68: 5 Keys for a Successful Therapy Practice PLUS Mistakes to Avoid
There's a lot to be said for what makes a private therapy practice successful. And, there's also a lot of noise. Mailing a stack of business cards to a primary care office might have worked in the 90s, but it's not a sustainable strategy in the 21st century. Whether you're building an online counseling business or an in-person therapy practice, I've seen five keys show up again and again in my practice and my work with private practice owners. PLUS, I'll share how these things can show up when mental health providers make mistakes in these areas.
1) Therapist Money Mindset
When it comes to therapists and money, I've got a lot to say (which is why an entire season of my podcast was dedicated to interviewing therapists about money). Therapists and counselors are told repeatedly that they didn't go into this field to make money, that to be helpful, they have to work for free, and if they really cared about their clients, they'd take crappy insurance. Helping therapists rewrite their money stories is key so they can not only charge sustainable rates in their practice but adhere to them and set financial boundaries with their clients.
Money Mindset Mistakes: Feeling "bad" about charging for services, feeling guilty for raising rates or leaving insurance panels, imposter syndrome around setting up their private practice in a new way, hiding their prices on their website, not adhering to financial boundaries with their clients.
2) Set a Sustainable Fee
Setting private practice fees as a therapist can be challenging. Unless a therapist has worked on their money mindset (see key number 1), it can be hard to charge a sustainable rate. I've talked before about the mistakes therapists and psychiatrists make when setting their fees, but to summarize, most don't know their numbers. To set a sustainable fee to earn a healthy living as a therapist, I recommend all therapists sit down and write out their expenses and financial goals. From there, they can come up with an annual number they need to generate in their private practice, find a schedule that works for them, and reverse-engineer an appropriate fee in their practice.
Sustainable fee mistakes: Not raising rates soon enough or frequently enough, being on too many difficult or low reimbursement insurance panels, sliding scale for everyone, not knowing how much the provider needs to earn to take care of their business and personal needs, not tracking income or expenses.
3) Create a Therapy Niche
A therapy niche is beneficial for the client and the therapist. Too many therapists list their modality as their niche, but it's not the same. A modality (think: CBT, attachment theory, sex therapy) is how you help clients. A therapy niche is the type of clients you are best suited to help (think: teenagers of divorced parents, new working moms, or soon-to-be empty nesters). I have an entire post dedicated to finding a therapy niche, plus a list of therapy niche examples if you'd like to take a deeper dive. In short, without a niche, therapists are bound to see clients that aren't super aligned, are more likely to burn them out, or are ones that they won't have the best outcomes with. Having a health and wellness niche as a therapist is imperative and a key in having a successful private practice.
Niching mistakes: Thinking of a modality as a niche, using psychobabble or therapeutic jargon on their websites (think: Jane works from a psychodynamic, humanistic, and eclectic lens to uplift and walk alongside clients rooted in a non-judgmental, curious, and empathic fashion), painting with broad strokes (e.g. "all walks of life" or "treating a broad range of issues and concerns"), starting to niche, then backing out and broadening their niche.
4) A Hardworking Therapist Website
Have you searched for a therapist, only to land on a webpage that looks like it was created before the dot-com boom? Me too. And let me tell you, that therapist did NOT get my business. Today, potential clients vet their therapists by reviewing their websites. Having a website that is confusing, unaligned, or dated is a sign to potential clients (fair or not) that the therapist behind the website is confusing, unaligned, or out of touch. Monica at Hold Space Creative has some of the best website templates for therapists (the page you are scrolling on resulted from one of her template reframes!).
Website mistakes: Not having a website and relying only on therapist directories or business cards, not including photos of you, the therapist, having cliche stock photos like a stack of rocks, babbling brook, or an image of a person looking sad or a couple fighting, not making their websites intuitive (e.g., there's nowhere to book an appointment or contact the therapist), looks like it was built before the dot-com boom and bust.
