[ALISON PIDGEON]
You are listening to the Grow a Group Practice podcast. Whether you were thinking about starting a group practice or in the beginning stages, or want to learn how to scale up your already existing group practice, you are in the right place. I’m Alison Pidgeon, your host, a serial entrepreneur with four businesses, one of which is a large group practice that I started in 2015. Each week, I feature a guest or topic that is relevant to group practice owners. Let’s get started.

Hi and welcome to the Grow a Group Practice podcast. I’m Alison Pidgeon. We’re doing a series right now with three different group practice owners who have all on the journey of starting their own group practice recently. Today we’re talking to Jenny Walters, who is a consulting client of mine, and she’s the founder and clinical director of Highland Park Holistic Psychotherapy in Los Angeles, California. She has done an awesome job growing her group practice and she’s going to tell you all about what they do and who they see.

Just wanted to let if you are interested in starting your own group practice, we are starting Group Practice Launch this week, actually. So there’s still time to sign up. That’s our membership community for folks who want to start a group practice, who want the step by step. Whitney Owens and I lead the group together. We have weekly live webinars where you can ask questions, there’s e-courses and videos and all kinds of resources for you. So if you’re interested in signing up the doors will be open for a more days. You can go to practiceofthepractice.com/grouppracticelaunch to sign up. Yes, if you’re going to start a group practice this year, that’s definitely the place to be.
[ALISON]
So I hope you enjoy my interview today with Jenny Walters. Hi, Jenny. Welcome to the podcast.
[JENNY WALTERS]
Hi Alison. Thanks for having me.
[ALISON]
I’m excited to talk with you today. Can you start out by introducing yourself in your practice?
[JENNY]
Sure. My name’s Jenny Walters and I am the founder and clinical director of Highland Park Holistic Psychotherapy in Los Angeles, California.
[ALISON]
Excellent. Do you have a specialty as a group practice?
[JENNY]
Well, we specialize in the sense, outwardly we’re holistic in the sense that this is a word that people are interested in in Los Angeles. They are curious about mind, body connection. So we wanted to brand in a way that helped people understand that all of those ways of conceptualizing what’s going on for them is something that we’re thinking about. So we have a lot of therapists who work somatically, we also have therapists who work in a more psychodynamic, psychoanalytic style. So there’s more of that working with the unconscious. These are things that we tried to capture with the branding around the holistic world, and that we don’t see anyone as broken, but a whole human being that needs therapy and needs help, and that we’re there to do that. But some of the modalities we practice are internal family systems, EMDR, trauma informed, those kinds of approaches.
[ALISON]
Very nice. So take me back to when you first started thinking about starting a group practice. What was that decision making process like for you?
[JENNY]
Well, I wish I could say that it was sort of this decisive moment, but this isn’t a great metaphor, but like a frog slowly boiling in water. I knew I wanted to supervise. I really, really enjoyed the supervision process. When I was a supervisee, I loved learning, and so I really liked the idea of collaborating and continuing with that. So as soon as I was able to do the training to be a supervisor, I did, and I hired my first employee and it was just she and I for a long while. Then I brought on the second one and then I brought on a third, which at that time was the most, three MFT could have in California. They’ve just changed that, but we could only have three.

That was sort of my group practice for a few years. Then when pandemic started I had 28 clients, three employees, and I was quickly headed toward burnout. I could not maintain that schedule, especially telemedicine. I mean, I think we all were struggling in different ways. So I sort of made, that’s when I made a decision to change my business model so that I could see fewer clients, but still I really enjoyed the, like I said, the collaborative process of supervision and consultation. So that’s when I made the decision to really pivot, as we like to say more thoughtfully toward a group practice.
[ALISON]
So what was your thinking at that time? Was it, I really need to formalize what I’m doing here, or I need to figure out how I can grow so that I can scale back on the clients I’m seeing?
[JENNY]
Well, it was a decision to to scale back for myself to create a more sustainable financial income model for myself long term. I was also, I knew that I always wanted to do something besides one-on-one therapy. I just have a variety of interests and things and so I wanted to get out of that one-on-one work. I thought this could be a way to do that. I think we’ve all thought too, as group practice owners, it’s a lonely profession being a therapist. So the idea of having a team really appealed to me. There were a lot of things that excited me about it but I decided that if I’m going to do this, I need to talk to people who already you’ve done it because I don’t want to reinvent the wheel here.
[ALISON]
That was around the time that you and I connected because you obviously you’d gotten things going on your own and then you realized okey, oh, if I want to really make this more than it is now, I probably need to get some help.
[JENNY]
Exactly. So I reached out to you and I decided to just go for it. I got a business loan. I’ll be honest, I have other little group practice owner groups that I hang out in and I’m shocked to learn that many of them still don’t have VAs or are still doing everything themselves. I would be in the fetal position if that, I know I don’t know how they’re doing it. Some of them have like 20 clients. I mean, kudos, but I couldn’t do that. So I knew I needed help and so I got a business loan and part of that, I invested in working with you. I went for, I just went for the one-on-one package.

