Growing Your Group Practice Through Consultation with Shannon Heers | GP 142

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An image of Shannon Heers is captured. Shannon is a licensed therapist, clinical supervisor, blogger, and owner of the group practice Catalyss Counseling. Shannon is featured on the Grow a Group Practice podcast, a therapist podcast.

Do you have support structures for yourself within your practice? How can you bolster income while doing more of what you enjoy? What are some basic ways to prevent and treat burnout as the CEO?

In this podcast episode, LaToya Smith speaks about growing your group practice through consultation with Shannon Heers.

Podcast Sponsor: Therapy Notes

An image of Therapy Notes is captured as the sponsor on the Practice of the Practice Podcast, a therapist podcast. Therapy Notes is the most trusted EHR for Behavioral Health.

Is managing your practice stressing you out? Try TherapyNotes! It makes notes, billing, scheduling, and telehealth a whole lot easier.

Check it out and you will quickly see why TherapyNotes is the highest-rated EHR on TrustPilot with over 1000 verified customer reviews and an average customer rating of 4.9/5 stars.

You’ll notice the difference from the first day you sign up for a trial. They offer live phone support 7 days a week, so when you have questions, you can quickly reach someone who can help, and you are never wasting your time looking for answers.

If you are coming from another EHR, they make the transition really easy. TherapyNotes will import your clients’ demographic data free of charge during your trial so you can get going right away.

Use promo code ‘JOE’ to get three free months to try out TherapyNotes, no strings attached, and remember, telehealth is included with every subscription free. Make 2022 the best year yet with TherapyNotes.

Meet Shannon Heers

An image of Shannon Heers is captured. Shannon is a licensed therapist, clinical supervisor, blogger, and owner of the group practice Catalyss Counseling. Shannon is featured on the Grow a Group Practice podcast, a therapist podcast.

Shannon Heers is a licensed therapist, clinical supervisor, blogger, and owner of Firelight Supervision, and the group practice Catalyss Counseling. Shannon is passionate about working with professionals, parents, and postpartum moms to manage stress, tame anxiety, and process grief.

Visit Firelight Supervision and the Catalyss Counselling website. Connect with them on Facebook and Instagram.

Connect with Shannon Heers on LinkedIn.

FREEBIE: Check out this free downloadable PDF on Therapist Burnout Prevention.

In This Podcast

  • Find and work with your passions
  • Adding clinical consultation to a practice
  • Burnout in private practice
  • Separate admin from clinical

Find and work with your passions

As the group practice owner, at the start of your practice journey, you will probably wear all the hats!

But as your business grows and you start getting full, you need to hire out, delegate, and start to focus on working with your passions because as the CEO, the business relies on you working with your strengths.

What you eventually want to do is get yourself into those roles that you’re really good at and you’re really passionate about.

Shannon Heers

Adding clinical consultation to a practice

Firstly, as you begin to find your niche and your passions, look for someone who also has that expertise and learn from them.

That’s who you want to get clinical consultation from, someone who does that same work and is just maybe either ahead of you in their growth and development, or knows how to supervise someone who is passionate about that area.

Shannon Heers

As a group practice owner, you can offer regular ongoing clinical consultation groups because it is a fairly cheap and easy way to get started.

Burnout in private practice

Since the pandemic, the rate of burnout in private practice has almost tripled in some instances.

Now more than ever, practitioners need to make systems that work so that they can remain happy and healthy while providing services to their communities.

Shannon’s burnout prevention tips include:

  • Doing your own clinical work and seeing a therapist
  • Getting business consultation on how to run your practice
  • Getting clinical consultation to develop yourself and your expertise

I think the combination of all three of those things can be quite an investment, but you’re also investing in yourself. We are the instrument that we use to do our work, [so] why wouldn’t we make sure that it’s tuned as fine as it can be?

Shannon Heers

Separate admin from clinical

Whoever is doing admin consultation in your practice should not be doing clinical consultation in your practice.

