81: AMA Podcast: A Financial Therapist Answers Your Questions
In early December, I hosted a free client appreciation event for people who worked with me via 1:1 coaching, joined me in a workshop, or were in her small group coaching program. I'll answer your questions about podcasting, private practice, and more in this special podcast episode!
Fun Questions
Past Mind Money Balance clients submitted questions running the gamut! Here, I answer questions about vacation, food, and my dog Birdie.
Monica asked, "would you rather vacation on the beach or in the mountains?" I'd rather vacation in a city! Because I grew up in rural Michigan, I find cities energizing with the array of sounds, smells, and people-watching! If I had to choose between a beach or the mountains, I'd choose the beach. I'm not opposed to the outdoors, but I'm much happier basking in the outdoors with modern-day amenities. In other words, I'm a great apres-ski or patio friend, not such a great hike in and camp friend.
Mary asked, "what's your favorite cereal and why?: Cracklin' Oat Bran is sweet, crunchy, and nostalgic!
Shaun asked, "If Birdie was a character from any TV show or movie, who would she be?" I couldn't think of a specific character, but she reminds me of a little sibling who always wants to be in the mix and be included. Nine times out of ten when I'm looking for her, she's at my feet.
Anonymous asked, "Why did you re-pierce your nose?" I originally had my nose pierced about a decade ago and took it out when my internship made me. It closed up, but I always loved it. The pandemic made me realize it was something that brought me joy, and I could re-pierce it now. I went to a safe studio that took every pandemic precaution. They did a great job!
Podcasting Questions
This next series of questions and answers are about the logistics of running a podcast. I share podcast tips for beginners, podcasting tips for therapists, and why I love a podcasting tour.
Nicole asked, "How do you manage/run your podcast on top of having your own private practice and coaching? I am thinking of starting one, but worry about the time and energy it may require."
What's your why? Ask yourself why you are starting a podcast. Are you creating a podcast for therapists? Are you hoping to get your message to more of your ideal clients? Is there missing content around your passion? I've found that it's a slower return on investment (ROI) than other marketing channels and, at the same time, have found more high-quality fits from my podcast. This is my 81st podcast episode, and mine didn't pick up steam until after the six months it was live. I did weekly podcasts and took breaks in-between seasons. "Podfade" is the term for most podcasts--people stop after seven podcast episodes because they don't see the ROI. You can do a trial for 90 days and reevaluate with most marketing strategies. It tends to take longer to see an outcome for your podcast with podcasting.
Pick a Schedule Make sure you can commit to a consistent schedule for six months-it doesn't have to be weekly, but it does need to be consistent. Especially as a beginner podcaster, make sure you commit to a consistent publishing schedule for at least six months. After that, you can reevaluate and see if you need to continue, continue and tweak your strategy, or gracefully let it go.
Podcast Distribution I use the service "libsyn" to distribute my podcast. This means I upload my finished audio file to libsyn, and they distribute it to major podcast platforms like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and the like.
How to Manage and Run a Podcast as a Full-Time Business Owner In terms of managing my podcast, I'm working on organizing it better in 2022. In theory, I record early in the week, send the raw audio to my podcast editor, write the corresponding blog post/show notes for it, and have the whole thing ready to go by Monday morning. In reality, I often record Thursday nights before I sit down to watch TV. Another consideration (since I know Nicole is a private practice therapist) is my therapy practice is relatively small; I have twelve clients. I only see clients Tuesday through Thursday. This leaves me to have Mondays and Fridays dedicated to coaching, content creation, etc.
Shari asked, "I am about to get into podcasting, and I am trying not to talk myself out of it. I want to build my email list and eventually offer digital courses and coaching programs. Any advice on where launching a podcast is concerned? What is one thing you'd do over and over again because it was so beneficial? What is one thing that you wouldn't do again because it was a fail?"
Get help! I used to edit my own Youtube videos (lol) and knew how much time and effort that took. Before I started podcasting, I asked a few podcaster friends who they used for editing, started to get an idea of the cost to outsource editing, and had an editor on board from day one.
Batch record your podcast Batch record your podcast if you can. "Batch recording" simply means recording several podcasts in one day, so you can focus on releasing them and the aligned content on a schedule.
