The Therapist Experience Podcast by Brighter Vision: Marketing & Business Lessons for Therapists, Counselors, Psychologists & Coaches in Private Practice

Whitney Owens has accomplished a lot in the past 2 years, growing her business from a solo practice all the way up to a group practice of 5 clinicians. While she's received helpful advice from mentors like Joe Sanok of Practice of the Practice, one of the most valuable things she has learned came as a surprise from her own experience. Many group practice owners opt to hire clinicians as 1099 employees, assuming that it is cheaper and offers greater flexibility. Whitney has discovered that not only is this not true, but there are also many overlooked and important benefits that go along with hiring clinicians as full time W2 employees.

Damien Adler has seen his career grow and change in ways he could have never expected. Originally starting in community mental health, Damien began to tire of the bureaucratic red tape and jumped into private practice with his wife. They quickly discovered the huge amount of work that goes into running a private practice and began looking for a solution to streamline the appointment setting, note-taking, and billing. Upon finding out no good options existed, Damien enlisted the help of his brother to build their own practice management solution. To this day, Damien and his brother remain co-founders of Power Diary, a practice management solution based in Australia.

Cathryn Leff is an experienced clinician who had for years operated a small part-time private practice while working for a non-profit full time. While the work was fulfilling, she began to tire of her 3-hour commute each day. Finding inspiration to jump into Private Practice full-time, she opened a home office and quickly began attracting clients by visiting Family Attorney offices and networking in-person.  With a successful business that continues to grow and hours saved by not commuting each day, Cathryn has even been able to take on the responsibility of President-Elect for the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT)!

Money can feel like a taboo topic when it comes to running your private practice - but it doesn't have to be. While your mission is to help people overcome their problems and find solutions, at the end of the day your therapy practice is a business, and businesses need to be profitable if they are going survive and eventually thrive. In today's episode, we speak with Rhonda Stalb, who found tremendous success by setting a goal for the income she wanted to generate and then assembling the pieces needed to achieve this goal.

While it may not feel like it at times, growing a successful practice is never an accident. With a diverse background serving individuals affected by a wide variety of issues, Maryellen Dance had found out over time who her ideal client was. However, she would often get referral requests from parents looking for someone who could help with their child’s anxiety. This wasn’t her area of expertise, but what if it could be something her practice offered? By scaling up and hiring 4 additional clinicians, Maryellen has been able to meet the needs of any client who walks through the door while simultaneously growing a thriving group practice. Tune into today's episode to learn more.

When you're building a private practice, it's important to first consider the personal and professional lifestyles you want to achieve. For Charette Dersch, this meant crafting a small private practice that gave her the flexibility to set her own hours, while simultaneously allowing for expansion if need be. Tune into today's episode to find out exactly how she does it.

As long as you are in business, you should be marketing. In today's episode, we learn this first hand from experienced clinician Stacey Rose. While she has over 25 years of experience in Private Practice, Stacey still markets herself regularly by producing high-quality educational and informative content that connects her to her ideal client and promotes her as an expert. Tune into today's episode to find out exactly how she does it.

In the previous generations of mental health, there was often an understanding that the personal and professional parts of a clinician's life needed to remain separate. However, as the next generation of private practices emerge, the opposite is proving to be true. In growing a group practice, Juan Santos has had his family as an active part of the business. His wife handles the practice management, and his children are often seen around the office. This authenticity extends to their marketing efforts, and has helped them connect with the community they serve and become a comfortable place for all.

Throughout The Therapist Experience podcast, you’ve probably heard us talk a lot the importance of determining your ideal client. Today’s episode is great example of why doing so is so powerful. By marketing to her ideal client Madeleine Shaver was not only able to grow from a solo practice to a group practice in 4 years, but to also work primarily with the individuals she was most passionate about helping. 

Creating a brand is essential to building a successful practice, but is too often a rushed step of the process. Many times, clinicians establishing a brand jump into the creation of the practice name and logo without first taking a step back to understand what they truly want. On this episode, Kate and Katie of the Private Practice Startup join us to talk about the benefits of first looking inwards and asking yourself some key questions that will ensure the success of your brand, and your practice, long term.

One of the best ways for a private practice to quickly attract new clients is through pay-per-click advertising on Facebook. However, if not managed correctly pay-per-click advertising can quickly become quite expensive. In this episode, Katie K. May of Become A Group Guru joins us to share her tips on how to maximize the return on your investment and make sure you are attracting your ideal client. 

While school and trainings teach you how to identify issues and work with clients, they often do little to teach you about the day to day realities of operating a private practice.  When launching his own practice, Curt Widhalm saw this firsthand and wanted to help. As the cofounder of the Therapy Reimagined Conference and cohost of The Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide Podcast, he works to help educate new therapists on how they can develop a brand that incorporates their personality as well as professional goals to ensure long term success. 

Since becoming licensed in April 2019, Johnzelle Anderson knew it was his goal to open his own private practice. Through effective planning, networking, and marketing Johnzelle has been able to see his dream come to fruition. However, his journey hasn’t come without the occasional bump in the road. Tune into this week's episode to find out exactly how he did it!

Luna Medina-Wolf opened her private practice in October 2015 out of a desire to see more of her ideal clients and build something of her own. By setting an audacious goal to never to turn anyone who needed help away, Luna was able to transition to a group practice while simultaneously building a valuable network of referral sources.  Tune into this week's episode to find out exactly how she did it!

Being a therapist is extremely rewarding, but can also be extremely challenging. A big aspect of running a group practice is preventing burnout, but how does one do that? Aaron Wiemeier found success retaining members of his group practice by co-authoring books with them. Doing so has not only helped the therapists he works with develop their careers, but also established the practice at large as an expert in the industry - leading to more referrals and financial growth. Tune into this week's episode to find out exactly how he did it!