The Therapy Business Podcast
We know how challenging growing a therapy practice can be, and don’t think it should require an accounting degree just to run your business. If you own a solo or a group practice, we’re here to help you build a business that creates more time, makes more money and serves more people.
The Therapy Business Podcast
Stop Going It Alone: Key People Who Will Transform Your Practice
Every practice owner needs support to thrive and grow. We explore the critical team members you should have in your corner to build a financially healthy, sustainable therapy business.
• Marketing coach or consultant to help get more clients and improve messaging
• HR consultant to ensure compliance and protect your practice once you have employees
• CPA for tax compliance, business structure advice, and money-saving strategies
• Bookkeeper to maintain clean financial records and take administrative tasks off your plate
• Business coach to help navigate growth and scale your practice strategically
The investment in these professionals pays dividends by helping you avoid costly mistakes, save time, and focus on what you do best. Different stages of business may require different levels of support, but all five advisors become essential as your practice grows.
If you need support with profit coaching, visit therapybusinesspod.com to learn how we can help speak into your business and improve it.
Ross Herosian Marketing Program: https://www.getmarketingclarity.com/
Our Profit Coaching program is enrolling new practices now.
We specialize in helping therapy practices like yours achieve financial clarity, so you can focus on what you do best—helping your clients and managing your team- while we help handle all the businessy stuff they didn’t teach you in grad school.
To see if your practice might be a good fit, schedule a free consultation at therapybusinesspod.com.
Meet with one of our coaches
*Intro/outro song credit:
King Around Here by Alex Grohl
No practice owner should be going it alone, and unless you are in a partnership, you probably are and it's one of those things where you're just out there trying to figure this whole thing out by yourself. It's overwhelming. We're constantly second guessing ourselves and are we making the right decisions? Are we making the right moves? I'm a firm believer that we all need support, and so just because you're a solo business owner doesn't mean that you have to go it alone. Today, I'm going to walk you through five key people. I always call these your board of advisors in a way, five people that you should have in your corner, supporting you and helping you make sure that your business is thriving and growing in a financially healthy way. My name is Craig and I'm the owner of Daisy Financial Coaching. Our team is on a mission to make your therapy practice permanently profitable. If you own a solo or group practice, we're here to help you build a business that creates more time, makes more money and serves more people. This is the Therapy Business Podcast podcast. No practice owner should be going it alone, and unless you are in a partnership, you probably are, and it's one of those things where you're just out there trying to figure this whole thing out by yourself. It's overwhelming. We're constantly second guessing ourselves and are we making the right decisions? Are we making the right moves? I'm a firm believer that we all need support, and so just because you're a solo business owner doesn't mean that you have to go it alone. Today, I'm gonna walk you through five key people. I always call these your board of advisors in a way, five people that you should have in your corner supporting you and helping you make sure that your business is thriving and growing in a financially healthy way. Maybe it's because I'm a coach, but from day one, I've had people in my corner. When I first decided I was going to start this business venture, the first thing I did is I went out and hired a coach to help me figure out how to do this whole thing. I've worked with all types of people, and I don't think there has been a day since I started this business that I haven't leaned on support from consultants, coaches, financial gurus all of the above financial gurus, all of the above. So it's really important that we surround ourselves with other people who have different perspectives, who can ask different questions, ask the right questions and really look out for us and our business Because, let's face it, you are busy. You're probably busy working with clients. You're probably busy if you have a team managing those people. You're busy marketing, doing sales. You're busy doing all the admin back work. So there's so many pieces moving in our business that having other people speak into it can take a lot off your shoulders. Having some people take literally physically things off your plate can really really help.
Speaker 1:When we are in our business, sometimes we are so close to it that it can be really difficult to see things. We might be almost too close to it. You know what I mean, like where we don't know what's right in front of our faces. We're in there day to day and we see this a lot with our clients, where they are in the day to day of their industry and when somebody like us steps in and we can ask questions that maybe they aren't seeing, there's so many aha moments that it's they're telling us I can't believe I didn't even think of this or I didn't see this, or it almost feels obvious. But at the same time, with everything they're juggling and the fact that they're in it every single day, it doesn't always jump to them. So that's what these core people can do, and so I want to really just highlight that value of why this is important.
