Hey Therapist Entrepreneurs,
This week’s episodes are about keeping up with all the ways humans and robots can find your practice, using your credit card to better understand your actual cash flow, and getting more comfortable expecting a return on the money you invest in your business.
Basically: marketing, money, and asking people to do what you paid them to do. 😊
I hope you find something useful!
My 3 Favorite Episodes This Week
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For updated AEO strategy…
One of the wonderful things about Danielle Swimm is that she is constantly sharing the newest research on how to be found by robots. And because that information changes so frequently, basically every episode she releases is worth listening to.
One of the things that stood out to me in this episode was the importance of optimizing your Google Business Profile. I personally tend to forget that my Google Business Profile exists because I spend so much time thinking about my website. But while I was listening to this episode, I immediately reached out to my marketing company and asked them to fully optimize it so that we’re getting as much from it as we possibly can.
If you’re trying to stay current on all the ways your practice can be found by both humans and robots, this episode is worth a listen..
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For using your credit card to understand your finances…
Keeping track of cash flow in a group practice, or really in any business, is extremely important. It did not become extremely important to me until I grew to a seven-figure group practice, although, let’s be honest, I probably should have started paying more attention earlier.
I now have a weekly cash flow spreadsheet that I fill out every Monday, but I’ve never been entirely sure how I should think about my credit card payments. That’s why I was so interested to hear Linzy Bonham talk about treating your credit card balance like the actual money you’ve already spent instead of the "magical money" it can feel like you haven’t really spent. Because, unfortunately, you really did.
She recommends paying off your credit card every week instead of once a month, and she explains what to do if you’ve already accumulated credit card debt. She also talks about how credit cards trick us into overspending and ultimately paying more for the things we buy.
If you’ve been trying to reconcile your feelings about credit cards with the realities of your business finances, this episode is worth a listen.
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For raising your standards…
In business, we are allowed to have high expectations. When we spend our hard-earned money on someone else’s expertise, it is reasonable to expect them to deliver. It is okay to expect a real return on your investment, and doing so does not make you a mean person.
Unfortunately, overcoming all of our socialization to be “nice” can be really hard, even when being nice is actively creating more problems for us.
In this week’s episode of Worth It Practice, I talk about how I’m learning to be more direct and more comfortable setting the bar high. It's something most of us struggle with, so sharing my journey in this area hopefully helps you to be more direct too. 😊
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Leah's Personal Story Time:
What happens when you rely on only one person
Today, Tim, my office manager, let us know that he was having power problems at his house.
There was a time, and let’s face it, that time was probably only a month ago, when this news would have immediately stressed me out.
Why?
Historically, Tim has been the only person in the practice who could competently do our matching calls, understand all of our systems, and serve as our mainstay when anything went wrong. Basically, Tim had way too much responsibility because he was our only fully competent admin, and we rely on our admin team a lot in my practice.
We all knew this was a problem. We also knew we needed to solve it. But finding and training another amazing admin who could do things at least 80% as well as Tim seemed impossible.
But guys, we did it!
We hired a new virtual assistant about three months ago, and when Tim went on a weeklong vacation a couple of weeks ago, JD kept the entire practice together. Basically, JD was our hero, and Tim was a rock star for training him so well.
Can JD do a matching call as well as Tim yet? No.
Does JD still have things to learn? One hundred percent.
Tim has been here for five years, and he built most of our systems, so of course he understands them better than anyone. But having a second person who can step in when Tim is unavailable is so valuable and so anxiety-relieving that I can barely express it. I also know that, with time and training, JD will continue to improve and his own skillset is incredibly valuable as well.
Having this backup confirms something I’ve known all along: No single person should be so important that the entire business depends on them.
That includes me, by the way. I can go out of town and the practice can (and should) continue to run without me. But the same thing needs to be true for every essential person in the business, including your admin. My plan now is to notice when I feel that "sinking feeling" when someone goes on vacation, because it's probably a surefire sign that I should create more redundancy in our systems around them as well.
As for right now, I’m incredibly relieved that our major bottleneck is gone. And grateful every day to my wonderful admins!
If it's Worth It, pass it along!
Got a fellow therapist or practice owner who would love this info? Send them this email! They can also join the list by clicking on this link. Let's help more people thrive in their businesses.
Hope these resources help you grow your practice this week! Here's to your continued growth and success!
Warmly,
Leah
CEO of Thriving Child Center and PCIT Experts
Host of Educated Parent Podcast
Host of The Worth It Practice Podcast
CEO of Worth It Practice Consulting