To get started with clinical consultation, have a firm grasp on your niche, the population that you serve, and how you want to strengthen your skillset.

Useful links mentioned in this episode:

Check out these additional resources:

Meet LaToya Smith

An image of LaToya Smith is captured. She is a consultant with Practice of the Practice and the owner of LCS Counseling. LaToya is featured on the Practice of the Practice, a therapist podcast.

LaToya is a consultant with Practice of the Practice and the owner of LCS Counseling and Consulting Agency in Fortworth Texas. She firmly believes that people don’t have to remain stuck in their pain or the place they became wounded. In addition to this, LaToya encourages her clients to be active in their treatment and work towards their desired outcome.

She has also launched Strong Witness which is a platform designed to connect, transform, and heal communities through the power of storytelling.

Visit LaToya’s website. Connect with her on FacebookInstagramStrong Witness Instagram, and Twitter.

Apply to work with LaToya.

Email her at [email protected]

Podcast Transcription

[LATOYA SMITH] The Grow A Group Practice Podcast is part of the Practice of the Practice Network, a network of podcast seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like the Practice of the Practice podcast, go to www.practiceofthepractice.com/network. You are listening to the Grow A Group Practice podcast, a podcast focused on helping people start, grow, and scale a group practice. Each week you’ll hear topics that are relevant to group practice owners. I’m LaToya Smith, a practice owner, and I love hearing about people’s stories and real-life experiences. So let’s get started. Welcome back to the Grow A Group Practice podcast. Once again, this is LaToya Smith. I am the host of season two. Today we have Miss Shannon Heers on the show, and I am excited. I know I’ve seen her before in many Practice of the Practice groups, on social media, I see her a lot on Facebook, and I had to reach out. You guys know, if you listen to this podcast, I just get excited with social media stuff and seeing people. I was like, I’m reaching out because this woman in her practice, she’s just doing big things and I like what I see, and I was like, I definitely want to have her on and talk about how she has grown her practice. So, Shannon, welcome to the podcast. [SHANNON HEERS] Thank you so much. What a compliment, LaToya? [LATOYA] Yes, the more I say that, the more it does come across stalker-ish, but I do find people and I’m like I want to talk to that person. So it’s good. It’s good for me. It’s good for me. Shannon, tell the audience, I know you’ve been on the podcast before and so I’m happy to have you back as a guest but tell us a little bit about yourself, about your practice, where you’re located. [SHANNON] Yes, so I’m a group practice owner and I’m also the owner of Firelight Supervision, which is a new supervision program that we just launched a few months ago in fall of 2022. I’m located in Colorado. I’m also a group practice owner of Catalyst Counseling, and that’s in the Denver metro area. We serve primarily adults. We have several different specialty areas. Then we have a supervision program, Firelight Supervision, which we broke off from our group practice this year because it was getting so big and we had so many great ideas we wanted to do, and there was such a need in both in our local community and then throughout Colorado, and then even beyond for clinical supervision and clinical consultation. Yes, we’re doing a whole lot of stuff right now. Very exciting. [LATOYA] Yes, that’s a big deal. I know that’s not the focus of it, but I just want to pause there. That’s huge if you started that, you said last year? [SHANNON] Yes, well, we’ve always had, with a lot of group practice owners or solo practice owners might do some supervision on the side and so I was doing supervision on the side, and then the people I was hiring for my group practice were also doing supervision. Soon there were five of us doing supervision and it was just getting so big that we couldn’t, like, I couldn’t do everything I wanted to do with it in our group practice. So we just split it off as a separate website, a separate program. We’re just really excited about all them different, the creativity that has come with the freedom of saying, yes, we are only focusing on supervision and consultation, and here’s all the awesome stuff we can do, and here’s all the things that people are asking for and yes, just contributing back to our field in that way has been really, really satisfying. [LATOYA] Awesome. Well, speaking about contributing back to the field, I know what we’re focusing on today is a lot of consultation and how you have used consultation to help grow your group practice. So talk to us about that, because something you said a minute ago too before we hit record, which is the truth, a lot of times we think that, hey, fully licensed got the business, I don’t need to work on my