The Private Practice Success Podcast

39. 10 Reasons why you are Failing to Grow your Private Practice

• Gerda Muller • Episode 39

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In episode 39 of the Private Practice Success Podcast, Gerda tackles the tough topic of failure - what it really means, why it happens, and how to turn it into your greatest opportunity for growth. 

If you’ve ever felt stuck, frustrated, or like you’re spinning your wheels trying to scale your practice, this episode is your reality check and roadmap rolled into one.

In this Episode, you will learn (among others):

  • The top ten traps that keep private practices stuck - including financial blind spots, over-reliance on one revenue stream, and letting emotions drive business decisions.
  • How to honestly assess which of these growth barriers might be holding you back and how to overcome these.
  • Practical, step-by-step advice for choosing one area to focus on, building momentum, and moving your practice forward with confidence.

Who This Episode Is For:

  • Private practice owners who feel stuck, overwhelmed, or frustrated by slow or stalled growth.
  • Anyone looking for practical, actionable steps to move their business forward - without shame or judgment.

Tune in for a supportive, no-nonsense reality check that will help you break through your business growth barriers - and remember, you deserve a practice you can’t stop smiling about!

Want more info on The Ultimate Admin Course?

Email Gerda at gerdam@private-practice-success.com and she’ll send you all the details. 

Want Gerda's Help with your Business?

Gerda helps allied health group practice owners go from overwhelmed, overworked, and underpaid to fully empowered and financially thriving. If this is you, then make today the day you reach out. Complete this super short Triage Form here bit.ly/triageformpps and Gerda will personally reach out to you. 

Here to help you build a practice you can't stop smiling about :)

Connect with Private Practice Success & Gerda here:

Well hello there passionate private practice owner. My name is Gerda Muller, and you are listening to the Private Practice Success Podcast, and this is episode number 39. 

The title of today's episode is: 10 Reasons Why You Are Failing to Grow Your Private Practice. 

Now, I know I'm most probably going to cop some slack for the use of the word failing -  because it's not very encouraging, is it? It's a tad bit negative and there's no such thing as failing is there? It's just all learning and growing. 

I get it. I am a psychologist, first and foremost. I am highly skilled in the art of reframing, and we have been taught to reframe failing as learning. I do it myself. But I also strongly believe that unless we are willing to use the word failing, we are just making it even more scary.

Because the thing is this -  it is okay to fail. It is human to fail. I have failed more times than I can count: at life, at business, in all aspects of life. It's just part of life. Failing is part of life, and it's a word that I don't want to have to avoid. I don't want to be scared of it. Because the fact of the matter is when I feel like I'm failing at something - and maybe this is true for you - that's the word that I use.

That's the first word that pops into my head. And over the years when I've had those times - when I've questioned whether I'm actually cut out to be a group practice owner - it's because I felt like a failure. It's because I felt like I was failing. And if the world is telling me that I shouldn't be using that word, it really invalidates what I feel at that time.

And yes, you know, again, I'm a psychologist. What we do is we go: But look at the evidence. Look at what you've built. Look at these amazing things. And I get that. But in that moment, even a psychologist feels like a failure. And you know what? That is perfectly okay. So if you were triggered by reading that word failing, or by hearing that word failing right now, then you are in the right place, okay? Then you should keep listening. Because we all fail. 

We have all failed. And yes, the goal is to always walk away from failure with that feeling of: You know what? Yes, I failed at that thing, but I did learn something. Next time, this is what I will do differently. This is the meaning that I'm taking from this. I've also learned that I've got these amazing strengths that I can call on next time something challenging happens. 

But when we go through that process of failing, we want to be really honest about the fact that this is what's happening. Being somebody that talks to a lot of group practice owners - as a result of being an allied health business coach, mentor, and primarily a business consultant - I know that a lot of people right now are feeling like they are  failing at growing their business. And they feel like they are failing, even though to the world looking onto them from the outside, they might seem very successful. They might seem like they've got this big team, multiple locations. But they're still feeling like they are failing right now.

And you know, failing as a business owner can look very differently if you are a solo practice owner. It might be the fact that you know what, you got your first five clients - but it's like you just can't get over that number. It doesn't matter what you do. It's like: I just can't grow my caseload. That's feeling like failing.

Or if you are a really large group practice, it could feel like: I'm just stuck. My little boat is going from side to side. Or it's two steps forward and two steps back. It's like we are just not moving. We hit this income, revenue, profit, growth - insert whatever word is appropriate - glass ceiling in the business, and It's so freaking frustrating. 

