I’m near the one year mark – one year! – of owning my private practice. It was a dream and ultimate career goal from the time I decided to go back to grad school in 2010. Seven years later, an opportunity arose, in the form of a sudden and unexpected (boy, I didn’t see that one coming) job layoff, some office space that became available, a person willing to share the rent and just like that, a dream became reality.
Shy of one year in my practice, I just re-signed a lease (solo, yikes!) and couldn’t be happier. I’ve had some big successes co-mingled with a lot of hard lessons. Here are five rookie mistakes for you to avoid if/when you are thinking of opening your own private practice.
1) Find a Niche – I was all over the map when I started. Honestly. As a therapist, you can’t be everything to everyone. So don’t make the mistake of taking all business just for the sake of taking business. Figure out your strengths (and weaknesses), find your niche, and work on perfecting it. Refer cases beyond your expertise to others in your community. In time, they’ll refer back to you.
2) Stay Organized – Owning a business means you are all departments – IT, accounting, scheduling, marketing and everything in between. This is a constant challenge for me. When I’m not seeing clients, I schedule time in my day for meetings, marketing, social media management, paperwork or general planning, depending on what needs to be done. Set up systems that work for you so that your practice can run efficiently.
3) Safety First – I’ve taken new clients at 8:00 p.m. and weekend slots where my usually-bustling office building was desolate and I was isolated and alone. Looking back, considering the line of work I’m in, some of those clients would have been better for me to see during normal business hours until I got to know them better. Looking forward, I only schedule my known and established clients during my irregular times.
4) Have a Business Plan – I’m going to make all you MBA-types (and my accountant) cringe right here: I didn’t write one. Well, not an official one. Oh, I had a list of things to do (website, PLLC, business accounts, etc) and lots of ideas swimming in my head. But get your business plan down on paper, including all start-up costs, projected expenses, and number of clients you need weekly to break-even, turn a profit, and cover expenses. Refer to your business plan monthly, and make revisions as needed.
5) Don’t Panic – Owning a business has its ups and downs. Some months are better than others. Case in point: my most profitable month was one where I was off for a week on vacation. The next month was slow (and I mean, slooooooooow). During this slow month, someone approached me coming to work for them – notice I said “for” not “with.” I considered this offer for a few days (what if I don’t make it? what if business continues this slow? What if what if what if?) but decided to continue working to build my practice. Sure enough, not two weeks after turning down the offer, some well-paying, substance-use contract-work came my way. If I had panicked and thrown in the towel, I would have been giving up not only my dream, but this other, better-suited opportunity.
I’m still making mistakes, and learning from each and every one. Mistakes are simply par for the course of owning your own business. Don’t dwell on them. They happen to everyone – just don’t repeat them, and learn from them. Best of luck with your own practice, and I hope reading about my rookie mistakes help you avoid making your own.
It goes like this: I get a phone call from a potential client. We chat about therapy and their individual needs. We discuss appointment days and times. Then they ask if I take insurance. Instead of simply saying, “No, I don’t, I’m cash-pay only,” my first instinct is to say, “I am really sorry, I only take cash.”
Another scenario: I charge full-price to clients that fail to give a 24-hour notice of cancelling an appointment. This cancellation policy is clearly stated on my website, as well as in all intake paperwork signed by my clients. I also verbally state my policy to all clients in person when they fill out their credit card form (which I keep on file to charge no-shows). I’ve had to implement this policy on ocassion, and each time I found myself telling the client, “I’m sorry, but I have to charge you.”
Why, oh why, am I always compelled to say “I’m sorry?”
Studies have shown that women like to apologize. A lot. We do it in our personal and professional lives on a daily basis. In fact, in a 2010 study in Psychological Science, it states that women are more likely to see a need for an apologies in everyday situations, and suggests that men apologize less frequently than women because they have a higher threshold for what they consider offensive behavior.
So here’s the thing.
Nearly one-year into running my private practice, I am going to stop apologizing for my business policies. The truth is, I’m not sorry I don’t take insurance. I’m not sorry that I charge no-shows for my time. And I’m certainly not sorry that my latest policy is to charge for my intake upon making the appointment (no-shows at 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning or 8:00 p.m. at night – and I’ve had both – make me totally not sorry for this one).
I’m in a person-centered, helping profession, but at the end of the day, I have a business to run. My policies are sound and fair, and clearly spelled-out from the get-go. Apologizing makes me sound as if I did something wrong or am worried that I offended someone.
So I’m sorry – wait, not sorry, that I’m done apologizing. I’m proud of my business, and my practices, and for that, I’m not sorry.
When I wrote my original business plan, I had a concrete vision for what I wanted my private practice to look like and the clients I wanted to serve. Adults, 18 and above only, 8-5, Monday through Friday. Period. This was my plan from the beginning, and whenever I closed my eyes and pictured my clients, that was what I saw. Although I had experience working with youth in during my graduate school clinical rotations and previous agency work, I was calling my own shots now and wanted to see only the clients who I wanted to see. And that meant adults, 18 and above only.
Did I say that I only wanted to see adults, 18 and above only?
Rookie mistake Numero Uno.