clinical skills. You know what I mean? I mean, I know we got to get these case the board, we’re getting them for real, we’re getting them. I mean, a lot of times you think, okay, grow the business, grow the business, grow the business, but this also helps to grow a business working on our clinical consultation. [SHANNON] Absolutely, and there’s really, I’m glad you separated that out. The business consultation is so important. That’s why you have this podcast, you are helping people grow their businesses from the business, the marketing, the admin perspective. But then there’s also clinical consultation and I think so many times we have in our mind that once we get fully licensed, that’s when supervision stops. That’s when we’re out on our own and we can make these decisions and work with the tough cases. Yes, that’s true, but learning doesn’t stop when you get licensed. So many of us as therapists, we are so rejuvenated and excited about that ongoing lifetime, really professional development and learning so why wouldn’t we get our ongoing clinical consultation for ourselves? Just so you’re aware, I use consultation for someone who’s already licensed. A lot of us interchange the words consultation and supervision. I think supervision is more well-known but just for the purposes of today I assume I’m talking to most people who are fully licensed, if they’re going to grow group practice and so I’m just going to use that term clinical consultation. [LATOYA] Yes, I’m glad you separated that. So what does that look like? We just said that, okay, listen, we want to keep getting better. We want to work on our clinical skills. What does that look like when you talk to somebody who’s fully licensed? Is everybody receiving and receptive? Like, yes, I want to work on my clinical skills too. I’m an owner and, you know what I mean? Or is it harder to help somebody see, no, no, no, no, slow down. You also need to keep working on this while growing your practice. [SHANNON] Yes, I think that’s a really good point because most often we don’t think of clinical consultation as the thing to do to grow our practice. You think of, okay, I need to get better at marketing, I need to get better at systems. I need to figure out how to hire therapists and retain therapists. But if you think about it, clinical consultation really plays a role in all of those things. For example, as a group practice owner, at some point when you’re starting out, you’re going to do it all. You’re going to be doing every single role and you just — [LATOYA] Every last one. [SHANNON] Every last role. You just can’t keep up doing that role, all of those roles forever. You’re probably, I will actually say you most likely are not graded at all those roles. So what you eventually want to do is get yourself into those roles that you’re really good at and you’re really passionate about. Maybe that is providing supervision and consultation. Maybe it’s not. So say it’s not, then you bring in someone who can provide that, or you outsource that, or you refer your therapist is someone who does that in the community. Because another way that consultation ties into growing your practice is that’s how you can help create a culture where therapists want to come in and work for you rather than work for themselves. [LATOYA] Absolutely, absolutely. So what’s the first step now? Okay, let’s talk about culture, adding clinical consultation to a practice culture, that way everybody knows, listen, we are ever learning as we’re growing. So what’s a good way for somebody right now and says, “Hey, I’m ready to grow my practice,” or maybe they have a big group practice, but want to implement this. How do they put it in so that it flows smoothly or what’s the best way to implement it to anybody’s practice? [SHANNON] Yes, I think that’s a great question. Because it’s just not done that often, I don’t think there’s a solid, like, you do this, this, this, and this answer. But what I would say is consultation, as you get more advanced as a therapist, you tend to specialize a little bit more in certain areas that you’re really interested in, really passionate about. That’s the population you do your best work with. So that’s who you want to get clinical consultation from, someone who does that same work and who is just maybe either ahead of you in their growth and development, or knows how to supervise someone who is passionate about that area. For instance I’ll just pick trauma as you know it’s a very big niche and obviously there’s a lot of specializations in that niche but if you’re working primarily with people who have trauma, you want a clinical consultant who really focuses on trauma work. You don’t want someone who does CBT with adolescents. So I think it really — [LATOYA] Help me [SHANNON] So I think it just becomes really individualized at that point. You want to also be around other people who are working with trauma and can give you, can open your eyes to different maybe theoretical orientations or different ways of approaching that population