Or maybe they are not stuck. They're actually going backwards as a result of a range of variables happening in the industry and in the world right now. And it's not a pleasant feeling. 

So I see it as my job to talk about it. And you know what? I see it as my job to name these things - because a lot of people are feeling it. And you know when failure becomes insidious, it's when we think we are the only ones going through it. 

So I want to name it. And I want to talk about it. But I also want to help you problem solve it - because that's my job. My job is to help you problem solve this feeling of stuckness, this feeling of failure. 

And yes, you are using the word feeling - because you might feel it. It might not be 100% true. If I were to look at your business - or anybody else - we might give you that evidence. But to you, this is what it feels like.  So today I need you to listen to this conversation through your own lens and through your own filter. Because your world and your assessment of your business might be different from mine. 

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to share with you 10 reasons why I can see practice owners failing at growing their - particularly group practices. A lot of this will also apply to solo private practice. 

As we go through these 10 reasons -  in no particular order, and it's not an order of priority - I just want you to go: How many of these boxes do I tick? Because the more you tick, the more you are probably struggling at growing, building, and scaling your private practice. Maybe you tick only one - oh relief! But you know what? Fixing just one thing is going to make a huge difference. 

Similarly, if you’re ticking all freaking 10 of these - no judgment. This is about now having the awareness that this is happening. And you know what? If nobody makes you aware of it, you can't freaking change it. So that is my job to make you aware of it. 

Then I want you to select one of these things - the thing that you think is going to be easiest to address - and you work just on that one thing. And then you take things from there. 

Alright, you ready to do this? Let's get stuck into the 10 Reasons Why You Are Failing to Grow Your Private Practice. 

#1 - You don't have the Appropriate Margins Built into your Business Model  

Now, there's quite a lot of margins that are really important within business, but I'm just going to highlight a few. 

For example, you don't have the appropriate net profit margin built into your business. So net profit margin is expressed as a percentage.  You don't know what your COGS of goods should be in order to have sufficient contributions to Opex.  You don't know what the contributions of OPEX should be for each of your employees. If you are setting your fees just based on what everybody else is doing, you probably don't have the right margins. If you've never done a break-even sheet for your business, you probably don't have the right margins.

There are a lot of reasons that could be leading to you not having the appropriate margins built into your business model. And if it's not there, your business can't grow. Because no matter how we spend, this business relies on money - your cashflow. The money coming into your business is the fuel of your business.

That, of course, is if you are a PTY limited company. Of course, if you are a non-for-profit organization or you are a charity, this does not apply to you - because you get grant money, you get funding, right? But if you are a private company, you need to build in the margins. The margins allow you to pay your bills, pay your team, keep the doors open so that you can do this amazing work. But you need to be able to do more than just break even.  You need to have margins for those unexpected things that happen - and it will happen. And unless there's extra, you can't reinvest back into the business so you can't grow. 

If you don't have the right margins, you are going to be feeling stuck. Not only feeling stuck - you are going to be stuck. And that's probably going to lead to you feeling like you're not able to grow your business - because there's no money to grow your business. And without money, you cannot grow your business. No matter how hard you try, that is just the facts. You can stand on your head, you can do whatever you think it's going to make a difference - but it's not going to make an inch of difference unless the margins are there.

So ask yourself: Do I have the right margins? And how do I even know that these are the right margins? If you can't answer those questions, this is a box that you need to tick - to say: I need to look at this.

#2 - You have all your Eggs in One Basket (Limited Revenue Streams)

In other words - all or the majority of your revenue is coming from one income stream. 

Case in point: the current NDIS pricing debacle. I am in a lot of Facebook groups with other allied health practice owners and it is absolute carnage. The impact that the NDIS pricing changes going into July, 2025 is having is significant. But unfortunately, this is with what happens when you build your business on one income stream. 

There are a lot of businesses out there that solely do NDIS work. And you know what? When NDIS first came out, people probably looked at it and they went, You know what, this is a low-risk business. Because previously clients who had disabilities had to pay out of pocket for similar services. And now the clients - aka the participants under the scheme - got access to government funding, which means it was easier for them to come through and access the services that they needed. So there was a level of consistency and certainty to those funds. 

So when the NDIS started, the margins were good. But the thing is - that's what they do to get you hooked in, right? To get their little claws into you, get you hooked in, and you go, Oh, this is going to be amazing! Not only can I run a great business, I'm going to be able to help people - people with disabilities.