Find podcast support When I started podcasting, I was still on Facebook and joined the podcast groups "WOC Podcasters" and "She Podcasts." Both groups provided a supportive environment to learn about the basics of starting a podcast, how to generate more listeners for your podcast, podcast best practices, and more. The only drawback of these groups was that they mostly were tailored (in my opinion) to podcast tips for beginners.
Sponsor your podcast Most podcast listeners are used to hearing ads. Use your podcast as a marketing outlet and clearly spell out ways listeners can work with you, buy from you, or support you.
Do a podcast tour When I started podcasting, I did an impromptu "podcast tour." I pitched myself as a guest on other podcasts where I knew my unique lens could fill a content gap and where possible audiences would be interested in my work. Doing this helps to have listeners get familiar with you, learn about you, and find your show.
Podcast fails I didn't have a podcast "fail" per se, but looking back, I would have been more strategic about repurposing my podcasts into other forms of content. Now that I hired help, my podcast often becomes content for email newsletters, social media content posts, and I'm better at promoting them more frequently. In 2022, I'll also start having my podcast transcribed for better accessibility and SEO purposes.
Therapist-Specific Questions
The next set of answers is for questions about being a private practice therapist. I answer how a therapist can prepare to build skills in financial therapy and the pros and cons of starting a private practice.
Diane shared, "I am an LPC with a small private practice in Pennsylvania and am interested in building more skills in financial therapy. There is a notable need with little to no one in my area offering financial therapy, and it's become a personal interest of mine as well. I would LOVE your advice on some initial steps I can take, as well as any recommendations on continuing education paths for a foundational framework."
Give Yourself Credit If you are willing to talk about money, you are lightyears ahead of most people in the helping field. Doing your own work about your money stories, how you interact with money, honoring your financial boundaries, and setting financial goals will help in your private practice from a clinical standpoint.
Learn about the emotional side of money The podcasts "This is Uncomfortable," and "Death, Sex, and Money" are two of my favorites for looking at money beyond the logistical side of things.
Buy a Simple Practice Learning Course I teamed up with Simple Practice Learning to provide a $19-dollar on-demand course. In it, I cover data on money and mental health, what financial therapy is, and how therapists can apply their current therapeutic skills to help clients with money. Additionally, it includes a role-play so attendees can see how to ethically include money in the therapy room.
Consider more training I am not associated with, endorsing, or affiliated with these training options, but the Center for Financial Social Work and the Financial Therapy Association (FTA) offer standalone certifications on the intersection of mental health and money. I found the Financial Social Work program to focus more on money and the FTA's program to emphasize therapeutic interventions. The FTA program provides financial therapist certification, whereas the Center for Financial Social work provides its own certification to people who complete the program.
Anonymous asked, "What's been the best thing about starting your own practice?"
Pros and cons of private practice The best and worst thing about being a private practice owner is being my own boss. I can act quickly, do what I want when I want, but I also need to hold myself accountable and honor and uphold my work-life boundaries. In a recent podcast episode, I covered all the mistakes I made this year in my business and lessons learned if you want to hear more about what I'm working on in private practice.
Small Business Owner Questions
The next series of questions and answers are about being a small business owner. I answer how I prevent entrepreneur burnout, warning signs of burnout for therapists and small business owners, mistakes I made in my first year of private practice, and how to pay yourself as a small business owner.
Lauren asked, "What are some ways that you avoid burnout?"
Create and uphold work-life boundaries I regularly put up an "out of office" message up on weekends and when I'm on vacation. I'm pretty good at adhering to my session start/end times, so my day doesn't run away from me. And additionally, I generally don't open up my calendar for days/times that I don't want to work.
Self-care consistency For me, it's less about having a "self-care day" and more about consistently recharging my batteries. I have a very strict date night with myself on Thursday nights, where I pop a huge batch of popcorn and catch up on Bravo TV. I'm also into regular walks outside, taking baths in the cooler season/doing yin yoga in the warmer season, and listening to podcasts while I bake. I don't wait for burnout to hit before I take care of myself.