I was like, I don’t want to do a six-month mastermind. I wanted to just figure this out as quickly as possible and start implementing systems and things like that. So I worked with you and I also hired a VA before I could afford one. I used the loan money to pay her, and she started out five hours a week. She’s now full time. We’re actually grooming her for a leadership position in the practice. She’s actually going to relocate to move. She’s studying to be a therapist in Denver and she’s actually going to move to Los Angeles to join our practice full-time. So that was a really great decision and I’m just really thrilled with how it’s turned out. But yes, I couldn’t afford an assistant when I hired her, so I spent loan money and I’m so glad I did because I believe that’s, what’s facilitated the growth that’s happened over the past two years. It’s happened pretty quickly.
[ALISON]
So that’s the amount of time that you’ve grown from three clinicians to nine clinicians, right?
[JENNY]
Yes. Well, nine employees. We have, there’s eight clinicians including myself and then of course the chief care coordinator. We’ve given her an upgrade on her title from VA .
[ALISON]
That’s a great title. That’s amazing. I think too so many people have that mindset, that hurdle like you had, like, I don’t have the money to hire a VA, but I know I need one. So hindsight being 2020, do you think that helped you to become profitable more quickly or just helped you to scale up more quickly? Or what was the outcome of that?
[JENNY]
I think it allowed, I think both. I think it allowed me to implement systems that got us organized right out of the gate. So I think it prevented a lot of missteps and mistakes because I just, I created this, my coordinator, her name is Julie. So I’m always like WWJD like, what would Julie do? I’m always like, is this something that Julie could do, like whenever a task or I would get a great idea or I would have an idea for problem solving a system I’d be like, okay, is this something Julie could do? And the answer is yes, because she’s incredibly capable. So it handed over to her. It freed me up to be thinking creatively, to be problem solving, to be thinking big picture, to be business planning.

Then I had someone who was implementing and then we would collaborate and how’s it going? What’s working, what’s not working. I would get her feedback and we would make the tweaks and the adjustments. When we would learn, I was always in Group Practice Boss, paying attention to what other people are doing, take it back to Julie and be like, okay, hey, I heard this idea. Let’s try it. How’s it working what we’re doing? Should we, it’s not broken, don’t fix it, or is it something that we could improve? So it was really, I think it just expedited the streamlining of things to have her there, to have her help.
[ALISON]
That’s amazing when you have a really capable assistant.
[JENNY]
Yes.
[ALISON]
How much you can get done and how much you can get off your plate. Very cool. So tell me about what were some of the initial struggles that you had, or maybe some mistakes that you made. Because we all do, even though we may reach out to get help from a consultant or something like that. It’s just there’s always that trial and error process. What did you learn from your mistakes?
[JENNY]
I think the biggest learning curve for me has been to move out of people pleaser into more of a leadership mindset. Yes, just sort of my own personal growth in that area of letting go of the hope that everyone likes me. I’ve had to let some people go unfortunately, and I can look back on those interview processes and realize I didn’t really, I have a much more thorough interview process now. I bring other team members on in the interview process. It’s not just me vetting because I will want to know what their intuition is and what’s their hit. So those are some mistakes I made early on that I would get into interviews and just have these really lovely conversations with people and think this is great and they are great, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll make a great employee.
[ALISON]
Can we dig into those two things for a minute because I feel like those are such huge problems that so many people run into. We talk about that almost all the time, I feel like in Group Practice Boss, how people struggle with really stepping into that leadership role and not necessarily just doing things to make everybody happy. Then also the hiring process, I know that’s something we worked on a lot reviewing what your process was and how do you really ask the right questions and set up the process correctly so that you’re weeding out who isn’t a good fit and then obviously attracting the people who are the right fit.
[JENNY]
Right.
[ALISON]
So it sounds like you did a lot with, like you said, it was more just like, oh, this person seems nice. Then there were maybe a lot of other facets that you were looking at once you learned what the process was
[JENNY]
Yes. Well, I mean, you don’t even realize, I think you make a lot of assumptions that people know what or that they’re going to do it the way that you would do it. I think part of that in my life is just been my own personal development around, I think growing up, I just assumed everyone knew more than I did. I won’t get into where that came from but that’s my own, that’s between me and my therapist. But realizing no, I actually do know some things and I know, especially about running a practice, I know more than the people that I’m hiring who have not run a group practice and I know what it takes to be a good member and participant in a group practice.