so finding your community in a group setting. We didn’t talk about individual versus group consultation, but there are absolute benefits to both. You don’t have to do both, but I would encourage almost everyone to do one or the other. So as a group practice owner, what you can do is you can offer regular ongoing clinical consultation groups. That is a fairly cheap and easy way to get started. They can be very generalized. You don’t have to get real specialized to start out with. You can offer it once a month, even once a month is better than no times a month. Then maybe you have someone coming into your practice who specializes in perinatal trauma. You’re like, okay, well I don’t specialize in that. Is there someone in the community that I can outsource to and send that person to their group or to their consultation? Thereby you’re supporting your therapist and their specialty and niche areas but you’re not doing it all yourself. [LATOYA] Got it. I love that. So even in the way I do it now we have a team meeting and then we turn it into like, okay, we just run through some stuff. You want to talk about that? I definitely, hey, and then after that, we do some consultation. We have people who on the team who are trained in MDR, they may chat a little bit about that or whomever, whatever. But that’s what I hear you saying. So basically, if somebody is, like you said, their expertise or has another certification or trained or whatever in certain area, this is their turn to turn and hey, we’re consulting on this and you’re helping everybody. We’re all getting stronger, even though we’re not going to act like we are trained now in this, but we’re getting stronger with the understanding of it. Then what I hear you saying, if we don’t have that person, it’s okay to find somebody to bring into that space in our meeting so that we all get it. [SHANNON] Yes, absolutely. I mean, it’s not going to hurt getting more consultation. It’s never going to be a bad thing. And there becomes a ripple effect. You’re providing, as a group practice owner, you’re providing your therapist with that clinical support, so therefore they are getting better clinical skills. They’re retaining their clients longer, which costs their practice less money because we all know it costs money to bring in new clients, but it doesn’t cost money to keep the clients we already have. And you’re also trying to retain that therapist by giving them the clinical support that they would not otherwise get if they were in solo practice. [LATOYA] Yes, yes. No, I love that. This builds the culture, this builds morale. It helps people to buy in and say to me, it’s like, also, and that’s the way I say it here, like, listen, it’s a draw here. Like, listen, when you come here, this is what we’re talking about. We want to learn, we want to grow as opposed to see your clients go home, see your clients, go home at another practice, is that ok? [SHANNON] Yes, for sure. I also think you said something important that I want to touch on in your last comment. What a lot of group practice owners do, because we have to do it is mixing the roles of administrative supervision and clinical supervision. For example, I meet with all my staff once a month for administrative supervision. So we go over their schedule, how’s the schedule working? How is the client fit working for the clients coming in? What do you want to do? How do you want to work on this? How’s your documentation coming, more administrative stuff. That stuff can get really overwhelming and often push out the clinical consultation that’s also needed. So then I have other people in my practice doing all the clinical consultation for the rest of my team. They actually, some people oversee other people in that area, some people we refer out to if they have a really specialized area that we can’t work with. So I’m not doing both the clinical supervision and the admin supervision, because a lot of times those rules will conflict because in clinical supervision or consultation, you are trying to figure out what is the best for the client. But if you’re doing admin consultation or supervision, it’s usually what’s the best for the practice and what’s best for the practice is not always what’s best for the client. So if you’re the same person in both of those supervision roles, then it can really become conflictual. [LATOYA] That’s a great point. That’s a great point. I love how you broke that up. Admin is more so what’s best for the practice. Clinical is what’s best for the client. I mean, we can, you can guess that so it’s not like, oh my gosh. But when you say it’s like, wait a minute, that’s a great way to do it. It’s great to have two different people at least doing those consultations so the ones not saying constant information. Then you feel like you’re in two different spaces, this is like a big to-do list, but also, okay, this puts me back in that space where I’m connected with my client, that attunement like, I’m here to learn so I can be, I can help serve better. It’s almost