The Therapy Business Podcast
We know how challenging growing a therapy practice can be, and don’t think it should require an accounting degree just to run your business. If you own a solo or a group practice, we’re here to help you build a business that creates more time, makes more money and serves more people.
The Therapy Business Podcast
3 Simple Tasks That Will Save You Money
Ready to transform your therapy practice into a thriving, efficient, and profitable business? This episode promises to arm you with essential strategies to streamline your operations and boost your bottom line.
Ross Herosian from Tricycle Creative joins me as we explore ways to get rid of wasteful spending, generate more revenue and improve your marketing efforts.
We dive deep into balancing expense management with revenue generation, proving that while costs can only be cut so much, opportunities for increasing revenue are limitless. And yes, we keep things light with humorous tales – like budgets for whoopee cushions – making financial advice surprisingly enjoyable.
We also cover the often daunting task of raising rates with clients and ensuring each clinician's profitability. Explore alternative offerings like group sessions and intensives to maximize the limited hours available for one-on-one work. Tune in, and don't miss out on these actionable tips to make your therapy practice flourish!
Work with Ross
Our Profit Coaching program is enrolling new practices now.
We specialize in helping therapy practices like yours achieve financial clarity, so you can focus on what you do best—helping your clients and managing your team- while we help handle all the businessy stuff they didn’t teach you in grad school.
To see if your practice might be a good fit, schedule a free consultation at therapybusinesspod.com.
Meet with one of our coaches
*Intro/outro song credit:
King Around Here by Alex Grohl
As a practice owner. You're busy, I get it. You have a lot of things going on in the practice that sometimes things can fly under the radar. Today, my good friend, ross Hiroshin of Tricycle Creative co-hosts as we talk about three things that you should be looking into in your practice three to four times per year that are gonna save you money and help make sure you're getting the most bang for your buck out of your marketing. 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. All right, all right, we are back and I got my co-host, ross Hiroshan, here with me again. Ross, how are you doing.
Speaker 1:I'm back.
Speaker 2:I made it.
Speaker 1:You allowed me to return.
Speaker 2:This time you're the co-host, not in the hot seat you I think I said this last time, but I'm like a like a vampire of a podcast. Like, if you invite me into your podcast now, I can't leave.
Speaker 1:now I can roam freely inside of your podcast that's yeah, I didn't even invite you here, you just showed up somehow. No, I mean, your uh marketing episode was the most listened to. Now, let me just say there's only like seven episodes, so the competition wasn't stiff.
Speaker 2:What a compliment is this? This is a backhanded compliment.
Speaker 1:But think about this In a couple of years, in the future. If someone's listening to this and they're like man, there are hundreds of episodes, and that marketing one was the most listened to. So there you go.
Speaker 2:It was so great. It was so useful. When our robot overlords are scanning and listening and figuring out how to work with us, how to farm our souls, they're going to be like. That marketing episode was really good. We used those methods to convince them.
Speaker 1:All right, nerd Referencing vampires and robot overlords all in the first two minutes, yeah in the first five minutes.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, yeah, you're right. Okay, let's talk about business.
Speaker 1:So, really, today we're going to be going through what I think and you think are three things that every business owner, every therapy practice owner, should be doing, probably once a quarter, if not three times a year or so. Just some exercises to go through. That's going to help save money, help make sure that things are working really well and that your business is growing, because that's incredibly important. So we already cut the fluff. Let's just jump right in with the first thing that I think you should be doing every quarter, and that is running an expense analysis. Does that sound even nerdier than robot overlords?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does, but I'm going to tell you it's probably going to be more advantageous to your business Probably. Unless you sell robots or vampire gear.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I know expense analysis sounds super boring. I could have called it an expense audit, but that just sounds like something we all want to avoid. But truthfully, it's just a chance to go through what you're spending and see is there room for improvement? Is there ways to save money? Are there things we're spending money on that maybe are wasteful or we're not needing? Is there anything we could maybe downsize in or downgrade in or pause?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love, I actually enjoy this, Maybe again being back to being a nerd. Even if you called an expense audit, I'd be like, Ooh, go on. But I got to tell you as a business owner and even you know someone who works with small, medium sized businesses.
