Hiring Associates into Your New Group Practice with Dr. Larry Beer | POP 856

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Hiring Associates into Your New Group Practice with Dr. Larry Beer | POP 856

Why should you bring celebration into business? What is a great bonus of hiring associates into your new group practice? How can you make your practice a better place for everyone involved?

In this podcast episode, Joe Sanok speaks about growing a group practice with Dr. Larry Beer.

Podcast Sponsor: Level Up

An image of the podcast sponsor, Level Up Week is captured. Level Up Week sponsors the Practice of the Practice, a therapist podcast.

During Level Up Week, we are offering over 20 webinars focused on helping you Level Up totally for FREE.

We have guests like Valerie Harris, talking about how to grow your practice with insurance. We have speakers from the Speaker Lab. We’re going to talk with you about the new public speaking gigs, as well as Experts on how to get a TEDx talk as well as every single phase of practice.

We’re talking about five simple marketing techniques you’d have to master and how to add virtual assistants to your practice. We have Profit First professionals coming in to teach you how to grow your money.

Whether you’re starting a practice, growing a group practice, or expanding to do multiple streams of income, Level Up Week is for you. 

See all of the webinars that you can register for over at practiceofthepractice.com/levelup

Meet Dr. Larry Beer

A photo of Dr. Larry Beer is captured.
He is the founder and president of Child and Family Psychological Services. Dr. Beer is featured on the Practice of the Practice.

Dr. Larry Beer is the founder and president of Child and Family Psychological Services. He is a licensed psychologist and licensed professional counselor who sees approximately 25 clients a week.

Dr. Larry is also an adjunct assistant professor in the CECP program at WMU and a fellow of 2 divisions of APA and a former president of Division 51 (Men and masculinities)

Visit the Child and Family Psychological Services and find out more about Dr. Larry on LinkedInTwitter, and Facebook.

In This Podcast

  • A wonderful bonus of running a group practice
  • Bring celebration into business
  • What to evaluate in your practice to make it a better place
  • How to handle hiring tension
  • Working with business partners
  • Dr. Beer’s advice to private practitioners

A wonderful bonus of running a group practice

There are many benefits to starting and running a group practice; from earning more money to reaching more clients, and being your boss.

When different clinicians work alongside one another, they share ideas and support, and all add to the growing capacity and force behind the mission and vision of the group practice.

When people came aboard, they would add their own special something to the mix where everybody else had, and so I really benefitted from having associates join. They had ideas that really helped the whole practice.

Dr. Beer

Bring celebration into business

Celebrating doesn’t only have to be for personal accomplishments.

You can – and should – celebrate your professional progress as well, especially alongside your colleagues!

Celebrations [in business] help to create a positive [and] affirming atmosphere.

Dr. Beer

On one level, people are simple creatures in that they are drawn to what makes them feel good and they avoid or try to leave what makes them feel bad.

So, when it comes to business, how does it make you feel? How does it make your employees feel? Can you increase the overall efficiency and effectiveness of your practice by intentionally making it a place where people want to work?

I think sometimes people forget that at the core of what we do [is] that we’re helping people improve the quality of their lives. It’s a great mission, and so, that’s what we did [in our practice as well].

Dr. Beer

What to evaluate in your practice to make it a better place

Ask the CEO, ask yourself:

  • What type of practice would you like to be part of?
  • What would feel good for you if you were a clinician working in your practice?

Once you have your answer, take the first step to make that place a reality!

How to handle hiring tension

You want to bring people [on board] that can really enhance what you already have and when that person comes aboard, you’re not just getting them but you’re also getting their network … so if you get a quality person aboard, it reflects positively upon the entire practice and will help referrals, and those referrals will go to some of my existing associates.

Dr. Beer

Sometimes group practice owners can struggle with hiring new associates not because it is difficult to find them, but because their current clinicians do not yet have full caseloads.

However, you as the CEO of the group practice can consider the perspectives of your clinicians, but you ultimately see the bigger picture and therefore need to make the final calls.

When you are hiring new associates, ask these two questions:

  • Are they good with people? Are they community-oriented, and will they contribute to it?
  • Are they reliable? If they say that they are going to do something, can you trust them that they will do what they say?