like you wear a different hat in a different space. [SHANNON] Yes. [LATOYA] It almost seems like with the clinical consultation, is this filling up again where you pour out so much and do so much and the admin is the task, but this part like, okay, like I’m repacking my toolkit. I’m building up my library once again. [SHANNON] Absolutely. That’s a great way to look at it. When you’re engaging in that rejuvenation, that building up, again, you’re preventing, you’re actively preventing your burnout. That’s another thing that’s huge right now is clinician burnout and therapists burnout in our field. People just are burning out and part of that is they’re not getting the clinical support that they need. So how can we help support long careers? Our therapists, we want them to stay with us not just for one or two years, but five or 10 years and to provide really good clinical care for that whole time, how can we best support them so that they can do that? [THERAPY NOTES] Is managing your practice stressing you out? Try Therapy Notes. It makes notes, billing, scheduling, and tele-health a whole lot easier. Check it out and you will quickly see why it’s the highest rated EHR on Trustpilot with over 1000 verified customer views and an average customer rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars. You’ll notice the difference from the first day you sign up for a trial. They offer live phone support seven days a week so when you have questions, you can quickly reach out to someone who can help. You are never wasting your time looking for answers online. If you’re coming from another EHR, they make the transition really easy. Therapy Notes will import your clients’ demographic data free of charge during your trial so you can get going right away. Use the promo code [JOE], J-O-E to get three free months to try out Therapy Notes for free, no strings attached. Remember, telehealth is included with every subscription for free. Make 2022 the best year yet with Therapy Notes. [LATOYA SMITH] Is that what, tell me about them burnout. Do you think that’s even more so like, just in general, like, hey, stuff we learned in school, if you don’t take time for yourself, your burnout? Are you talking about, hey, since the pandemic these last few years have been rough, this is just a totally different game. [SHANNON] I think it’s a totally different game right now. I actually think it’s a reach crisis level since the pandemic. I read a statistic that prior to the pandemic in general maybe 30% of practitioners in the counseling or mental health field were burnt out. That’s still a big number, but it was 30% and since the pandemic in the past two years, that number has risen to between 60% to 90% of people are burnt out. I mean, that’s amazing, that difference, I think. It’s true, if you start, if you have therapist friends, how many of them said, I’m burnt out, I’m leaving the field, or I’m burnt out, I’m taking a break, or I’m leaving my agency, or I’m doing this or that, or how many, how has burnt-out affect your audience themselves? I know I’ve been through burnout before, I don’t know if you have. It is not fun. It’s hard to come back from that. So I really look at the, I call it a trifecta, three different things that can help long-term with preventing burnout. There’s obviously all the self-care stuff, but the three things that I really look at are, one, doing your own work, so engaging in your own therapy, self-growth, getting your own support. Two, if you’re a business owner, whether you’re a solo practitioner or a group practitioner, you’re getting business consultation about how to run your group and your practice, then three clinical consultation. I think the combination of all three of those things can be quite an investment but you’re also investing in yourself. We are our instrument, the instrument that we use to do our work, why wouldn’t we make sure that it’s tuned as fine as as it could be. [LATOYA] But again, that’s a great, I mean, I want to come back to what we’re talking about. I think you were saying great things about burnout. I want to chat about more, but that’s a great thing too, as far as building culture where it’s three parts broken down. You said the clinical, the business consultation and then self-care slash we’re doing our own work, seeing our own therapists. But making clinical part of the culture, all that should be part of the culture anyway. Well, the business consultation everybody doesn’t need to know about, but unless whatever. But the own part, the self-care and then that culture work of clinical consultation where it doesn’t seem like it’s a separate brand. It seems like it’s just this is what we do. Like we operate like this machine. The same way we want everybody to be healthy. But you gave some, that stat, now that blows my mind. You said 60 to 90% are dealing with burnout because since the pandemic, I mean most people are full and even our, and then with some people that full meter goes up sometimes. If you’re full of this number, okay, I’ll add