Speaker 1:Now, all of these pieces are going to come with an investment, so these are not just, for the most part, not going to be free people speaking into your business, but that's truthfully. What we want is somebody who we are investing in them so that they invest in us. We don't want a one-sided arrangement where it's this person who we're not paying and then they're giving us advice. We want a mutually beneficial engagement and that's where paying and investing in these things and that's I will call every one of these an investment, because in some way, some capacity, these are all going to generate an ROI. Now we're depending on before again, before I get into it depending on where you are in business. If you're listening to this and you are brand new, maybe you just started on your own. You're not making, you're on making less than a hundred thousand dollars a year in your business. Not all five of these are going to be things you can run out and do today, and so what I would do is I would think through some of your key pain points and maybe that's even before you continue listening, start thinking about now.
Speaker 1:What are some things that make me anxious, what are things that stress me out about the business? Is it about the finances? Is it about the money management? Is it about the finances? Is it about the money management? Is it about growing? Is it about managing your team? What are the things or managing a team, I guess, if you're, if you're smaller what are the things that really stress you out and what are time sensitive? So, for example, the managing a team, one, if you're just a solo person, that one may not make sense to invest in right now.
Speaker 1:So that might be one that you, when we highlight people that can help in that area, that may be one you put off for down the road. What are ones that are gonna be most relevant to you today? What are ones that are gonna relieve some of that stress and anxiety or frustrations, and focus on those first. So I'm gonna guide you through five key people that you should have in your corner, and then I might even give some advice on ones that, depending on where you are whether you're making 10,000, 100,000 or a million a year who, how you can seek out those people, how you can do it in a way that's going to best support your size of business.
Speaker 1:So the first one I want to talk about is a marketing coach or consultant. Their goal is to get you more leads, get more money in the door, get more paying clients, right. So somebody who can consult with you. Now, I'm not talking about, maybe in their realm of offerings is, you know, ad management. Maybe they do some SEO support or optimization, but those are not just the things I'm looking for. There's a million companies out there who offer SEO optimization and ad management. What I'm looking for is, if that's something we want, then make sure that's in their suite of offerings or their suite of expertise. I want a consultant or a coach, somebody who's going to meet with me to get to know my ideal client. Get to know those things, help guide me through content creation, how to speak to my ideal client, how to change the messaging or work the messaging on my website Again, not just to show up more in searches, but also to, when people end up on my website, that it's speaking to them and driving them to that next step.
Speaker 1:If we're just focusing on SEO search engine optimization meaning when somebody types in therapist, physical therapist, mental health therapist near me that your name pops up pretty high up in that ranking. That's what SEO is doing, and that is important, because Google is still one of the most used ways to find what we need. So that's what we want. Find what we need, so that's what we want. But it doesn't do us any good if somebody types in therapist near me and then they click on your website and it doesn't speak to them, right. So maybe they're looking for what you're offering, but you just don't convert them on that website.
Speaker 1:We do a whole episode on how to do this, so it's called converting more clients. Having your website convert more clients. You're having your website convert more clients is basically the premise of the episode, so I will link to it. Go find that and listen to some really, really good elements of ways to convert more clients from your website. The key is speaking to their pain points, speaking to what life looks like on the other side, and a good marketing coach is going to help work that out with you.
Speaker 1:Ross Hiroshim is my marketing coach. He's been on this podcast before. In fact, we are recording an episode that's going to be coming out soon digging into more marketing tips and ways to do this, but he guides me through these. We meet twice a month to discuss all of these things. We're looking at data together and figuring out okay, hey, what are people searching right now? What's working? Okay, how can we tap more into that idea? How can we start driving more traffic to our website? And, as those leads are coming in, how can we start converting those leads better? As I'm creating videos, podcasts, blogs, how can I create content that is captivating, that is aimed at my target market, so that it's both helping them and then also, ideally, driving them to reach out for help and support in what we do? So Ross is amazing.
