#94. 5 Creative Ways to Boost Practice Revenue Without Working Longer Hours

There’s more than one way to make money, my friend.

But far too often in the private practice world, we’re used to providing a single service to a single client for a single hour or session, and that’s it.

The problem with that is that there are only so many hours in the day, and your income is capped.

But what if that wasn’t how it had to be? What if there were all kinds of fun ways you could leverage the service you already provide and the knowledge you already have in ways that serve more people, make more money for you, AND don’t take up more of your time?

Yeah - let’s talk about that.

In today’s episode, we’ll explore how to move beyond dollars for hours and into more creative ways to serve…

The possibilities really are endless.

In this episode, you’ll hear: 

1. How to creatively increase revenue and serve more people in at least 5 different areas of your practice.
2. One really easy way to stop losing money on the front end while still serving your 1:1 clients well.
3. Several strategies for adding easy income with low-ticket digital products.

And I’ll provide specific examples for every single idea I share with you today.

Which one are you thinking about trying?

Drop me an email and let me know. 😘

~Wendy
  Xoxo

P.S. Are you enjoying Ideal Practice? If so, please help me spread the word. Do you have one or two friends who could really use a boost of encouragement each week? Who else needs this kind of practice-boosting info? Please consider sharing this episode with them - and thank you!

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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 and tell me which one you’ll try first. :)

💰 31 Ways Practical Ways to Increase Cash Flow in Your Private Practice

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COACHING:  NEED REAL 1:1 HELP?

Let’s talk about that. Maybe you’ve got a problem in your practice that you can’t solve. Maybe you have an idea you want to try but don't know where to start. A Quick Start Consult gives you access to high quality coaching in a targeted work session where we will get things done. Promise.

Click here for details.

🔥 Quick Start Consult

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

You're listening to Ideal Practice, episode Number 94. If you are a healer, a wellness professional, a psychotherapist or any other kind of healing arts practitioner in private practice, there's a really good chance that your primary source of income is some kind of one-on-one service one client, one customer at a time, whether that customer is a single individual, a couple, a family, whatever it's still one at a time, right? Well, today we're going to talk about all kinds of other ways that you could be making more money, including leveraging your service and your expertise in all kinds of other ways. This is going to be really good, so stay tuned. 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. Wendy Pitts Reeves, your host here at Ideal Practice. I'm so happy to have you guys and I'm so glad you're tuning in for another episode here on the program with me. Thank you for being here today. How are you doing? How's life going? I hope it's good. I hope you are doing good work. I hope you're enjoying your clients. I hope the money is rolling in in a really easy way that feels good and in alignment with who you are, and I hope that you are enjoying your role as a practice owner Well. As a lot of you know, one of the things I love about being in business for myself is the fact that I can be creative. I can come up with as many ideas as I want to serve whatever the need is in front of me.

Speaker 1: 2:24

At the time, and as I was setting down to record this literally, I just remembered something that I hadn't thought about in a long time, and that was back in the day I was known for working with adolescents I've talked about that here a lot and there was a time when my practice was heavily full of teenage angst, let's just say that and I began to notice a pattern among some of the girls that I was seeing. I kept hearing story after story after story about situations that they were finding themselves in with their boyfriends that, in all honesty, sounded like almost like precursors to what could become a type of domestic violence situation in the future, and it was a without going into a lot of detail, because that's not the important point here. The important point is that I noticed a pattern among different kids who went to different schools, who were all in the same age group but did not know each other. But the themes were very strong and they kept showing up and I talked I was talking about that to a colleague of mine that was in my group practice at the time and I'm like I'm really worried about these girls and I'm trying to figure out something to do about them. And as I was talking to her, an idea hit me about starting some kind of a support group where I could get those girls together in the same room at the same time and see if they couldn't learn from each other and if I couldn't help them begin to model healthier behavior, better boundaries, better protection for themselves, more self-respect. So I did that. I put a group together literally with the girls that I was already seeing, and I picked a couple of dates and set some kind of a price and I had them all show up at the same time. I pushed the furniture back in my office, literally pushed the furniture back so we could sit on the floor, made a big bowl of popcorn Did I just say a big bowl of popcorn? Made a big bowl of popcorn and basically created a safe space for these girls who did not know each other to swap stories, share encouragement, learn from each other and, if things went the way I hoped, they would become healthier girls, become healthier human beings, become girls who knew how to take care of themselves in the world. So that group that I did back then was just one of countless things like that I've done over the years, either because I was just looking for something new to do, because I was just ready for something new to try, or because there was a specific need and usually that's where it came from a specific need that I identified among those I served and came up with a way to do that.