So really trusting my intuition as well has been a big thing of I also am someone who wants to give everybody a chance. I can really see that therapist thing of always coming from that empathic place and understanding why, oh, well, I get it. I get where she’s coming from and sort of like me, that’s not going to serve you when you’re trying to be discerning about who you’re hiring. So just, those are just little tweaks inside of myself that I had to pay attention to and adjust.
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[ALISON PIDGEON]
So are there questions that you ask now in the hiring process or certain things that you look for in a candidate?
[JENNY]
Yes, I look, I mean, what are those, there’s different books that have the different like three factors? I think you’ve talked about it. It’s like hungry, humble and smart, I think is what so I —
[ALISON]
From the ideal team player.
[JENNY]
Yes. So I definitely listen for those. I can tell when someone is performing in an interview and when they’re letting something real be there. I feel like I’m getting better at listening for that. So I’m asking questions, but I’m listening with all of my senses and my intuition and everything. But I ask questions like can you describe, have you had a work situation where you had to work with someone very difficult, not a client, but actually like a coworker or a supervisor, a boss? How did you handle it? What did that feel like? What was it like for you? How do you show up in those kinds of situations?

A question I just learned that I like is what do you think about therapists going to their own therapy? What do you think about therapists in therapy? I think is the question and I like that because it’s a way for me to understand their relationship to therapy personally. I don’t need them to tell me what they’re doing in therapy or if they’re even going, but it helps me understand if they’re going to be a fit in my practice because in my practice that is a big part of our culture, working on your own stuff and keeping your side of the street clean and that that’s where a lot of learning comes in and that’s how you can learn to be a better therapist; is to sort of be in your own doing your own personal work. So that’s a way for me to gauge if that’s going to be a fit. Yes, those are a couple that come to mind.
[ALISON]
I really like that. That’s really interesting. Just going back to what you were talking about too trying to get away from the people pleaser role that you might have been in before and changing your mindset around what being a leader really is about. Obviously people pleasing, isn’t going to be that effective. At least not for the long term.
[JENNY]
Not for the long term.
[ALISON]
Yes. So what do you now or how do you think about leadership now? I’ll give you an example. I often think about the quote, “you can either be liked or respected.” And so I’ve decided I’d rather be respected. Also I’ve learned that I have to make decisions about what’s best for the business as a whole and not any one individual person. So that’s some of my guiding principles around leadership.
[JENNY]
I love that. I mean, I think that it’s a in progress, but the thing I keep coming back to is that, again, this is a therapist in me. Containment feels good. Knowing what someone’s boundaries are, knowing where the edges are, that is always, that feels good to children and I think feels good for all of us when we know what’s okay, what’s not okay. It’s my job to decide what those edges and boundaries are and to hold them. So when I’ve had to make difficult decisions, I try to think about it from that place of, is this contributing to something that is helpful, building the foundation creating or even just my consistency. Being consistent with those boundaries, I think feels good. People know where the edges are. It’s like a kid. I mean, not to say that my employees are children, they’re obviously not, but there is like a power dynamic here. How do you enable people to their own power I think is by being in that clear decisive boundary place.
[ALISON]
Yes. I love that you brought that up because I’m huge on boundaries too, with the staff, even if it’s something that I can’t necessarily do that I would like to do. Like I’d love to pay all the staff a million dollars a year but I just don’t have that money. So there’s got to be boundaries with that. I feel like when you’re consistent as a leader and they sort of know what to expect from you, they feel safe. They trust you and then they want to stay as opposed to somebody who’s like chaotic and you’re never quite sure what to expect. Are they going to fly off the handle? Are they going to be fine with it? That’s just a stressful work environment.
[JENNY]
Yes.
[ALISON]
I think, like you said, deciding what the boundaries are, sticking to those. Then I find that when I set the boundaries, my staff respects me for that. They’re like, okay, I get it. I give them an explanation most of the time, but I’ve never had somebody really revolt around setting boundaries.
[JENNY]
That’s been my experience too. I think for me, it’s just growing my own, as we say, an EMDR window of tolerance. It’s like with boundary work with clients, it’s, you have to start to be able to tolerate your own discomfort in setting them. That’s really, it’s not an indicator that the boundary isn’t appropriate or that you shouldn’t set it. And I try to be really, I just try to tell the truth with my team. Like you were saying, if the money’s not there, I think they trust my intentions and they trust one of the founding values for me of my practices that I want to support therapists and healers to prevent burnout so that they can do the work that they’re meant to do in this world.

