What It Takes to Grow a Private Pay Practice During a Pandemic

I’ve worked with hundreds of therapists and coaches who are seeking to build private pay practices and do you know what I hear again and again?

It’s either: 

“I work and work and work and work and WORK. I write blogs, I post on Facebook, and I tweak my website… it’s nonstop, I’m never done… And NOTHING is happening.  How do I know what to do, what to stop doing, and what’s really going to return on investment?”

50% of the people I talk to

OR:

“I DO NOT KNOW WHERE TO START. The internet is an avalanche of conflicting information encouraging me to do things that feel inauthentic or pushy. So I do nothing. I know I need to promote my practice, but I feel overwhelmed and paralyzed.“

50% of the people I talk to

Let’s cut you some slack: Therapists weren’t trained in marketing… or sales… or social media… or graphic design… In fact, the skills of therapy can feel wildly out of sync with these business-building strategies (they aren’t, by the way, as you’ll see).

What It Really Takes to Grow a Private Pay Practice

I’ve worked with hundreds of therapists and coaches who are seeking to build private pay practices and do you know what I hear again and again?

It’s either: 

“I work and work and work and work and WORK. I write blogs, I post on Facebook, and I tweak my website… it’s nonstop, I’m never done… And NOTHING is happening.  How do I know what to do, what to stop doing, and what’s really going to return on investment?”

50% of the people I talk to

OR:

“I DO NOT KNOW WHERE TO START. The internet is an avalanche of conflicting information encouraging me to do things that feel inauthentic or pushy. So I do nothing. I know I need to promote my practice, but I feel overwhelmed and paralyzed.“

50% of the people I talk to

It Works Even When You Are Bad at It

A few years ago I did a half marathon for the first (and last) time. I did it with friends and we would meet on Saturdays and do the “long run” together. In between we were charged with the “short” runs, stretching and strength training that the internet said we needed to do in order to prepare our bodies for the eventual 2.5 hour run (I’m what you would call a tortoise, not a hare) on race day.

The problem was… I didn’t really feel like it. I wasn’t feeling very motivated. Week after week I would show up at the long run having done one short run in between and a few of those weeks I hadn’t actually done ANY runs in between. And yet… somehow, even with terrible execution and a ton of novice mistakes I did prepare for and run a half marathon.

Mindmanager to the rescue! …Maybe.

Listen, there’s a reason that “change is hard” is one of the biggest headnodders* of all time. We suck at changing our lives! This is why we continue to engage with truly terrible ideas! Here are three terrible ideas I am still engaging in on the regular:

• Never exercising. Despite being known most of all as “that women who went from never exercising to being a triathlete,” I spend most days chilling on the couch, especially right now.
• SUGAR. Despite being almost entirely “sugar free” because of that whole autoimmune thing last year, I bought a 5 pack of Trolls Oreos on Amazon because I NEED IT. (Yo, there are POPROCKS inside. You need them, too.)
• Speed reading. When I get interested in a book, I become compulsively committed to finishing it.I read fast already, but I also have a setting that kicks in that is way more about finishing than savoring.Then, I’m done with my book and SO SAD it’s over. I’ve known this forever, and yet I finished “The art of inheriting secrets” in 36 hours.Errrggghhhh, so frustrating. Because now I don’t get to read it anymore! SMH.

Today is just another example of our whole lives. We know what’s up.

Said another way, we already know what we need to do differently!

So why don’t we? And why do we get so emotional when someone suggests that we could, in fact, respond differently?

Fear Has the Gravity of a Black Hole

Yesterday I wrote to you with a new Coaching With Gloria video about how you get to choose whether you live in a competitive world or a collaborative world. But it’s not only your beliefs about the competitive/collaborative nature of the world that you get to choose and then create by the way you show up, but it’s also way more than that. Two other huge reality markers that you get to choose and create are fear v. presence and scarcity v. abundance.