Know entrepreneur burnout signs Even with my boundaries and consistent self-care, I'm human and have experienced burnout. For me, I know I'm approaching burnout as a therapist and business owner when I make calendar mistakes like double-booking. Another sign that I need to restore my compassion is checking the clock when I'm in session with a client. For other therapists, symptoms of therapist burnout can include: getting sick frequently, having difficulty sleeping, feeling more drained or an inability to feel recharged after self-care activities, feeling cynical about your clients, or dreading your client sessions. As always, if these burnout symptoms don't improve with taking time off of work and engaging in restorative practices as a part of burnout recovery, it's best to tell your therapist or doctor about them to make sure you aren't missing signs of physical or mental illness.
Lauren asked, "If you were going to do something differently in your first year, what would it have been?"
First-Year Business Owner Mistakes I would have been more strategic in my marketing strategies and done less of "a little bit of everything." Now I honor what I call a "waterfall" approach to marketing--I work on one thing for 3-6 months. Once I feel like I've mastered it, I decide whether to add something else or tweak a marketing method to improve it.
Diane shared, "I would love if you could talk about various ways to pay yourself (e.g., weekly, bi-monthly, monthly) and some of the pros/cons of a set salary versus paying based on monthly earning, etc. I'm in my fourth year of private practice and keep playing around with different options, but I haven't found the right fit yet.
Pay yourself consistently I have the advantage of looking at my previous year's income and creating a reasonable salary for myself for the following year. For me, that means dividing my take-home pay from the last year by twelve and paying myself that amount monthly. That prevents me from taking home too much money on busy months and not having money in my business checking account to pay myself during slower months.
Logistics of paying yourself as a business owner I pay myself twice a month and give myself bonuses quarterly. I pay myself through Gusto (use my affiliate link for a $100 gift card after you run payroll) and have this setup because I have my business set up as an S-Corp and it’s what works best for me.
Accounting and bookkeeping help for therapists. I used to use Quickbooks Self-Employed, which worked well for bookkeeping and accounting when I started my private practice. Last year, I joined Heard Accounting (use my affiliate link for a $100 gift card after 1 month), a software and small business that helps therapists and small group therapists with their bookkeeping and accounting. They do my monthly bookkeeping and accounting for a flat annual rate, provide me with quarterly check-ins, unlimited access to ask them questions through a messaging platform, and do my yearly tax filing.
Inside Out for Therapists
If you are a therapist with a practice on the side or less than halfway full or full of low-paying or unaligned clients, consider applying to my group coaching program, Grow a Profitable Practice from the Inside out. I run a small group coaching program where I help participants with their money mindset, sustainable fee-setting, and setting and adhering to boundaries. This allows therapists and allied health professionals to create a business that works for them, built on sustainable marketing practices and personalized fees. If you join the waitlist here, you'll get first access to apply to the program, an extended payment plan, and a discount. Joining the waitlist doesn't obligate you to apply or join the program, so if you're on the fence, I highly recommend that you add your name to the waitlist for the fifth cohort.
Here are what some members from the last cohort of Inside Out had to say about their experience:
Why did you join Inside Out?
“I wanted to learn how to be more confident setting and sticking to a sustainable fee along with support with the transition off of insurance panels. The things that stood out to me were the focus on doing the inner work/money mindset, along with being able to identify a personalized fee that made sense for my needs.”
What did you think of Inside Out?
“I am so pleased with the insights I received from Inside Out. Lindsay was so knowledgeable and provided such a warm and safe space to talk about the vulnerable topics of money, fees, and "being seen" when stepping out into your own private practice. So helpful, especially for women and people of color!”
What part of joining "Inside Out" had the biggest impact on you personally and in your business?
“The consistency, group support, and balance of emotional support with tangible tools felt immensely helpful. The group accountability helped me honor my boundaries in talking to clients about their fees, which felt like a simultaneous conversation with myself, differentiating my worth from the worth of the services I provide. And parallel to this conversation was some deep healing around the wounds of my confidence in this work, which is felt both in sessions with existing clients and new inquiries.”