I think we need the healers more than ever, and they can’t do it if they’re making no money and they’re seeing 40 clients a week and they’re burned out. A lot of my clinicians came from the community mental health system and they are traumatized and they are burned out. So I think they trust that I’m trying to give, create a different experience for them that’s more supportive so that when I say no, they know that it is with good reason that it’s not to try punish or deprive.
[ALISON]
That you said it very well. You said towards the beginning of our conversation how you wanted to build up your group practice so that you could scale back on the amount of clients that you were seeing. So how have you gotten to that point yet?
[JENNY]
I’m working toward it. I still have a little ways to go. Part of that has been transitioning financially. So a cross fade in terms of, as the practice builds, I can remove some of my revenue. Then also, first and foremost, it’s about being mindful of my clients. There are clients who I feel can transition out more easily than others. So I’m just been taking my time with that, but I should be there. I wanted to get down to six. I mean, it’s funny, because I’m always like, oh, I think if I have 15, that’ll be good. Then I’m like, yes, I think if it’ll be 12 and then now maybe nine and now I’m like at nine and I’m like, yes, I think six. I’ll probably get down to like, I think zero maybe. That’s not because I don’t, I love doing therapy. I just feel called to do other things right now. I’m really enjoying the entrepreneurial aspect of this. I really am enjoying the collaborative clinical culture that we’re creating. I want to do my own creative work. So yes. It’s a work in progress.
[ALISON]
I think it always is. It’s always this little process, but I think that’s the goal for so many people. It’s like, okay, let’s have enough clinicians so that I can start to scale back on my caseload. I was just curious now that you have more time available because you don’t see as many clients, do you find that you’re doing different things than you were even six months to a year ago in the business?
[JENNY]
I’m taking lunch breaks, so that’s exciting. That’s been a game changer. In the business am I doing different things? Yes, I think I’m spending time business planning. I’m thinking about next phase. I always wanted to keep the practice. I had an idea of keeping it at a certain number of clinicians just to maintain a culture. Now it’s like, well, is that necessary? Or what does that look like? I’m thinking about maybe opening, doing telemedicine in another state. I mean, it’s just a fun creative time of what do I want to do? At the end of last year I was really, I really thought I was going to be doing online courses and doing that whole trajectory.

I signed up for a class, like a marketing launch class at the end of the year. My schedule was finally lightning. I thought I have the time and I got into the class and I immediately was like, I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to start an online movement. And I realized how sort of addicted to productivity I had become and how much that was ingrained in my worth. I had just been going nonstop for two years with COVID and I just slammed the breaks on and allowed myself to finally just have some of the free time to myself that I had freed up and enjoy it.