Not only did the NDIS help satisfy that passion that we have for helping people with disabilities, it also ticked this other box of: Now I can have my own business. And I can run a business that might be easy to run because the margins were there. 

But it didn't keep up right. And I'm pretty sure that was by design. Like I said - they get you hooked in, and then they just freeze the increases. So that you, as a business, now need to reduce your margin year upon year upon year.. And this here -  has been the most significant reduction in margins for business owners that we've seen since the onset of the NDIS.

And a lot of people are probably going to keep on absorbing those margins. But you know what? More and more businesses are going to have to close as a result. And I think the scary risk for a lot of solo providers within the NDIS is the risk of burnout - because they are so service minded, and they make decisions predominantly with their heart. They feel so much for their clients, and they're going to burn out at the end of the day.  

I will be the first to admit: when the NDIS came out, I was also tempted to register my business as an NDIS provider. But I never pulled the trigger. The reason why I was tempted was the fact that it aligned with my internal vision and mission for my life and my world. And you know - I am driven. You would've heard me say this sentence, because it's just part of who I am: I am driven to help more people in better and more effective ways. And the NDIS tick those boxes. 

It's like, We can help more people if we get NDIS registered. Because if you are registered, yes - you help self-managed participants, plan managed, and people that NDIA managed, and those are probably people that need our help even more, that are agency managed. So it ticked all those boxes. But I just couldn't get myself as a business owner to pull that trigger - because I do not want such a large government organization to tell me what I can and can't charge.

I'm not saying I don't do other third-party work at my business. We do work cover, we do DVA, and we do EAP. But I did see the NDIS as such a big enticing scheme that I knew: that if we registered, we would probably be flooded with those referrals. And very easily - and it would be a very insidious process and probably without noticing - it could have become a major revenue stream for my business. And I don't want that. Because I do not want the government - or any other program for that matter - to tell me how much I can charge for my services.

Because I'm a private business, I set my own fees based on reason number one - which was the margins. So we've never registered. We do a lot of self-funded work and we do a lot of plan managed work, and it's perfectly fine.

I also have a rule within our practice that: third party payers should not be more than 30% of our revenue. That's the rule of thumb. From time to time that's probably creeped up above 30, but I don't want it higher than that - because it impacts our cash flow, because most of them don't pay on the day and you need to wait for that money to come through you. It also means that we, at my practice, never drop the ball on making sure that we've got private money coming into the business. 

So - if you've got all your eggs in one basket, it is not too late. Now is the time to diversify. I have personally worked with a lot of - particularly OT and psychology - businesses that were NDIS only businesses, that have done amazing work at diversifying the revenue coming into their business.

It can be done. 

But you need to start today.

#3 - You're not keeping your Clinical Team Accountable to their Billables

So you might have appropriate margins - let's say you have worked out that in order for me to take on this employee, they need to bill X amount of hours every week so that I can have this margin and have the correct amount of contributions to OPEX - so that we can pay our bills and grow the business. So you know what your number is.

Let's say you've said that a full-time equivalent employee should bill 24 hours every week. But then what happens is that person doesn't bill 24, they bill 22. Some weeks they bill 18. Some weeks they bill 21. They never bill more than 24. And guess what happens then? Yes, you've ticked the, “I have the appropriate margins.” You might have ticked “We don't have all our eggs in one basket.” 

But now - although you were clear with this person when they started that they expectation is for you to bill 24 hours a week (which is like 63 point something percent of their working week) - which is very reasonable. Because if you think about it, if you are asking somebody that works full-time equivalent to bill for 24 hours, that leaves another 14 hours - that is two work days for non-billable work. 

But then, when your clinician doesn't get there, because you are hoping it's going to improve... and probably also because you feel bad addressing it. Maybe you even feel scared to address it, because you are scared of the reaction that you might get from the clinician. Because - worst case scenario, they're going to go, “Sorry, I'm out of here. I'm getting another job.”

As the practice owner, you are concerned about the clients, and the caseload. When you've got somebody working for you full time, that is a lot of clients on a caseload. And that responsibility? Yes, the buck stops with you. You’re responsible for making sure that your recruitment is up to scratch so you can easily fill that role. But it's not always that easy to achieve that - because there's a lot of variables. So what do you do? You just accept that the billables aren't being reached. And that causes so much carnage down the line - because of this acceptance.

