Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses

11. Ready to Increase Private Practice Profit and Peace? Declutter in Q4

December 08, 2022 Season 1 Episode 11
Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses
11. Ready to Increase Private Practice Profit and Peace? Declutter in Q4
Show Notes Transcript

I run a platform that helps counselors find affordable resources so they can keep providing excellent therapy in their communities. I not only run this podcast, I have a Facebook Group, a private practice and I sell courses on my website Kate Walker Training so that this work can be a little more self-sustaining. What I talk about in this episode is how to declutter your private practice so that obsolete products and services don't steal your profits and difficult clients don't steal your peace. Once you follow the three steps, you'll see how decluttering now will result in an amazing 2023.

What I love so much about counselors is that you're not always in it for the money.  What I also hear from counselors I coach is:

  • how multiple no-shows can be discouraging
  • how unprofitable passion projects can be a real kick in the gut
  • and how they wish they had more time to work ON their business instead always being IN their business.

Of course, the problem is that as a full time counselors it’s really hard for you all to carve out extra time in your schedule to do this kind of work.

The key here is choosing how to best focus your time. If you haven’t read The Pumpkin Plan Mike Michaelowicz it’s a super helpful resource on this topic. I'll go over some strategies including how to take advantage of your low selling products to turn people into raving fans who will recommend you to family and friends. And I'll even show you how to eliminate the right things (and clients) in your schedule to free up your brain. That’s the key, because once you find your peace, you'll find your profit. Show notes and more at https://katewalkertraining.com/ready-to-increase-private-practice-profit-and-peace-declutter-in-q4/

Get your step by step guide to private practice. Because you are too important to lose to not knowing the rules, going broke, burning out, and giving up. #counselorsdontquit.

[00:00:00]

[Intro]

Kate Walker: Hey, it’s Dr. Kate Walker, and today on Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses, we’re going to talk about your practice in terms of the famous declutterer, Marie Kondo. Does it bring you joy? No? Well, we’re going to toss it. Then what? You’re going to get some actionable steps today, step-by-step guidelines to take those things that no longer bring you joy, profit, maybe they’re giving you headaches, and turn them into something amazing. You ready? Let’s get to work!

Sometimes as counselors, I think we just take it for granted that we’re going to offer individual therapy and couples therapy or group therapy. We don’t really think of them as products. If you were making shoes and you put a shoe on the shelf to sell, if you had a particular style or brand that wasn’t selling, eventually you would discontinue that brand or you would go to the company that makes the shoe and you’d say, hey, why don’t you give me a different brand to choose from? Something like that. But each month maybe, each quarter, at least once a year, you would go through your entire inventory and identify obsolete inventory – the inventory that isn’t selling. And that’s my favorite time of year because that’s when I go to the shoe store, and they have those big racks in the back and it’s clearance and there are red dots and green dots and orange dots. They’re moving out these items that aren’t selling, or they’re obsolete; they’re being replaced by other items.

So, as counselors and mental health professionals in private practice, we’re not just selling, let’s say, two products: individual and couple counseling, as an example. What you’re selling is individual counseling on a Monday at three, individual counseling on a Monday at four, individual counseling on a Monday at five, etcetera, etcetera. So each one of those slots in your week, think of it like a hotel room. Think of it like inventory that you’re selling. Each one of those hours is a product that has a value. And if you drill down into the data, you’ll see that some days and times sell better than others. Some days and times, people don’t show up, or they cancel last minute very frequently. 

I remember when I had a big practice and I was bringing folks on and new practitioners, one of my colleagues was going to come on board and I said, okay, well, when do you want to see clients? And she said oh, you know, probably Saturday morning at nine. And I said, wait a second, don’t you live in a town like 90 miles away from here? And she said, yeah! And I said, hey, you’re going to get so discouraged by that choice because that particular product, the 9am on a Saturday, is a terrible seller. It’s not you; it’s not personal. That’s the time that people may sleep in, or if they’re having issues, they may not be able to get out of bed or they may be hungover. So 9am on a Saturday for her first slot of the day, and she had just driven 90 miles to get there, eventually she would get discouraged and quit because she had chosen pretty much the worst time I can possibly think of for a counselor to see a client.

