Freedom for Your Practice: How to Build your first Macro-Process | GP 302

billing, group practice, Grow a Group, macro process, marketing, micro process, note taking, system components, system scale, systems

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What are the macro-processes that make up your practice? Are you looking for time freedom and relief from decision fatigue? Why is setting up autonomous systems and processes the key to maturing your practice, reducing your stress, and levelling up your income?

In this podcast episode in the Freedom for Your Practice series, Brandon Shurn discusses macro-processes.

Podcast Sponsor: Headway

I want to thank Headway for sponsoring this episode. If you run a group practice, you know that accepting insurance can be overwhelming. Between credentialing, billing, and payroll, the admin side can easily take over your week.

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In This Podcast

What is a macro-process?
Why the paperwork is worth doing
How systems give you freedom
How to build your first macro-process

What is a macro-process?

Well, a macro-process is the big, overall thing. It’s the thing that breaks [your business] into multiple components. It’s the task that also might have more than one person involved, so once you start getting granular, you move into the micro processes. (Brandon Shurn)

Your macro-processes are the big umbrella categories under which you have your micro-processes. It is a large system composed of smaller systems.

Depending on the business scale, you will have different types of processes, but what matters is that they exist.

You cannot bring your business to maturity without creating autonomous systems that underpin its foundation.

For example, your intake process is macro because it includes micro-processes. This is the same with marketing, billing, note-taking, and other systems.

Why the paperwork is worth doing

Many therapists and private practitioners who run their own businesses may avoid setting up macro systems because they consider them to be a paperwork burden.

This is true in a way, but only at the start, because once the system is up and running, you only need to tweak it occasionally, and for the rest of the time, it works on your behalf.

There’s a reason that we want to begin to create these systems, that we want to give time and attention to creating systems, and the short answer is that having a system creates freedom for you. (Brandon Shurn)

Creating systems that work on your behalf gives you time freedom to enjoy in other ways, both inside and outside the business.

How systems give you freedom

Here’s a short list of a few ways in which creating systems can provide you with freedom inside and outside of your practice:

Systems reduce decision fatigue
Systems save you money by running in the background while you see clients or run the business as the CEO
Setting up systems and explaining how they work also reduces confusion with your staff and team

How to build your first macro-process

When you start to build your first macro-processes, you need to map out everything you have in your mind and get it down on paper.

You also need to identify how many macro-processes your business has. Brandon’s practice, for example, has 10, ranging from marketing to intake and insurance.

It’s a step-by-step method. You’ve got to figure out each point. So for me, the endpoint is having an insurance claim submitted, but the step [before] is marketing. Marketing… and advertising to get the client. So that map is what helps determine [the overall process]. (Brandon Shurn)

What happens daily, what is the central point of success in your business, and then work your way back to the start of it all. What is the endpoint, and what is the point at the very beginning? Plot out that line and create your macro-process along this route to success

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Curious how Headway can work for you?

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Meet Prof. Brandon Shurn

Brandon Shurn, Ph.D., LCPC, LMHC, AFC®, NCC, is a licensed clinical professional counselor and the founder of EmPower Me Holistic Counseling, a fully virtual Maryland-based practice. He’s also a full-time professor in Seattle University’s online Clinical Mental Health Counseling program. With extensive experience launching and directing university training clinics, Brandon now focuses on helping therapists design and grow impactful, sustainable practices.

Outside of his work, he enjoys fitness, yoga, Wing Chun, golf, reading, and spending time with his family and dogs.

Visit Empower Me Counseling, and connect with Brandon on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Email him at: brandon@practiceofthepractice.com

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