Speaker 1: 5:26

So I wanted to talk about this with you guys today, because for so many of us in private practice, we are used to thinking in a pretty straight line, narrow way, about dollars per hour. We see one client, one customer, one family group at a time. We have a certain rate per session, per visit, per service, whatever it is that you do, and all we tend to think about is that's how we make a living, right? Well, the problem with that is that there are only so many hours to your day. There are only so many hours you want to work in a week or a month or a year, and limiting yourself to how much money you can make literally in a block of time severely limits how much you can earn. But I will also say it limits your creativity and the different ways that you can serve your clients.

Speaker 1: 6:24

So what I wanted to do today is just kind of a quick rundown of a handful of ideas. I want to talk about four different areas in particular. First, I want to talk about how to stop losing money, because we don't think about that at all, but that's actually where you want to start. You want to start by cleaning up what you've already got in place and stop losing the money you're already earning. Then I want to talk about three other types of things, types of activities, types of services you could provide that build on what you already do. That could make you more money. Some of them are easy, some of them are less so. They're all simple in terms of what they actually provide. That doesn't mean they're necessarily simple to create, but we'll talk about that as we go. So I just want to kind of hit this as a highlight because I wanted to.

Speaker 1: 7:17

I find this with my own clients, with those that I coach, when we start talking about what they do, I can see so many things that they could do not instead of, but ways that they could augment, leverage, layer what they are offering to their clients that could serve them and serve their clients in a bigger way. I see this a lot and when I start throwing out those kinds of ideas, a lot of times I get this like oh wow, never thought about that. Oh huh, oh yeah, I could see how that could work. Huh, right, so I just know that we don't. We're not really wired this way. We certainly are not taught to think this way in our training programs, our grad school programs, um, and unless you and if you're kind of new to the whole business world, this may be new to you as well. Now, if you've been around for a while, this may not be so new, but hopefully, just by talking through some of these ideas, it will jog a few things loose, that where that can kind of get you thinking in a way that's going to give you some some fresh ideas. So let's talk through a couple of these.

Speaker 1: 8:23

First, I want to talk about how to stop losing money. Always stop the bleeding, plug up the hole, stop the leaks first. Now, some of the obvious ways to do that are things like make sure that you set your clients pay you as they go. Don't let them wait to next week or next month. Have them pay each week. Um, obviously, if, um, I've talked on here in the past about how to handle late cancells or no shows, the clearer those policies are and the more on top of it, you are within forcing them, they won't happen as often and you're you will be, you will not be losing money that way. Those. So those are some of the obvious ways. If you have a type of practice where you get third party reimbursement, like an insurance based practice, or perhaps you get workman's comp, anything like that, just filing those claims in a timely way, that is like that's another way to stop losing money, because it's easy to lose money if you're not taking staying on top of those things.

Speaker 1: 9:24

But I want to give you one specific idea that perhaps might be new, and that is when someone schedules a first visit with you. Have any of you ever noticed that if there's any kind of a gap between when someone schedules and when they actually come if it's any, if it's more than like a week let's say it's a couple of weeks out how often does it happen that they don't show up at all or they cancel at the last minute? This doesn't happen to me. It has happened in the past. It doesn't happen anymore because of what I'm going to share with you today. But I've heard from a lot of you that this is a problem and a lot of you are like I don't mind, what can you do If they don't come? They don't come, oh well. Well, actually there is something you can do.