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Okay, so these questions are kind of divided up into different sections. First, I'm going to get into the questions just about kind of fun, random things that people asked. Then I'll get into podcasting questions, then on to therapist specific questions, and then under small business owner questions. If you were at the live event last week, you'll notice that they are slightly different because the universe likes to be funny, in that the audio did not come out very well. So I thankfully had jotted down the questions. And we'll be trying to recall how I answered them on Friday, but they might be slightly different. So with that, let's start off with the fun questions.
So, the first question comes from Monica and she asked, Would you rather vacation on the beach or in the mountains? So in this instance, I would say beach, but in general, when I'm traveling, I really like to visit cities, I think a lot of it has to do with me being raised in a small rural town. So anytime I have the opportunity to go somewhere that has the energy, the pulse, the smells, the sights, the sounds of a city, that is really where I find myself most comfortable and most relaxed. I also tend to be a bit more indoorsy, I tell my sister sees me all the time, because they're very outdoorsy, and I'm like the a·près-ski friend or the patio friend. I'll be outside. I like being outside, but I don't necessarily need to be in the wilderness. So I guess if I had to choose between the two would be a beach but in general, I'm taking a city trip. The next questions (kind of silly) is from Mary; she asked, What is my favorite cereal and why? And, you know, just back up a little bit, I had sent out an email to clients who'd worked with me in a coaching capacity over the last year. So to include people who had purchased a workshop, worked with me one on one or worked with me in my small group coaching program. And I said in that email that almost nothing is off limits and they could ask me anything from my personal life all the way up to like work life and money stuff. And so this is why that question came in. My favorite nostalgic cereal is probably Cracklin' Oat Bran. I just-- it reminds me of being a kid and you know, thinking that I was making a very mature choice, only to realize as an adult that it is like a sugar bomb of a cereal, but it's still holds a very special place in my heart. Sean asked, if Birdie was a character from any TV show or movie, who would she be? And I don't know exactly who she'd be, but the kind of persona that she embodies is very much like a little sibling who just wants to be included and cannot be left out. She's very much like a shadow. She's always there. Anytime I'm like, "Where's Birdie? I can't find her," nine times out of 10 if I look down, she is at my feet. And if you don't know who Birdie is, that's my three year old Portuguese Water Dog. And anonymous asked, Why did you repierce so your nose? So I repierced my nose about a month ago because I felt like it. Being in this pandemic world, I think there's so many shoulds and shouldn't and what's appropriate, what's inappropriate and what we can and cannot be doing. And I had a nose ring back in the day, about a decade ago, and when I did my social work internship, I had to take it out. We were only allowed to have studs in our ears, but no facial piercings, no hoops, no anything like that. So I'm imagining they probably had an incident and then mandated that rule. And then it just kind of closed up and I didn't think about it. And then I was talking to a friend--actually Erika of Erika Tebbens Consulting, I was talking to her about wanting to get it redone, and found a place in the place my home--my adopted hometown of Ann Arbor, that was really, really good about scheduling appointments, about asking for vaccination status, about only letting a certain number of people in and out, masks had to be worn at all time (except for obviously at the time that the piercing was happening) and I felt really safe and really comfortable and they did an amazing job. So if you are in Southeast Michigan and looking for a piercing, I went to Gamma Piercing G-A-M-M-A and they did an awesome job.