something, you’re full or you go lower, you’re full regardless of what it is, because the phones just kept ringing and ringing and ringing and still are and then some people realizing the weight of what they’ve been carrying in the last couple years. And therapists are human too. Then sometimes we’re hearing and seeing things that yes, we went to school, yes, we got our license, but woo and then there’s nothing wrong with that, even refresher or a new way about going about doing things or it also feels good to bounce ideas off another licensed professional when it comes to clinical and not having to handle this stuff on your own. [SHANNON] I think that’s a big part of it. We don’t ever want anyone to practice in isolation because that is a recipe for disaster in so many different ways. So if you’re building your community around you either part of a group or the relationship you’re developing with your clinical supervisor or consultant, that is going to be a big huge protective factor. We know that in therapy most of the healing happens in the relationship. I think 95% of the healing happens from the development of the relationship between the therapist and the client. Well, it’s actually the same. I would venture to say between the therapist and the supervisor the healing from burnout, the burnout prevention, the growth and development happens through that relationship. [LATOYA] Sometimes too, I’ve said this and you let me know how you feel about it, I know I’m just throwing you questions. I know you’re like, what are you about to ask me? We didn’t talk about this before we record. But it’s hard, that’s why you need support on a team because it’s hard to wear so many hats at once because something’s going to, it seems like something’s going to lose out. If I’m focusing so much on the clinical, okay, If I don’t have somebody catching this admin, the admin’s losing out. If I’m focusing so much on the admin and running and growing my business, if I don’t have somebody that’s coming in supporting me with the clinical and the clinical care that we provide is not going to be at the best level that we know it can be at. Again, that’s why it’s good that you delegate, you have people doing stuff and practice owners that I know listen to this podcast. It’s good to have people where you delegate things out to, like you said a minute ago where I’m not doing everything because if you try to do everything, some stuff is losing out. Where we think we’re providing good care and we’re going off what we learned in textbooks years ago that’s not working right now. [SHANNON] Yes, and I think the thing that really does get the aside as you’re trying to grow your business and figure out all that move your mind from like clinical work to like business admin, marketing work, the clinical stuff does get set aside. I guess I just want to remind people that that is so important. That’s why we’re in this field and that’s our field. The field needs you, needs you as therapist. It needs your therapist and your team, the community. Think it really philosophical here, the world needs us right now, so what can you do to maintain the focus on the clinical work? [LATOYA] You said you think the, I know you said there’s no right way to do it, but maybe the best way looking at who your practice niche is and looking at topics that you either constantly hear clients talk about when they call in that initial call, this is the area I’m dealing with, this is, and then beginning to educate ourselves more in that specific area so that we can be a better fit to the population that we serve. [SHANNON] Yes, absolutely. For example, like through firelight supervision, which is our supervision and consultation branch through clinical consultation, we conserve anyone in the United States because if you’re fully licensed, you’re not bound by state lines from who you get clinical consultation from. So we’re offering a number of different specialized and generalized groups. We have like a general consultation group for people, therapists that work with adults and then we have a consultation group for neurodiverse therapists who identify as, self-identify as neurodiverse because they want to be in a group with other people who think that way and work that way. Then we have a consultation group for HSP, highly sensitive persons who also identify as therapists. We have a trauma consultation group. We have a consultation group that works for therapists that work with children and adolescents. So there’s a ton of different areas you can specialize in or you can maybe you’re just starting out in the field, you’re just seeing a variety of people or you’re really general as a therapist. Maybe you want to just join a community of people who are just as passionate about getting clinical consultation as you are and you just want a more generalized group. I don’t know if that answers your questions, your question but there’s just so many different ways that you can go in, just like with clinical work, you can specialize in one thing or