't have a website, just a basic website, y'all, really simple. It's definitely time to get something in place. I won't say you have to do this. Of course you can run a practice without a website at all.
Speaker 1:But in today's world people expect you to have a website. And if a friend of a friend of a friend mentions your name at a backyard barbecue or while they're out on a date night, or they're having lunch with a friend after church and their friend says I need somebody who can help, and this person says I know somebody. They want to go look you up, they want to know who you are, they want to get a sense of your energy, your personality much less all the other stuff right, and a website is a way to do that. At the bare minimum, I think it helps to have a Facebook business page, not a personal page. A business page. That's better than anything, than nothing. But I encourage you to get just a really simple website up and y'all there are only. You really only need four things on any website. You need a homepage that's kind of like an opening handshake, that's your greeting, that's just sort of connects with your ideal client. You need an about page that tells something about you. Please do not be afraid to put your picture there. You need a services page that says something about what you do and how they can work with you, and then a contact page that where they can email you or they know your phone number, or something like that. That's really all you need Super simple, easy to set up. All right, if you don't have a website, you definitely want to do that, but let's say that you do have a site up.
Speaker 1:Well, what you might do at this phase is go back and look at the copy that you've got there. Is it clear? Is it clean? Is it sort of red? Absolutely identify the kind of folks that you are best meant to serve. Will they recognize themselves in your copy? Is it really obvious what they should do if they want to take the next step? Is it simple? Is it easy to read? Is the font big enough? Is there plenty of white space or their bullet points Like? Now might be the time to go back and make that a little bit better. That could be where you are. That's one thing.
Speaker 1:Another thing you might do at this point is to up your networking game by putting in place some kind of a follow-up strategy. Now, I'm not going to go into this here. I spoke about this actually in depth back on in episode 10. That's been a while back, y'all, but if you can go back and find that, I'll be sure and put a link to it below. That episode was called how to Become a Networking Ninja. In that I laid out for you a very specific process for how you can create a follow-up system, because that's where the magic really happens, for that. That might be something you want to do at this point. This also is probably where you might want to start adding something like speaking or some other tool to your marketing tool case. Once your practice is up and running and you kind of know what you're doing, it's a great time to go out into your community and start telling people about what you do by serving them through a talk. Speaking, public speaking, was one of the biggest ways I built my practice in the early years, so I can't say enough about that.
Speaker 1:And then, finally, in terms of marketing, this is also where you might just want to start, if you haven't already done so building an email list. All that literally means y'all is make sure that you have started to collect email addresses in one place Email addresses of your active clients, email addresses of potential clients, but also email addresses of what I call your hot 100. And that is your network your friends, neighbors, colleagues, referral sources in your area that may need to know about you. You just want to start collecting all that into one place, and I would encourage you to add it into a tool like MailChimp or Constant Contact or Active Campaign. There's lots of them out there and at some point I'll do a whole episode on this, I'm sure. But for now, I just want to say the day is going to come when you're going to wish you had access to all those email addresses, and we'll talk about that later. But for now, at this phase of your development, I just want to say get a tool in place, get a process in place and start collecting addresses.
Speaker 1:So we've talked about money, where you are and where you might need to go next. We've talked about marketing where you are and where you might need to go next, and it's always fine tuning y'all. That's all we're doing when we're fine tuning. Now let's talk about mindset. You wouldn't think that would be a thing here, right, because here's where you probably are. I'm hoping that you're feeling kind of good, that you're kind of excited. You might be a little overwhelmed, you might have this sense of like, wow, I'm doing it.
Speaker 1:I remember that feeling. I remember there was a moment, just a few months not a few, no, it wasn't a few months into. It was like it took me like a year and a half before I really got any traction in my practice, because I still had a full time job. I knew absolutely nothing about what I was doing and there wasn't a lot of help back then. But when I did, it sort of began to take off like there was a moment. It was like nothing for a long time and then all of a sudden things began to click. I remember having that feeling of, oh my gosh, it's actually working, it's happening. I have to tell you I have been lately I'm sure I'm the only one who ever falls down the rabbit hole of TikTok but I have been watching these little videos I don't know why of this little girl named Kashi, who was a six year old snowboarder. I am not a snowboarder ever, nor will I ever be, but it has been such a delight to watch this little kid because she's doing some kind of scary things and you can see her stumble and fall and she gets back up and she does something. That's kind of a big thing for her and she will like throw her arms up in the air and say, woohoo, I did it. It's really fun to watch.
