How to Start a Mental Health Practice With No Business Background | Clearhope Counseling EP: 37

How to start a Mental health practice when you have no business background, no business plan, and no startup capital. Heather Lambert did it from a storage closet in a Pasadena, Texas church. Today Clearhope Counseling and Wellness Center employs more than 40 licensed mental health professionals.

Starting a mental health business without a business degree — and growing it from a church closet to 40+ licensed professionals. That's Heather Lambert's story.

In this episode of Small Business Success Stories, host Dr. Jeffrey Ricken speaks with Heather Lambert, founder of Clearhope Counseling and Wellness Center and the 2026 SBA Houston District Women-Owned Small Business of the Year.

After 17 years as a school counselor, Heather left a stable career — paycheck, pension, and benefits — after she was unable to connect a student in crisis to timely mental health care. That gap in access became her mission. She opened Clearhope out of a storage closet in a Pasadena, Texas church with no formal business plan and no entrepreneurial background. Today, the organization employs more than 40 mental health professionals and serves students and families across Texas.

Heather shares what it takes to build a purpose-driven small business: navigating Medicaid credentialing, surviving the pandemic, understanding the nonprofit vs. for-profit decision, and why free SCORE mentorship from mentors Art Klebba and John Harris was pivotal to her survival as a first-time entrepreneur.

Topics covered in this episode:

• How to start a mental health practice with no business background

• Making the leap from public sector employment to entrepreneurship

• Medicaid credentialing and billing for mental health providers

• Nonprofit vs. for-profit: how to decide which structure fits your mission

• How free SCORE mentoring helped a women-owned business survive and scale

• 0:00 – Intro / SCORE Houston introduction
• 0:41 – Subscribe reminder
• 1:02 – Guest introduction: Heather Lampert, Clear Hope Counseling
• 1:53 – Heather reflects on humble beginnings
• 2:13 – Her 17 years as an educator/counselor
• 2:30 – The student crisis that changed everything
• 4:46 – Deciding to start Clear Hope ("someone has to do something")
• 5:30 – Resigning from her 17-year career, starting in a church storage closet
• 7:11 – Practice growing, needing more office space
• 8:13 – Seeking help from SCORE mentors
• 10:13 – Incorporating as a professional corp / S-corp, signing a lease
• 12:38 – Growth to 50 team members
• 14:16 – Mission-driven approach vs. cash-pay industry trend
• 17:53 – Operating through the pandemic
• 19:16 – Planning for the future of mental healthcare
• 21:13 – Advice for aspiring entrepreneurs
• 25:03 – On passion vs. chasing money/influencer life
• 27:27 – Closing thoughts on team and mission
• 28:38 – About SCORE and how to get mentorship
• 29:45 – Outro / subscribe reminder

🔗 Clear Hope Counseling and Wellness Center: www.clearhopecounseling.com

🔗 Free SCORE Houston mentoring (no cost, no catch): https://www.score.org/houston

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Give your comments at https://scorehoustonpodcast.blogspot.com or write to pv.bala@scorevolunteer.org. Let us know what you like of this episode and suggest subjects on which you wish to know more. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello, and welcome to Small Business Success Stories at Score Houston. This is where we bring insights, experiences, and the journey of successful small business entrepreneurs. Score Mentors volunteer their time to guide small businesses. Score is America's largest network of volunteer business mentors supported by the U.S. Small Business Administration. Here in Houston, we provide free confidential mentoring and education to help entrepreneurs start, grow, and succeed. Now let's dive into today's small business success story.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Listeners, if you're finding value in this conversation, please take a moment to subscribe on YouTube and follow us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It is completely free and takes just one tap. Your subscription helps us bring you new episodes every week with practical insights for Houston's small business community.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Our guest today is Heather Lampert, founder of Clear Hope Counseling and Wellness Center and the 2026 Small Business Administration Houston District Women-owned Small Business of the Year. A licensed professional counselor with 17 years in education, Heather started Clear Hope in 2018 out of a church storage closet in Pasadena. She was driven by a simple mission to remove the barriers that keep people from quality mental health care. Today that one woman practice has grown into an organization of more than 40 professionals serving students, families across Texas. Heather, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Thank you so much, Jeff. It's my pleasure to be here. When I think back and listen to that intro, I am reminded of starting in that storage closet. And I think it's good to be reminded of your humble beginnings and to never lose sight of where your journey has taken you, but to never lose sight of where you began. So thank you for that introduction. I did work in public schools for 17 years. Honestly, I intended to retire from Texas public schools because I'm an educator at heart. Huge shout out to every educator in the audience today. I really believe you're the backbone and fabric of our nation. And I plan to do that forever. But it all changed when I met one student one day who had been sexually assaulted after being fished online. And I, as a part of my district's trauma response team and the lead counselor at my high school, had the difficult task of communicating to her family what had happened. Of course, law enforcement's involved, child protective services involved. But as a school counselor, I knew that this young lady would need to be connected to mental health care as rapidly as possible. I knew the journey to healing for her would be a difficult one. So I gave the mom a cab card. Back about 10 years ago, we had cab cards that we could give to parents. So she could take a cab and come back to the school the next day. And I told the mom, we'll work to get you connected to mental health care after she finished her interviews with the police. So sure enough, the next morning, the mom is on my doorstep when I arrive at the office before 7 a.m. And I thought it would take about an hour. I would give them another cab card and send them on their way, but that's not what happened at all. I just needed a Texas Medicaid accepting Spanish-speaking clinician within a seven mile radius of our high school. And that's where the challenge began. I spent all day using our school district's referral book trying to find and connect to counselor. And then I resorted to Google. I called and left messages. I called numbers were not in service. I called and the phone just rang and rang and couldn't believe it. But at three o'clock that afternoon, the final bell sounded. And I said, student home the connection to counseling services.