Moving on to some business the questions. There were quite a few questions about podcasting. Nicole asked, "How do you manage and run your podcast on top of having your own private practice and coaching? I'm thinking of starting one, but worry about the time and energy it may require." So first things first, Nicole, I would invite you to think about what the reason you're starting a podcast because I have found that it's a much slower burn or a slower return on investment in terms of putting your energy into it and seeing results. At the time of this recording I've had, I think this is my 81st podcast and my podcast didn't really pick up steam until after the six month it was live. I was consistently publishing podcasts once a week, there is a term for people who start podcast called "pod fade", because statistically speaking, most people stop podcasting after only seven episodes, because they're not seeing any return on investment; they're not seeing an increase in people going to their website, or an increase in clients or an increase in people reaching out to book with them, etc, etc. With most marketing strategies, you can trial for about 90 days and reevaluate, to see whether or not it's working for you. But with a podcast, it tends to take a bit longer, I think of it kind of like search engine optimization, in that it is something that you do consistently, and you get the benefit over time, but it's not an immediate result. So all that to say, if you do start a podcast, think about why you're starting it and what's the goal of it and give yourself six months of consistent publishing before you reevaluate whether or not it's working for you. I recommend kind of thinking about if you want it to be solo shows, those are obviously easier to schedule because it's just you, or if you want them to be interviews, think about the length of or the duration rather of the episodes. And think about what day of the week, or or time of month, right? It doesn't have to be weekly, I tend to put my podcasts out on Mondays, but just making sure you're really consistent in terms of how do I manage it and run it, I would love to tell you that I'm really good at it. As I mentioned at the top of this episode, the universe played a little trick on me and I am here re-recording the audio, because I forgot to plug in a mic and the sound from zoom was not so good. But in theory, I record early mid week, send the audio to my podcast editor, write a corresponding blog or show notes for it, and then it goes live that following Monday. I also have a very small private practice, I have about 12 clients and I'm only really seeing clients Tuesdays through Thursdays. So Mondays and Fridays are dedicated to coaching, content creation, writing, podcasting, etc. And at the end of June of 2021, I hired somebody to help repurpose things, specifically my emails and podcasts into social media content, and they will be taking on more responsibilities soon. So it should hopefully free up my time of it. So the long and short of it is ask yourself why you want to start a podcast. If you do decide to start one be consistent, and then reevaluate after six months, and if you're not seeing the results you want, you can decide whether or not you want to tweak the frequency of your podcast or what or if you want to say, "You know, it was a great experiment, but it's not for me." The other kind of question about podcasting comes from Shari, Shari asks, "I am about to get into podcasting, and I'm trying not to talk myself out of it. I want to build my email list and eventually offer digital courses and coaching programs. Any advice where launching a podcast is concerned? What's one thing you do over and over again, because it was so beneficial? And what's one thing you wouldn't do because it was a fail?" So similar to Nicole, Shari, I would ask yourself, What's the why behind it? As I mentioned, in my response to Nicole, I had an editor right away for my podcast. Back in the olden days, I used to edit my own YouTube videos, #cringe, and knew how much time and effort that took, and so I asked a few of my podcasting friends who they used for editing started to get an idea of the cost and what that would look like, and I had an editor on board from day one. He's amazing and he's the one who edited this podcast. In terms of what would be helpful, what I would do what I wouldn't do, there are so many different things, but I'll try to narrow it down. If you can batch your podcast episodes, that is the dream. That means recording several podcasts in one day and then you could focus on releasing them and the aligned content that goes along with them on a schedule, so you're not doing what I do in recording at the last minute and trying to get it up and ready. At the top of the week. When you're thinking about how to distribute your podcast, I personally use Libsyn L-I-B-S-Y-N, and what that does is you upload your podcast to Libsyn and they then distribute it to all of the different podcast players, which is why you can get my podcast on Spotify, Apple, podcasts, Stitcher, etc. I upload it once and it goes automatically is pushed to all of those different places; I'm not manually uploading it into all those different podcasts/databases, make sense? The other thing is to find support. When I started out, I was still on Facebook, you may or may not know, I'm no longer on Facebook, I found it to be really not great for my mental health and just emotional safety, especially around the time the anti-Asian hate really started to ramp up last winter. So I'd left Facebook at that point in time. But if you are on Facebook, I found two podcast groups to be pretty helpful in terms of helping you understand how to distribute your podcast, what to look for in the editor, tips and tricks as you're kind of rolling out your podcast. One is W-O-C podcasters, women of color podcasters. And the other one is She podcasts S-H-E Podcasts. Both of those tended to be really helpful and really supportive. And remember that when you are making