Speaker 1:He has a Get Marketing Clarity program that I will link down in the show notes below. It's a self-paced program that's going to guide you through how to target those target markets, how to take care of all of those pieces. So I will link there. It's very, very cheap and affordable. So I highly recommend anybody listening to this, regardless of whether you have support yet or not. Take advantage of it, because the course is amazing. It should be thousands of dollars and it's not, so take advantage of it while it is this cheap, because, as of this recording, I believe it's like $50 is what he's running the price on now. So tap into that before it does go up. So a marketing consultant is going to be key.
Speaker 1:The next one is an HR consultant. So this one is really only relevant if you have a team. So when you hire that first W2 employee, whether they're an admin, whether they are another therapist, a physical therapist, a PTI physical therapist assistant, whatever you hire you bring in under W-2, you're going to want some kind of HR consultant With your first hire. It doesn't necessarily make sense to go hire somebody as an HR person right, or even to get a one-on-one consulting person for HR. So there are services to do this. Now the HR consultant their goal is to protect you. They want to make sure that you're compliant, that everything is done legally, that somebody you can tap into if there is problems with the team. If you have two team members fighting, if you are wanting to approach restructuring, pay or even presenting documents for them to sign, even the onboarding process, making sure that that's done in the right way and the offboarding, all of those elements making sure that you are covered.
Speaker 1:Now for those smaller businesses and typically I say maybe when you have a few employees is when you should get an actual person. So there's probably three tiers to this. When you hire your first employee, there are services like even through your payroll I know Gusto, the payroll service we use. They offer HR consulting kind of on an as-needed basis. It's just they have a team that you can tap into and ask questions to. So it's not a they know you can tap into and ask questions to, so it's not a they know you and your employees and those. It's more of a generalized hey, we have people on hand that you can tap into and ask. So it's an added on service that you pay for. But it's going to be a lot more affordable than the other side.
Speaker 1:Now, as you grow, you might consider contracting somebody, so an actual individual who knows you and your business and your people, and they're on a just kind of a contracted basis. They're not an employee but you're probably connecting with them multiple times a year and so it's important that they know your company really well, that they've been able to help you really create that plan and that strategy and that process. Yeah, and then as you grow and grow, that's when you'll probably need a full-time person. So when you hit those milestones. But, like I said those people, if you're really small, it's okay to tap into your payroll service. Like I said, gusto, if you're not using Gusto, it's what we use. We love it. I'll link that in the show notes as well, but check to see what you have if you're using a payroll service and if not, there are HR services, just like I described, that are lower costs that you can look into.
Speaker 1:All right, the third person this one is so incredibly important and I feel like these might even be I guess they're not in a particular order, but if I did, I probably would have mentioned this as a number one, because I think this one is so key and that's a CPA. And I say that from the perspective that I am not a CPA and we as a team do not do tax stuff, but that is a CPA's goal is tax compliance and to save you money on taxes. If you own a business, you should not be doing your own taxes. That's my belief, period, no matter what you're making. I don't think using a TurboTax to file your business taxes is a good idea. I think it's time to hire a CPA to make sure that it's done well.
Speaker 1:A CPA is going to do a lot of different things. So I'm talking about filing your taxes as being the primary. Having them do your taxes for you is going to be so, so valuable and more times than not, it's going to save you more money than what you're paying them to do it. So, and if it doesn't, it's still worth it knowing that it is being done right, because the last thing we want is red flags being going up at the IRS and then they audit you and you're in a mess. A CPA is also going to give you guidance on business structuring.
Speaker 1:So my CPA helped me at the time when I went from sole proprietor to S-corp or to an LLC. Then S-corp it's kind of a when does it make sense to make those changes? Is it better to start out as an LLC? Is it better to go LLC and then at some point switch to S-corp? There are tax benefits to both. So I know at a certain threshold, when you pass a certain revenue and it's different for every business, different for every area Whenever you pass a certain point, it makes more sense to switch to S-Corp. So you're going to save money on taxes by doing that. So it's just really valuable to have that.
Speaker 1:There's so many times where I talk to business owners who switch to S-Corp way late in the game Not the end of the world, but they probably could have been saving a lot of money if they had switched sooner. And that's something your CPA a good CPA will help you with. They're going to help you optimize your taxes, so they are somebody you can speak to on. How can I do this with the best tax benefit? Am I putting enough away?