SPEAKER_02 4:16

So you found a hole in the community resources and you decided what to fill that hole?

SPEAKER_00 4:24

No, I actually first really had a lot of indignation that my community couldn't support a student's behavioral health needs. And so I felt really angry. I'm a huge person of faith. I remember that day I walked out of my office, I closed the door, and I raised my hands up to heaven and I said, God, someone has to do something about this. I can't live in a community where wounded, hurt, harmed children can't get connected to support in health care. And you guessed it almost immediately. I felt like God said, Heather, that person is you. I felt like I was the least likely person to this day, Jeff. I've never taken one single business class. I didn't know where to begin. I didn't know what to do. I just believed that people should never hurt alone. So I did something crazy. And two weeks later, I went and turned in my resignation, ending a 17-year career in public education. And I'll never forget my boss said, Heather, where are you going? And I said, I don't know. And he said, Oh, really? You can tell me. I'll keep it on the down low if you want to keep it quiet. And I said, No, really. I don't know. I just know I have to do something. I can't do nothing. And so sure enough, I went to my church and I was offered a storage closet that our maintenance man worked out of, clean it out, slap some paint on the walls, get a sofa. And Clear Hope Counseling was born. I began credentialing myself with Texas Medicaid, overcoming barrier after barrier to learn firsthand as a business of one why these access barriers were in place. But still, Jeff, I never had a vision for being a business owner or starting a business or a movement. I just had the starfish mentality. I thought, you know what? I can't help everyone, but I can help some. I'll be a resource for the community. Within three months, I was completely full with a waiting list and I still hadn't become credentialed with Medicaid yet. I don't know. This might sound like a business plan, but I promise it was no strategy. I was just responding to need. So I hired two friends that I'd previously trained and said, hey, why don't you guys come to the church with me and start seeing clients with me? There's a huge need in my community. And maybe I'll get set a contract up with you to pay you and overpaid them horribly. I think they made more money than I made those first few years. But I went back to the church and said, hey, will you guys, will you let me have an additional office and turn this conference room into a waiting room? And so then a group practice was born. I didn't even know what a group practice was. Still, I was just responding to the need. The craziest thing happened three months after I hired these two friends, they were both full with a waiting list. So I went back to the church leadership and I said, hey guys, can you move the preschool pastor down and let me have her office? And then I'll have three offices in a waiting room. And at that point in time, the church said, No, this is a church office suite, not a counseling center. You need to find your own space. And that really did hurt my feelings because my husband's the pastor of that church.

SPEAKER_02 7:38

Oh, drew.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

And I thought, you know what? I need to get serious about this, but I don't know what to do. I don't know where to start. So honestly, I just Googled low-cost business consultation advice in Houston. So you use the internet to get the I just Googled because I knew that there had to be people who could coach me, who could help me. The problem was I wasn't making any money at that point. I was paying my two contractors way too high. I wasn't making much money. I just had a huge passion for the work we were doing. So that's when I set up my very first meeting with score mentors in Houston. I got into my car and I drove from Pasadena over to the west side of Houston and I met my mentors for the very first time. I think it was more probably a it was more a counseling session for my distress than it was business consulting. But I love to tell this story because it'll just help the listeners understand how little I knew. During that meeting, they said, Do you have an org chart? And I said, I can have that to you by the next meeting. And I went back to my car and I Googled, what is an org chart?

