What if you could fill your therapy practice with clients who not only align with your values but also contribute to your professional satisfaction and profitability?
In this episode we introduce the concept of immutable laws—core values that act as a filter to ensure only the best-fit clients make it to your consultation calls.
I'll walk you through my five immutable laws and how they guide the client assessment process during consultations, identifying red flags and preventing me from taking on clients that aren't a good fit.
What if you could fill your therapy practice with clients who not only align with your values but also contribute to your professional satisfaction and profitability?
In this episode we introduce the concept of immutable laws—core values that act as a filter to ensure only the best-fit clients make it to your consultation calls.
I'll walk you through my five immutable laws and how they guide the client assessment process during consultations, identifying red flags and preventing me from taking on clients that aren't a good fit.
How can you fill your calendar and your clinician's calendars with ideal clients? Today I'm going to walk you through an exercise that you can do to pinpoint who clients are that you want to work with and how you can turn away the ones that maybe aren't a good fit. My name is Craig and I'm the CEO of Desi Financial Coaching. Our goal is simple to help you run a therapy practice that is permanently profitable. If you own a solo or group practice, we're here to help you build a business that creates more time, makes more money and serves more people. This is the Therapy Business Podcast.
Speaker 1:So when you first started your practice, if you're like most people, if you're like me, you thought you were going to help everybody. I thought when I started, I remember somebody asking me who's your target market, who's your ideal client? When I first started coaching and it was anybody. Anybody who has money. I want to help them, not because I want their money, but because I was a financial coach, and that's what we do. We help people learn how to manage their finances. But, truthfully, I didn't want to work with just anybody. I just wasn't sure who my ideal client was, and the more people I coached, I slowly started to figure out. Certain people were just not a good fit for me. That doesn't mean that they aren't good clients for someone else, that doesn't mean that they don't deserve to be helped, but they just weren't a good fit for me. And this can be a huge mental block for a lot of business owners, but specifically therapists, because I mean let me know if this sounds familiar, but it's this feeling that we need to help people. We need to help everyone, and if someone's coming to us asking for help they want help with their mental health us turning them away is doing them a disservice or failing them in some kind of way and, honestly, that is not true. The overarching truth of all of this is you can help people without taking them on as a client. This is an idea that maybe a lot of people are not really comfortable with or haven't come to terms with, but you can help people by not taking them on as a client. There's a lot of ways that you can serve people in other ways, whether it's referring them out. That's why it's important to have a network of other therapists that you know, who maybe specialize in different things, because sometimes that's the case Somebody's coming to you and they're dealing with an issue or a specialty that maybe isn't your bread and butter, an area that you specialize in, so you need to refer them out. Sometimes somebody just comes to you and you're going you know what.
Speaker 1:This is not someone that is a good fit in the sense of I'm would not be excited to see them on my calendar every week. I want my calendar full of clients who I am excited to see. When I look at my day, that that day and I'm looking through my, my sessions and my meetings, I want to be like, yes, I get to meet with this person. Oh, I can't wait to hear about this or to talk to them. Now, that's not going to be every day, obviously, but we want that to be the overarching theme that we are excited to talk to these people, that we enjoy our clients, and the more we can catch that ahead of time, the more we can avoid those awkward conversations of having to fire a client because they're not a good fit. So I want to walk you through some a general rule, guideline, almost like a list of core values that we're looking for in clients that we can go through before we get on a consultation call. Now, this is something your whole team can do together. Maybe this is an exercise you can walk your team through if you have clinicians working under you, and they can come up with their own rules or immutable laws that they're going to be filtering these potential clients through. This is going to help us in a couple areas not only filling that perfect calendar full of perfect clients, but also in those times where maybe money stress is leaking in and we're feeling like we have to close anybody and we just need to get the sale we got, to get new clients at all costs. That's when we're most exposed to taking on people who are not going to be good fits. They're going to stress us out. They're going to cause more mental and emotional harm than good. So I want to walk you through how to come up with some immutable laws. Now, immutable laws are three to five. You can do a few more if you want to, but no less than three things that you are looking for in a client.
Speaker 1:Now, this isn't necessarily a niche. So while we specialize in working with therapy practices, that's, for us, not an immutable law. We're not saying that you have to own a therapy practice in order to work with us. We work with a lot of different industries. We just happen to specialize in this one area and this one type of business, so it doesn't need to be that it could be something to do with their character, a vibe you're getting from them. What you're getting, what kind of essence are you getting from them, how they approach life, how they talk lots of different ways that you can maybe get a sense of. Are they going to be someone that is going to work for you? Now, my examples are very different than what you might use. Again, I'm working with people on their finances you are working on. Depending on your specialty, there could be a whole range of things that you're doing and maybe the things I'm saying that would classify someone as not a good fit for me. Maybe that is just not a reality. If you're working with people with intense trauma or different areas that you're really gonna need to lean in and do some of that work, then you know where you want them to be and what you're really looking for. So let me guide you through mine as an example, so that we can at least launch you in the right direction.
