What? Are you sure?  Do I need to buy that for my Private Practice?

 

The above was the headline on my FaceBook feed last week. I usually scroll right by as I know that it’s a come on, an empty promise, and a way to get me to part with some hard-earned money. When I was a small child, my mom would tell me to watch out for scammers. She said they will always over promise and under deliver.  My father agreed and would roughly quote “as P.T. Barnum said there is a sucker born every minute.” I know today, there is no evidence that P.T.  actually, said that, but my father thought he did. The point is that practice building has become somewhat of a circus of unkept promises.

A few days after I saw the above outrageous promise, a therapist posted in a FaceBook group and I will paraphrase, All that hype to earn 200,000 K in private practice in a few days is poop, right?  I stopped reading and immediately felt sad and dishearten. Has the profession of private practice coaches which I am included,  become all snake oil salesmen? Are we touting promises we can’t keep? Are we turning this part of the helping profession into smash and grab moment? I am disappointed and dissatisfied with the hype. When I started my successful group private practice, almost 10 years ago with my business partners, there were only about three coaches out there. We read everything they wrote, and we built our practice with a lot of trial and error.

There were a lot of late nights figuring out how to file the paperwork, pay that fee or file or what form was that again?  

Where do I post a blog, how do we negotiate a lease? How much does that cost, really that much? We were filled with many questions and not very many answers. We had many frustrations, spent countless hours and spent money we didn’t have on things we didn’t need or didn’t understand.

I joined business groups that really did not work for a therapist; We can’t pay for referrals or break the confidentiality of our clients by encouraging them to give us a great Yelp review or send

“our customers” emails with exceptional deals on services or give discounts for holidays. Private practices just can’t operate like that.

However, despite these limitations, we persevered.  We created a business model with our type of marketing. We created relationships with referral sources. I remember once having a conversation with a successful business owner at our Chamber of Commerce networking meeting who was touting “all you need is a few testimonials and your business will fly.” Trying to explain that therapy practices can’t do that fell on deaf ears.

We had been in business for three years when I found my first real private practice business coaches, Miranda and Kelly of Zynnyme. They were perfect for me at that time. Since they are therapists, they understood the ins and outs of building an ethical business, and they help my team define our niches and taught us to market without being sleazy. I credit these two women for really helping my group practice grow in a responsible manner. Was it an overnight success? Absolutely not but my team and I had a roadmap, and more importantly we understood the why behind our actions. These two women have since developed free video training webinars, and they have excellent paid programs. They are also pretty cool people too. Did our income go up? You bet it did; our caseloads become overflowing enough that we hired more therapists.

As I have said before, our business has continued to grow, and our income has increased. We have never had a year of loss of revenue. But it did not come to us without hard work and learning new skills. I remember my first few networking meetings. I would pull into the parking lot, turn off the engine of the car and prayed that I could do this. My hands were sweaty, my breath shallow and at times, I felt like passing out; my business partners and I pushed onward. I would secretly make a deal with myself. “Ok, Sherry all you have to do is speak to 3 people, that’s it, then you can go to the safety of your home.” My next meeting, I would up the number 4, 5, 6, 7 all the way to 10 new people. I learned to narrow my elevator speech; I learned it was ok to have butterflies and most importantly I learned that people in my community need me and my teams’ services. Did we make $500,000 those first few years, ha that would be a big NO.

“Ok, Sherry all you have to do is speak to 3 people, that’s it, then you can go to the safety of your home?”

My next meeting, I would up the number 4, 5, 6, 7 all the way to 10 new people. I learned to narrow my elevator speech; that it was ok to have butterflies and most importantly I learned that people in my community need me and my teams’ services. Did we make $500,000 those first few years, ha that would be a big NO.

We did, however, grow and I learned to walk through my fear and be uncomfortable trying new things but then doing it anyway. Even now I am learning new things.  Do I get discouraged and feel like packing it in at times? Yup, but not as often as in those first few years.

I have had several private practice coaches for various projects in my business life. I find coaching to be a wonderful tool to build your business, and all my wonderful coaches never promised huge gains in my income or caseload numbers, that could never have never reached in my private practice. I find coaching such a valuable tool that I have as a line item in my budget along with rent, utilities, and conferences for the year.

Today I still use a fantastic private practice coach who helps me to stay off that ledge or want to pack it in after a particularly tough day. My issues now are different than they were when I first started in private practice. My income, staffing, and headspace have changed and grown with my business. My coach Jo Muirhead of Purple.Co is great at helping me with the mindset, products launches, and issues that my practice is dealing with. Jo also did not promise me $500,000 in revenue she was realistic and helped me define a larger plan and together we created detail plan of the steps to achieve the goals that I defined. She is available when I need her, she has a great sense of humor, she does push me and holds me accountable as I need. All for benefit of my private practice business and my bottom line.

I stepped into the coaching arena because the staff I was mentoring needed a different type of coach. Just like when a client comes to therapy, clients and therapists need different things. In order to be successful in therapy, there must be a right fit, the proper education, and vibe between the therapist and client. That is the exact type of relationship required for a successful coaching relationship.  I have had wonderful therapists blossom under my coaching guidance. They too are not earning $500,000 but a lot more than before they met me. I also have had therapists who call me and I know right away we are not a good match and I will refer on to others. There are plenty of other great coaches out there. The key is to find your perfect fit for where you and your business is now.

Here are a few of my criteria for finding a coach.

• One that understands what your goals are or helps you define your goals and develops a plan of how you can get there.
• Accessibility, it does no good have a coach that you can’t meet with regularly.
• Needs to have a love of teaching, I have found that coaches need to have some skill in this area and be generous with their knowledge and not try to sell me one more product.
• Can kick you in the butt (gently) when you need that push and knows when to back off.
• One that under promises and over delivers.
• Has a great sense of humor, what we do is stressful, a little laughter goes a long way.

 

If your potential coach does any of these, please run and run fast.

• Make claims that you can earn massive amounts of money.
• Claims to get your caseload full within 90 days.
• Doesn’t get back to you within a reasonable time.
• Is late or doesn’t take you time into consideration.
• Lies.
• Over promises and under delivers.
• Doesn’t say Thank you.

 

Business coaching can be very valuable to your private practice. If you look at other business, you will find that most have had mentors or coaches along the way that helped them get to where they are today. This is no different within the therapy realm. We can’t know what we don’t know, and a business coach will be that neutral person who can show you’re the steps, question some of your crazy ideas and push you to play a bigger game. Don’t let the circus of loud mouth shysters cloud your desire to serve the world and follow your passion.

 

 

©2017, All Rights Reserved, Therapist Practice In a Box, Sherry Shockey-Pope, LMFT