another or this, and you’re like, I didn’t even know that was a specialty area. So you can get to that same point with your ongoing professional development. Now I wanted to say one more thing LaToya, one of the things you said made me think of this, I really want to challenge the status quo that like consultation or supervision ends after licensure. Your clinical development should be a lifetime or at least your professional lifetime, so it should be ongoing. So what are you doing besides just at the last minute getting those CEUs to get licensed again? What are you doing to commit to your ongoing lifetime professional development? [LATOYA] Yes, that’s a great point. That’s a really good point. Do you ever, I think I asked you this in the beginning too, but do you ever find people, what if somebody does have somebody on their team, a licensed therapist, who feels like they don’t need clinical consultation? Because what do you, I’m already licensed. I’m fine. I know how to do it. I’m an expert [SHANNON] Oh gosh, that is such a common occurrence actually. I think that would be someone who you would want to bring back to some data. Well, gosh, your outcomes are really showing that most of your clients are leaving after three sessions or six sessions and I just look at maybe someone else who is able to retain their clients for 20 to 30 sessions. I just wonder, I don’t know what the difference is, but I’m thinking that that’s something worth exploring and clinical consultation is a good spot, good time to explore that. So when you have someone who really isn’t as insight-oriented or isn’t as passionate about professional development, it’s, they’re usually afraid of something. There’s usually either some fear or shame or anxiety there. Again, while we don’t want to get into them practice of doing the therapeutic work with our staff, we can certainly say that might be something you want to work on in your own therapy or in your own work. It’s okay to refer them to someone. Then again, I always go back to data. Well, this data tells me this and this data tells me this, that we’re sending you trauma clients, but they seem to say that it’s not a good fit with you. So that makes me think you might need some area work in the area of trauma work if that’s who you want to work with. [LATOYA] Yes, that’s a great point. That’s a great point you added. This is all good because even when it comes to whether it be feedback from clients or surveys, however any practice does it, yes that stuff that we hear on those papers or our clients tell us, that’s also telling us where we need some more clinical consultation in those areas. So that’s a great point. Okay, well how do you gather information? What do we know to get, like, hey, what are the clients saying? Because the same way, like I learned years ago, if you don’t know what your niche is, your client’s going to tell you what your niche is. They’re going to be like my friend referred me for this. You get these phone calls, they’ll come out of nowhere but then they’ll also tell you, when they’re on, hey listen for what they also say what they need or hey, I really wanted more of this, or oh, I’ll go over here to this practice because they have what I’m looking for, but what is that? And also getting consultation around that area if it’s affecting your practice in a negative way. [SHANNON] Yes, because it all comes back to client outcomes. Are the clients getting the treatment that they deserve and the outcomes that they deserve from the treatment that you’re providing. [LATOYA] This is awesome. I like this. So first things first, really understanding your niche first. First of all, let me back up, I love the things you said. Separate the two. Whoever’s doing the admin consultation should not be doing the clinical consultation. They shouldn’t be coming from the same person. They should be different people. Then understanding that clinical consultation or the things that we’re looking at, but really focusing on with self within the practice. Of course, we’re building the practice, business, consultation, personal work, our own work with our own therapists and self-care but then that clinical consultation piece to it. And a good way to get started with this, it’s understanding our niche, understanding the population that we serve, and then how can we strengthen our skillset so that we can serve them better? Those are the things we’re looking at when it comes to clinical consultation. [SHANNON] I think that’s a really good summary. [LATOYA] Thank you. [SHANNON] I could talk about this stuff all day. Oh my gosh. [LATOYA] So what if people were like what, I still want to learn more how to do it. Do you consult people on this too? Or you just — [SHANNON] We do, we do, actually. We provide supervision, that’s for people who are provisionally licensed who need those two years or however many years under, who’s practicing under a supervisor’s license. We do provide that, but we’re only licensed in a few, I only have supervisors in a few states right