If you think about it: if somebody's not meeting their billables, they should be performance managed - not straight off the bat, right? There's a process here where you give them input, you tell them you help and support them. But you are paying somebody to meet their KPIs. That's why you pay them. And if the expectation was 24 a week - that's what they should be hitting, right? 

It's your job as the business owner to deal with that. Not to put your head in the sand and to avoid it - but to deal with it. Not to offer bonus schemes. The worst reason for you to implement a bonus system at your practice is because your team isn't meeting their billables. And I see people grasping at those straws consistently. That's not the answer, okay? I'm not going to go into the answer today - because that's a whole different episode that I can talk to you for another hour. But that's not how you fix this alright? 

Billables are there for a reason. You need to go: I trusted myself when I worked these out. I know why it is this number. I've gone through the process of going - okay, this number gives us the margin, and it allows the team to have freaking two days -  that's 14 hours in their working week - worth of non-billable time. If it is the 24 billable hours in a 38-hour full-time working week - but if they're not meeting it - then we can have a problem. Then we're going to fail - because the money's not going to come into the bank. 

Remember what I said at the start? Without money, we can't keep the doors open. It just is what it is. Money makes the world go round. Oh, you're going to hate me for saying that, but… Money is a resource. Just like water is a resource. Food is a resource. Energy is a resource. Time is a resource. Money is a resource. And I don't know 0 maybe I've not done sufficient research - but I have not come across any private business that can run without the resource that is money. 

So if you've made the conscious decision to go into business, you have made the conscious decision - whether you like it or not - to be in an industry that needs money. Your car's not going to drive without fuel. Your business isn’t going to grow without money. So you need to learn how to feel comfortable with saying the word money. With saying the word cash flow. With saying the word revenue and profit. And go: You know what? I'm going to say it until I believe that this is a resource that feels good - because this resource can do great things.

The better I get at managing this resource, the better I can look after my team and the more clients I can help. It is what it is. Let me get off my soapbox when it comes to the money conversation - because I know allied health professionals aren't driven by money. I know this because I'm one of you. I didn't start my practice for money. That was never the goal. Yes,  I knew I needed to pay myself a wage, right? My house isn't free. I've got a freaking mortgage. Food isn't free. Electricity isn't free. I need to get money from somewhere - or I'm going to be homeless. But I didn't go into it to make money. But I also know that in order to keep the doors open, I need to make money. That's just the nature of business. 

Alright, so that was number three. And this is just for you to, again, ask yourself: Have I been keeping my team accountable to the billables - yes or no? If it is a yes - well done.  if it is a no - it's like, Okay, I'm probably going to have to put this on the list of things that I need to address.

#4 - You're making Emotional Decisions

Now, I know that this might be triggering for some people. At some point in my life, this would've been triggering for me as well. I'm a female. I make emotional decisions, all the time. But you know what, and I've spoken to a lot of clients over the years as well -  I'm talking clinical clients. 

You know, as a psychologist, I often help people with making really important life decisions. And I would always tell my clinical clients: The best decisions are the ones where you have cognitively thought through it. So you are using your mind, your head, your heart -  which is your soul. That's the emotional part. And you are using your gut - your intuition. 

I can tell you now, as a business owner. I want you to still use all three of those. I never want - especially a female business owner like myself - to go, You know what? I'm going to become totally ruthless. I'm going to channel the most ruthless CEO that I know out there. I'm going to channel Steve Jobs - because he was known to be ruthless. Very focused. Blinders on, just eyes on the goal. I don't want you to be that. If that's not you - don't be that, okay. But also don't over correct and only make emotional decisions, because that is shooting yourself in the foot.

So this is a prompt for you to reflect on:

When people come to you and ask for a salary increase, how do you make that decision? When a contractor comes to you and says, Hey, I want to increase my percentage or my rate to you, how are you currently making that decision? 

When you need to hire a new clinician, how are you making that decision? 

Your cancellation/no-show policies - when it comes to enforcing those, how are those decisions being made?

When people come and ask you for unpaid leave for the sixth time this year, and they've already exhausted all their other leave - how do you make that decision?

Ask yourself this question: If you are making it from a place of desperation, then that's probably why you feel like you're failing - or maybe you are failing. 

You never want to make decisions purely out of desperation or out of emotion. You need to go, I'm going to acknowledge how I feel about the situation - maybe I am feeling desperate that I can't lose this person. I'm just going to have to give them this 5K increase in one go, although they're not meeting their KPIs, and although they're already being paid 20 K per annum above award. I'm just going to have to say yes because if not, I'm going to be up… you know, shit creek without a paddle.