5) SEO for Therapists
SEO for therapists is another key to building and growing a successful private practice. SEO is the thing that allows your website to show up on page 1 of Google when someone types in "anxiety therapist for teens Minnesota" or "psychologist for athletes Texas" or "therapist for multiracial families New Jersey." Therapists have all the skills to write for SEO and make SEO work for them. It involves a little bit of research, following a structure, and creating a plan. SEO, in my experience, is a great passive form of marketing that doesn't rely on the ever-changing algorithms of social media. Good SEO content for therapists helps your ideal clients feel seen, heard, and validated.
SEO mistakes: Writing journal-style blog posts without a strategy in mind, not including images, writing less than 800 words for a blog post, not including the office or therapists location, using a cut-and-paste website or a website that says it has "built-in SEO," thinking SEO is hard or expensive.
5 Keys For a Successful Practice
To recap, here are five keys you need if you want to grow a successful therapy practice. Key 1 is looking at your money mindset, your money stories, and creating a healthy relationship with money. The second key is setting a sustainable fee and adhering to your pricing boundaries. The third key for therapists is having an aligned and specific niche. The fourth and fifth keys intersect. You need to have a beautiful and hardworking website and utilize SEO.
My group coaching program is specifically built to address all of these mistakes and successes. It's called Grow a Profitable Practice From the Inside Out. Over three months, we'll cover how to rewrite your money story in an aligned way so you can charge a sustainable fee, how to niche down to see great clients and prevent burnout, and making your beautiful and hardworking website supercharged by leveraging SEO.
Learn more about Grow a Profitable Practice From the Inside Out here!
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In today's podcast/video, if you're watching this on YouTube, I want to share with you the five things I see again and again, when I am working with private practice therapists who have their own practice, the things that I see come up again and again, that kind of define having a successful practice. And these tips can be applied whether your practice is a fully online counseling practice or whether it's an in person practice, let's dive into the five tips of a successful private practice.
So there's a lot to be said for what success looks like and private practice. But these are the things I see show up when we have both sustainable and profitable practices. So sustainable meaning you can continue in your private practice, you're not feeling like you're gonna burn out, you're not feeling like you're working all the time. And the clients that you are seeing are aligned, meaning you're excited to go to work, or at least not dreading it. But the other thing about having a successful practice is that it is bringing in the money you need not to just survive, not just to pay your bills, but to thrive, meaning you have enough money to cover both your business and your living expenses, you're able to afford things like your health insurance, if you're here in the US, you are able to afford things like your monthly massage, if that is a part of your self care routine, you're able to afford investing in your future by saving money for retirement, you're able to save for some of those short term goals like upgrading your furniture in your house or saving up for a down payment for a new apartment or a home. These are things that you define as successful, I'm not the one to say once you do X, Y, and Z, your practice is successful, it's individualized. And you have to know your numbers to get there.
So that tangent aside, let's get into tip number one, or the thing that I see happen a lot when therapists are successful in their private practice. So the first thing that I see is that they have worked and continue to work on their money mindset. Yeah, no shocker there, you're listening to the Mind Money Balance podcast or again, watching me on YouTube. I talk about money all the time, because this stuff is important. And it matters. When it comes to therapists and money. I obviously have a lot to say, if you want to go back and listen to some interviews from season two of my podcast, it's where I bring on a lot of therapists to share their relationship with money and their money story, because there is no you know, rags to riches or middle class to riches story that defines all of us. We all have a unique relationship with money. And I think that if you hear and see other people's stories, it can be so validating and illuminating. So highly recommend checking out some of those past episodes from my interviews with other therapists. Look, I talk about this stuff, because therapists and counselors are repeatedly told things like you didn't go into this field to make money, you didn't choose this job because money's important to you. And so then it gets into their heads that asking for money for a service with that they are providing value and transformation and outcomes to their clients is bad, and it is not. But in order to work on their money mindset in order to have a healthy relationship with money. It takes work. It means understanding those early money stories and how those impacted you. It means understanding how people in our own field tell us that money is bad and gross and greedy and capitalist which is a sidebar for a different a different conversation for a different day. But they are told that in order to be a good therapist in private practice, you have to take shitty insurance or you have to slide your scale to nothing or you have to see a ton of pro bono clients, which then in turn burns out our, you know, most effective therapists and takes them and kicks them out of the field and it goes somewhere else they retire after five or 10 years from the field of therapy and choose something else entirely. So we have to work on our money mindset. So that means looking at your money stories understanding your financial archetype, understanding how financial anxiety and shame shows up and rewriting it in a way that feels good for you. Okay, so the mistakes I see, when people aren't doing this in a way that feels good for them is it looks like feeling bad about charging for services, it looks like feeling guilty if they raise their rates or leave those shitty insurance panels. It looks like imposter syndrome with their peers, they might go, Oh my gosh, I can't charge this much. When somebody else who's been in the field for 40 years is charging less. It looks like hiding prices on their website or not talking openly and honestly about their fees, their cancellation policies, which then bleeds into having poor financial boundaries in their practice.