your podcast and talking about your podcast, you can sponsor your own podcast. So as you mentioned, you want to sell courses and you want to sell coaching programs. We use your podcast as a time to let people know that they can buy from you and they can work with you. Friend of the podcast, Annie Schuessler, she's been on this podcast before and I've been on their's as well, is a really great example of this. She'll do like, a lot of us are used to hearing ads in the middle of a podcast, in the middle of her podcast, she will actually run an ad. It's just her obviously, for her own groups, she'll say, "Hey, this is how you can work with me, this is the program I'm launching, or this is the coaching experience I'm doing." And she'll literally say "This podcast is sponsored by me," and I think that is such a great example of the importance of saying what you do and how people can work with you and getting comfortable. Just building up off of that. In terms of what was helpful, I think it can be helpful to also do a little podcast tour, AKA pitching yourself to other podcasters when your podcast launches. And if it makes sense and if you're going to have guests on your podcast, and you can do podcast swaps, right? Where you could be a guest on their podcast, and vice versa. I think it can be really helpful to do a list of podcast and similar fields and then share with them how you can kind of plug a gap in terms of content that they talk about. So to use myself as an example, I pitched myself to two big groups of people. One was personal finance folks and I plugged the gap by talking about the intersection of mental health and money. And then the other big group of people I pitched myself to was therapists and talked to them about the importance of engaging with money in their practices, right, I could kind of plug a gap in each of those areas. So think about that as you are going towards it. I also found making my podcast into a blog is helpful for search engine optimization or SEO purposes. So that just means making sure that my show notes are consistent with SEO best practices so that content lives on. In terms of what I would do differently or what didn't do well. It's not necessarily that it didn't go well. I just wish I was more strategic from the jump with my podcast; meaning I would have been much more strategic about repurposing my podcasts into email newsletters, social media content and being more comfortable promoting them. In the olden days, I only really promoted my podcast on the day it went live but now I'm pretty consistently saying like, hey, this week on the podcast, I talked about this thing or if you haven't listened yet, let me know and I can send you the link etc. And moving forward, I will be transcribing podcasts, both from an accessibility standpoint and also an SEO standpoint. So those are some things that I have learned. Thanks for that very thorough question.
Moving on to therapist specific questions. Diane asked, "I am an LPC with a small private practice in Pennsylvania. And I'm interested in building more skills in financial therapy. There's a notable need with little to no one in my area offering financial therapy and it's become a personal interest of mine as well. I would love your advice on some initial steps I can take as well as any recommendations on continuing education paths for a foundational framework." So Diane, first and foremost, if you're even willing to talk about money, you are literally lightyears ahead of most people in the helping field. So I can't tell you how many times a couples therapist or an individual therapist has referred a current client to me because they just feel outside of their comfort zone or outside of their skill set, talking about money in the emotional side of money in it. So even just saying like, "Hey, I'm willing to talk about money in my practice," is a big deal and will put you way ahea, in my opinion, of other folks who don't include talking about money in their practices. I also think it's really important to do your own work around your money stories, how you interact with money, how you honor and uphold your financial boundaries, and how you set and work toward your own financial goals. Doing your own work will also help you in a clinical standpoint. I partnered up with simple practice learning, it's for a course on money in mental health. It's a $19 course that includes a roleplay component. But what I do is talk about the intersections of money and mental health, why it's so important for clinicians to include money in their mental health care practices, and also an interaction of what it looks like to uphold boundaries of "this is within my scope, this is outside of my scope" in the therapeutic setting. It also comes along with a continuing education credit. So if you're looking for a unique way to get that continuing education credit, again, it is with simple practice learning. And I will make sure to link that in my show notes. And then in terms of just staying on top of things, I like some kind of emotional money podcast, not necessarily how to manage podcasts, when it comes to staying on top of what's going on in the world of money. I really like the podcast, This Is Uncomfortable and I also really liked the Death, Sex and Money just to help stay on top of what people are talking about. And in terms of where to go to get continuing education, that is really up to you. There are a few places (I'm located in the United States and I know you're too since you shared you're in Pennsylvania) that you can look to. So one is the Financial Therapy Association and another is the Center for Financial social work. There are some graduate certificate programs starting to roll out at different schools of social work and psychology that you can look into. But each of those has some good options for getting some of the basics down and learning about how to talk about money in a way that stays true to your scope of practice, and also how to include the psychology of money into your practice.