SPEAKER_02 9:01

So let me mention.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

I had no clue.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

Let me mention for those who were listening, SCORE is a national advisory organization. We work with the small business administration. So you got free counseling through SCORE. There's no fee. We're in every state of the union. And your counselors were John Harris and Art Klayber. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 9:23

That's right. John and Art have been with me every step of the way.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

And they were business, business experience from their experiences to get you back on track.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

And at a price I could afford, which was free as a new business. Free counseling. My back then, my coaching budget was zero dollars. So I got free coaching from them. Honestly, probably the best decision I ever made because I planned to operate as a nonprofit or a not-for-profit when expanding my business. And John and Art counseled me to reconsider my business model, helped me understand that I could still give back greatly to the community that Clear Hope's mission could endure as a for-profit business. So I, at their council, incorporated my business as a professional corporation and later as an S-corp. And I went across town and I leased an office space, signing as a personal guarantor for a half million dollar lease. Remember, I still wasn't making any money at all.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

You took a real leap of faith there.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

Yes. And I remember my score mentor saying, you have a very high risk tolerance. To which I responded, there's no risk. The need is so great. I might have to work more, but there is no risk. I had figured that I could cover the cost of the rent simply by feeing clients. I had not accounted for the fact that I would need a salary. But I think that's a mistake that a lot of business owners make initially. For me, I was super passionate about the work that I was doing. And so I was going to do it no matter what.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

So it was passion that drove you with the guidance of the score counselors. And you went ahead and signed the lease personally.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

I sure did as a personal guarantor. And then I hired, I had the two initial contractors, and then I hired eight additional clinicians to work in this new space. I was super excited that I could find live counselors who were crazy enough or considered the mission valuable enough to join my team. In those early days, there were so many mistakes. There are really only two ways to learn experientially and knowledge acquisition. I was learning by knowledge acquisition from my score mentors. And then I was just making a lot of mistakes and saying, that didn't work. Let me try something different.

SPEAKER_02 12:01

So it was a bumpy road. It was a little smooth.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

It was an incredibly bumpy road. But one thing that I reminded myself very frequently through those early days and still sometimes now is quite simply this. And this might be something that's helpful to tell yourself as an entrepreneur. I would say frequently, if it were easy, everyone would do it.

SPEAKER_02 12:24

Obviously, you were the counselor in your school that did it. Most counselors I've been in schools don't do starting counseling clear hope type corporate S corporations. You would literally have 40 people working with you.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Yeah. So we have about 50 people on our team. We have about 45, 46 clinicians, and then a support team, support staff of about five or six. And then throughout the years, Clear Hope has just grown. And I think maybe that's a great business takeaway is I didn't do a feasibility study. I didn't search by zip code. I didn't know that I could go to the chambers of commerce and ask for intelligent data and research about needs in the community. I didn't even research what counseling centers existed within a 10-mile radius. I just simply knew that there was a kid who'd been hurt who needed counseling, and I couldn't find anyone to help her. And what I quickly learned was there were thousands of children, families, adults, marriages that needed help that couldn't find helper support. In a time when my industry of mental health, in which clinicians were being coached to move toward cash pay-only businesses and to market themselves and to find their niche clients, a big gaping hole had been left for people who used state and federal insurance like Medicaid and Medicare, and for people who couldn't afford cash pay services, who were just blue-collar workers, who had mental health benefits through their insurance company and needed to use those benefits. So as many people in our field were running away to start cash practices and following a lot of social media influencers who were teaching them how to do that. And that has been our mission, and that will always be our mission. We are not to disparage people who work in the cash pay-only business, but my mission began out of a desperate need for someone who had been harmed, who needed mental health care and support and couldn't find it. Our job in all our locations all around the city of Houston, our job is to find a way to connect clients in need to high-quality mental health care. The journey to get there has been incredibly difficult.

SPEAKER_02 15:10

So it's not an easy road. So you really found a way to do well by doing good.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

And I think maybe that's a story. Sounds like a movie or a novel, but it's a true story.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Maybe it's another takeaway because I've seen a lot of entrepreneurs over the day. I have a small consulting business now because I went from zero dollars to seven figures in about nine months. And I think when you do that, people start to notice and say, What the heck are you doing? And how did you do that? So I started a small consulting business, and almost instantly I can tell the people who are getting going to be really successful and the people who are probably not going to be in business within a year.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

You can pick up on certain traits.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

I can pick up on it. And I know you're an entrepreneur, so I think entrepreneurship is in our blood oftentimes. But I think for me, what separates the people who do the great work from those who like to plan to do the great work is passion and a commitment to the mission. I often say pursue mission and money follows. Pursue money and you're at risk of losing sight of the mission.