There is nothing more fundamentally “alive” than fear. All sentient beings have fear, even the single-cell organism in the petri dish will pull away from sudden bright light. And, the more complicated the brain involved the sneakier fear becomes; by the time you get to human beings (Oh, ye of the prefrontal cortex, most complicated brain structure on the planet) fear can show up in literally any costume. Here are some of fear’s favorite characters:

We’ve got each other

As we’ve been launching our mastermind*, Alyssa and I have spoken to A LOT of therapists and coaches. We know that the last few weeks have been intense, stressful, and uncertain.

We are feeling it, too.

The theme we’ve heard is that everyone feels like they are in crisis mode- on their own behalf on behalf of their clients. It’s fear central: business fears collide with health fears which slam into the fear we feel for the wellbeing of our client. It feels as though our foundation has been shaken.

And yet, it is our belief that coaches and therapists are the EXACT people we need to lead right now.

That means me, and that means you.

Who else is trained to lead with calm steadiness? Who else specializes in navigating fears, staying grounded, being flexible, and managing distress? We are.

We also realize that you’ve been working REALLY HARD to grow your practices, and we don’t want fear or uncertainty to halt that progress. Turning away from business-building right now will feed that feeling of being carried away from your goals by this crisis.

We care about you, your practices, and your momentum.

So, how do we hold steady, show up with calmness and peace, serve our clients, and continue moving forward during challenging times?

New Year, Same Me

Everyone who really knows me knows that I LOVE a good New Year Resolution. I’m always getting excited about potential and possibility, and a New Year seems like a great excuse to return to a thorny situation and see if a renewed effort can bring me some progress. This year is no different, except that the thorny problem to which I am returning is on a different wave-length. In prior years, I’ve returned to all the things I want to be different:

• Making more money in my practice
• Being more consistent with my posting
• Eating more vegetables
• Being more patient with my kids

This year, though, I want to be happy with what is.

I’m me, and that’s enough.

My business is enough. My parenting skills are enough. My impact is ENOUGH. What would be possible for me if I really believed those things? That’s what I’m going to find out this year.

New Year, Same Me*.

How to get a book deal: A behind the scenes look

Forever and ever I’ve wanted to be an author. And forever and ever I thought that was impossible. See, I’ve got this eye thing from childhood seizures (long story, I’m fine now) that makes it really hard for my eyes to see typos (I also CANNOT find Waldo, but that’s a story for another day). And to me, that felt like an insurmountable problem!

It’s not like people didn’t like my writing… they would read my blogs, and told me they enjoyed my emails… but I assumed they liked it because I have a quirky sense of humor, not because it was GOOD or anything like that.

Or at least that’s what I told myself because:

There is no dream scarier than the one you have buried deep in your heart.

Top 5 Questions I Get Asked About Building A Successful Private Pay Practice

Starting a private pay practice is tough. The internet is an amazing tool, but it is also a virtual avalanche of conflicting information promising to make everything “easy” while actually just making you feel ashamed and confused.

If everything is so “easy,” then why does it feel so hard?

It’s not uncommon for the excitement of jumping into private practice to turn into total overwhelm and analysis paralysis. 

I GET IT.

What you need in place of that information overload is someone who has done all that reading and taken all the courses, sifted through the nonsense, and come out the other side with a clear understanding—plus a track record of success.

How to build your practice by having more fun

Are you an introvert?

If you’re a therapist, there’s a good chance you are. I mean, studying psychology, counseling, and therapy basically requires an obsession with all the messy internal stuff. Who finds all of that fascinating? We introverts do!

So when it’s time for us to grow our practice, we are often uncomfortable with the social aspects: networking, creating partnerships, running events and speaking can feel downright daunting.

In fact, these things may feel like they goes against your very nature. And who wants to do that?  No one… unless they can be done authentically, in a way that feels aligned with your values and infused with integrity.  And, as a fellow introvert I’m here to tell you: when you find the right partners, the community you create is the golden ticket to the growth you’re looking for.

So, how can we create a powerful, fun-loving network that will turbocharge our growth?

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