So, part of what we’re talking about today is going to require you to not just look at your numbers. I mean, we’ve talked about that before: you can drill down into your numbers and determine profit and loss, and that’s great, and that’s another podcast and we’ll talk about that for taxes and write-offs and all of that fun stuff. 

For our purposes today, we’re going to compare services to one another. So, you’re going to compare individual counseling on Monday at five with individual counseling Tuesday at five, or individual counseling Wednesday at five. And it’s tempting to say, well, Kate, you know what, I’ve got this client and they are just like clockwork, and they show up every Thursday at five, so it’s a great seller. No, it’s not; you just have a client who is really depending on your services right now. That’s not supposed to be forever, right? We’re supposed to be working ourselves out of a job with every client. We’re supposed to be helping them get on their way or at least scale down their sessions to once a month or once every other month or as needed. 

So, it’s never up to the client. I’m going to say that upfront as we start this podcast episode about kind of getting rid of those products that aren’t selling. We can’t depend on a client, or a client personality, or a client diagnosis for this comparison that we’re doing today. In our field, there are diagnoses that require a lot more intense services, degrees of severity within the diagnoses. So this is really just a data analysis that an eighth grader could look at. They’re going to look at this and say, you know what mom? It looks like you’ve got more no-shows at five o’clock on Monday than any other time. Or, you know what, honey? I’m looking at this and it looks like five pm on a Friday is your worst selling slot of all.

So as you drill down, you’re going to start to see, get rid of those times. You can get rid of those slots completely, and that will make you more productive during the times that are selling well. So you start focusing on the times and days that sell, and then you can do kind of an analysis. Alright, so who is coming in the middle of the day on a Tuesday? Who is filling up your slots from noon until three? I’ve told the story before about how I developed my niche, right? I had very strict parameters, I was only going to work between 10am and 3pm Monday through Friday, no weekends, no evenings, and lo and behold, I found my perfect niche in small business owners like me, physicians, folks who worked at big corporations that had Fridays off, expats, folks who were in the country who maybe had a spouse working for the big company but couldn’t get a visa to work themselves. So, I knew a lot of information about these folks who came between 10 and 3, and then I could market to them. 

What you’re doing today, or what I’m encouraging you to do between now and the end of Q4 is to drill down and just look at the days and times that are not selling. That’s a great first place to start, especially if you’re one of those mental health providers who is ready to start moving services out of the therapy room. You’re like, oh my gosh, I’ve got these great ideas, but my brain is full of clients, and I just don’t seem to have time. I’m tired of waking up on Saturday morning and doing these projects, and I just need more time. Well, here it is. I’m handing it to you on a silver platter. Marie Kondo the times and days that aren’t consistently filled with clients. Let ‘em go and see how that clears up your schedule and focuses your marketing efforts.

[ad break – 40-hour]

So first, you’re going to look at no-shows, late cancels, whether they are the first or last to fill on a regular basis, and you are going to Marie Kondo it. You’re going to get rid of it, it’s not sparking joy. 

Now, speaking of getting outside of the therapy room, let’s talk about those pet projects. Let’s talk about those dream ideas you have, those courses, those PDFs, those e-books that you’ve developed, and you’ve put a price tag on them, and you put them out there on Facebook and maybe you even advertised at the Lemonade Stand in Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses and it didn’t sell, or it sold a few and then it plateaued and it hasn’t sold. Now, it’s time for you to either update the course with new information or just leave it out there or do a fire sale, maybe put it at half price or 75-percent off. 

Here’s one thing you can do with that beautiful, beautiful idea you had, because it is a good idea. Every shiny object, every project, isn’t going to make it. There are a lot that don’t see the light of day. A lot of people think that my courses are always selling and are always doing great. I always say, oh my gosh, you should look in my DropBox archive. I have so many good ideas in there and products that didn’t make it, services that didn’t sell. My book coach, the amazing Dawn Owens, I remember when I was getting ready to write my book and I was so nervous. She goes, don’t worry, nobody is going to read your book. I was like, what?! Why are you telling me this? She goes, your book is your business card. It’s a piece of you that people can put in their hand when you’re doing speaking, when you’re done teaching a course, a live workshop, you can leave people with something to leave in their hand. And, of course, you’re going to sell it for $20, $25, but you’re not Dean Koontz, you’re not Stephen King, this is not something that’s going to be a New York Times’ best seller. 