SPEAKER_02 16:35

So in your case, as you already said, you had no experience in entrepreneurship in business whatsoever. You were on a paycheck. In fact, with a few more years, you could have collected your own pension.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 16:51

You dropped the pension, the financial security, health insurance benefits, vacations over the summer. You'd lost all that and gave it up because of this student.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

I did give it up temporarily for a mission that was much bigger than any of those things to me. But I had been training in trauma-informed practices in my last few years as an educator. So I had my training business that was replacing my paycheck plus the counseling services. I'm proud to say that since I founded Clear Hope, every single week I've seen clients, unless I've been on vacation. So my personal service delivery has continued this entire time. I still see clients. I saw clients this morning. I'll see clients tomorrow. I still see clients every single day. And for me, it's important to work in an industry where your leaders understand the work that you do.

SPEAKER_02 17:53

So you were open during the pandemic.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

Yes, we were.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

And it had to be a bit of a challenge where you needed to pivot because we were all isolated, which probably increased the need for your services. But there it is. You didn't need a storage closet.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Yes. So the pandemic was quite good to us and quite great for our business. You're exactly right. A lot of fear in the community. And I'm so thankful that our clinical team, our offices around Houston, we were considered essential service providers. So we remained open. The clinicians that felt comfortable enough kept coming to the office and delivering care. Those who wanted to transition quickly to telehealth. We authored a telehealth manual for delivery of service provision to children. We have always been on the cutting edge. I think as an entrepreneur, you always have to be planning for what might happen next. That's part of what energizes us, is thinking what's next, what's happening next. I just met this morning with my executive director to talk to her about how we are going to diversify in the future for what's coming next. So we're always planning for tomorrow, but we're always planning for two years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now, because our industry, like every industry, is always changing. So while we have a niche and we figure things out for now, we anticipate that we need to remain highly creative in this field and industry to be able to live our mission successfully. I don't think mental health care will look like it looks now, 10 years from now, with the advent of AI and with a lot of people telecommuting to work. I think there is an increased sense of need for human connection. And so we are strategically working on what our field, what our industry, what our clients' needs will be in the future. And I think that's another important part of being an entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_02 19:57

Some people would look at the pandemic as under those conditions because you adapted to what was needed. And what was needed was exactly what you were providing even before the pandemic.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

And a huge shout out to our clinical team because we're a mission-driven organization. That means everyone who joins our team understands and commits to our mission. So since our mission is to remove access barriers, during the pandemic, we lived that mission probably better than we ever had. Everyone was ready to transition to serve our clients in whatever way was needed. From our elderly clients, who we thought probably shouldn't come to the office because they were more at risk. We continue to see them in the office because they would tell us, I am so incredibly isolated. The only person that I ever get to see is my clinician. The only place I get to go is to my counseling practice. And so we we followed the needs of our clients to ensure that we continued to live our mission. And that remains an adaptation model that we're open to today. We listen to our clients, we have ways for them to provide feedback to us, and we're always willing to adjust based on what their needs are. But the pandemic for us was not our biggest challenge at all, but it was a challenge initially just to adapt.

SPEAKER_02 21:22

What to our listeners, what would be your advice to those who are living on a paycheck, always have, are from a family where everybody had a job but never started a business, like you, were an education. But what if they don't have a background in education, but they have a passion about an idea? What would you advise them the next step should be to s possibly follow their dream having been down that road?

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Yeah, great question. I do think there's an age-old quote that says, find what you love and you'll never work a day in your life. And my first piece of advice would be: I think there's a popular idea present in social media that says you can be an entrepreneur and have what's known or labeled as passive income. I would say there is nothing passive about being an entrepreneur. So my first challenge would be make sure that you have that passion, that you have that love, and that you're willing to work harder than anyone you ever know has worked. You're willing to work longer hours than anyone you ever have known work, and you're willing to commit at a level higher than anyone you've ever seen commit.