Speaker 1:The first thing that I'm looking for when I'm working with a client is someone who's ready for change. Now, when we are working with a business owner, we want someone who's ready for change, someone who is sick of change the status quo. They're sick of what they've been trying. They've tried numerous things. I don't want to say they've hit rock bottom, because that's not what we're necessarily looking for, but they're just at that place where they're like you know what, craig? We just need to try something different. We've been trying this other thing. We've been banging our head against the wall. We are ready for something different.
Speaker 1:The reason I want someone who is ready for change is simply because change is hard. Change is really hard when we're helping a business owner implement a money system into their business. It's hard. It's hard to take what you've always been doing and try something completely different. It's not going to be smooth sailing. Now that hard is worth it. It's completely worth it Because on the other side of pushing through, that is amazing, amazing, amazing results and overall life is going to be simpler, easier and less stressful. But you have to push through that time of hard, that strain, that growing pains of trying something new, trying something different, doing things completely different.
Speaker 1:So for us, when we are talking to someone who might be a client on a consultation call. We are looking for signs that they are ready for change. Now, a lot of times this is just a general vibe. Sometimes I'll straight up ask them and I'll tell them we don't like to work with people who aren't ready for change. Change is hard. Are you ready for change? Are you ready to try something different? Are you aware that this is a crockpot fix, not a microwave fix? We're not going to be able to snap our fingers and make your finances organized overnight, so are you ready to lean into it and put in the work Now? Sometimes we can get a vibe from this. Usually, if they've talked about, we'll ask them questions like have you worked with coaches before? We could even ask them questions about something that was really challenging for them, that they pushed through. But a lot of times, as we are talking to them, we're asking them their story, what their frustrations and goals are. We can usually get a sense of are they ready for change? The second immutable law for us is that they understand commitment, and this goes along with that crockpot, microwave example. That change doesn't happen overnight.
Speaker 1:When we take on a client now, of course, we're never going to trap someone in with us. It's not a you're with us now you can't leave, and I know for you that's unethical, you can't do that at all. But we want somebody committed to the process ethical, you can't do that at all, but we want somebody committed to the process. For you you probably want to get a sense of is this person going to know and realize that one session is not going to cure anything, that this could be a month's, year's process to get them to a place of just being okay For us? Again, we work with clients at least in a six-month engagement, because we know it takes time. It takes time to get money moving and get it flowing. It takes time for us to have a chance to look into your business with you and look at your expenses and your margins and help you strategize your pricing or hiring or whatever it is that you're struggling or dealing with. It takes time and so we want people to realize that we don't want someone to show up for a month and then, when it's hard, they cancel. And again, we're never going to trap someone in, but we want them to be committed to the process. Now again, for you that might mean you just are trying to get a sense of. Are they? Are they willing to put in the work like we were talking about with change? But I know very much that sometimes it takes a few sessions for a client or a patient to realize that you're not a good fit, or their clinician is just not a good fit for them, and so they may withdraw away. But we are looking for that level of commitment that they are committed to the journey that opens up the door for transformation. So, in general, whether they're committed to you or just committed to the process, committed to being vulnerable, committed to going into places emotionally that maybe they've never tapped into before, that's what we're looking for. That's what you might be looking for.
Speaker 1:The third thing we're looking for is a growth mindset. So we believe that there's no such thing as being bad with money. We hear it all the time when we're talking to potential clients. It's oh, I'm bad with money. My parents never taught me how to do money. It goes back to childhood and I completely agree that those things have a huge impact. But we're firm believers that anybody can be good at anything. You can be good with money. So we always like to add that yet to it. So we encourage our clients.
Speaker 1:This one's a harder one to maybe sift out, but it's just that idea of At your core you are not stuck being bad with money. You just maybe haven't figured out how to manage it yet, and that's why we're here, that's why you're engaging in a process to change that narrative for yourself, so that you are not stuck where you are, that you have this ability or at least general sense. Whether you believe it fully or not, yet I get it. It's not a snap decision All of a sudden. I believe that I'm good with money, but at least being open to the idea that, hey, you know what? Maybe at some point I can be good with money, maybe at some point I can work through whatever I'm working through, whatever your patients are working through.
Speaker 1:So a growth mindset is a big immutable law that we're looking for in a client. And again, not necessarily that one's harder to really pull out of a consultation, but sometimes you can just get a general sense of somebody if they don't have it, and that one way we can pull that out is through our next immutable law is opportunities over excuses. So if we're hearing a lot of excuses, it was the pandemic's fault, it was my family, it was X, y and Z all these factors which may very well be true and real and I'm not denying that everyone's life experience is different and that we are all impacted in different ways but when we put up that wall of saying, well, it was the pandemic, so pandemic really made a hit on our business, and after that we couldn't get enough clients in the door to pay payroll, et cetera, et cetera, you hear, that wall that's there versus pandemic was really hard on us and we have been trying a lot of different things to figure this out and we just don't know what to do. We're seeing that opportunity over excuses. We're not looking at those barriers. We're not saying, oh yeah, well, I was doing great and then this clinician just quit and took half of their client load with them and now we're down and I can't afford to pay the mortgage this month or the rent this month.
