[BLUEPRINT] Providing great therapy day after day can be challenging even for the best of us. At Blueprint, they believe that nothing should get in the way of you doing your best work, which is why they created a platform that provides therapists with an array of clinical tools, things like therapy, worksheets, intervention ideas, and digital assessments that are designed to help you and your clients stay connected and confident throughout the care journey. Even better, Blueprint helps streamline your documentation so you can spend less time on your notes and more time on the things that matter. To learn more and request a 30-day free trial, visit blueprint-health.com. Again, that’s www blueprint-health do com. This is the Practice of the Practice Podcast with Joe Sanok, section number 882. I’m Joe Sanok, your host, and welcome to the Practice of the Practice Podcast. I hope your June is going amazing, or if you’re listening to this sometime in the future, I hope you’re fill in the blank as to whatever your month is that you’re in is going amazing for you right now. We completed a series where we were talking about all sorts of different clinical specialties. Did that throughout April and May. So if you missed any of that, feel free to go back. We talked a lot about just different specialties people have outside of that business hat that we often are wearing and then in late May, covered 10 tips to grow your caseload quickly. Then we did 10 money tips, and then we’ve been just interviewing really interesting people lately. In fact, the last episode that you may have missed was my cousin Matt Carrier and really it was just a conversation that I was interested in. He talked about plasma physics, clean energy, and artificial intelligence. We talked a little bit about private practice, but honestly it was just me geeking out on science stuff that was so crazy to hear about. Today I’m really excited about Mary Beth, who we have with us, and I’ll tell you about her in just a second, but it’s so important for us to think through just slowing down, taking vacations, planning for the unexpected. I know that many of you know what happened to me back in October, but we put on Killin’It Camp down in Mexico and as a result of that, I got salmonella, had to have two emergency hospitalizations, two surgeries. At the time of this recording, I’m still mending from that almost nine months later and had to take a lot of time off. Thank goodness I had amazing team members. I had other consultants that could help people within our membership communities stepped up to just really help out. But things happen we all have things that happen and I’m really excited because Mary Beth guides business owners to create contingency plans that prepare them and their teams for extended vacations or the unexpected so the business can continue to run successfully in their absence. She founded Niche Partnership Consulting after seeing the turmoil that a lack of contingency planning caused when a dear friend developed terminal cancer. Mary Beth, a national conference speaker, a continuous learner and loves helping business owners find a peace of mind since retiring from a 30-plus year career at Vanguard. [JOE] Mary Beth, welcome to the Practice of the Practice Podcast. [MARY BETH SIMON] Thank you so much, Joe. It’s a pleasure to be here. [JOE] Well, this, I mean, this is such an important topic and it’s so important for our businesses, but it’s also important for our peace of mind, for our just ability to go on vacation. I would love to hear why this matters to you. In your intro you mentioned your dear friend that had terminal cancer. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to start there and just hear how that spurred on a business, what happened and how did that spur on this planning and this work that you do? [MARY BETH] Sure. I’m happy to share this story because most people have experienced something like this in their own personal lives, or they’ve watched somebody else go through something like this. So I was working at Vanguard, I was working full-time and I had always planned to retire early and start my own business. I was a program manager for enterprise level IT projects, and I wasn’t exactly sure what I would do in my consulting practice and was trying to figure that out. At the same time, one of my closest friends who had retired two years before me was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She asked me if she didn’t survive, would I be willing to help her husband navigate the finances. She was a technology project manager similar to me and she managed all of the investing, all of the finances. They had a couple homes and she did everything for both, for the two of them. He is 13 years older than her, didn’t use a computer or a cell phone, and she knew that it would be challenging for him to learn the processes. I said that I would do that and I asked her to show me what was going on because we were girlfriends. We talked about everything, but we didn’t talk about this stuff. I asked her to show me what was happening, and that never happened before she passed. So after she passed, I was working full-time and spending six hours a week with her husband trying to put a plan in place that he would eventually be able to follow and take care of the pressing issues that needed to be handled right away. I worked with him intensively for three months, and then the whole process took a year and during that process I realized that we all could do a better job preparing for the unexpected, even if it wasn’t something as serious as what happened with my friend. [JOE] Now, when you work with people, maybe let’s just start with the problem and then we can get to some of the solutions, what’s the problem with how most people run their private practices? [MARY BETH] I think even just business owners at large tend to be quite optimistic about the future. So we imagine ourselves always being able to show up in our business and we imagine that the information that we carry around in our heads isn’t