And I know this is what people are going through - because they tell me that when I speak to them. That's not how you make business decisions. But you want to be aware of it. You want to notice: that this is how I'm feeling. And then you want to go, Okay, this is this part.. Now let's look at what the numbers are telling me, because that's the data. And if I make this decision, what's going to be the outcome? How's this going to impact everybody? And what does my gut tell me? Does my gut tell me that if I say yes, this person's going to probably be knocking on my door in another three to six months, asking for the exact same thing? Or will they actually be happy? Will they actually stay engaged? 

I really want to encourage you to start making decisions using both the data - that's your mind, looking at the numbers. Still looking at your heart - because you never want to betray who you are as a human. And also listening to your gut. But making emotional decisions - purely emotional decisions - when trying to run a business will set you up for guaranteed failure. Doesn't work.

#5 - You're not Tracking your Cash Flow 

This is so important.  I know a lot of people tell me that they've tried doing cashflow forecasting, for example, but it's really hard to do - it's hard to maintain. But you know what? It is such an important exercise. 

As a psychologist in my clinical work, I would often talk to people about the 10 most unhelpful thinking styles, and one of those unhelpful thinking styles is crystal balling. It's like where you think you can predict what's going to happen in the future. And we all know that nobody has a crystal ball. 

But guess what? Cashflow forecasting is your crystal ball in your business. It's not 100% accurate, but you can get very close - and a 90% accuracy in predicting (AKA forecasting)  what your cashflow is going to be is going to make a huge difference in terms of you having the certainty that you can pay your bills. 

Because a lot of the numbers that we look at in business are lag indicators. It's stuff that's already happened. 

We look at:

What have the dropout rates been?

What have the retention rates been in the past? 

What were our booking rates in the past? 

What were our cancellation rates? 

What was our revenue last month? 

Our profit. 

It's all stuff that's happened in the past. 

But if today you do a cashflow forecast for the next. 1, 2, 3 - however many months - you now have a lead indicator that tells you, Oh, based on the current bookings in the diary, this is the amount of money we are expecting to see come in. And what's the gap between that and our expenses?  Now you can make proactive plans to go: Alright, so we need an extra 10 clients a week. What am I going to do to make that happen? 

Can you see how it puts control back into your hands? And in business, there's a lot of stuff we can't control, so you will be amiss not to take control of the stuff that you can. Alright? Very, very important. 

So ask yourself, Do I know what my cash flow is going to be like in the next month? Two months? three months? If not, you probably need to start doing some cashflow forecasting.

#6 - Not putting money aside for Tax & Super

Now, I know some of you're going to listen to this and go, Well, duh, that's obvious Gerda, obviously you need to do that, that's not my money. The super belongs to the employee and the contractor. Tax belongs to the government. What are you on about? You know what I'm on about? The fact that there are a lot of businesses that aren't doing this. And you won't know about it because there's a lot of shame attached to this behaviour. 

And you know why they aren't putting money aside for super in tax? Because they don't have it. Because their cashflow is shit/ Because their business is failing, and they are robbing Peter to pay Paul, trying so freaking hard to keep the doors open. And then when BAS comes, when it comes time to pay the super, it's like, Oh shit, there's no money. I used it to pay for all this other stuff. And before they know it, they have huge historical tax debt leading to significant payment plans. 

There are people paying the ATO anything from $500 to $5,000 a week on a payment plan. This is happening out there in our industry, okay? Now imagine if you have those types of historical debt - it’s just putting you deeper into this debt pit, because now that comes out of your current cash flow.

So how are you meant to now get on top of this when you have this tax payment plan? You might go, Oh, a big relief. I've got a payment plan. But it's just putting you deeper into the hole. It's such an awful thing, and I see this happen so often. It's even worse with the freaking super because - it's one thing not paying the governments. I don't know for me as a human, it's a whole other thing not paying money to another human being. I'd rather get in trouble with the government with tax than not do the right thing towards my team members, my clinicians, and my amazing admin team. So you have to stay on top of your super. It's not your money.

I would encourage you to every week - if you've not been doing it - start doing this on a weekly basis. Go, What is the tax money that I need to put aside from the last week? That tax money needs to be GST and PAYG.  Also, How much super do I need to put aside for the last week? And I would do it on a weekly basis. So if you pay your team fortnightly, there'll be zero super one week, and then there will be all the super the next week - and you immediately transfer it into a different bank account.