Speaker 1:So, for example, my CPA we meet mid-year. I always schedule an appointment with him mid-year to review and say, okay, here's what my business has done to this point of the year, here's our profitability, here's how much I've been having withheld in payroll tax. And then he knows our personal side, my wife's salary, all those things and what she's withholding, and he can kind of give me an estimate, like, okay, you are behind, so we probably need to up what's getting withheld or we need to make quarterly payments or whatever we want to do. And then at the end of the year I'll usually check in again and there's been times where he's like, yeah, I would probably go ahead and make a lump sum payment of X, and sometimes it turns out fine and we ended up getting it back in April and sometimes it really helps mitigate.
Speaker 1:Your business is growing. Your profitability is always changing. I've had years where I grew but my profitability went down because we were growing our team. So all of these things are just so case dependent that having a good CPA, not somebody who just files your taxes, not like an H&R Block, but somebody who you can tap into throughout the year that you can speak to when it comes time for hiring. So we hired. I had an employee who I hired. We live in Texas, she lived here with us and then she moved to Pennsylvania. My CPA was invaluable in that transition. As I'm realizing, oh, I need to start paying state taxes for Pennsylvania and I had to learn all about those things and what needs to be different here. X, y and Z. So I can't stress enough how valuable a CPA is to you and your business.
Speaker 1:And so if you don't have one, regardless of the size, if you are making $ dollars, go ahead and you have the plan to make a lot more, I should say Go ahead and get a CPA to help you structure this and do it right. All right, the next one, the fourth person you should have in your corner, is a bookkeeper. This is different than a CPA. A CPA is going to be more on the tax Now a lot of CPA firms will offer both but a CPA is going to be more tax and guidance in that realm, whereas a bookkeeper is about.
Speaker 1:Their goal is to keep clean records, to make sure that you have the right documentation, that it's accurate, to help you when the taxes get filed and make sure that every all the T's are crossed and the I's are dotted. So again, sometimes the cpa firm will offer both and you know that is some really good synergy. But they don't have to be the same people. It doesn't have to be the same company. So they're keeping your documents organized through a software like quickbooks, where they are tracking every transaction that comes in. They're reconciling your bank accounts. They're making sure that you are uploading receipts and that those are getting documented so that everything is covered, so that in case of an audit, your books are safe, they are accurate, they're clean, and it makes that process so much smoother.
Speaker 1:A good bookkeeper is going to help you figure out what's the best way to categorize, and they're going to handle that. Where does this fall out? What's the best way to categorize? And they're going to handle that. What is? Where does this fall? What are the best ways to make sure that things are getting logged correctly? And, truthfully, they're just taking a lot of time off your plate.
Speaker 1:So, yes, I think probably one of the biggest mistakes people make and myself included when I started was I tried managing the books myself because I felt like, yeah, that's something I can do. One it's time consuming, especially as you grow and you get more and more expenses. If you have an employee, I feel like you shouldn't be doing your own books, um. And two, it's I don't even you know, and this is my world is finance and business finance. I don't think I was even doing it correctly. I don't know that I was doing it well.
Speaker 1:So I think as you're growing maybe some point in the under $100,000 a year realm it's going to be time to get a bookkeeper and there's affordable ways to do it. I think if you're really small, you can find cheap services out there. Remote Books Online is a service I have used before and they're great, and I think their pricing starts as low as like $175 a month, if not lower. I can't remember their pricing, but for less than a couple hundred bucks, you could probably get somebody managing your books for you. Now, if you can also find VAs you can find offshore VAs for a lot cheaper or if you want a VA, us-based either are great, because the truth is, you're probably not going to. Again. We're speaking if you're small, you're not making a lot of revenue, you don't have a lot of transactions, it's not going to require a lot of hours, so it's going to be a lot more affordable.