that complicated and wouldn’t be that difficult for somebody else to learn. So we have these optimism biases, I guess you could say, that when someone needs to step in and assist us and they want to assist us, we don’t have the tools in place that will make it easier for them to do to provide us support when we need it. [JOE] So what are some situations that you’ve seen where this really manifests itself? [MARY BETH] I can tell you that I’ve worked with private practice therapists and group practice owners a lot in the last year and a half and one of the things that I noticed is since the pandemic, it seems like owners are take, have taken on more responsibilities in their business. So as things started to shift and change technologies were changing for the way that people that owners delivered services staffing changes might have occurred and the result has been that business owners have taken on more of the roles of running the business. So creating their contingency plan is an opportunity to take a step back and to get some clarity around all of the responsibilities that they have taken on, and gives them an opportunity to assess if there’s anybody else on their team or potentially a contractor who they could train and transition primary ownership of some of these roles to that person to give them some more space on their calendar and better quality time off. [JOE] Now, tell me a little bit about that idea of joint ownership, because oftentimes I think therapists that have built a group practice or a thriving practice really want to retain full ownership. Like, what does that look like in regards to if you’re walking through potentially adding another owner to it? [MARY BETH] I would say not really adding an owner to the business, but ownership of different roles and responsibilities. [JOE] Oh, okay, thank for clarifying that. [MARY BETH] Yeah, just to clarify that. I mean, I do see a lot of business owners who don’t want to let go of financial roles in the business, maybe don’t want other members of the team to handle payroll, who don’t want them to see the money that’s going out to different participants in the business. And there are other options when we think of the support network around the business, potentially bookkeeping services, payroll services, that thing. So it is an individual scenario that needs to be assessed, but we spend time and break down all of the work that the owner does like from daily roles all the way to annual roles, and then assess if that’s really the best place for the owner to be focused. [JOE] So walk us through what does a good contingency plan have as part of it? What are the three or five or whatever number of building blocks that you would say any good contingency plan, whether you’re planning for extended vacation or for a backup plan, if there’s a health crisis, like what’s included in that plan? [MARY BETH] So I will mention that when I work with people, I do encourage them to first create a personal contingency plan, so around them as a human for their personal life, because a lot of the planning builds upon that and then next, a business contingency plan and then the third part is a business continuance playbook where the business owner procedures get documented for them. But if we focus in really around a business contingency plan the idea is that all of the essential documents related to the business will be located in one place. I create binders for my clients. That’s something that the listeners can do for themselves but it would have information about all of the bank accounts, the credit cards, the business licenses, the tax ID filing information, a contact list for all of your essential contacts related to the business, information about the IT assets related to the business. So it’s pretty extensive. So you assemble all of your important documents and then the next thing is commit to a password management system for the business. I like LastPass, nothing is — [JOE] That’s what we use. [MARY BETH] Very good. I’m happy to hear that. Nothing is bulletproof, but LastPass, I do see that it works really well for practice owners. Yeah, so getting all of the important documents together, committing to a password management system, and then identifying who can be your second-in-command for the business, who you would be willing to share with them or at least give them access, they would, you would tell them how to get access to your contingency plan in the event that you are out of the business unexpectedly or permanently out of the business and you would trust them with your financial information, getting access to your passwords, all that level of detail. [JOE] How important is it to have that binder be printed versus virtual? Like where would you store that information so it’s easy for somebody to, in that situation to take over while also making it hard for someone to just steal the entire identity of your business? [MARY BETH] That’s an excellent question. So I recommend that everyone has a fireproof, waterproof safe either at their home or at their business, or possibly both. That’s where the binder should be stored. So this is a popular question when I speak at conferences, the question about whether to have information in a secure hard drive, in a secure cloud or in paper. The one reason that paper is helpful is that somebody can take it and take it to where they are going and work through it. It has a lot of context in the binder that shares information that may be difficult for people, tt would take them time to figure out on their own if they were just going through a shared drive. I generally don’t recommend storing personally identifiable information in a cloud service, but everything has its risk and it’s up to each person to assess what risks they’re comfortable with taking. When we get to documenting SOPs, of course, all of that, we typically store that all in Google Drive, but a lot of the other information related to the business contingency plan is in paper. [JOE] So we get those basics of the business down. Take us through