So let's move on to the second thing I see in successful practices. The second thing I see is that they set sustainable fees. And in order to set sustainable fees, I believe you have to work on your money mindset as a private practice therapist. And as I alluded to in tip number one, setting, private practice fees can be challenging, there's so much garbage that goes on. But once they've worked on their money mindset, setting a sustainable fee can be not only an act of self care, but it allows the therapists to show up fully and presently in that therapeutic space, because they're not stressed out or even resentful about the client who's sitting across from them, right. I know so many therapists, myself included, who have taken on clients who are not paying what they are able to pay. And notice what I just said. And what happens is it impacts the therapeutic relationship. So we want to make sure that we are setting a sustainable fee, which means knowing your numbers, knowing how much you need to be bringing in month over month, year over year to not just keep your practice afloat, but to support you. Because as private practice owners, we are business owners, and that business needs to support our lives, right, it needs to support our livelihoods.
So what I tell people to do, and I have this in a very detailed blog post with a corresponding video that I will link in the show notes or if you're watching on YouTube, it will be in the description box of how to set your fee. But in a nutshell, it's about reverse engineering. It's about going how much money do I need to earn? And how much time do I want to work. And that is both week to week and also over the course of the year. So how many clients do I want to see each week or each day? And how many weeks off do I need to give myself each year? Notice I said weeks off and not days off. From there, you have a formula where you can reverse engineer how much you need to be charging your clients in order to support your lifestyle and make sure that you have all of your expenses met.
So let's get on to the mistakes that I see happen when people are not doing their fees, right in their practice. They are not raising their rates soon enough or often enough, because again, if you're not raising your rates by two and a half to 3% each year, you are actually losing money due to inflation. Now, that doesn't mean you have to raise your rates each year. But maybe you make a bigger jump every two years or every three years so that you're at least keeping up with the cost of inflation. But we also want to be increasing your rates because most of us if we were traditionally employed wouldn't stay at a job that didn't give us you know, at least annual raises or semi annual raises, right. Other mistakes are being on too many shitty insurance panels or a lot of low reimbursing panels in a shitty insurance panel might pay really well. But they might require a ton of back and forth. You might have to jump through hoops to say yes, this client does need this particular service covered. You might have claims rejected where you have to go back and forth with the insurance panel, even if they're paying you what you deem to be a fair amount or sustainable rate. If you're spending hours fighting tooth and nail to get paid, then that's not a good insurance panel. Other things that I see come up mistakes wise in this field is not setting boundaries when it comes to that sliding scale. Even though I don't personally have the sliding scale in my practice, it doesn't mean I'm opposed to them. However, you need to first determine whether or not you are able to afford offering a sliding scale. So making sure that you're if you have a sliding scale, you have a reason behind it and you are making sure to make the most use of it in that you are giving it to the people who need it the most and that offering a sliding scale isn't going to harm you or your practie financially. The other mistakes I see is not knowing how much money you need to earn and not covering your income and expenses. Let me separate those out. So not knowing how much you need to be earning, right, a lot of people go well, I think I should charge $140 Because that's what other people are charging, but they don't consider if that $140 is actually going to cover their unique needs, then part two of it is not knowing their income and expense needs like not tracking their practice's finances, right, just looking at them around tax time sliding said shoebox of receipts and income and big statements over to your accountant. That is not okay, we need to be engaging with our money in a meaningful way. When it comes to being business owners who are also private practice owners, I think you need to be looking at your money at least monthly. And probably more frequently than that when you're first starting out and getting a handle on your finances.