Speaker 2:This, this is, I know it's weird, but it should kind of be something you look forward to, because it is an opportunity to potentially trim fat.
Speaker 2:And I and I and, and you know, I think, for for your audience, listening to this, the, you know, the, the therapy practice owner, that kind of thing we all can understand and relate to you get. You get so caught up on the day to day, right, that that's like like just keeping the, the, the, the plate, spinning that kind of thing, um, that sometimes you forget about those. Uh, oh, I'm still paying for that. Or, wait, I was charged for that. Or, in the case of marketing, I would say, also one of the things that you know, I would even catch myself being guilty of like, oh, I paid for that system and it's like on a quarterly or annual renewal type thing, and you, you said it and you forget it, and those things can be, and I'm sure as I'm sure, as part of one of the things that can be, kind of a death by a thousand cuts and you don't even know Totally.
Speaker 1:And yeah, those annual ones. I mean that's just a whole point. That just kind of I didn't even consider it before jumping into this. But we start our business, we all. Obviously, you launch your business at a certain time and there's startup costs and subscriptions you have to sign up for. So there usually is a time of year, a month of the year, where you are hit with multiple annual subscriptions. I know I am, and it's usually around the time that you launched?
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly Because you've got all those annuals hitting, and so just being aware of those, being prepared for those, is just probably a whole nother conversation. But you're right, that's.
Speaker 2:And I think, to that end, like on the planning part, craig, like I think it's like when you go through and do this audit, if even if it's something you're going to keep right, like I would imagine it's like helpful to then like almost mark your calendar, like I'm I'm a big Asana guy, as you know, so, and I've converted you on that, but it's like, oh, you know what. I'm going to put a reminder. Oh, darn it, I got hit with that bill. You know, this month, this quarter, this year, um, let me put a reminder in my calendar for like a month before, for next year, or something like that. Right, um, and and then, and then truly assess it at that point, cause a lot of times as again, as as a person who helps people with their money, I don't love that when they're like, if you cancel it, like okay, well, you can, you've already paid, so you have it for the rest of the year, and then it won't renew like no, just give me my money back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, give me my money back although sometimes, if it's, if I'm in a monthly subscription, I do like that little grace period, like when I was switching from stream yard to ecam for these podcasts, I was like I want to make sure I like it and I don't want to lose all my recordings over there. So I had some time lapse. But I think, going through, like you said, there's a lot of things lurking under the surface that maybe we don't even realize we're paying for. The other thing is sometimes it's you have expenses that maybe could just be cheaper. So a few years ago I used Gusto for my payroll and I was just paying X dollars a month for the subscription.
Speaker 1:And then I did an audit like we're talking about. I went and looked through everything and part of that is going through and saying, okay, payroll software, is there cheaper options out there? Looking at alternatives. But I went to Gusto's website and they had added a whole new tiered plan under mine that was about half the price. That had everything I was using, so I was able to just downgrade and save money there and not have to change anything other than just click okay, now I'm going to pay you half as much because they see, money doesn't always have to be painful, right like.
Speaker 2:That's the thing I'm talking about, why I get excited about like oh you know money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yep, same thing. Uh, slack, I was paying for the the paid version, um, and once again, during an audit, I went through and realized I don't even need the paid version. I can, just, our team doesn't utilize any of the paid features, so why am I paying? So just those things? Uh, there is an exercise that we teach our clients to do. That's version I can, just our team doesn't utilize any of the paid features, so why am I paying? So just those things. There is an exercise that we teach our clients to do that's super, super simple. We call it keep cut, trim. It's you take a sheet of paper or a spreadsheet and you divide it into three columns. You've got keep cut and trim. Keep column is really the things that you can't get rid of and can't change. So, therapists, a lot of times it's your licenses, those types of things, the things that you're like I can't practice if I don't have this.
Speaker 2:Your email like if you're using like a G Suite or something you pay for your email, something like that, totally yeah.