By doing that, the money that's left over in your regular bank account will now give you the real clarity as to what your cash situation is actually looking like. Because if you don't move that money, you don't know how much money you actually have to run your business. So you are really hiding the truth from yourself by not putting that money away.

It is only once you start transferring your tax and your super on a very regular basis - out of your main bank account - that you will know what the true state of your money is. A lot of people leave it too late to make difficult uncomfortable decisions in their business, because their bank account shows an inflated amount of money. Money that's not theirs -  that belongs to the government and belongs to their employees. AKA: super. Don't do it. 

You need to have that discipline. Once you've moved that money - you can't touch it. And if that discipline is hard, just because you've got all these other bills and it's like, I'll fix that up later. I'll just transfer the money back in there…. We know it doesn't happen. If that's the case, I would rather encourage you to just do a direct transfer to the ATO. If you go, This is going to be their money, let's pop it in the ATO bank account, right? It's going to go off on your account. Maybe you even go into a credit where you've paid them more money. But it will all balance out at the end of the day - if that's what you need to do in order not to use that money again.

And come next year, July 2026, it's going to be a payday super. Maybe you should just start doing that right now already - if you think that you're not going to have the discipline to not touch that money. Like, please, I'm begging you: do not fall into that hole, because this could be the end of your business. Don't do it.

#7 - Inconsistent Marketing

The thing is this - whether you are a level one private practice, AKA, a startup private practice (solo, first day in private practice), or you are a level five private practice, which I call the ultimate private practice, or you have a self-running prior practice, which is even beyond level five, right - you need to do marketing. 

Marketing should never stop.  It doesn't matter how big your wait list is - you should never stop doing marketing. Your messaging might change. Your approach to it might change. But the moment you stop doing marketing, you will feel it. You won't feel it today and you won't feel it next week, but you're going to feel it possibly next month - definitely in two months from now. 

You know, when people talk about the ebbs and flows of private practice - there's no such thing.  It's ebbs and flows in your marketing. And it's when people aren't consistent with their marketing that their business stops growing. When people aren't proactive in their marketing, that their business stops growing, and that keeps them stuck. And right now, given the current economic climate that we are in, marketing - and the messaging in your marketing - has never been as important as it is right now. 

And people aren’t going to like it, but you are offering people a service. So the word offer sounds very businessy, very salesy - but you need to know:

What is your offer that you are putting out there? 

How's your offer different to what everybody else is doing? 

Why should they come to you? 

Why should they pay perhaps $10 more an hour to come and see your team than somebody else?

All of that needs to come into play. 

And it's when people are inconsistent in their marketing efforts - AKA, the activities, the behaviour, the strategies, the tactics - and they're inconsistent in being proactive about the messaging that they're putting out there, that's when their business becomes stuck and can even go backwards.

Your marketing is your secret weapon when it feels like everything else is going to shit around you. So, if you've not been consistent, this is a box you need to tick, so you can look at this as soon as possible.

#8 - Distraction

Yep, we know the world is full of distractions. Given the state of social media. Given the access that we have to information, there is so much distraction out there. And we are always looking for the next best thing.

What tends to happen is when you jump from one thing to the next, you never do what you're doing right now properly. And then you go, Oh, well that didn't work - but like you didn't follow through. You didn't review it. You didn't tweak it. You just jumped to the next thing, and it's not helpful.

It's like, okay - we've just spoken about marketing in our previous point that I made. Let's say you go, Alright, I'm going to start really drilling down on my Facebook, that's going to be my marketing effort. And then a month later you go, Oh, I haven't had a lot of results. I'm going to now go and try Instagram. And a month later you go, Oh, I didn't get the result that I wanted, now I'm going to do LinkedIn. 

And it's like - every time, what you're doing is:

You need to learn a new platform

You need to implement new strategies

You need to invest all this time and energy and effort (and potentially even money) into this new marketing activity - just to find a month later it doesn't work. 

And then you need to do something new because somebody else in a Facebook group has said that, Oh, these other new bright and shiny things - you need to try this now. 

That stuff keeps you stuck because you're not doing it properly. You're just chasing the next high of something new, because somebody else said that this works. It's not good people, don't do it. 