At first it was very uncomfortable. I felt like you failed or you’re a quitter? Then I was like, or maybe I’m just tired. Maybe I can look back on what I’ve accomplished and that can be enough. So now I find myself, now that I’ve let go of those expectations that I had just sort of automatically put on myself, it’s been a fun time of well, I don’t know what’s next, but we’ll see. I’m excited I’m just trying to tune into what I want be what I want it to feel like.
[ALISON]
That’s amazing. I actually went through something very similar when my schedule started to get less busy and I had little pockets of free time and I was sitting there like, wait, am I supposed to be doing something? This feels wrong that I’m just sitting here not doing anything.
[JENNY]
Yes.
[ALISON]
You have to get used to it.
[JENNY]
You have to get used to it and have to tell yourself it’s okay. For me right now I’m just working. In my former life, I was a photographer and a visual artist and I have an MFA and I taught art at colleges and things. So I’m returning to my creative work, which was always the goal. I just had forgotten that and my creative work right now has no real outcome. And that’s uncomfortable. I think when you’re in an entrepreneurial mindset, it’s very results-oriented all the time and you’re constantly gauging that and is this working? If not make an adjustment. Then the creative, that part of me is, eh, throw it at the wall. See what sticks. I don’t know. I don’t know what this is going to be. It might be a book. It might be a painting, maybe not. So it’s interesting to engage that part of myself again.
[ALISON]
I think too having that creative outlet just helps all around with then being more productive when you are working.
[JENNY]
I agree. That’s the counterintuitive piece, is that, someone told me go in without an end goal and it will actually be more productive. I was like what? Because I love an end goal. I love a goal. But it’s true, just letting go of that truly has been more productive. I’ve had more ideas and yes, so it’s an interesting thing.
[ALISON]
Very cool. So if somebody listening right now is thinking about starting a group practice or in the very early stages, what advice would you have for them?
[JENNY]
Wow, just be clear on your why, because that’s the thing that you’ll return to when moments are tough. And just on a practical, get an assistant as soon as possible. Just spend the money, like invest the money. It’s a cliché, but it takes money to make money. I mean, just wrap your head around. I think moving from the mindset of a solo practice to a group practice, you have to understand it is a business and it takes money. You need money to start a business. So just come into acceptance around that like it’s okay. It’s okay to have some debt and have a plan for how you’re going to pay that debt back. But it is priceless, that investment and getting that help out of the gate, I think will save you so much headache and time in the long run.
[ALISON]
That’s great advice. Jenny if folks want to check out your private practice, how can they find your website?
[JENNY]
Sure. We’re at highlandparktherapy.com. We’re on Instagram, Highland Park, oh God, Highland Park Holistic Therapy. That’s it. We couldn’t fit the whole psychotherapy on there. So it’s Highland Park Holistic Therapy on Instagram. I’m @Jenny Therapy on Instagram.
[ALISON]
Nice. Awesome. Well, it’s been so great to talk with you and to work with you and see all the progress that you made since we started working together. I’m just super impressed with everything that you’ve accomplished. So congratulations.
[JENNY]
Thanks Alison. I really couldn’t have done it without your help. It was such an integral vital part of everything. So great to just be able to have those conversations and ask the questions and you have such solid answers and so much great advice. So thank you.
[ALISON]
Oh, thank you.

Well, I wanted to say thank you one more time to Brighter Vision, our sponsor for today’s episode. I have a brighter vision website. I’ve always been very happy with it. We actually have recently refreshed our website because it was made back in 2016. So we went in and modernized it and I’m really happy with the result. If you are ready to get an amazing website and get three months free, take advantage of our deal over at brightervision.com/joe, that’s J-O-E. I’ll talk to you all next time.

Thanks so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed that interview. I really enjoyed working and talking with Jenny. She just does everything at such a high level, and it’s so cool to see all of the success that she is having with her group practice. If you want to start your own group practice, definitely check out our membership community Group Practice Launch. It is open for a few more days. You can go to practiceofthepractice.com/grouppracticelaunch to sign up. Whitney Owens and I will lead you step by step over six months of how to start a group practice. So I will talk to you all next time.

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This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. This is given with the understanding that neither the host, Practice of the Practice, or the guests are providing legal, mental health, or other professional information. If you need a professional, you should find one.