Speaker 1:And so there's just no alternatives and there's no way to reduce that cut, way to reduce that cut, and so keep column. Really, I always say there shouldn't be anything in that column unless it is those defaults or you've already. You're like I have to have this and I've already shopped around and there's not a better alternative. So you've exhausted all other options Exactly Cause, who knows, maybe even a G suite there's.
Speaker 1:I don't think there are better options, but one day there might be or it might not be worth the price cut you would get because you're going no, google is just user-wise, is the best way to go. Cut would be let's get rid of something entirely. What are things we can just get rid of, even if it's for a season? So, especially if you're trying to focus money on hiring or focus money on something different, you can go through and say you know what, for now I'm not recording podcasts, episodes, we're backlogged. We got three months worth of episodes, so I'm going to go ahead and pause my subscription to this. X, y and Z.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of the ways you can find those cuts or things that you like we were just talking about. You're just going oh, I was paying for that, I don't need that. Let's cut it. It's a luxury. And then Tram would be exactly what I was talking about with Gusto. How can we reduce what we're spending in different areas? Maybe even just a little bit? Is there a cheaper alternative? Is there just price shopping? And you can do that with insurances, you can do that with your internet providers. Just always, every few months, few times a year, just see, is there a better deal out there that maybe you didn't notice before?
Speaker 2:This is why we're such a good team, cause, when you said that, I was like, oh yeah, I remember you actually telling me about that and I used it and I used it. It's so, it's so simple, but it's so powerful. Um, uh yeah, so it's it, it and it. It is a very easy way to frame the whole, that whole process, make it a little less scary 100%.
Speaker 1:We're all about simplicity. And then the one last thing you can do which works really well on personal finances business finances is a little not as good of a rule of thumb, but we have something we call the 10% rule, which is just cutting all your variable spending by 10%. I get that in business. Sometimes it's not like you can go cut all your employees' incomes by 10% without a bunch of backlash.
Speaker 2:We'd like to inform you we're going to be paying you 10% less. That'll go over well.
Speaker 1:But if you are in a place of strain, if you're trying to get your overall spending down like if you're just spending way too much on your business, going through and saying, okay, we need to market, we need to have money spent on marketing or else we're not going to have leads coming in, but we can maybe reduce that spend by 10%. We can reduce 10% here and 10% there. Overall it's going to save you some money across the board.
Speaker 2:Do you find also let me ask you this right, like I think that's certainly something that kind of again simple enough everyone can do, but I would imagine and I guess I know from finance stuff there's a lot of value in why people hire you is for that next layer of analysis. That feels like a very good surface layer, first level thing, and then it gets deeper from there.
Speaker 1:It does, it does and, truthfully, there's only so much cutting you can do when it comes to your expenses, and you know you're going to find maybe the first time you do this that you will find a lot of things under the hood. And then you're going to have a lot of quarters when you do this exercise and you're like, okay, nothing changes, like we have the best rates on everything, there's nothing we can cut. That just means that your business is really efficient. Most of the time when we're working with clients, it's like I would rather focus on revenue generation versus cutting expenses, cause, again, there's only so much you can squish down, but there's limitless possibilities on how much you can increase your revenue and increase your earnings, and that's going to help dilute what you're spending anyway.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the conversations we had, that was the thing I said to you. I cannot minimize my whoopee cushion budget any further. I need a new one every quarter and you know listeners out there they get it, they get it. It's an essential, it's an essential business need and you worked with me on that. So I cut. I basically stopped eating lunches, uh, for a month and that, and it was very reasonable yeah, this is I thought eating lunch. I could never stop eating lunch. He knows that's a I thought, uh, you were talking.
Speaker 1:I thought whoopee cushions were a metaphor, but it was.
Speaker 2:It was really no, it's a real. No, it's not a widget, it's a real. Yeah, it's definitely a huge business expense.
Speaker 1:It's like the Office episode where Kevin's talking about cookies and.
Speaker 2:Robert California thinks it's a metaphor. That's right, it was really about cookies the whole time it's just really about whoopee cushions the whole time.