maybe some of that playbook and the planning of what would be essential things in that playbook. [MARY BETH] So when I work with a client to create their playbook, we go through a brainstorming session where I ask a lot of questions and try and tease out what are the responsibilities that the owner takes on, on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual basis. So we document all of those roles and responsibilities that the owner plays and then we assess them to identify which ones already have procedures documented for them, typically not many. Then I interview clients on Zoom, record it and interview them for their procedures, translate that or transcribe that through Otter AI and then document the procedures for them and send it back to them. So in that process, in the procedure documentation process, we identify who is the primary process owner, so typically the business owner at that time, and who could be or is the backup process owner. If it makes sense, the goal is to document the procedures, have it in writing, have a video of it if possible and train another person to be the backup, and then if it makes sense, eventually make that person the primary and make the business owner the backup for that role and responsibility. [[THERAPY NOTES] As a therapist, I can tell you from experience that having the right EHR is an absolute lifeline. I recommend using Therapy Notes. They make billing, scheduling, note taking, telehealth and e-prescribed incredibly easy. Best of all, they offer live telephone support. It’s available seven days a week. You don’t have to take my word for it. Do your own research and see for yourself. Therapy Notes is the number one highest rated EHR system available today with a 4.9 out of five stars on trustpilot.com and on Google. All you have to do is click the link below or type promo code [JOE] on their website over at therapynotes.com, and receive a special two-month trial absolutely free. Again, that’s therapynotes.com and use promo code [JOE] on the website. If you’re coming from another EHR, Therapy Notes will also import your demographic data quick and easy at no cost, so you can get started right away. Trust me, don’t waste any more of your time and try Therapy Notes. Just use promo code [JOE] at checkout. Now for folks that are doing active clinical therapy what would you say, like, how would that look a little bit different because obviously, your clients are going to want to keep seeing you, if possible, but then if there is a long-term vacation or if there’s an unexpected event that would transfer, could you walk us through someone that’s has a caseload of 20 clients, what that might look like in regards to that particular role as a therapist? [MARY BETH] Yeah, so in that particular role, the areas of focus would be around more of the business aspects, the peripheral responsibilities outside of the client-facing responsibilities. So it might be related to like insurance renewal, bookkeeping responsibilities, any of the, like if there are any business attorneys, contracting that’s done that work. So we would focus in those areas and try and assess if there is an opportunity to, for the practice owner to have more assistance peripheral assistance with their responsibilities. Now, for a therapist who is seeing a lot of a lot of clients, it is, I do have to point this out, it is important for them to consider putting a professional will in place so that someone is authorized to communicate with their clients in the event of their death or in the event of their absence. [JOE] So really for the most part, what we’re talking about is the operations of the business, the individual clinical work. Maybe you have a backup person that you talk with and they do the backup clinical if for some reason something happens to you. But for the most part, it’s looking at the operational side of the business of what it takes to run your counseling practice. [MARY BETH] Exactly. I mean, I know that a lot of therapists are working with interns in their practice now, so I don’t know if there could be an opportunity there to help out with the client-facing work. [JOE] A good half of our audience are people that have group practices, so they would have other W2s or 1099s that are doing clinical work also. But it’s probably more a matter of having those conversations with people as to not just for, for me, if I was seeing clients, but also if something happens to someone else. Even one of our consultants is pregnant and going to take maternity leave for three or four months and so to talk through what that looks like and plan for that same sort of idea that’s more planned out than maybe if there was some sort of medical emergency. Now where do, I feel like so often, whether it’s like a policies and procedure model, manual or business plan, people spend all this time creating a document and then it sits in a binder, it sits in a drawer. It sounds like some of this you want to just sit in a binder, it’s a backup plan just to be there, but there’s also things change over a business’s six months or a year. What do people need to do on a quarterly or an annual basis to just make sure their plan, their blueprint is up to date and what’s that look like? [MARY BETH] So for the contingency plan I recommend that people review that during tax time because we’re pulling together a lot of paperwork at that time anyway. So Q1 is typically a good timeframe to, after you’re finished your taxes, to review your contingency plan and see if any updates are needed; so if you’ve opened any new accounts, closed any accounts, if you’ve made changes to your estate plan if you have opened any new, like for group practice owners, any new practices you’re practicing in any other states, that thing to make sure that that information stays fresh on an annual basis. Then it’s also important that after you create your contingency plan to review it with your second-in-command so that they can hear the guidance directly from you. And annually you’d want to do a refresher training with