Working with business partners

Some group practice owners are unsure of whether to work with practice partners because, as with anything, there are pros and cons with either choice.

It could be more profitable because even though you share the revenues, you can have greater revenue by the amount of volume that you can create by the joint margins to open multiple locations.

Whatever you do, keep in mind [that] you have to try and find a formula that feels fair to all parties because if the other person doesn’t feel like it’s fair, they’re going to wind up resenting you and that’s going to be a toxic factor in the environment and your relationship with them, so you don’t want that.

Dr. Beer

Let fairness and self-evaluation about what you would want as well be core aspects of your decision-making process.

Dr. Beer’s advice to private practitioners

Take on a great new adventure! Owning a group practice can be a difficult journey, but it is completely worth it. Work with others and create a great business that you are proud to be leading.

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Meet Joe Sanok

A photo of Joe Sanok is displayed. Joe, private practice consultant, offers helpful advice for group practice owners to grow their private practice. His therapist podcast, Practice of the Practice, offers this advice.

Joe Sanok helps counselors to create thriving practices that are the envy of other counselors. He has helped counselors to grow their businesses by 50-500% and is proud of all the private practice owners that are growing their income, influence, and impact on the world. Click here to explore consulting with Joe.

Thanks For Listening!

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Podcast Transcription

[JOE SANOK] March 20th through 23rd is Level Up Week. We are offering over 20 webinars focused on helping you level up totally for free. We have guests like Valerie Harris talking about how to grow your practice with interns, we have speakers from the Speaker Lab who are going to talk with you about getting public speaking gigs, as well as experts on how to get a TEDx Talk and every single phase of practice. We’re talking about five simple marketing techniques you have to master, how to add virtual assistance to your practice, and we have Profit First professionals coming in to teach you how to grow your money. Whether you’re starting a practice, growing a group of practice, or expanding to do multiple streams of incomes Level Up Week is for you. Mark your calendars March 20th through 23rd and see all of the webinars that you can register for over at practiceofthepractice.com/leveleup. Again, that’s practiceofthepractice.com/leveleup. This is the Practice of the Practice Podcast with Joe Sanok, episode 856. I’m Joe Sanok, your host, and welcome to the Practice of the Practice Podcast. I hope you are doing amazing today. Today is the 21st of March and we are in the middle of Level Up Week. Yesterday, it kicked off on the 20th and it goes until Thursday. We’re doing over 20 webinars this week, all free over at practiceofthepractice.com/leveleup. We have some incredible webinars that are actually going on today. So today, on March 21st at 10:00 AM Eastern, that’s when today’s guest, Dr. Larry Beer and I are going to be talking about supersizing your practice, so 50 plus clinicians. How do you do that? Today, the 21st, at 11:00 AM I’m going to be talking about multiple streams of income for therapists, so e-courses, books, communities, consultings and then at 12:30 we have adding a virtual assistant to your practice and then at 2:30 essential systems to grow a private practice. So many things going on. Then even at 8:30 Eastern, we have our virtual happy hour that’s going on. Then tomorrow on the 22nd, we have Profit First, we have starting a solo practice panel and then on Thursday, how to start a private practice, how to get a TEDx Talk, essentials for your directory site, growing a seven-figure multi-location practice, all sorts of things going on this week. It’s going to be such a exciting week. Also all of our communities are open, so Next Level Practice, Group Practice Launch, Group Practice Boss and Audience Building Academy, so whether you’re just starting a practice, starting a group practice, starting and growing a group practice or building things outside of your practice, like e-courses, we’ve got a community for you. All those details are over at that practiceofthepractice.com/levelup. So we have been planning for months. The team in South Africa, and Jen and Dana have been doing an insane job just bringing everything together for you to have over 20 webinars going on. Also, before I introduce Larry we have over $31,000 in prizes that have been donated by people like Therapy Notes, Brighter Vision. James Marlin has donated Rocky, my Profit First professional, and then we’ve got free consulting and other things we’re giving away also, so a lot of just amazing things happening this week. We’ve been building up to this and just super excited about it. [JOE] Well, today I’m so excited to have Dr. Larry Beer with me. Larry is a licensed psychologist and licensed professional counselor who got his Doctorate in Counseling Psychology from Western Michigan University. He also had Child and Family Psychological Services in Kalamazoo where he had as many as 50 therapists that were providing