Speaker 1:As you grow, you're going to want somebody who specializes in this. That's their expertise. You're going to make sure you find somebody who is going to do it well, um, and that you can speak to and consult with more clearly and regularly. So, again, this could still be the VA, if that's their expertise, um. But you might want to find a bookkeeping firm, uh, somebody who knows what you're doing. Now, our clients that you've probably heard, if you've been listening to this podcast, that we're believers and we recommend the system profit first, which is a way to manage your cash. So we typically recommend finding bookkeepers who who are aware of this system and who are open to it and willing to do it without charging you an arm and a leg, because profit first utilizes multiple bank accounts. Some bookkeepers will see that and think, oh my gosh, and they'll start charging you per account, even though realistically it's not a whole lot of added reconciling, it's just account to account transfers that they are having to reconcile. So bear in mind that you want to find somebody, whether you're doing that system now or even if you're not, if it's something that's on your radar and if you've never heard of Proverbs, go read it, go listen to our episodes on it before running out and hiring a bookkeeper to see is this something that really resonates with us? And if it does, then make sure you find a bookkeeper who does that All right From there.
Speaker 1:The fifth one is a business coach. I said this was the first hire I made. That's why I said none of these are in any particular order, because I could argue that, aside from the CPA, who, if you're really small from day one, they should cost you maybe between $500 and $1,000 a year maybe even cheaper, just depending on what their rates are just to file the taxes. A business coach, I think, is somebody also from day one and that would be an investment from day one but somebody that you need to help you do things right to make sure that you are growing your business, you are scaling, that you have a game plan, that you're creating systems and processes. Their goal is to get you from point A to point B without hitting the roadblocks and potholes right. So they know the detours, they know the straight line path to get you there faster and to make sure that you don't make the common mistakes that other people are making, that you are focusing your time and energy in the right things.
Speaker 1:Now I want to guide you through what to look for in a business coach because, candidly, there are a lot of business coaches out there and some of them are amazing and some of them well, I think in any industry we can agree, are not? Some of them well, I think in any industry we can agree, are not? So what we want to look for in a business coach is someone who is a good question asker, someone who knows business, but what I like to see is someone who is both growth focused, but they also focus on the business owner, and what I mean by that is they're not only helping you strategize how to grow your business, but they're looking at you as the business owner. I'm like what is your values? What's important to you? How do we make sure that you don't you didn't just quit your nine to five to come work long hours for little money in this business? To me, a good business coach is helping you, helping pull out from you what you want. They're not telling you what to do on every avenue. They're giving you insight. They're asking the questions to extract what you want, what you believe, and then helping you craft that and create it.
Speaker 1:Here's the difference between that. A bad business coach is going to tell you go do this, go do X, y and Z. A bad business coach is going to tell you go do this, go do X, y and Z. So go, take out a $20,000 business loan to invest in ads, to get more leads, to do X, y and Z. That's what a bad business coach is going to do. A good one is going to be like.
Speaker 1:What are your goals? What do you want this business to look like six months from now, a year from now, two years from now? What do you want your time and energy to look like? How do you feel about debt? What is your values when it comes to debt? What keeps you up at night? How stressed out are you around finances, okay, and then how quickly do you want to get from to a caseload of this? What is your risk tolerance? So you hear all these questions that we're finding out about the client to extract before saying go, do X, y and Z. It's getting to know what those things are and then helping craft that plan and helping them create that vision and getting them from point A to point B.
Speaker 1:I also think a good business coach knows that business looks drastically different at 100,000, 500,000, a million and so on. The problems you're facing today are going to be different five, 10 years from now and if you've been in business a while, they're different than they were five years ago. Right when I was a solo business owner. The things I was doing don't work anymore now that I have a team and the things I'm doing now aren't going to work anymore as we scale and grow an even bigger team. You know what I mean. So a good business coach is going to know your value or the valuable areas to be putting your energy into at each phase of business. They're going to know the struggles, the things to the hurdles to look out for and help you really just clear out the noise and stay clear, focused, moving forward.
Speaker 1:Now our team we are business coaches. We call ourselves profit coaches, and here's the distinction, and this is why I believe profit coaching is in that realm of well, of course. I believe that we are the good business coaches, because I wouldn't be here doing what I'm doing if I didn't believe that and truly believe that we provide value into our clients' businesses. We, profit coaches, look at everything through the lens of profitability. So, as I talked about that bad business coach mentality, even marketing coaches can be this way too, of if their goal is just to get you leads, then they don't care necessarily about your profitability, right? They don't. They care more about your. Goal with me is to get more clients in the door and increase revenue. So we're going to do that. Whether that means you know you're taking out loans, whether that means you're operating in the red, they don't necessarily care. Again, the good ones will. But, generally speaking, that's their primary focus and that's what we want their primary focus to be, kind of honestly, is to focus on generating more leads, generating more clients. That's why having multiple people speak into your business is so important, because they are speaking to that side, whereas a good business coach is going to be speaking into growth and scale Now, where I lean more on the finding one.