SPEAKER_02 22:44

Because to be successful, you will make is there also maybe some risk involved.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Absolutely. Absolutely. You know the statistics. Most business owners fail at their first business venture. And so you have to be prepared for that. You have to make sure that the mission, the passion is big enough to keep you motivated, even when it's no longer fun or glamorous or exciting, even when you're watching your friends go on great vacations, but you're spending your vacation money to buy new equipment for your business or you're going into debt to support the financial needs with the hope that you're going to turn it around the next quarter. I think the level of commitment that you need is something that you really should test. But if I had it to do all over again, I think I would have worked with my mentors a little bit earlier, a little bit sooner, and I would have had a stronger sense of a business plan. I did not have a business plan. I just thought it would just be me and the cleaned out storage closet at church, seeing a few clients every week, and then training school districts on the side. I never planned for Clear Hope to become multi-side or to serve multiple school districts. I never planned to become a voice or a leader for school-based behavioral health. I never planned to be appointed by the governor to work on a task force to look at the mental health needs in the community. I just knew that there was a great need that should be met. And as long as I have energy, strength, and ability, I'm gonna work to remove those access barriers. I'm gonna work to make sure that no one has to hurt alone. And I think my passion for this business is as strong, or maybe even stronger, than it was a little over nine years ago when I began this venture. So my best advice is make sure that you will love what you're doing, even if you don't get to live the influencer life that you're seeing on social media. I think that most influencers make a lot of money by convincing you that you can become an influencer. I think what you have to be willing to do is say, I'm gonna start small and work hard and commit long, even when I'm not getting the paycheck or the reward that I want. Because for me, the paycheck is a soldier in uniform walking in and saying, Hey, I just need somebody to talk to. And me being able to say, absolutely, someone on my team will take care of you. I cannot imagine saying, I'm so sorry, we can't take your insurance. I can't imagine saying, I'm so sorry, we have a waiting list. And so Clear Hope has lived its mission, and its mission has guided our business development. The strategy wasn't I want to start a business and become wealthy, though I have been very successful, and my family has been able to experience things we never would have been able to experience had I stayed in public school and not taken this journey. That wasn't my motivation. And I think if that is your motivation, that's fine. I think it's a worthwhile motivation. And I love money and I love what money can do, but it has to be deeper than that. It has to be something that you would do for free because often days I do. I see clients pro bono still, as do many of the clinicians at my practice. It has to be something that you will do when no one else is looking and you're not getting the accolades, you're not being invited to speak on the stage, or you're not being invited to give a testimony on a podcast, but you are motivated and inspired by the work you're doing to such a high level that you don't need anything other than the fulfillment of knowing that you are living your purpose and your mission. And for me, that's why Clear Hope has been successful. And that's why I believe Clear Hope will continue to be successful is because our mission is bigger than any of us independently, but not bigger than all of us working together. So kudos and shout out to my team, to my executive leadership, to my administrative team, to the clinicians who've dedicated themselves to this mission, who have shared in this mission. And finding your people who are willing to support you through this crazy adventure of entrepreneurship is such an important part of ensuring that you will be successful.

SPEAKER_02 27:39

Heather Lampert, you are an inspiration to our listeners for sure. Certainly. I have been really impressed with your success. And you took a leap of faith because you really left your job and just got up and running, doing it in spite of lack of knowledge, lack of experience. You just saw a need and filled it. I applaud you. You deserve all the accolades and certainly all the rewards. I'm going to conclude this by saying I'm Dr. Jeff Ricken. I'm the executive score mentor. We help people, the Heather and others. We have 150 members in our chapter, Art Kleber and John Harris, and many others who have at least 30 or 40 years of experience in business of all kinds. We have attorneys, CPAs, managers, business developers, digital marketers, in my case in healthcare and surgery. We are certainly there to help you. If you are thinking about becoming a successful business person and would like some free advice along the way, we are at www.score.org. You can register there, pick a mentor. We're all listed there. And all of our specialties are available to you. We'll show you how to write a business plan. We have loads of resources on our website, templates, how to write a business plan, webinars that we teach from experts how to do business, maybe save you thousands of dollars and certainly many months or even years of making mistakes and getting your business off the ground. We're here to help fulfill your dreams because we've already done it, and we can really advise you and mentor you through the bumps, the mines, and the minefield. Heather, I can't thank you enough for your time. Truly an inspirational story, and we'll be talking again soon. Thank you for paying attention to our podcast on score. Thank you again. This is Dr. Jeff Fricken signing out.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

Before we wrap up, a quick favor. If you find this podcast valuable, please hit subscribe on YouTube and follow us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It is free, takes just a second, and helps us continue bringing you weekly episodes designed to support your business journey.

SPEAKER_02 30:03

Thank you for listening to Small Business Success Stories at Score Houston. If you are an entrepreneur or small business owner, we'd love to support your journey. You can reach us at 713-487-6565 or visit us at 8701-South Gestner, 31200 Houston, Texas, 77074. Our office is open Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., except for federal holidays, and walk-ins are always welcome. To learn more, request free mentoring or register for our workshops, visit us online at www.score.orgslash Houston. Until next time, keep learning, keep growing, and remember, at Score, we're here to help you thrive.