The third thing I see that successful private practice owners do is they have a beautiful and specific niche. I know the word niche, when you talk to a therapist is like, you know, there's all sorts of stuff that comes up, all sorts of mindset stuff that comes up around setting a niche, but in my opinion, having a niche is so helpful for both your client, your potential clients. And you here's why. When you set a niche of the types of clients you not only want to work with but you are best called to work with, you are going to bring in the clients that you know you can do your best work with, just because I using my own self as an example, have a certificate and everyday parenting does not mean I'm using my certificate in everyday parenting, right? That's not my jam. Yes, I got certified it was because a previous employer paid me to do it. I'm grateful for that experience. And I'm grateful for that knowledge. But just because I have that certificate does not mean I'm using it and certainly does not mean that I want to be seeing a lot of families who need that specific type of intervention, right? I am using the niche of shame free financial therapy to call in aligned clients so that when I have clients who are wanting to work with me, I know that I can help them, got it? So what happens when you have a beautiful and specific niche is that you are telling specific clients who are struggling with a pain point that you know how to help them, Hey, I am here, I can help you out and I could do a really fucking good job at it. And for you as the therapist, you're not going to get clients in the door that you're secretly hoping will no show. This helps to build out a successful practice. Because you become known as the expert as the specialist in the thing that you are best at. That does a lot of the heavy lifting for you in calling and allied clients and having colleagues who say Oh, Lindsay, she's the go to person for shame free financial therapy, or you know, oh, Julie, that is the person you want to call when you have a three year old throwing fits all the time. She's my go to referral source, right? So a niche is a key in a successful private practice.
Now, what are the mistakes I see people do when they try and carve out a niche? They make the mistake of thinking their modality is their niche. So they'll say things like I am a CBT or DBT therapist. That's my niche. That's not a niche. Almost everybody uses elements of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy in their practice. Plus, most people don't know what that means. Which leads me into the next mistake, which is using a ton of therapeutic jargon or psychobabble on your website. I'm going to literally read off of a couple of profiles. I googled just before this episode. And don't worry, I'm not naming names. And to be honest, you probably wouldn't know who this is anyway, because it makes no fucking sense. All right, so here is a psychobabble therapeutic jargon that I saw on some folks websites. I'm making up the name Jane. Jane works from a psychodynamic humanistic and eclectic lens to uplift and walk alongside clients rooted in a non judgmental, curious and empathic fashion. I don't know what that means. I don't know who Jane helps. I don't know what she does. I don't know what problem she helps solve. I have no friggin clue because they're using psychobabble jargon. Don't do that. That is a mistake. Other mistakes I see are painting with like way too broad of a brush, right? I'll work with therapists were like oh, I have a niche and I'm like cool. Tell me your niche and it'll sound like this. I work with people from all walks of life. That's not a niche, or I treat them broad range of issues and concerns. Also not a niche or some of my favorites. I work with women's issues. What the heck is a women's issue? I don't know. That is too too broad. And then the other mistake I see here is people who like start to niche. And then they get in their head about it. And they're like, Oh, I can't do it. And they broaden it, right. So they'll tell me, I want to work with postpartum first time moms who are struggling with postpartum depression and identity concerns around maybe not going back to work or maybe not going back to work full time. And I'm like, Yes, that's a good niche, bro. I don't know why I said, bro, I never say bro in my day to day life anyway, but then they start going oh but I really am worried that if I do that, I won't be able to see postpartum among moms who are having anxiety issues, or I'm worried that I'm going to be, you know, not helping second time moms or moms who have adopted or things like that. And I'm like, yo, your niche doesn't mean you only work with that person. record scratch, I'm might actually literally insert a record scratch there. Because I know what I just said sounds so confusing. But here's a little secret. You're your niche on your website, the niche you tell your colleagues about that might not be the entirety of your practice. So for that person who said, I want to work with first time postpartum moms experiencing postpartum depression, and having identity stressors, because they're not sure if they're going to go back to work. That was a beautiful niche, I know exactly who to refer to you. And that person might also see second time moms, they don't have to put it on their website. But if somebody reaches out to them, it's like, look, I didn't get Postpartum Depression with my first kiddo. But I definitely have it this time around, will you work with me, you can still say yes, you don't have to shut those people off, who are going to be good enough client fits in. If that's really confusing, too, don't worry, I go into it in much more depth and my group coaching program Grow a Profitable Practice From the Inside Out, I actually bring on this next person who's gonna help me out with the next success tip to talk about niching more in depth. All right.