Speaker 1: 10:14

And here's the thing when someone calls you to schedule a service, often they are in crisis. It may be a psychological or emotional crisis, or relationship crisis. It may be physical. They got a backache, they've gotten hurt somehow. They need some kind of help. It may be. They just heard about you and they were sort of momentarily enthusiastic about this delightful thing that you do. But then life gets busy, life kicks in. They're like oh, what am I doing? I don't have time for that, or I can't afford that, or I need to save that for my kids. Whatever, there's a lot of ways that people talk themselves out of getting the help that they want and deserve. Well, you know how you stop those no shows and late cancels. Here's how you do it Require a deposit for your first visit and make it enough of a deposit that they are not likely to cancel, and it has to be non-refundable.

Speaker 1: 11:13

Even if you take insurance, guys, and you don't, they're going to have a copay. Whatever you can still say. I've learned from experience that the first visit is the hardest because it takes a lot of courage to get yourself here, and I understand that. And I block off a certain amount of time for you, and I'm sure you will appreciate that when people disappear at the last minute, that's pretty hard on my schedule and so, between the fact that I want to protect my time, but I also want to help you not I want to help you get over that first visit, because I know how scary it is I have learned from experience that it really works best if I require a deposit. So for that first visit, I'm going to ask that you, when you schedule, you pay X amount of dollars to claim that spot. Now, if you're not, this is I'm just going to say if you do file insurance, you can say we totally will file insurance. If you have a copay, don't worry, you may have a slight credit, that's fine, we'll apply that to the visit after that, whatever. And if you decide not to come back, I'll give you a refund If I need to.

Speaker 1: 12:20

I don't really like that part. Personally, I actually would not say that. But the main thing is you want to say some version of I'm setting aside this time for you. I do actually I require that when folks for their first visit that they pay a certain amount of a deposit before they come. Now I charge more for that first visit and it is a. It is steep for people. So what I do is I require that they pay half of that visit at the time that they schedule and they don't have to pay the other half until the day they come.

Speaker 1: 12:50

That breaks it down, that makes it feel a little bit better. But here's what happens they show up, they show up. I bet you I have had maybe two people in like six years that have had to cancel that first visit. And if they do have to cancel, I will reschedule once, but just once. I do not refund that money after that. Okay, so just get a deposit on that first visit and you will stop losing people at that first visit.

Speaker 1: 13:21

And here is the simple truth Usually, if you can get them in the door the first time, they're going to want to come back because they're going to love you, and they've already done the scary part, which is getting in the door the first time. So that's my first tip for you Stop losing money by requiring some kind of a deposit. I would make it at least $100 y'all. I'm just going to throw that out there. All right, my second kind of air. So I've got three sort of sections.

Speaker 1: 13:47

I want to talk about the first one. This is kind of the low hanging fruit and that is offer, some kind of a resource that meets a common need that you hear about all the time from your clients, and this would be a low ticket digital product of some kind $29.95, $39, $49, $97, probably no more than that Some kind of a download, some kind of a something. Let's talk about some examples. So, for example, let's say that you were, you are, a parenting coach or a therapist that works with young families and you have lots of parents of preschoolers who need help learning how to discipline, say, age two to five, and you're often teaching them how to do a time out, like there's a right way to do a time out that's effective, that's age appropriate. There's like there's lots to go into that.

Speaker 1: 14:53

You could do something like create a single video, sit down and talk to your camera on zoom or on a loom video something like that. Sit down and talk to your camera, create a single video and then some kind of a PDF download like a tip sheet or a step one, step two, step three, where you essentially say on paper the same thing you just said in the video that teaches young parents how to do a proper time out Do's and don'ts. Sell that for $29 or $15 if you want, I don't care what it is, but you could create that. You could create a whole series of things just like that how to handle bedtime, how to handle a temper tantrum, how to, how to provide a routine for different age groups. But think these are very specific, very specific things that you can teach literally in one sitting. Create a video, add a PDF to it, add a price to it. People can download and pay for it.