It was a real reality check for me, but it was also the first time I’d really looked at all of these things that I had in my catalogue that I could now start turning into pieces of me to hand to folks so that they could now refer me to friends and family. There’s an author, and I talk about him a lot, and I always have to put his name right in front of me, so I don’t say his name wrong: Mike Michalowicz wrote a book that was referred to me by the amazing Cindy Doyle, “The Pumpkin Plan,” and I highly recommend you read “The Pumpkin Plan.” This was a total gamechanger for me.

He dovetails on this idea that if you look at all of the pumpkins that you could grow in your field – and you could grow a lot of them – the one that’s actually going to turn the most profit is the giant pumpkin. The ones that fit in the backs of pickup trucks, they’re so huge, you can sell one seed for $10,000, or something like that – and you know how many seeds there are in one pumpkin. So, why in the world would you waste fertilizer and acreage and water and energy on little pumpkins when one giant pumpkin could make enough revenue to feed you and your family for a year and keep your business going?

So when we talk about Marie Kondoing, while we declutter, you’re looking at things that aren’t bringing you joy, but you’re also looking at these pet projects, these shiny objects, these beautiful, beautiful ideas that you have, that they’re just not selling. Or, when you compare them to your individual therapy or your couple therapy, it’s not even close. I know in my practice, I use a dot matrix, kind of a graph. I’m a visual person, I have to see it. When I look at some of the things that I’ve come up with that I really loved, I mean, they were just passion projects, and I’d see that little dot go up the graph barely a little millimeter and then I’d look over here, and there’s my therapy stuff, just way, way up high, it was a nice reality check for me, kind of like, Kate, don’t quit your day job. As I was building Kate Walker Training, I could see that it was Achieve Balance and my clinical work that was really carrying the heavy load, and it helped me make really tough decisions when it came down to the pet projects and the things I thought were so wonderful and that people would buy, and they didn’t.

But what I learned from the book “The Pumpkin Plan” is how to take those resources that I loved – and if you’ve listened to me, you’ve probably already guessed this – turn it into a client resource, a free resource, so that when I’m doing that ten-minute consultation and I’m listening and me and the potential client determine together, you know what? It’s just not going to be a good fit; I’m not going to let that client go away without a free resource. I’m going to say, hey, go to my website and download this PDF. I’ve got this great PDF about arguing, I’ve got this great PDF I came up with about parenting, I’ve got this list of resources for parents who are launching their kids off to college. I can leave folks with resources that will help them explain to friends and family that I am a great community resource and I’m available, and even if they can’t get me on the phone, they can go to my website and they can download all of the things, or lots of the things, and have some good change in their life, or things to pass along even to their friends and family, right?

Most of the free things on my website were things that I used to sell, they’re things that I used to put a price tag on. The same thing with Kate Walker Training. I used to sell paperwork, $10 a piece or something like that, and then I read the book, and I was like, gosh, I’m just going to start putting this on my blogs. If you listened to the podcast last week, part of what I gave away in the blog were the three templates I talked about. There was a free release of information, a consent for treatment, and a policy and procedures manual template. All of those things used to be for sale. Not anymore. Now they are resources because I want folks to have the resources they need because that’s how I affect change in the mental health community: I support counselors through free and affordable resources. 

Also, you know what? They’re not selling, and I want to turn you into a raving fan. I want to turn whoever downloads my stuff into someone who will be an ambassador for Kate Walker Training and refer friends and family to me and the services and the people I have relationships with in Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses and Texas Supervisor Coalition and the Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses podcast. Come one, come all, get what you need, keep being amazing, affect your communities, keep saving the world with excellent therapy. That’s why we exist. So when I create these resources, I do try to sell them first. That’s what I do, I create resources for sale. When they’re not selling, I move them up the funnel to the top where folks can access them easily. We call that reducing friction.