You might have heard me talk previously about the fact that yes, you want to do marketing, but the way that you do your marketing is going to be different at level 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. You might use similar strategies - how you implement it might be different. And when you are just looking at what other people are doing based on the little bit of information that they share, maybe on social media or even sharing with you at a networking event - that's not all the information that you need, right? 

So you need to be mindful of the distraction. When you decide that: let's say I'm going to do Facebook as my social media marketing strategy, you need to commit to that fully 100%. And I would say - unless you've been doing it for six months straight, you cannot make a decision based on whether it's working or not. 

Unless you've implemented, reviewed, tweaked. Implemented, reviewed, tweaked. Repeat. Repeat - and you've done it consistently, you cannot make a decision because you don't have a sufficient amount of data to base your decision on.

Because remember what I said earlier - you can't make emotional decisions. Only on emotion, or only on intuition, or only on (that matter) cognition.  You need to look at:

What does my gut tell me? 

What do my emotions tell me? 

But also what does the data tell me? 

And if you get lost in distractions, you will never have the data to make good decisions. So if you know that this is your personality type - where you love a good distraction - you need to start working on that.

#9 - A Lack of Patience

It’s actually really simple. This really links to the distraction piece-  if you don't have the patience to choose a strategy, implement a strategy, and go through that process, you are not going to be growing your business.

Patience is so important. When people come in to work with me, particularly in my Private Practice Success Academy, as well as in my Founder's Club - one of the questions I ask them is, Okay, let's talk about your 12-month goals. 

I would say, "If we were to meet up in 12 months and you were to tell me, Gerda joining The Academy or Founders Club was the absolute best decision I've ever made for my business,” what would we be celebrating at the end of those 12 months?” Because that is what I want for you.  And we would talk about it, and it's really interesting to see what people come up with.

I don't know if you've ever looked into the research around this - and that is that people often overestimate what they can achieve in 12 months, but they underestimate what they can achieve in three years. Because the first 12 months of pursuing something is harder work. It's more work. Why? Because you're putting in the foundational pieces. 

So when I work with people, I really want to make sure that we've got a stretch goal for them, but I also want to make sure that it's realistic. I've seen this play out many times. I mean, I've been doing PPS - Private Practice Success - now for the last 10 years. Initially, you know, it was a bit of a side gig, but I've been doing it full time now for at least eight years. And I've worked with a lot of people over those years and even when people exit my programs, they always come back to me. And it's actually this time of year that they come back to me. 

So I'm recording this in July, which is the start of the new financial year and this is when people reach out to me. And it's always interesting when they go, Gerda, I'm not sure if you remember me. It's like, Of course I remember you. I remember everybody I've worked with. But they would go, I don't know if you remember me, I was in the academy in 2022 and you know, this is what we did together and this is what we achieved. But I just need to tell you that these are my results. This is my revenue. This is my profit. This is what the team looks like. And I can't thank you enough.

And yeah - please, this is not about me right? But you know what the amazing part is? Because those people saw it through. They stayed and worked with me - all of them - for a minimum of 12 months. And I always tell them, If you can have the patience to do at least 12 months, I know for a fact that we would be putting in the foundational pieces that will see compounding growth for you in year two. In year three. 

I know it's true because that's what I experienced with my business coach. Those first 12 months were so freaking hard, and I'm so thankful for the Gerda of 2012 that said yes to those first freaking hard 12 months. Because every year it's like compounding interest. The compounding growth I had as a result of those first 12 months was mind blowing.

And people come back to me and they tell me it's because of those 12 months. It's because of those foundational pieces. It's because we filled in the gaps. And you know what? It's because they had the patience to stick through 12 months of really making hard decisions, of doing uncomfortable things, of having patience to stick with the one strategy where I would go, No, no, we are not moving on to the next thing. We've not done this properly. Because I know I trust the process and I can see it. And because I kept them accountable, and they were willing to be kept accountable - and therefore together we instilled that patience for them to get the results that they told me they wanted at the end of 12 months, but also in 2, 3, 4, 5 years time.

So, I know patience can feel hard in the moment. But patience is what is required. Unless you are planning to sell your business in the next six months, I would encourage you to have more patience. I'm not saying settle for mediocre results, okay. Because that also happens way too often where people just go, Well, it is what it is. This is allied health business. I'm never going to make money. I'm always going to be burned out. I'm always going to have to work after hours or weekends. Like f that shit right? 

That is learned helplessness in our industry and that is rife in and of itself - maybe I should do a podcast episode on that. It is so rife where people just go, This is what I need to settle for because I'm an allied health business owner, and I can't expect to have the spoils of a business. And I can't expect to actually have money in the bank account. I just need to settle for always struggling because this is what it means to be an allied health business owner.