now. We offer individual and group for that, modalities for that. Then we offer individual and group consultations, so anyone who’s fully licensed. Our groups meet anywhere from once to twice a month or if you’re coming to us for individual consultation, I would say that usually is about once or twice a month. Then we offer supervision of your supervision. So that’s a fairly, I know, who knew that all this stuff was even out there. That’s a fairly new, I would say type of service or concept, but it makes sense. You have a lot of development to do as a supervisor, just as you had a lot of development to do as a clinician and so it makes sense to have supervision of your supervision that you’re providing. [LATOYA] That’s the truth. That is the truth. Again, ever learning, never arrived. It’s always something to learn from the business side to clinical side. I’m a supervisor too, same thing I’m thinking, I would love, I would love that. Because you never, because you get stale. Just anything, you get stagnant and stale if you don’t refresh. So I think this is a dope way to refresh. [SHANNON] Thanks. [LATOYA] Shannon anything else you want to leave with those out here growing the practice? Or what would you say now to these group practice owners who say, hey, I need to, we need that refresh, like this clinical consultation, I don’t want things to get stale. Anything you want to leave them with? [SHANNON] Oh gosh, well, I’m just so excited that they’re thinking like that now, so that’s awesome. Thank you for supporting me in that. I guess them one thing I would say is ask your team what do they need? What clinical support are they craving or that they have never been asked before that they might need or be interested in? I ask all my clinicians what clinical support would be the best? Do you want a group, do you want more individual work? Do you want more specialized work? Do you just want to be part of a community, like a group community where you’re connecting with other people? What would work best for you? Then I get different answers. So you don’t have like, you can’t have like a one thing fits everyone type of, so I have one, I have an advanced clinician who gets external clinical consultation because I can’t, no one on our team can provide that to her in her specialty area. I pay for that and I’m happy to pay for that because that makes her, that’s one of our specialty areas that we bring in clients for. The better she gets at that, the more clients will bring in for that specialty area? So yes, figure out what you can do budget-wise, figure out what your team and your staff want and are asking for. Figure out what you can do as a practice owner if you have 109s versus what you can do as a W2 employer. Then yes, and then just, I would say once a year, once every three months or so, re-evaluate what you’re doing. See, hey, how is this working? Is it building our culture? Is it retaining our clients? Is it bringing in new clients? Is it making our staff happy? [LATOYA] This is awesome. Thank you so much, Shannon. I appreciate it. [SHANNON] Yes, thank you. [LATOYA] I love the stuff that you’re posting to social media. I even looked on the website. You seem very like just always training your staff on something or on top of it or these men talks. I don’t know. I like it, I like it. I like it all. Thank you so much for being a guest on the podcast. I appreciate you. [SHANNON] Thanks LaToya. You can find us at firelightsupervision.com. Check it out. We’d love to hear from you. [LATOYA] Thank you. All right, Shannon, before we jump off and, in the podcast, tell everybody how they can reach you. I know I said numerous times that I see you on social media, but tell them how they can find you if they want to get in touch, have any questions or just want to follow you on social media. [SHANNON] Yes, that’s great. I’m so glad you found us on social media. That’s the point of social media, is to get other people to discover you. We are on Instagram, so instagram.com/firelightsupervision and our website is firelightsupervision.com. It lists out all the different services we offer. You can schedule a free phone consultation with any one of our supervisors. You can look at the different group, consultation groups that we’re offering and schedule a consultation call with the group leader there. Yes, there’s just a lot of different information to be found on our website and through our socials. [LATOYA] Awesome. Well thank you so much Shannon, and I look forward to chatting with you even more in the future. [SHANNON] Thanks so much, LaToya. It’s an honor to be here. [LATOYA] Thanks once again to Therapy Notes for sponsoring this episode. Use the promo code [JOE] to get three free months to try out Therapy Notes for free, no strings attached and remember, telehealth is included with every subscription for free. If you love this podcast, please be sure to rate and review. This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or any other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.