Speaker 1: 15:54

A second idea for a digital download could be some kind of a journal Like this would essentially be a fillable PDF that you create online that, say, has some nice branding and some nice stuff around the edges, but is mostly like really simple. So that helps your clients track almost anything that's relevant to what you teach. There have been times in the past when I wish I had something like this to help clients track PMS symptoms or mood swings. Maybe you help them give them a place to capture reflections after meditation, as well as a habit tracker for keeping up with doing the meditation, and perhaps you have them track something like their, their sense of well-being on a daily basis. Or maybe you're just trying to train them to start noticing the good stuff. Or like a gratitude journal, like something as simple as that. But what? But something that's relevant to what you teach all the time that you find yourself telling clients have you ever tracked this? Have you ever taken notes about this? Could you put this on the calendar? Do you have a journal where you could write about this? Well, you could literally create something that you sell them again $29, $39, $49, whatever, depending upon what you add to it. That could be a simple digital product. Make it something. The only thing I would say about that is if you do that, make it something that would work if they did it online or if they printed it out, and to make it printer friendly, that means more white space than anything else, so keep that in mind.

Speaker 1: 17:38

A third idea for a typical digital product let's say you work with couples or families or you're a relationship coach. What if you put together a date night planning kit? They and this is for couples that has a calendar, perhaps a list of types of dates that they could consider, perhaps like a planning checklist for what goes into each one? You know the who, what, where, when, why, that kind of stuff and perhaps a list of, let's say, conversation starters to make that night a fun night Like that could literally be something that you put together as a little bundle that has the calendar, the tip sheet, the list of ideas, the list of questions, list of conversation starters all that could be a bundle as a date night planning kit that you, they pay for and download. So those are examples of a, of a resource that you can literally have parked on your website that people can pay for and get that. You are just helping them learn on their own something you're always teaching to them anyway. So that's the. That's kind of the first idea along those lines.

Speaker 1: 18:45

The second idea I wanted to talk about that's a little bit more involved, and that is to consider offering a course, a digital course. Now, it could be a completely 100% DIY on their own. It could be completely live involving you, or a hybrid of those. Now, when I think about courses, there's a lot to this, but I like to think about what Amy Porterfield talks about three specific types of courses. If you don't know Amy Porterfield, look her up. She is my go to guru in all things related to online courses. I love her, amy Porterfieldcom. You can find her. She talks, in particular, about three different kinds of courses. She talks about a starter course, a spotlight course or a signature course. So a starter course is a small, like an appetizer. It's like something that introduces people to you what you do, how you think, how you work. It's a small course may have two, three, three, four modules, videos, lessons, right Segments.

Speaker 1: 19:54

A good example of this there's a therapist that I know and really admire. Her name is Micah Ross, and you can find her at MicahRosscom, I'll link that in the show notes she has. In fact, I'm going to have her on the show, and if I can't, by the time you hear this, I don't know if she'll have already been on here or not, but at the time I'm recording this, I am planning to have her on. I love the way Micah markets her practice. She has something called essential strategies for busy couples, and it's offered as a free training. You can see it at the top of her website at MicahRosscom. That same idea, though, could be offered for a price right. So this is a point you can use these for free. It's a real simple thing. It could be a free download that gets people added to your mailing list and also enables you to help them, but you can also charge for that.

Speaker 1: 20:43

That's a starter course, a real simple, very narrow topic specific course. A spotlight course is something that's a little bit more robust, that is dealing with a particular topic that is relevant to your audience. So, for example, I for a while I was doing a spotlight course called the C2C Immersion. C2c is Courage to Confidence. The Courage to Confidence Immersion that was an eight-week live course that I taught online. That was walking people through a very specific framework for how to take action on their big idea. That was a spotlight course. There was a little bit more to it. It was more involved, it had a bigger takeaway, it had a higher price point and I taught it live.