Speaker 1:All right, let's move in. So the first thing you can do every quarter is expense audit, expense analysis. The second thing and this is your area of expertise is reviewing your marketing roi, reviewing all your marketing. Are they providing an roi? So, ross, you're the expert I'm going to defer to you. Talk just a little bit about some things you can do to make sure your marketing engines are working.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, listen, that first piece we just talked about, certainly apply it to your marketing tech stack, right? I think a lot of people out there they pay for add-on tools for their marketing. It may be their email marketing, and maybe it's a social media manager, a management tool, maybe it's a content creation tool, that kind of thing. So just making sure that those are also part of that overall audit of systems that you're using and maybe, to that point, systems that maybe you need. But I feel like that's probably a next step thing, like where the gaps exist. But I think one of the first things you can look at and work to do is, first and foremost, figuring out where your leads are coming from. Right now. There are a lot of highly technical ways you can do this If you really want to go down a rabbit hole, which I don't think you do. But I'll say it's all of what's called digital marketing attribution.
Speaker 2:Okay, we're not going to talk about that here. Okay, but what essentially the concept is? Figuring out what marketing efforts led to a particular action conversion. For most people it's a, a purchase, but in service businesses similar, you know, to what we have and similar to what our listeners here have. It's like maybe booking a consultation right, or booking, you know, like maybe filling out a contact form, that kind of thing, and if you don't already have this on that form, whatever that form may be Um, please go and add this now. How did?
Speaker 1:you hear about us.
Speaker 2:And and I would. I would recommend don't make it an open field, right, I'll tell you like make it. You know social media, web search. Uh, you know YouTube, the channels that you're. You like email referral and then maybe just an other. Okay, um and again, everyone has done no different forms and things they use. But but, please, please, please, please, run, don't walk to add this to your form. It's really useful data to have. It's so useful to have. Now, if you don't want to add it to your form, right, or you want to add another layer to be able to learn more, include asking people in, like your sales calls, or in your consultations, or in your discussions, your initial conversations with them. Hey, how you know? How did you hear about us? Yeah, ask them.
Speaker 2:Find out.
Speaker 1:Or your admin. If you're not using an online form or if you have an admin, they're calling into schedule for the first time. Have them ask and I think with that dropdown I implemented that. It's probably only been a year ago, sadly, probably from your recommendation, but knowing, and I'll go in there and tweak it based on if I want to see how are we doing on YouTube. I have social media, but then I specifically have one on YouTube, so I was like I want to know how many? People are finding us through YouTube.
Speaker 2:I'll probably, and I probably should go and put podcasts so I can see how many people are coming absolutely here. Well, that's fresh, I'll give you a pass. It's fresh, so I'll give you a pass. But yeah, absolutely so. If you end up contacting craig, don't hold it against him if he if he hasn't got there, but he better go do this after this episode podcast on there. Um, and I think that you know that's really valuable data and it's firsthand. You're getting it directly from the person, um, which is they are essentially then telling you.
Speaker 2:A lot of times with a customer journey, they may have a couple different touch points. They may first learn about you from search, they may be following you on social, but when you actually ask them, what you'll get is the platform that they are attributing was most actionable for them to contact you, if that makes sense. So even if they've searched and then listened to the podcast and then went on social media, they'll probably tell you the one that moved the needle the most for them. That makes sense. That's a good point Because the technical attribution side you can do this technically so you can find out. Depending on the system you use. You can find out where they come from, but it's not a perfect system. Very few things in digital marketing are a perfect system but I like the. How did you hear about us asking them getting it on a form? So that's the first thing.
Speaker 2:I think the other thing you're on, you know, and look at the engagement and the audience sizes, right. So if you are on Facebook and Instagram and and YouTube, okay, you're not necessarily going to have apples to apples across them, but you will at least have audience size. So, facebook page likes, instagram is followers, youtube subscribers right, looking at kind of the overall size of your online audience. And then, when it comes to engagement, facebook, instagram, you're going to have, you know, likes, comments, shares. Youtube, you're going to have views. Conceivably, you could have a watch time Also, you could have likes, you know. So, just, and it's very easy for all these platforms to fall into the rabbit hole because they give you so much data.
Speaker 2:I would say, if it's intimidating to you, just pick out the ones I just identified, just pick those and pull those numbers. The reason I think it's good to do this is because sometimes and I've been guilty of this myself is maybe you're spending an inordinate amount of time and resources on a platform that isn't even your largest audience. Yeah, it doesn't mean you abandon them, but we all know you only have a certain amount of hours, certain amount of energy, certain amount of time and a certain amount of resources to give to your marketing. So let's just be smart about it. You know, if 80% of your of your audience is on YouTube, well, you should probably attempt to line up your efforts the same way. It doesn't mean you don't try to grow the other ones, but just be, you know, lean into the ones that are are, um, that are large, right, and I think that's just again. And there's a number of different tactics you can do to growth. But that's a con, that's a discussion for another day.
Speaker 2:Um, I think, tied to that, sitting down and asking yourself, what do? We've had this discussion numerous times. What do you enjoy doing when it comes to the marketing? Yeah, right, do you like writing? Do you like videos? Do you like podcast? Do you like social media? Yeah, and again, leaning into that. And if the answer is I don't really like any of them, I would say pick the one that comes easiest. Okay, I mean, again, probably a topic for another day. But how do we develop those skill sets and muscles. That's through working with someone like me, like a marketing coach, that kind of thing that can help you with that. Or hiring an admin potentially certainly an option, Right, um, but and your team.
Speaker 1:So I think, if you have therapists under you who are contributing to content, I guess it also can depend on what they find easiest, uh, and are most willing to do. Oh absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we had that conversation about members of your team too, because they they all contribute in a lot of different ways and you know, for like, for example, I don't find writing to come naturally for me. Like writing is my most challenging thing that I do. I would rather almost create blogs from content like video content or like you know, like writing itself is very difficult for me, but I talk to people and they're the complete opposite. They're like no, I love writing and I don't like video. I don't want to be in front of the. It's like okay, that's, I get it right. So another kind of situation of leaning in um the.
Speaker 2:The one caveat I want to mention before I get to my last thing is just real quick about ads. Okay, because I think a lot of your listeners probably or maybe, dabble in ads facebook ads, a boost here or there, uh, you know that kind of thing, maybe even google ads, um, and I think people need to understand, particularly if they are a growing business, there is absolutely a floor, if you will, for how much you need to spend in ads to actually get a result. I know that Facebook and Google and Instagram make it real sexy to just top, just throw five bucks here, 10 bucks there, but absent of a strategy and absent of a committed long-term spend, you're just not going to see results that you want. I'm not going to say it's impossible, but I'm going to say it would be a rarity. And I think this is even more the case now, with so many of these platforms reliant in utilizing AI.
Speaker 2:So, the AI technology. It can be very great, but the downside is it requires a lot of data, a lot of data. And what a lot of data means is it needs you to actually spend a good amount so that it can collect said data to optimize properly.
Speaker 1:So looking at this I mean even looking at your ads it kind of goes along with that expense too, because it's if you're looking at where your leads are coming from and there's not a lot coming from your ads, maybe you don't have a huge ad spend. It probably is more beneficial to just say you know what, I'm going to cut ad spend At least if I can't afford to put more into it. I'm going to cut it completely and see if I can maybe look at all those other lead sources. Maybe could I lean more into if my YouTube channel is being successful.
Speaker 2:Maybe I could run see if I could boost some videos there to just up subscribers or Absolutely Thinking, yes, you're right, this is, this is. This is why we we discussed this topic Like it's holistic, you know, like looking at your money and looking at your marketing. Of course they're intertwined, and so, absolutely, looking at your ad spend and here's the other challenge too, if you're someone who is just dabbling, there's a highly technical component of ads that you need to set up and be aware of, to even figure out if you're getting a return, and so you may be getting a return. You may not even know, because there is a technical piece to it. So it can be really frustrating, challenging. So, on that note, I just want to end with something that I think I even heard you say and that is just related to data and analysis.
Speaker 2:With marketing, digital marketing, there is no shortage of data, there's no shortage of information, and that's not necessarily a good thing. Sometimes it can be like drinking from a fire hose, and so one of the services that I came up with and working with dozens and dozens of small, medium and even large businesses, honestly is a done for you marketing report service. So I can do it monthly, I can do it quarterly. I can do it every six months. Yes, we can do it annually. I don't always love that. It's a long period of time. It's a long period of time between when you get the data and when you make the changes.
Speaker 2:But this is something where not only do you get a do I send out a monthly report to you and we talk about your KPIs and things like that but you also get access to a fully interactive dashboard which is streamlined, specific to you, so you know if you're intimidated by Google Analytics 4 or your Facebook or what have you. It's a streamlined dashboard that can give you your numbers kind of at a glance, and so it's something that I definitely saw a gap that reporting and data is intimidating. But I think back to what we talked about this a second ago. Data is only half of it, right, getting the information is one thing, but getting the analysis is the other thing. So oftentimes a lot of my clients, who even do the done for you reports, will still do meetings or coaching sessions, because that's where I apply my marketing brain just like your money brain, my marketing brain to it and be like cause if you don't know anything, if you're not as well equipped with marketing. Even looking at the numbers, you don't know what it means.
Speaker 2:Um, so, it's, it's, it's, uh you know it's a service that kind of combines both of those things. So I think that's everything, when we're talking about marketing on a quarterly basis, that can really help you get your marketing efforts aligned and in proper shape.
Speaker 1:Sweet. Yeah, we'll link your info because I know I've gotten those reports from you and they're helpful. Even I'll have my admin assistant take the data from the report and put it into a spreadsheet so we can kind of just see growth trends and ups and downs and at any point I can pull up how did we do all last year? How are we doing this year? Across whatever metrics I want to know. It's super helpful and I don't have to go digging into Google Search Console and Google analytics to pull those numbers. I can see everything. So I'll link your info in show notes. So if anyone is interested in that, I recommend it.
Speaker 1:But let's move on to number three, the third thing you should be doing. So first one was expense analysis doing, reviewing your marketing. Roi is number two. Number three is looking at your service offerings and really seeing what. How are they performing? Are you making money? Are the profit margins good?
Speaker 1:So, as therapists, a lot of this can revolve around pricing. So that's usually the first thing we want to look at is how is your pricing If you are accepting insurance, your hands are kind of tied there. But if you are private pay and this could also be a huge, as we're even looking at referral partners or as you were looking at your marketing. Oh yeah, which insurance providers are you getting the most from? Which ones are paying the best? We've had clients who are going. You know this provider here pays us the worst, and so they want to sunset working with them, so kind of creating those transition plans, but really it's pricing when you're private pay and hopefully you have at least some clients who are private pay and maybe that's your whole practice. How is? How are your margins looking? Are you charging enough based on what you're paying your clinicians to see those those clients does?
Speaker 2:there's something that needs to be changed in that realm, um and if so, is there a common thing, craig in your like experience, like that floats to the top when we're, when you're, when people are looking at that like, is there a like thing? It's like, nine times out of ten, there, and maybe again with the the therapy practice, there's some extra. Very like you said the insurance. But you know, are people oftentimes not charging enough? Or I mean, are there any? Are I assume they're like at least trends like you usually like, oh, I can count on my hand the, the error, the, the things of improvement here yeah, there there's.
Speaker 1:I mean usually it's people aren't charging enough, twofold One. It's just we don't. We always undervalue ourselves. That's just the way we are. We don't feel like we may logically know that what we provide is incredibly valuable, but we don't always show that in what we've charged. But a common thread in therapy practices is clients that you've had for years, who you have never raised their rates and you're afraid of raising their rates.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, it's this ping of guilt, it's this ping of, maybe, fear of losing clients or letting them down, because it's such a deep connection that therapists will make with their clients. Sure, this fear, and so we are. I mean truthfully, we think you should be. You don't necessarily have to jack their rates up to what they are currently. It's always if you want to keep them a little bit lower or to gradually do it.
Speaker 1:But you know, regularly, and not every quarter but maybe every once a year, just sending out those letters of we're raising your rate up.
Speaker 1:Again if it's insurance, you can't do that, but private pay would be one example of that. Or if you're switching, if you're trying to get rid of insurance and you're going, I want to move only to private pay, making that a gradual thing too, and understanding you're not letting anybody down nine times out of 10 for my private pay people. When you raise their rates, most of them are going to stay. I mean, if not all of them, because we all know I know firsthand how big of a pain it is to find a therapist. Oh my God, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it doesn't mean hold them over the barrel, but I think, still, like, this is about you know, know, to your point, valuing your service that you provide to people. Yeah, I hear you Like I, this is, maybe I'll get now contacts from all your therapy. But like, yeah, since I moved, I have not found a new therapist. And I, I hear it, man, like I, just I, it is a struggle and I think that's something that your listeners should definitely. Again, I'm not saying you put you hold people over a barrel about it, but you recognize a very common pain point of your customers that that's just a like, oh God, I don't want to have to do that.
Speaker 1:I don't want to. Please don't make me have to do that, and I like you double whammy. Yep, my therapist moved to Kansas city and I still see him cause I'm like I don't want to find somebody new. I would rather meet virtually with him than have to go through the process of finding somebody new. So that's a big one.
Speaker 1:Uh, pretty cold and so just just know that I am aware that your therapist, your employees are people, that we care about them, but we want to almost look at them like products and they are. What's their profitability? Each individual clinician? Are there some who are making you a lot of money? Are there some who maybe are not, or maybe even costing you money A lot of times? This will happen when they get to dictate their own rates.
Speaker 1:If you allow them to do sliding scale, you might go in and find out that their average fee is pretty low compared to what maybe you're paying them, if you're paying them hourly or even if you're paying them percentage. There's that. So we've run we call them a clinician analysis. We've run that for many clients where we'll go through basically simple practice report and we're seeing, okay, what was billed for this specific clinician, what did they bill every time they had a session, and we'll kind of look at the average compared to the company average and that's something you can work toward. It's a conversation you can have with them saying, hey, your average right now is this much. We need to work on increasing that to this much. You're going to make more money, we'll be more profitable. So it sounds cold to just put them on a spreadsheet and forget them as people and just say, okay, how are they performing? But as a business owner, that's your job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a, yeah, absolutely. This is where it's. It's a business, not a hobby. Yeah, right, and again, maybe I don't know, I am an incredibly I like to think thoughtful and caring leader and hirer and employer, but at the end of the day, if the business doesn't work, then that the whole ship sinks.
Speaker 1:Correct and then they don't have a job to come to on Monday and so and that happens a lot with your overpaying clinicians, which I know I've talked about before and we'll probably do a whole episode on how to undo that If you are in an agreement with a clinician who maybe you're just overpaying, a lot of times that happens because we don't know what to pay them.
Speaker 1:So they come in and you just agree to give them 70, like 70% of everybody they see, and then your margin is just that big and you're just wondering why your hands are so tied with cashflow, and so a lot of times we can see that causing problems, and so you might need to restructure how you're paying people, which again, more hard conversations, more hard decisions to make, but at the end, of the day.
Speaker 2:So what's the takeaway there is get to you sooner rather than later Totally, would be my thought. Right Like so, then you're not having to undo. Right Like so, then you're not having to undo, like you're not having to reverse course or anything like that Like just set out the right way as soon as possible.
Speaker 1:Totally. Yeah, it's, it's the sooner the better and, uh, you know, again it's. It's a hard conversation, but if you keep overpaying people, there's the chance that one day you're going to have to let people go, which is way worse than having to work on a payment reduction plan. So the last thing you can do with your services and offerings is to help improve the overall profitability is just look for other offerings. You can do so.
Speaker 1:With therapy especially, it's a lot of one-on-one with clients, which can really have a ceiling because you only have so many hours in the day. So is there group offerings you can do? Is there intensives or weekends that you could do? Is there online courses or platforms or programs that you can do? And so I know sometimes that that can hit that gray area of what you're allowed to do, because there's to provide therapy versus to educate. So just being cautious if you're doing courses, but finding those other areas where you can tap into to increase revenue without having to pay out a percentage or pay out an hourly rate to somebody else will dilute your overall spend and will help the health of the business in general, will dilute your overall spend and will help the health of the business in general.
Speaker 2:Well, isn't that also kind of like figuring out ways that you can add more value? Yeah, right, like, I think that's, you know, okay, even if it's an educational type thing, is it still of value to your um, your patients? And if, if it is of value, um, then that's something where, yeah, it could come along with, uh, an ability to add extra, um, add some extra onto a bill or a monthly recurring, or you know, maybe it's a combo, maybe it's one-on-one, and then you, you know, have a virtual group type thing and you're able to, you know, then add a little on or what have you. And I think that's that's an area, uh, where it's figuring out how to work a little smarter and not always necessarily harder. Right, completely, yeah.
Speaker 1:And it also solves another problem which I addressed in just the most recent episode I talked about it which is feeling like you have to help everybody and a lot of the reasons that clinicians or therapists will take insurance.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it's just lead leads. They're like well, this is how we can get some clients. They haven't quite figured out how to get them on their own, but a lot of times it's. You know, I want to be accessible to everyone I think every and that's their mission. So for those people, they shouldn't change what they're doing. However, the ones who are going, I really want to go private pay but I want to still be able.
Speaker 1:I feel bad turning people away. You can still serve people without taking them on as a one-on-one client If they can't afford your private pay rate. That's where having those other offerings can a lot of times be helpful, because it's you know what. We also have groups that you could. That's a lot more at your price point. That might be a good solution. We have this educational course. That might be a good starting point. Or your fur out. We have this other clinician over here who's amazing, knowing, nurturing, because they're sending you people too. So there's a lot you can do to serve people. That's not just a. I'm going to take you on as a client, even if it's not good for our profitability.
Speaker 2:And this is that intersection of money and marketing that I was talking about, right? I mean, this is where, sitting down and looking at that and trying to figure that out, it moves both of those needles, right. It not only moves the money needle but, from a marketing perspective, now what you can do is you have variability of services. You have options, right. You have, um, upsells, maybe cross sells. You know you have things that you can offer that may even be passive income.
Speaker 2:I mean, maybe it's a thing where it's like, hey, I have a community and every week, every day, I do this, or I do you know, like there's a lot of options that say what you will about the horrors of COVID that, interestingly enough, really sprung from that the necessity of virtual and now have stayed in the marketplace. You know, particular online community building, virtual meeting, um, you know that kind of thing. Those are now norms for the most part, that they're norms. They may people may have particular preferences, but I would say that the normality of virtual meeting now is, is is huge, like we're all. You know. It's not like this weird thing that that it was, um, you know, maybe before COVID or it wasn't as accessible.
Speaker 2:Now it's incredibly accessible so.
Speaker 1:Absolutely 100%. All right, that's the three things. So every quarter, the your action step is to put in your calendar as we uh, this will release right around the end of q2. So whenever you're listening to this, just mark your calendar for the end of the quarter. I always just say line it up with the calendar quarters, because that's just we get into a rhythm yeah and as business owners, it's easiest just to be in a rhythm.
Speaker 1:Put it in your calendar to do an expense audit to look at your marketing you can block a whole day if you want to, you can spread them out across multiple days and then also to just look at your services. What are you offering? How are they performing? Are there any tweaks or anything that you want to introduce in the coming quarter or coming year to help increase that revenue and provide more offerings? So add that to your calendar. Let us know how we can help. I'll put a link to Ross with Tricycle Creative over here, link to his calendar, if you want to pick his brain, possibly get some of those marketing analytics sent to you regularly. But otherwise, ross, thanks for joining me today. It's always fun talking to you. Yeah, thanks, buddy, thanks for having me. 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.
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