them. [JOE] Now, where are spots that people miss the mark? Like when they make one of these themselves, or maybe they even work with you and they just, what do they not do or do afterwards? What are some of those blind spots that people miss the mark on? [MARY BETH] Yeah, I would say one that comes to mind immediately is trust issues. So I’m okay with people knowing this, but not seeing the full picture or not really be being able to identify who could be the second-in-command for them from a business perspective. In that scenario, I often recommend is there another private practice owner or group practice owner who you are close with who you trust that you could reciprocate and be the second in command for each other? That’s one option. Another option is you could create what I refer to as a board of directors approach, where maybe you have like a spouse or a personal confidant who you would trust but they are not licensed or related to the business. You could have that person be the final decision maker and then create a network around them who would be able to inform them on what’s happening from different perspectives; so whether it’s financial, whether it’s clinical, legal, and have that person take advice or input from these other members who you have constructed on this team, and then they would feel supported in making the decisions related to your business. [JOE] Yeah, I just think that so often we hear these things and we’re like, oh, yeah, I should do that and then we move on to the next podcast, we move onto the next news, we, our kids are sick, whatever, whatever gets in the way. What’s the, and I don’t want to be a fear monger, but like, what’s the danger in not taking action on these things? Like what’s the potential for like, what have you seen happen when people say, yeah, I should do that but they don’t? [MARY BETH] I mean, one of the risks is that what you intend to happen for your business if you are unexpectedly ill or you die unexpectedly, what you intend to happen may not actually happen. So it’s really, it’s great to get crystal clear that your intention is that the money would keep flowing through the business while you were out. Like project out a plan that could keep the business financially solvent for two weeks, four weeks, six weeks, whatever that timeframe is, and just know that you have this plan in place. If you employ other people, I have seen that when a business owner is unexpectedly ill, the people who work for that business start to go into protection mode and they want to make sure that they’re going to continue getting paid and if you don’t have something set up in advance then they will start looking elsewhere for employment. It’s important to, it’s helpful even to have these conversations with your team, if you have a team or those close to you to say, okay, I’m working on this plan and this is what I expect to happen and this is how it can happen so that you can share that with them so that people have a sense of confidence that you have thought through the potentials and that your plan is to keep the business running. [JOE] So many things to think through and to make sure that you plan. Mary Beth, the last question I always ask is, if every private practitioner in the world were listening right now, what would you want them to know? [MARY BETH] I would like them to know that one of the best reasons to create your contingency plan is to achieve better time off from your business. So this is one step that you can take to create better quality time away from the business, whether it’s for maternity leave or for vacation, whichever way you need to approach it. [JOE] So awesome. Well, Mary Beth, if people want to connect with you, I know you also have some free resources what are those resources and how can people connect with you? [MARY BETH] Yeah, so I’d like to share a course that will show you the ways that I use to create the business owner SOPs. It is a free course for your audience and they just need to go to nichepartnershipconsulting.net/joe and they’ll get access to the course and then we’ll be connected. I also hang out on LinkedIn if anyone wants to connect with me there. [JOE] Well, thank you so much for being on the Practice of the Practice Podcast. [MARY BETH] Oh, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. [JOE] I was just as much speaking to you the audience as I was speaking to myself about not taking action. We’ve been spending the last three quarters really diving into our operations and systematizing the business and making sure it’s written down and Sam has been doing it, phenomenal job with that and working with our IT team to update the website and our flow and all of that. But the idea of, yeah, if I got sick again, if I had to go into the hospital, if I wanted to take a longer vacation what does that look like? How would I plan for that? I think that that’s a really important thing to think about, whether it’s in reaction to something medical or life happening or it’s in preparation for saying, I want to take a month off, I want to take you several months off, just such a good thing to think through and to work through in regards to figuring out your contingency plan. We also couldn’t do this show without amazing sponsors like Therapy Notes. Therapy Notes is the best electronic health records out there. They will help you switch over from your current EHR. They also give you two months for free or just money off if you use promo code [JOE] at checkout. They are phenomenal. They help with automated billing, it’s going to make it easier to outsource your billing, so many reasons to switch to Therapy Notes. Just head on over to therapynotes.com, read about it, and at checkout, just use promo code [JOE]. Thank you so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Have a great day. I’ll talk to you soon. Special thanks to the band Silence is Sexy for that intro music, and this podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the producers, the publishers or guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.