Speaker 1:Well, that's how you might be feeling in your practice. At the same time, you may be secretly a little worried or a little stressed, or maybe just even a little bit embarrassed about the places where you're dropping a ball here and there. If you are, you have a lot of company. Trust me, here's all you got to do. At this point, in this phase of your growth. All you want to do is just remember that when things are going wrong, when something messes up somewhere, when something doesn't work, all that is y'all is a signal from your business about something that could use a little attention. See it as an opportunity, because it is every problem. Y'all have heard this. This is a common phrase. Every problem is an opportunity in disguise. Remember what I said last week about beginner's mind. That's going to continue to happen, no matter where you are in your private practice journey. That never, ever stops. So when something doesn't quite work, do not sit around and beat yourself up about it. Go huh, that's interesting, okay, that's not working, I got to figure this one out, and then let's figure that one out. All right, let's figure that out. Whatever that is.
Speaker 1:This too is part of the growth phase of a private practice. That's about solving problems. That's about coaching yourself through those problems. The other thing I might add is this is also a time when I would love to see you get a little more picky, a little choosier. This is where I want you to start defining a little bit better what you want to say no to, so that you can say yes to more of what you love. That's also what we do with this phase.
Speaker 1:So I mentioned to you at the beginning today I was telling you about my client who had this tremendous opportunity that came along. We talked it through on a coaching call and went over all the questions we could think of different ways to approach it, all the pros and cons of different ways to structure this contract that they were talking about, and then she went back to her colleagues with the ideas that she came up with, and she came away from that conversation with something even better, because she had taken the time to get clear before she went in. And what ended up happening out of that was she got even more clear, not only about that particular contract or service, but how she wanted her own practice to really look and how she could set it up or segment her time and her weeks into a way that just really really fits for her In this particular case. This is not with everybody, but in this particular case, she loves doing training, she loves offering supervision. She also loves direct clinical work, and she was trying to figure out how to put all that together right, without working too many hours and still being around and available for her kids and making sure that she had solid pricing and their ideal income that she was aiming for. Well, that's happening. That worked. That's what came out of that. She got so much clearer about her schedule, her pricing, her value, the work she loves and what she wants and what she needs in order to meet her goals. And, by golly, that's what she went in and negotiated for and that's what's happening. So that is what growth is all about. Right, it's all of this.
Speaker 1:So here's what I would love for you to think about this week, or maybe even try this, write about this in your journal. Here's a little journal prompt for you as you look at your practice right now what needs cleaning up? Where are the messy spots? Where are the bumpy spots? What is a little rough? What makes you a little nuts? What needs your attention?
Speaker 1:What do you find yourself thinking there's gotta be a better way to handle this and what could you do to make it even more effective for your clients and more fun for you? More fun, notice, I didn't say profitable, cause I kind of think those two things happen together. I think when it's more fun, it's also gonna be more profitable, and vice versa. Think about that, all right. Do a little reflection and see what you come up with. And if it's one or two things, easy, if it's a whole list of things, put them in order of what's most important or maybe what's the easiest thing to knock out. Fix that first, all right. Well, I hope this is helpful. I hope it gives you some things to think about at this phase of your development, because we come back to this over and over again. By all means, reach out to me, let me know if you have questions, if there's something specific that I can help you with. And don't forget to go download your copy of the IP 360 scorecard If you haven't already done that. Wendypittsreevescom forward slash 360 to get that. Have a great week, everybody, and I will see you next time right here on the Ideal Practice Podcast. Bye now.
Speaker 1:If this program has come to be important to you, it would mean so much to me if you'd be willing to take just a minute to do one or two things. First, would you follow or subscribe to the show right here at Ideal Practice? Following me helps you because you'll never miss an episode, and it helps me too for the same reason. To do that, all you have to do is go to the show page for Ideal Practice on Apple Podcast or Spotify or wherever you happen to listen to podcasts there. All you have to do is click on the plus sign that usually you'll find at the top right-hand corner, or click on the word follow, which will be somewhere on that page. That really is one of the most important things you can do to support the podcast and support me While you're there.
Speaker 1:It would be extra special if you'd be willing to give me a five-star rating and a review and share your favorite episode with a friend, a colleague, someone you think could use this information. Could you do that? I promise if you do, I will love you forever. The truth is, you matter a lot to me and I value your support more than words will ever convey. So if you do that or any of those things, that would just be beautiful. Thank you, sweet friend. I appreciate you more than you know, and then we'll see you back here again. Simon has some hairкими survival issues out嗨, and here are three things you can do to help those who are in the industry Say Hello.