How to Grow a Profitable Private Practice with Monica Kovach
My first website featured cabbage. Prominently.
Why cabbage?
Because I'm a financial therapist and not a designer, and I thought that cabbage was a cute riff on money, and people would get that, right?
Uh, wrong.
I remember excitedly--nervously--sharing it with a few of my colleagues. Bless them for being so gently, but thankfully one of them said, "uh, I think the lettuce is taking up a lot of space."
If you are a private practice therapist, I want you to be radically honest with yourself to see if you've done (or are doing) any of the following on your website. *Trigger warning for my therapists with websites*
Hid your face from your website and instead used a stock picture of a stack of rocks or running water
Led with your credentials (LMSW, LPC, EMDR, LMFT, CBT, DBT, PMTO) instead of who you help
Made potential clients jump through hoops to find a way to contact you by burying an email or number at the *very* bottom of your website in small font
It's not your fault, therapists. We aren't website designers, and our training equipped us to blend in instead of standing out.
But our potential clients need to know more about us and how we can help them, specifically.
That's why in the 8-week group coaching program for therapists, "Grow a Profitable Practice from the Inside Out," each participant will get a beautiful, pre-designed website from Monica Kovach at Hold Space Creative.
Monica is the one who reassured me that a good website repels people so you can *call in* the exact types of clients you are most excited to serve. Once I implemented the changes by using one of her pre-designed websites, my website traffic doubled (and I spend no money on ads).
In this interview, Monica comes on to talk about creating not just beautiful websites, but hard working ones, her money story, and what it would have been like to rewrite her money story in the company of other therapists.
After completing a Bachelor’s in Fine Art and a Masters in Art Therapy and Counseling, Monica Kovach began working as a therapist in her home state of Michigan. As she worked in the field, she started to experience burnout and realized she needed a change.
As Monica looked for a change, her friends and colleagues started opening private practices and sought out her art and design skills to create their websites. As she dove into designing their websites, she had an a-ha moment! She tapped back into the creative process and started designing modern, hard-working websites specifically for therapists.
Monica and I cover A LOT in this video, the highlights are laid out below.
The three money stories that held Monica back from creating a sustainable and profitable practice were “I’m not worthy of the income that I want,” “I’m not good at money,” and “I can’t charge people money.” These types of insidious stories are ones I’ve heard versions of countless times in my work as a financial therapist. She overcame them by doing a lot of work around money mindset and learning the tactical side of money.
She shares how her relationship with money could have been categorized as “anxious-avoidant.”
When I asked Monica what it would have been like to work through the mindset and tactics of money with other therapists, she shared “that would have been a gamechanger because I thought that I was alone.” So many of us experience money anxiety or avoidance alone and think we are the only ones who experience financial worries.
While Monica loves an aesthetically pleasing, minimalist website, she knows that the way to make a website “worth it,” is to make it hard-working. She believes that a hard-working website can be your best personal assistant, constantly talking to potential clients on your behalf so aligned clients can find you and your work.
Monica shares that search engine optimization (SEO) is a piece of the puzzle but not a magic bullet. Monica believes that in addition to SEO, therapist’s websites need to be easy to navigate, intuitive for the user, and speak to your ideal client.
Grow a Profitable Practice from the Inside Out is an 8-week money mindset and profitability group coaching program for therapists that Monica and I have collaborated on. In the group, not only will participants dive into their money story and rewrite them in a safe place, but they’ll get one of Monica’s beautifully designed, hard-working pre-designed websites.
To take Monica’s quiz “Which Type of Therapist are You?” head right here. You can also follow Monica on Instagram @holdspacecreative.
Interested in the 8-week program “Grow a Profitable Practice from the Inside Out?” Click right here to learn more and apply.