So the fourth thing I see successful private practice owners do is they have a beautiful and hardworking website. Gone are the days where you can just have a therapist directory listing and no website. I know for me, when I was looking for a therapist, I absolutely not only took into account people's word of mouth recommendations, but I also looked at their website. And a good website helps the person who lands on it go, oh, you know, this person can help me. And then also is hard working in that not only does it look really nice, and the words or the on the website, aka the copy are really good. But there's also an easy path for them to connect with you. There's a book now button, there's a Contact Me page, there's a very bold phone number if you go old school, and you'd like people to call you first, but they see themselves on your page, they see you on that page on that website. And they can contact you or book an appointment seamlessly. That's what a beautiful and hardworking website does. Because you can have all of the beautiful fonts and logos and branding and photos. But if a client lands there and can't get in contact with you, your website is not hard working, which is why in my group coaching program Grow a Profitable Practice From the Inside Out, every single person who joins gets one of Monica at Hold Space Creative's, beautiful and hardworking, pre designed website templates that are specifically for therapists and coaches. So she does a lot of that heavy lifting for you. She creates this beautiful path for people who land on your website to learn more about you to understand your services and to be able to seamlessly book or contact do so that's why I love a hard working website.
So let's talk about website mistakes. I see there are about 1,000,001, but I'm just going to list off a few. Not having a website is a mistake, the end. You can't just mail out business cards anymore. You can't just list yourself on a therapist directory website, you need your own website. Other mistakes I see is not including photos of you, right, just including like random pictures of mountain ranges. Which also brings me to another mistake. Stop using the same stock photos that every other therapist is using. I don't want to see a stack of rocks on anybody's website. I don't want to see a babbling brook on somebody's website. I don't want to see a kid having a temper tantrum or a couple fighting on your website. I don't want to see any of that, I want to see you. And if you use stock photos, there are amazing stock photo databases today, use one It's not of people in pain, but of the outcome that you help people find. So you don't show the pictures of couples fighting, show the pictures of couples engaging. If you do couples work, you get what I'm saying. And those stacked rocks, babbling brooks have to go. Who knew there was so many soap boxes today?
All right, let's move on to the fifth thing that I see successful private practice owners do. So kind of piggybacking off of the hard working websites, good, successful private practice owners make SEO work for them, aka SEO for therapists. If you don't know what SEO is, that's okay. I'm gonna break it down real real quick here. S E O is search engine optimization. And it is what happens when a beautiful and hardworking website shows up at the top of Google, when somebody types in anxiety for teens in New Jersey, boom, your website, if you've done your search engine optimization, or SEO, well will show up on that first page. Okay? It is the assistant, it is your hype person who is out there promoting you day and night, when you don't have to do it right search engine optimization is yeah, there's a little bit of structure and involves a little bit of research. But in my opinion, it makes such a huge difference and making sure that therapists who genuinely don't like marketing themselves, market themselves without feeling like they have to like do the latest TikTok dance craze, right? Just to give an example, I use Kritie Plantinga of TherapieSEO. Anyway, I worked with her to help me understand how to write content for SEO and how to do keyword research. I'm pretty savvy when it comes to the tech stuff. Not super savvy, but savvy enough where I like writing my own stuff I tried in the past to hire somebody out and it just didn't feel like me, it didn't feel like my voice. I'd like doing my own writing, but doing it in a way where it worked for me. And the difference is that in In January of 2021. I had 1600 People visit my website, and 17% of that was from search. And in July of 2021. I had 5600 People visit my website and 73% of that was from search. What does that mean? It means I don't have to be on Instagram all the time. If I take a break from my podcast, people are still going to find me, it means that more people can find the help that they need without me having to exert my energy 24/7. So good therapists, successful therapists make SEO work for them. And that is why for this cohort of Grow a Profitable Practice From the Inside Out, the one that kicks off on September 13th 2021. Kristie is going to be another guest expert. We have Monica coming on to talk about niching. But Kristie is going to talk to us about how to write content for SEO as a therapist. Yay, super, super exciting.