Guess who my very first, paying client was? One who called and wanted my very first available appointment, same day or next day, if possible? You guessed it. The parent of an 8 –year-old boy.
My next call was for a teenage girl. Then my next call was a middle-school aged girl. And the call after that was for a teenage boy at-risk for substance use and abuse.
Well, you get the picture. None of these calls were for adults. None of these clients were over 18. But guess what? They all wanted to see me. And I had many slots to fill in my practice. And since empty slots don’t pay the rent, I booked the appointments.
The teens and tweens, as I like to now call them, starting coming in. And a funny thing happened. I was enjoying my work with them. They gave me a new energy and excitement that spilled over to my counseling approach and to my practice. There’s something awesome about a kid bouncing into your office, kicking off their shoes, plopping down to LIE on my couch, covering themselves in one of my blankets and stating, “Mind if I just lie here and be a load today while we talk? I have a lot to tell you and I need to be comfy!” Adults simply don’t do that! And it’s great.
I began reading up on the latest research on cutting, social media trends among middle and high school kids and brain development through the ages. I ordered games that encouraged talking and interaction, stocked a shelf with coloring books and colored pencils and printed out many “worksheets” for 8-18 year-olds that focus on core values, anxiety, anger management, gender/sexuality and depression. I attend “teen-centric” CEUs on bullying, cyber bullying and social media. I now assign journaling, and keep up on Netflix Series such as “13 Reasons Why.”
So much for my practice of adults, 18 and above only.
My business plan changed just like that, and I changed along with it. At this point, nearly 10 months in my private practice, more than half of my clients are under the age of 18. My hours are heavy from 3-8, Monday through Friday, and occasional Saturdays, not 8-5 as I originally thought. Kids can’t miss school for therapy, so I accommodate them as needed. I still see many adults, 18 and above, per my original plan, but I love love love working with my tweens and teens.
If your business plan veers off in an unexpected direction, or you find a niche that needs to be filled – go with it – as long as the clients you serve are within your scope of expertise. Change it up when and where you have to ensure success – and a full schedule. If I didn’t change it up, I would’ve missed out on these great kids. And the personal and professional growth that they’ve brought – most unexpectedly – to my career.
I am nine months-plus into owning and running my private practice. From my first night in grad school through successive various agency work, it was my goal to work for myself as a sole practitioner. I opened my official doors on August 1, 2016 and want to share with you so far what I’ve learned.
There have been successes and set backs, and pretty much everything in between. I’m going to write about all of them here. I want to teach others who are considering hanging their own shingle over a shop certain things to do, and absolutely what not to do based on my own humble (and eye-opening) experience.
There’s a huge misconception in the mental health field about opening up your own business. The misconception is this: that people will care. I mean….don’t flatter yourself. You might be great at what you do. You might be marginally good-looking and charming. But you are 100%, absolutely, completely, unequivocally wrong that anyone will care. Trust me, I was one of those people with the same misperception before I started.
No one, I repeat, no one cares about your business.
Yeah, I said it.
Why does no one care? Because. Because there are other people out there that have the exact same thing, offer the exact same service or the exact same product. They’ve done it longer than you. They know more about it than you. Even if they don’t do it better than you, no one cares about that, either.
But you care. Of course you do, otherwise you wouldn’t have taken the leap of faith and done it.
So how do you make other people care? Here are five things I did to make my private practice turn a reasonable profit in nine short months, and to make people care about (and utilize) my business:
- Find Your Niche – In San Antonio, counselors are everywhere. In my zip code alone, there are 40+ counselors within a 10-mile radius. So why choose me? Because I meet people in their homes. Because I provide “Walk & Talk” sessions, where I meet people at work, parks, trails, etc. Because I have dual licenses in Counseling and Substance Abuse. None of those other 40+ people do what I do. And that’s not an accident on my part.
- Hustle – I am a constant marketer. I tell people what I do all the time and am shameless about self-promotion. In the hours I am not seeing client, I am busy marketing. I launched this website (with help). I had marketing materials and business cards made that I hand out on the regular. I’ll write more in-depth about my marketing practices – and the hustle – in future posts.
- LinkedIn Yoself – LinkedIn has been invaluable for me in reaching out to the local mental health community (and beyond) to let people know I am available. I engage with local businesses and agencies as well as individuals about my practice.
- Meet Up – My goal this year is to have one meeting per week with an agency, individual or company that could utilize my services (and that I can refer clients to if needed). This has proved invaluable during the hours that I don’t see clients. If I have a blank day (and believe me, there are some of those), I reach out and set up a meeting or tour of a facility. I’ve had three of those “meetings” so far this week. I’m aiming for 52 meetings (minimum) in 2017.
- Social Media-ize – Build a social media presence for your counseling practice. It doesn’t take a ton of time or energy, just some effort and advance planning. You can find me on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook as @jenniferseelpc. I am on Linkedin as well (see #3). I have a blog on my website (duh, obviously, you are reading). All of these help build my presence and spread my message, as well as connect with a vast audience and potential future clients.
I care about my business. I care about it a lot. I know you care about your counseling practice, too. So start making others care about it. Good luck to you, and check back here for more Private Practice Chronicles.
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