Now, the third thing I want to talk to you about, so we’ve talked about drilling down into the numbers and seeing what’s not selling. We’ve talked about looking at your pet projects, your shiny objects, all of the things that you love, and seeing which ones are selling and which ones would be better as free resources or marketing tools or pieces of you. Now we’re going to talk about some really tough decisions.

One of the things I remember taking away from a training with attorney Kenda Dalrymple out of Austin, she talked about how difficult clients are not worth keeping. And that was harsh, right? That’s coming from an attorney, but here’s the context: she was giving a presentation about liability and malpractice insurance and how to make sure that we are staying out of trouble. So her point was, look, as an attorney, if you come to me and say, this client is litigious, they have a history of filing complaints, they’re not happy with your services, they’re no-showing you and blaming you, all of the things. She says, you know what? Give them three referrals and send them on their way.

Now, think about that for a second, because how many of you, when you have that difficult client, even if you had a day where you just were amazing and people were changed by you for the better, who do you remember? You’re going to remember that one client who just really made you feel bad. Or, you had a huge amount of countertransference toward. Or they’re using language that is sort of like they’re implying that they could file a complaint against you at any time. It’s just a constant threat in the way they present to you. That doesn’t help you sleep at night. That doesn’t help you want to stay in this business.

So part of what we’re doing in Q4, decluttering, is looking at these clients that do not spark joy. It may not just be that they have a disagreeable disposition. And I’m not talking about diagnoses or anything like that. I’m talking about those clients that send you home at the end of the day worrying about your liability, worrying about your peace of mind. I’m also talking about those clients that you may love, but they have a history of late canceling, or they have a history of no-showing, and you think, oh, but Kate, I’ve got such great rapport with this person, and you know, they have five kids, and they can’t always get there. That’s you making excuses for them, which is also countertransference. There’s nothing I can do to reach through and help you with your countertransference. It is what it is, and that’s okay, we all have it. 

But if you have a client that is extremely difficult and disagreeable and sends you home at night without your peace, you left your peace at the office, or if there’s a client that you love and you adore working with but they just never show up or you never charge them a no-show fee because they’re one of your favorite clients, that’s also countertransference. So looking at this scenario, if we’re decluttering, this is the time to let these folks go. Free up those spots, not only because it’s financially better for you – if you’ve got somebody that is constantly no-showing and you don’t have a late cancel/no show policy so it’s costing you money and those hours are going unfilled, okay, drill down into those numbers. That doesn’t make financial sense for you. When you look at the disagreeable client, if that client is ultimately going to make you utilize your malpractice insurance, which usually requires you to spend some money upfront, plus don’t forget the missing days when you have to go to the board and defend yourself.

Both of these scenarios are costing you money. This is a great time of year to let it go. Let them go. Refer them out in an ethical fashion. And, of course, the American Counseling Association gives us great guidelines for referring out folks who fall into one of these two categories. There’s somebody wonderful out there for those folks and you’re going to free them up to go find that person. Now, I know not everybody is agreeing with what I’m saying, and that’s okay. This is a safe space and we can all agree to disagree. 

So I want you to just consider my words. Think about your client list, think about who sparks joy and who does not because nothing in what we signed up for says we have to sacrifice our peace, that we have to be a martyr, that we have to give up the best part of us before we walk in the door for our family at the end of the day. You deserve to have a happy life. You deserve to have a happy head. 

So, when you’re going through the Marie Kondo Q4 exercise that I’m recommending – maybe I should call it a challenge: the Marie Kondo Q4 Challenge – think of the four things. Number one, drill down into the numbers, treat each day and time like a hotel room or a box of shoes. Find the things that aren’t selling or that are obsolete and get rid of them. Number two, go through the things that you’re selling that are out of the therapy room. The pet projects, the shiny objects, the beautiful, beautiful things that you have put out there, but they’re just not catching on, or they’re taking up time and they’re not even close to bringing you the kind of income that your individual therapy or your couple therapy or your group therapy is bringing you. Finally, number three, look at those clients. Look at the ones that are disagreeable and are costing you your peace and look at the clients who are taking advantage of your boundaries and are costing you money and consider – just consider – letting them go.

Alright, this is Dr. Kate Walker. I hope you guys have an amazing week, kicking ass and saving the world with excellent therapy. I will see you guys next time. Take care!