All right, anonymous asked, What has been the best thing about starting your own practice?" The best and worst thing about starting my own practice is that I'm my own boss, I have a tendency to act quickly and do what I want in take big expensive moves. And I have a tendency to act quickly do what I want and make big expansive moves. So I found the biggest challenge for me has been upholding my boundaries. I'm really good at upholding my boundaries, once I've said them out loud and started to create a system around them, but it can be really hard, especially as one of only a few of the financial therapists in the US just there--you know not to toot my own horn, but there are a lot of people who are like, "Can you speak for me? Can you work with me?" I'm like my caseload right now is full and I have a waitlist of over 30 people at the time of this recording, like I just don't have this space to see more people. It can be really hard to not want to say yes to doing speaking engagements on evenings and weekends or saying yes to one more client. So it can be a little bit challenging. I think one of the harder things about being my own boss is not necessarily the boss part but is the, I don't even want to call it loneliness, but it is. You're working basically just with yourself day in and day out so that's why I'm really appreciative of my mastermind community. You can go back and take a listen to that podcast episode about how we all support one another, but that has been really, really helpful for me. And if you're also thinking about starting your own private practice anonymous, make sure you have some good clinical or business support, whether that is joining a supervision group, or joining you know, some sort of online community to help you out because it can feel a little bit like you're on a raft on your own.
Moving into small business owner questions. Lauren asked, What are some ways that you avoid burnout? So I mentioned earlier that I'm kind of on and off with my boundaries, but the boundaries that I'm really good at, that helped me avoid burnout are setting up an out of office on weekends and when I'm on vacation. If you've ever emailed me over a weekend or when I'm on vacation, you're bound to get an out of office message. I'm really pretty strict as the rightward. I'm pretty firm in my boundaries of starting and ending my sessions on time and I'm pretty good about not opening up my calendar for times that I don't want to work. Other things that help is just consistently recharging my batteries every Thursday night, you can find me on the couch with a big bowl of popcorn, catching up on that week's Bravo TV. Right now it's Housewives in Salt Lake City and just finishing up the Potomac reunion and Below Deck. I'm very consistently taking nice long walks with my pup, we're getting into cold season. So that means that I'm including baths, and I like to bake. I often have podcasts on in my ears, and I bake and it helps me to stay really centered and grounded. And then the other thing is knowing my burnout side signs. For me, that means double booking my calendar, missing appointments, or checking my clock, like literally, I mean, like looking nowadays, it's on Zoom, but looking at the corner of my computer to see how much time I have left. Those are good signs, and I'm fastly approaching burnout and need to do some more restoration. Lauren also asked, If you were to do something differently in your first year of private practice, what would it have been? I guess it would kind of go back to that podcasting response and that I just would have been more strategic and focused on the bigger picture or bigger outcome. I think so many of us in small business, make the mistake of doing too many things, but not channeling our energy into one thing, meaning we do a few podcasts, we do a few YouTube videos, we put out a few email newsletters, we go live on Instagram a couple of times, but we're doing everything in a way that is consistently inconsistent, that we actually don't really see the return on investment of marketing in a way that is sustainable. I kind of went back to something I tell and work with my clients on when it comes to money goals is using this concept of waterfall. And the way that I talk about a waterfall method is to first fill up one goal bucket before moving on to another goal bucket. That does not always work and it is absolutely possible to move towards more than one goal at a time. But for example, if you had three things you were working toward, you wanted to save up an emergency fund, pay down your credit card debt, and save for a down payment for a new apartment. You could essentially make like minimum payments towards each of those different goals, but you would really focus on one thing first putting all of your extra money towards let's say the emergency fund. And then once the emergency fund was fully funded, then you kind of overflow or waterfall the money would have been saving up towards that emergency fund into those two other categories. And that's how I kind of think about marketing. So this past year, I've talked about it before, and I think it bears repeating, I have really focused my energy on search engine optimization and so really putting my energy towards making sure that I'm getting up at least one often to quality blog posts a month. And knowing that anything that happens above and beyond that is icing on the cake. Instead of doing a blog post, doing a podcast, doing an Instagram Live etc. It just it just would have been more strategic. Another question from Diane is, I would love if you could talk about various ways to pay yourself