Speaker 1: 21:28

A signature course is a important, like your prime real estate. It's the number one thing you do. It's one thing that is central to who you are and what you offer. For me, that is Evolve, my mastermind and group coaching program that I offer each year, so you might think about offering some kind of a digital course If you've never done this before. By all means start small, but always go back to what you're teaching your clients all the time. Anyway, how many times a week are you saying the same thing to people? That is an opportunity for a course, or the digital product resource that I talked about a moment ago.

Speaker 1: 22:10

The third thing you could do is to offer a live group experience of some kind, and y'all I will say that, like you, can do this in person or online. Both of those work and how they work, and which one is best depends upon what you do through your audiences. What's involved in this? So, for example, one of my former coaching clients and dear friends, jodi. She I don't know if she's still doing this, but she for a while had what was called an AccuDTox group every Wednesday afternoon from four to six. This was at my group practice I used to have. She had kind of a drop in group where people could pop in and she would set them up with AccuDTox, which is a very specialized kind of acupuncture specifically on the ear, and she would get them set up and then they would essentially chill for a while, like an hour or so, and then she would help them kind of pull it all undo whatever she had just done and send them back out into the world. But that AccuDTox group was specifically designed to help people with anxiety, with addictions, people who were trying to stop smoking, things like that, and it was a very free flowing thing. It wasn't a processing group, they didn't have to talk to each other, but it was a safe place with people who trusted her, who could show up and connect with each other and with her and get set up for like a little mini acupuncture session. But she did it as a group. That's a great example of a live group. That was pretty low maintenance easy to do.

Speaker 1: 23:48

On the podcast. If you heard the episode where I talked with Dr Ajeda Robinson, she there was the person who had the eight figure practice. Remember that one? That was episode. Oh, that was just last week. That was episode 93. How quickly I forget. In that episode she mentioned that when she got hurt, when her practice first began to take off, she had noticed that pediatricians were referring adolescents to her practice but that there was a gap between when they would recommend that they come and when they actually showed up and there was a definite pattern that they were getting a lot of kids who were having somatic symptoms of anxiety. So she went to one of her strongest referral sources, a pediatrician that kept sending her people, asked that pediatrician if they had noticed the same pattern. And would it be helpful, perhaps, dr Pediatrician, if I came to your office and we offered a support group for those adolescents in your offices and the answer was yes and that was the beginning of a whole new wave that she was doing things. That is, a live group for a particular audience that worked better in person.

Speaker 1: 25:04

Now I am actually in the middle of launching a new support group for women leaders at midlife. That's going to be online only because I want it to be available to women around the country. I don't I considered actually making that alive in person local group, but I really want to open it up to folks in other areas. So, a live group, y'all people, even though you, I have found, as a therapist, sometimes it's hard to convince people to try a group, but the truth is we are hungry for community. People are hungry for their tribe to a sense of safety and connection with other human beings. Loneliness is at epidemic levels right now in our country, ever since the pandemic especially. So any kind of a live group is going to be a good thing for your clients. That is one to many. That's where you take your service and you are offering it to more people at one time. That's going to boost your income. It's going to Give you a bigger impact for the same amount of time. All right, so do you see how that works?

Speaker 1: 26:14

So we've talked about how to stop losing money by, said, in particular, requiring a deposited intake. That's where I said that we've talked about offering some kind of a small digital Resource that is a low ticket item. We're talking about offering a course where there was a starter course, a little one, kind of a medium level spotlight course on a particular topic, or a signature course. That is absolutely your core thing. Whatever you do with those y'all those are going to be higher ticket items. Those are going to be anywhere from, say, $500 up to two or $3,000. That's pretty common for that range of those types of things. And then we talked about offering a live group. The pricing for that's going to vary, but that is also an idea. The last thing I want to mention is the idea of bringing in subcontractors, hiring other people to work under you and provide services in your name. This is also a very powerful way to diversify your income.