Speaker 1:Do you see that barrier of putting the blame on someone else, creating these excuses? Excuses, let us off the hook as business owners. Once again, I'm not. I think it's healthy and important to identify those variables, because otherwise we're just looking at numbers and saying why did your revenue drop all of a sudden. Well, you had a clinician leave and take half their clients. So that impacts the business.
Speaker 1:But when we look at that, it's this happened. What is our course of action? What are we going to do about it? So I'm looking for that, and when we're talking to a potential client, usually it's in their story as they're talking to us. Are they blaming outside factors? Are they rejecting immediately anything we are possibly suggesting? And we don't make a lot of suggestions on a consultation call, but sometimes it's like have you thought of this or have you approached this or what have you tried? We'll ask different questions and if they're shot down immediately, oh, that wouldn't work for us. Nope, that wouldn't work for us.
Speaker 1:Just shooting down opportunities to try and come out of it, those are red flags for us and we will usually turn someone away at that point. It's just not a good fit for us, and so we might recommend another coach who we know. Maybe they specialize in those people who feel like they're at a hopeless spot. Maybe we have some courses or programs or books that can at least get them launched in the right direction to changing that money mindset before the actual work can be done, because if we are not ready to look for opportunities, we're not going to get anywhere. And all of these are kind of related, because if they're at that point, that's telling me they're not ready for change, that's telling me they don't have a growth mindset and already we're going. Not a good fit for us. The last one for us, our fifth immutable law is simply that they're fun to work with.
Speaker 1:Like I said at the beginning of this episode, I want a caseload full of people that I'm excited to talk to. I genuinely enjoy all of my clients. I do Any that I have not enjoyed in the past, and there's been some. Typically, they come in when I'm in a moment of stress and anxiety, because when I'm stressed about finances or I'm stressed about growth or not hitting goals or targets, I say yes to everyone. I ignore these immutable laws and I immediately take somebody on and I almost always regret it. Once in a while somebody might end up surprising me, but usually I regret it and typically those people aren't committed and they'll end up canceling before the six months is over. Typically those people may ghost. They're not ready for change, so they may go MIA. They may push back on everything we're trying to teach them so they don't have that growth mindset. So I need to really look for do I enjoy this person? Am I enjoying them on the call? Do they seem like they have the personality that would connect with me, that would connect with my team members, the coaches who work for us?
Speaker 1:Now we are understanding that a consultation call is a nerve-wracking call, especially when we're talking about something like your finances, and so we know that we're not getting the true, genuine personality out of someone most of the time. Usually there's a little bit of anxiousness. I know on any if I'm ever on a consultation call, they're not going to get my full personality out of me because I'm probably going to be a little bit nervous. So we realize that. But we're really just looking at is this somebody who would make us not dread Mondays and who would make us never say, thank goodness, it's Friday, that we are excited for our clients, so we are very big on that. Those are our five immutable laws. Whenever I'm getting on a sales call, I review these all five of them. They are in our template. So we have a template where we take notes on a sales consultation to decide if a client's a good fit Before the call starts.
Speaker 1:This is something I recommend doing is reading through your immutable laws one time, centering yourself and thinking this is what I'm looking for and it's okay. Once again, if they don't fit the bill For you, it might be I'm looking for, and it's okay, once again, if they don't fit the bill For you, it might be. I'm looking for someone who's willing to invest in themselves, and that might mean that you are taking on people who are only private pay and there is nothing wrong with that. There's nothing. Nothing wrong with that, because there's somebody else out there who maybe the immutable law is. I will never turn somebody away because of finances, and so they're going to be accepting those insurance points. So there's no right or wrong here. As long as it's ethical and it's not stereotyping a certain demographic of people, there's nothing wrong with saying this is what I'm looking for.
Speaker 1:I'm looking for someone who's willing to pay $200, $250 per session to invest in themselves, because maybe you found that those are the people who are getting the best results, seeing the most growth and who are filling your calendar with people you enjoy. Or, again, maybe you just want to be accessible. So you're saying you know what? We will create a sliding scale, so we will look for people who are needing that support. So or you just leave it off entirely if it's not the right fit, but looking for those areas of what are our immutable laws.
Speaker 1:If you have a team, again, if you want to say this is our, as a company, immutable laws, you can work together to create a core list that everyone follows.
Speaker 1:Or you can guide your clinicians through this exercise, especially if you're working for contractors, because they will want to implement this in their business and this is just some way you can speak value into them, but also making sure that they are filling their calendar with good clients.
Speaker 1:Guide them through this exercise and say let's create these together, let's brainstorm together and you come up with your own individual immutable laws that you're filtering through. Then, if you have somebody doing your sales calls for your clinicians, they are reviewing these so that they know what to look for before bringing somebody on. This is going to help retention. This is going to help client engagement. This is going to help in a lot of different areas Referrals because when you are filling your calendar with ideal clients, then you are going to shine, they're going to shine and they're going to tell everybody they know about how amazing this experience is, simply because you made sure to prioritize your calendar and your client base. Thanks for joining us on the Therapy Business Podcast. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with a practice owner that you may know If your practice needs help getting organized with its finances or just growing your practice, head to therapybusinesspodcom to learn how we can help.