If you are a private practice owner, I highly recommend going to MindMoneyBalance.com/ProfitablePractice and applying, the group is capped at 12 people. It's the last time I'm running it in 2021. And every single time I've run it, this is my fourth cohort, I raise the price. And I don't do this to be like Hurry up you have to come on in. But I ask for feedback of every single group and I improve the program and deliver more value time after time. And to practice what I preach I have to continually make sure that I'm charging in alignment with my needs and my expertise and the value of what the group provides. So again, MindMoneyBalance.com/ProfitablePractice if you want to apply for this cohort, alright.
SEO mistakes I see: writing journal style blog post, this is not Live Journal. This is not you know, don't write your journal as your blog post. You know, saying like, I'll just make it up. I'm looking outside of the trees. On a Wednesday morning and August I looked out at the Sun glistening on the leaves outside my window and I knew it was time for me to take a deep breath of gratitude. That is not going to help you with your SEO. So stop doing it or if you want to do it, keep on doing it but it's not going to help you with your search engine optimization. Other SEO mistakes I see Not including images, writing less than 800 words on your blog posts, not including your office location or the therapist location. So, in a world of teletherapy, you want to make sure that people know which state you are providing teletherapy for, that tells people who land on your website and Google who they should be sending to your website. So check your website right now, even if you're doing online therapy, make sure you say, online therapy for residents of Montana, if that's where you practice, okay, that's key. Other mistakes are thinking that SEO is a one and done, buying a website that says it has built in SEO that doesn't exist, or thinking SEO is hard or expensive.
So to recap, there are five things I see again and again, in successful private practice owners. It is people who have worked and continue to work on their money mindset, therapists who understand the financial side of their practice by charging sustainable fees. It is having a specific niche so they can specialize in their field, having a beautiful and hardworking website and making that website supercharged by making sure you have SEO. All five of these things are things I cover in my group coaching program, Grow a Profitable Practice From the Inside Out, I highly recommend applying if you're on the fence, after you apply, if it seems like you're a good fit, we still have a phone call, it's a no pressure phone call, I'm not asking you to like hurry up and get your credit card out right now. It's a mutual fit phone call, because I want people in the group who are going to contribute to the group. Examples of folks who have not get invited, gotten invited to book a phone call, or people who didn't take time with the application. Right. So on the application, I asked how your practice is set up to support marginalized groups, because that's a value for me. Somebody wrote, I don't discriminate. That to me is not a meaningful answer. You don't have to say I see 100% of BIPOC folks for free. That also isn't, you know, what I'm looking for. What I'm looking for is somebody who says, Look, I talk about identity, gender, race, every single time a new client comes into me, I make sure that I show representation on my website, or I'm providing accessibility to people who are physically disabled by providing teletherapy services. Those are examples of things that I'm looking for. Other examples of responses I've gotten that don't get invited to that phone call are people who say, like, I asked, Why do you want to join this group? Why now? Saying, like, I'm curious about coaching, isn't what I'm looking for. What I'm looking for is somebody who says, Lindsay, I have tried doing this on my own or thought about joining other things, but inside out really speaks to me, because of its small group nature. I've tried doing some money mindset stuff on my own. But I keep getting stuck or have tried raising my rates, but I keep sliding my scale. I want to hear what work you've done, and why you think my program is a good fit for you. So I just wanted to share those tips. In case you were thinking about applying and we're thinking of like, oh, I'll just like submit an application on my lunch break, do it thoughtfully. I curate this group with people who I know are going to bring a lot to the table, because it's not just me talking at you and Grow a Profitable Practice From the Inside Out. It's also your expertise and your peers expertise. I share my knowledge and my gifts, but I also ask you to share your knowledge and your gifts. So I hope that helps. I would love to see your name on the application if it feels like a fit. Again, this is the last time I'm running this group in 2021. And time after time, I've raised my price as I increase the value of the program, so MindMoneyBalance.com/ProfitablePractice. I'll see you right here next week.