Speaker 1:Like I said, whether it's a profit coach, whether it's working with us or just a business coach, who we want to make sure they are keeping financial health as a priority. They're looking at it through the lens of a financially healthy business. That goes back to the telling you to go borrow a bunch of money to reinvest in the business so that you can scale really quickly. Depending on who you are, you might be like, yeah, that's great advice, but to me, through the lens of financial health and profitability, it may not be the right move. And so that's what we want is. And if it is the right move, it's because they've looked at all aspects of your life, your business, your finances, to make sure that that's the right advice to give. So profitability is key. A good business coach profit coach is going to help you put in systems and processes. They're going to help make sure the business is efficient. They're going to look at your pricing and margins and they're going to do exercises with you to improve those if they need improving.
Speaker 1:A good business coach is almost like a business therapist, and I know I apologize if that's blasphemy, speaking to therapists, but you know, when you have a client show up, typically I know when I go to my therapy sessions it's just like so, what's been going on or what's on your mind. They don't come with an agenda of their own and you may not come with an agenda on your own. You come prepared. You come prepared knowing what you talked about last time. You come, maybe with follow-up questions. You come knowing what they want to work on and what they're struggling with, but the session is theirs and that's. You come knowing what they want to work on and what they're struggling with, but the session is theirs, and that's how we treat our clients. It's I make our coaches come into a session with an agenda. I may come to the session with an agenda in mind of okay, here's some things I know that they're wanting to work on. They're wanting to improve on. Here's some things we talked about that we can pick up on from last time.
Speaker 1:But I always start with what's on your mind today, like what is, what's your focus in business right now? What's what's something that's feeling like a real pain point or feeling like it's just you really want to improve on and we're going to start there. And if, if, like man, I don't know, everything's good or I don't. Sometimes we don't know what we don't know, that's where we can step in and start extracting some of those pieces, asking questions, figure out, okay, what is those pain points we can focus on or let's tap into this. But in that sense it's kind of like the business therapist. It's like what you came to us with two months ago when we started may not be as relevant or as urgent as something that you that just popped up on your plate three days ago. And so that's the key of the business coaches they're open to evolving, into adapting to what you need.
Speaker 1:I personally think all five of these people have a place on your board for the life of your business, whether you use the same person or not. I think you should have all five of these. Probably, by the point time you're at $150,000, $200,000, you should have a bookkeeper, a CPA, a marketing coach and a business coach. Probably, by the time you're at $100,000, you should have all four of these in some capacity. Again, the bookkeeper can be like a bookkeeping service. The HR consultant that's the only one that it's a. When you have a team. That's when you need to introduce it, so that one may be the later on. You don't necessarily need it when it's just you, but all four of those from and some of those will come in early, like the CPA and probably even the business coach before a hundred thousand Bring them in and then again, problems are going to be different. Every milestone you hit, things you're dealing with are going to be different. You're constantly going to be needing to rework everything and that's why I think the life of your business, you should have these five people speaking into it, helping you and supporting you.
Speaker 1:In the show notes I'm going to give, like I said, some links to marketing coaches. Um, like I said, ross, his program you can check that out. Um, I'll give a link to different things resources for each of these categories and then, of course, if you need some support from on the business coaching side, if you don't have a business or profit coach in your corner yet, that's what we do. So there's always a link to our calendar. It's a free call just to for us to get to know you and see if we can help, how we can help speak into your business and improve it.
Speaker 1:So this is something that's been on my heart, on my mind, for a while, and I think this is just such an important thing. If you can start slowly adding these elements into your business, you're going to see amazing, amazing change, amazing results. If there's any of the five that I said that are not in your corner yet, make it a priority to start seeking that out, and I promise you that investment is going to be worth it. Thanks for joining us on the therapy business podcast. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with a practice owner that you may know. If your practice needs help getting organized with its finances or just growing your practice, head to therapybusinesspodcom to learn how we can help.
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