for example, weekly, bi monthly or monthly and some of the pros and cons of a set salary versus paying based on monthly earnings. I'm in my fourth year of private practice and keep playing around with different options, but I haven't found the right fit yet. So Diane, for me, what I first do is pay myself the same thing every month. So because I have the advantage of having been in private practice for a little bit, I typically look at last year's revenue and divide that by 12. I'm sorry, not revenue, the total profit. So after I pay, you know, taxes and my expenses and, you know, contribute to my retirement and then I divide that number by 12 and pay myself that number every single month. The way that I do that logistically is that I use Gusto G-U-S-T-O (they're a payroll company) and that way it automatically takes out and pays my taxes, my self employment taxes, and gives me a paycheck on the first and the 15th. Then I take what's called an owner's draw, or I like to call it my bonus, about quarterly. That way, I know that no matter what, whether it's a busy month, or whether it's a slow month, I'm getting the same amount of money every single month, because what often happens is you'll have, let's say, a really busy February and pay yourself for a really busy February. But then June comes and you have a quiet June, and you don't have any money left over in your business checking account to pay yourself enough. And so you end up paying yourself less than what you need to pay your expenses at home. And it gets to be really, really stressful. So instead of paying myself for everything on busy month, I leave some of that in the business checking account, so that in those quiet months, I know that I can have a consistent and steady paycheck. The other thing that I have going for me is that I use Heard Accounting H-E-A-R-D, and they are specifically a bookkeeping and accounting firm for private practice therapists or small group practices. They also help do quarterly check-ins to make sure I'm still on track, to make sure that I'm doing my distributions correctly, to help me with estimates for quarterly taxes, and helping me file annual taxes. That has also been a really nice peace of mind. I used to use QuickBooks self employed and that worked basically until it didn't. As my business continued to grow, I know I needed more help and I also knew that it wasn't my total area of expertise just because I like talking about money and money mindset doesn't mean I know the ins and outs of accounting and taxes. So those are the things that I do and I hope that helps.
So yeah, this was a fun, different type of episode we covered things that go on in my world outside of business, what I do when it comes to podcasting, what I do when it comes to setting up my boundaries, and things like that. Before we kind of wrap up for today, I want to let you know if you are a small practice owner or you're kind of taking your practice from on the side into full time, I will be reopening the fifth cohort of grow a profitable practice from the inside out in early 2022. The exact dates I'm still ironing out but if you add your name to the waitlist at MindMoneyBalance.com/ProfitablePractice (all one word), you can add your name name to the waitlist; you'll get first dibs when the applications open, you will get access to an extended payment plan, and also access to a discount. Joining the waitlist does not obligate you to apply and you don't have to pay any money to be on the waitlist, it just gives you that kind of Heads Up advantage if you've been thinking that, "You know 2022 is going to be the year that I really invest in my business." We spend time talking about our relationship to money. We spend time talking about how to actually set your fees in a way that's in alignment with your values and your needs, and how to uphold those different boundaries. And I'd love to share with you what somebody said who just completed the fourth cohort of grow a profitable practice from the inside out. So a recent participant have inside out said that they are, "So pleased with the insights I received from Inside Out. Lindsay was so knowledgeable and provided such a warm and safe space to talk about the vulnerable topics of monies, fees and being seen when stepping into your own private practice. So helpful especially for women and people of color." And somebody else said in terms of what we had a big impact on them personally and in their business; they said "The consistency, group support and balance of emotional support with tangible tools felt immensely helpful. Group accountability helped me to honor my own boundaries and talking to clients about their fees, which felt like a simultaneous conversation with myself, differentiating my worth from the worth of the services I provide, woo--I want to say that again. Differentiating my worth from the worth of services I provide. Parallel to this conversation was deep healing around the wounds of my confidence in this work, which is felt in sessions with clients and with new inquiries." Somebody else said that they joined inside out because they "Wanted to learn how to be more confident setting and sticking to sustainable fees along with support to the transition off of insurance panels. Things that stood out to me were the focus on doing the inner work and money mindset along with being able to to identify a personalized fee that made sense for my needs." If those types of outcomes sound good to you, make sure to add your name to my waitlist at MindMoneyBalance.com/ProfitablePractice. See you next week.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai