You can watch the video here or or read the transcript and download the Skimp or Spend Guide below!
It’s time to start thinking about your business, your private practice as a startup.
And startups have associated costs.
We seem to believe that as therapists we should be exempt from these rules.
I want you to think about the last time in your town, maybe a coffee shop opened up or a small restaurant or a bakery or whatnot. So what had to happen before they ever ever opened their doors and sold their first $3 latte?
They had to rent the building.
They had to remodel the building.
hey had to get the signage, figure out the menu, hire staff, buy all the equipment…get everything they needed to get that coffee shop up and running, right?
And we look at that and we think, Yeah, obviously, that’s the cost of doing business If they want to be a coffee shop owner, they’re going to spend probably six months laying out tens of thousands of dollars before they ever open their doors and start recouping that money.
But we look at ourselves and we’re suddenly like, Web hosting costs $12 a month?? That’s highway robbery!
You have to think of your business as something you’re going to invest in, and especially off the top, you’re going to invest in it because the investment alone is what helps guarantee your future success.
So let’s go back to our example.
Let’s talk about our coffee shop owner. Let’s say two coffee shops open up in your town.
Everything’s equal about them: location, price, style…It’s all equal. They’re both good coffee shops.
Now let’s say coffee shop owner number one says, I’m just going to sit here and wait because people should just know that I have good coffee. People should just come because they like me. I assume they’re going to show up and that they’re going to just know.
And coffee shop owner number two approaches things a little bit differently and says, You know what? No one knows I’m here. There’s other coffee shops in town on every corner. Maybe I should hire a publicist. Maybe I should have somebody that gets me in the local newspaper. Maybe I should hire somebody to help me with bookkeeping so I’m not up all night doing the books and then back here again at 5:00 AM trying to make the donuts to put out.
So coffee shop owner number two is thinking very proactively about their startup business and the associated costs, right?
She’s figuring out where she lacks the skills, the ability, or the knowhow to get her name out there and let people know about her new business.
I want you to think about your private practice or coaching/consulting business the same way.
Often therapists will have an internal monologue that says, I went to Grad school. People should just know that I’m good. They should just trust that I’m a good therapist. My friends know I’m a good therapist. I know I’m a good therapist. I’ll just sit here.
They’re like coffee shop owner number one, and I’m going to vote very, very strongly against doing that because this is why you grow slowly.
So right now, whether you’re an online coach, whether you’re a therapist in private practice, or some combination of the two, think about where are you lacking. Where are you lacking in your skills for setting up a business? Your skills for running a business? Your skills for marketing your business.
Where are you lacking and of those, are there certain skills that you want to learn because it’s going to help you to know them over the course of your career? And are there certain skills you’d rather just go hire somebody to do because frankly you never want to deal with that? You just don’t want to have to touch it.
You will have both. You’ll have two sets of skills. For the ones you want to learn, I want you to think is there a course where I can learn this in? Is there a coach or a teacher I can learn this from?
Go invest in yourself and get the education!
On the flip side, if there’s something you never want to learn, like maybe you never want to learn website design ever, go invest in a decent website designer. Go get somebody you really trust, pay them the monthly fee to upkeep your website and you’ll know that it’s done and it’s done to a level of professionalism where you are now excited about your own website and about your own practice.
The thing that I have found over and over when I invest in my business, it is scary every time whether I invest $30 bucks or $300–and I have invested all sorts of amounts in between there–it is always scary to click Pay Now on that button and inevitably it motivates the crap out of me because I am so determined to make my money back and to make at least double my money back.
That’s always my goal is to get at least double my money back. And generally when I take courses or hire a coach, I assume I’m a learning skills where I will now have this skill forever. I’ll be able to reuse this over and over throughout my career.
There are a million people out there teaching therapists all the things you could possibly need to know. And you know, frankly guys, none of the coaches coaching therapists right now are bad. These are not people who are trying to like take your money and run to Aruba. They’re good people. No matter who you choose, no matter which direction you go, chances are you will learn a lot and grow tremendously and you’ll be proud of how far you’ve come.
So get excited about that! Find the person that you jive with!
Find the course that you resonate with or that really sings to you and go do it. Invest in your business. You are a startup and the money that you invest now at the top in making your business something that you are excited about, it’s just going to come back to you in spades, over and over and over.
When you’re excited about that website, when you’re excited about your marketing, when you can’t stop talking about it, guess what? People sit up and listen!
How are you going to treat your business like a startup? And how are you going to invest in your future success rate? Be like that really smart coffee shop owner! Go make one plan, right now today, to invest in something you need to move your business forward.
To your success!