Speaker 1: 27:14

So another thing to think about when you think about subcontractors, it doesn't just have to be someone who does exactly what you do, who can see your clients if you can't. It can also be someone who does something that is aligned with what you do. So, for example, let's say that you work with highly stressed leaders in corporate roles. So they are in the C-suite or they are In middle management and up there, the up-and-comers. They are high achievers, they are working their tail off, they're making really good money and they are on at risk of burnout. Perhaps you provide some kind of a core service like psychotherapy or life coaching, but you have in your Wheelhouse. You have an energy healer that part of the package they get from you is so many visits a month with you or phone calls with you, but they also get one visit a month with that energy healer and perhaps they also get time, say, with an organizer who's going to help them get their digital life under control, like you could provide sort of a bundle of services that fit whatever your particular clients need.

Speaker 1: 28:24

There's lots of ways to think about adding in a subcontractor so that the clients pay you. You pay the subcontractors. The money has to work. You have to run the numbers to make that work, but there's lots of ways to make that work as well. So notice what I did. I just threw a whole lot at you really quickly and I know that. But the point here is there's a lot of ways to make money, my friends, and If you are really good at what you do, I really want to encourage you to find other ways to teach what you teach Without having it to be one family at a time, one couple at a time, one individual at a time Creating a digital product offering some kind of a course. I'm creating some kind of a group. You could also. You know workshops, those kinds of things, retreats all of those are different ways of making money. Pick one, just one, and Play with what to do about it.

Speaker 1: 29:20

So I meant into you at the start of this episode about the time when I realized that I was seeing a pattern among all these adolescent girls. Well, what I did with that is I wrote an article about it for our local newspaper. I put that group together. I Started talking to guidance counselors at our local schools about it. I Ended up being invited by a local nonprofit to come help them set up a conference specifically designed to empower girls, and a whole series of things came out of that. But the very first thing I did was announce and invite to the girls I was already seeing how would you like to hang out with some other girls and me on a Thursday afternoon after school for, let's say, an hour and a half? We'll have some popcorn, I'll bring coax and let's sit and talk about how to, how to stand up for yourself, how to Access that courage that you have inside that maybe sometimes you don't always recognize that little bitty group turned into a much bigger thing over time.

Speaker 1: 30:27

So that's what I want you to consider doing, I hear here I've got a little help for you. If this is like I don't even know where to start, wendy, I Do have. I've got lots of ideas. Let me tell you about a free resource that I have is free not paying, not charging for this. This is free.

Speaker 1: 30:45

I have put together a little e-book where I have actually 31 different ways that you can boost your cash flow, 31 different ideas for making more money. You can get that, your own copy of that. All you have to do is go to windy pits Reeves calm forward, slash cash flow. Wendy pits, reeves calm forward, slash Cash flow all one word, and you will see there Everything you need to know about that little e-book and you can download your own copy right there, free and easy.

Speaker 1: 31:20

And I might as well say, if you look through that and You've got an idea about something specific you want to do and you're just not quite sure how to implement it, what would this really look like? How would I structure it? How would I price it? By golly, I can sure help you with that. Consider doing a quick start console y'all. You can learn about that on my website too. Quick start console You'll find that under the start here tab. We can totally map that out in one session. We totally could now Implementing it would be up to you, but I can sure help you put the framework together.

Speaker 1: 31:59

I love doing that kind of thing and would love to help you. So, windy pits Reeves, calm forward, slash cash flow, and if you want some help implementing an idea, look at the start here button on my website as well. All right, everybody, that's what I've got for you today. I hope that was fun. I hope that's helpful. I hope it's got your wheels turning a little bit in your head and I hope you will give yourself permission to just consider. Just consider Tapping into your creativity and finding a new way of Serving those people that you love so much, those clients that you so so adore and want to help. All right, everyone, that's what I got. Have a great week, let me know what you think about all this, and I will look forward to seeing you again Next week right here on the ideal practice podcast. Bye now, hey y'all.

Speaker 1: 32:54

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Speaker 1: 33:42

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