Well, f that shit. That's what I say. Because it doesn't have to be like that. That is learned helplessness in our industry. You are better than that, okay? Anyway, once again, somehow I landed on my soapbox there. Let me hop off. Patience people. Patience people. Patience.

#10 - Refusing to Let Go of Control

I'm going to just raise my hand here -  you can't see it, but I'm raising my hand. I should really raise two hands because I've been guilty of this one - and that is refusing to let go of control as the business owner. I know firsthand it is so hard, but you know what? Unless you are willing to let go of control, you will remain the bottleneck within your business. And this happens across so many levels. 

That could be control around going, You know what, it's, it's all on me. I'm responsible. And I love you for this. I do love you for being the business owner that takes accountability and responsibility and ownership for your business and the state of your business. But guess what? You are just one person. 

You can't do it all by yourself. 

You need to let go of control. 

Whether that is getting a clinical team leader, getting a practice manager, allowing admin to do their job instead of you stepping in. Allowing clinicians to do their job, instead of you stepping in. You need to allow your people to do their job, and you need to allow them to make mistakes and be okay with that. 

Last year, in August, we had our PPS Academy’s Business Intensive, which is our two-day annual event. We are actually in the midst now of planning this year's event, which is happening next month - August, 2025. Anyway, so last year we had this panel discussion, and my practice principal, the awesome Chelsea was there. Somebody in the room asked her a question, and the question was: What is that one thing that Gerda did and I was in the room as well - I was on the panel with Chelsea - What is that one thing that Gerda did that helped you to excel in your role? Because people have a lot of respect for Chelsea, and she's an amazing principal psychologist. 

And it really surprised me at what Chelsea said, her answer - because these questions were pre-prepared, right? People were in the audience asking the question, and she said, It's the fact that Gerda allowed me to make mistakes. She's got all this experience, and I would still, from time to time, make the wrong decision. And she would allow me. She would tell me. She would warn me. She would say, “Chelsea, I think this is what's going to happen, and then that's going to be the fallout.” And then I would have a different opinion and she would go, “That's okay, let's try that out.” So Gerda would allow me to make a mistake. And when it happened, she never said, “I told you so.” I would say “You told me so.” But she would never do that.

And I can tell you as a business owner, that's really hard. It's like, I know this is not going to work out well. But allowing people to take control and make mistakes is really important. Because the thing is this, they don't make a lot of mistakes. A lot of times your team will come up with better ideas than you can come up with, with better solutions that you can come up with.

So you have to be brave enough to let them grow in that role in order for you to have more time to grow in your role as the business owner. It's also important to know what to let go of, and what not to let go of. Because that's the other mistake people make, is sometimes they let go of control of certain parts that they shouldn't, or they take letting go of control to the extreme where they become totally hands off from an accountability perspective. You can be very hands off - like I've got two group private practices that run in my absence - but I still spend 45 minutes a week meeting with whomever runs the practice for the purpose of accountability.  There's numbers that I look at. There's reports that I look at. 

Everybody needs somebody to hold them accountable. It's why I still have a business coach today. Somebody needs to hold me freaking accountable, because otherwise I'll just do what I want - and maybe that is doing nothing and having no growth - and because I know I want growth, I need accountability. Everybody drops the ball because we are all human. That's why accountability and having somebody that can do that for you is a gift you can gift yourself. 

So coming back to the reason - refusal to let go of control - if you are doing that, you will remain the bottleneck in your business. 

You will stop your team from growing. 

You will stop them from stepping up. 

You will stop them from enjoying the challenge of their role. And you know that's not good. 

Yes, the buck stops with you. You are the business owner. But that can be true, and you can let go of control and allow your team to flourish. Allow them to support you, and together you will then succeed.

Okay, so that was the 10 reasons why you might be failing at growing your private practice. Like I said at the start, go through this list and ask which of these am I currently guilty of ,and which of these are currently happening in my world? And now that you are aware of it, you can start to proactively plan how you are going to address them.

And remember what I said? 

Patience. Patience. 

Choose one thing to work on. Start with that. 

Really do it well. 

Make sure it's addressed before you go onto the next thing. 

Alrighty. Thank you so very much for tuning in, and as always, remember that I'm here to help you build a practice you can't stop smiling about 🙂

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Gerda Muller

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