services there. He sold that to a large mental health company in 2020 and has been really involved in teaching in graduate school at Western Michigan University, is active in the American Psychological Association as an elected member of the Organization’s Council of Representatives and serving as a disaster mental health volunteer with the American Red Cross. Larry, welcome to the Practice of the Practice Podcast. How you doing today? [DR. LARRY BEER] I’m doing well. Doing well, thanks. [JOE] I am so excited to have you back on the show. It’s really great to have you here this time because things have just gone full circle. Larry was the very first private practice that I worked for. I was a 1099 for him. He inspired me to even consider private practice. Actually one of his counselors Brady Harnish Fager was my internship supervisor and really like I, the way I saw Larry run his practice, for me, the way you ran your practice was you always had a lightness and a fun about you. It was like if someone just walked in, they would have no idea that you were the owner of the practice because it seemed like you took life seriously when you needed to and you had fun with life, like most of the time. Like it didn’t, I don’t think I ever saw you really worked up over something. I’m sure there were times. But to me it just was such a great example of what leadership should be where everyone felt seen, everyone felt heard they felt like they were a part of it, even if there was discussions or disagreement around how things were implemented. Now you’re part of the Practice of the Practice team as one of our consultants so now you’re one of my 1099, so it’s awesome to have it full circle. [DR. LARRY] Yeah, well I’ve just been so impressed with the business that you’ve built and it’s a business that so many people can use to help them develop their own businesses. I wish something like this might have been around when I was developing my business. [JOE] Oh yeah. [DR. LARRY] All those years ago. [JOE] When I was starting Mental Wellness Counseling in Traverse City, it was, I had a friend that was an accountant that said, oh, you might want to file an LLC. I had a friend who she had made her own website and, actually Monica who worked at Child and Family Psychological Services, she had said, oh, you could totally build your own website, and just to see how hard it was back then compared to the amount of information now. Well, Larry, I’d love to hear a little bit of the backstory of Child and Family Psychological Services in the early days of launching that. Then when did you start to scale that into a group practice? Maybe you had that vision at the beginning, but would love for people that haven’t heard some of your origin story of Child and Family Psychological Services of how that launched and then when it really started to move more into a group practice. [DR. LARRY] Sure. Well, I always knew I wanted to be a psychologist in private practice and so after I got my doctorate in 1986, I joined a group practice that was owned by a group of physicians and I worked there until I got my full license in 1989. Then I realized, well, I don’t have to work for the practice that I worked with. I can just like, I can have people contract to me like I contracted with them. So the model that I used, I just thought it’d just be me and three or four other people that I knew I wanted to have a group practice, the model they use is like what was fair to me? Like when I was an associate there, the deal that I was receiving felt fair. So I just tried to use that as the model when I brought other people aboard because you just want to keep it fair to all parties. So it started with like after I used, I was teaching at Western part-time and I had one of my students who I liked join me and they put a hand in the paper and got another. So it was me and these two people in this suite, a small suite. I guess people liked what I was doing because other people fairly soon wanted to come and join me. I told them at first I can’t, I didn’t have the space, but eventually I was able to find a way to have them join me and just little by little by little the practice just evolved into being the size that it was. Now I know we had up to 50 clinicians including interns, but that can be a little deceiving because not everyone was full-time. I like to say we had 29 therapy offices, so we tried to staff because some people just wanted work part-time try and staff the 29 therapy offices. [JOE] Thanks for clarifying that. [DR. LARRY] It was just great because like when people came aboard they would add their own specials, something to the mixed what everybody else had and so I really benefited from having associates join. They had ideas that really helped the whole practice, including you, Joe, here you were coming aboard part-time and gave us some great icebreakers and you saw the energy that we had had there, it felt right, and you joined into it added your own special something to the mix [JOE] As a posture towards running a business, one thing I’ve noticed with you is like, celebrations seem to be something that really are a big part of the way that you run your business. I’m interested because whether it was a certain number of years the practice had been open or annually having a retreat or different ways to just celebrate what’s going on in people’s lives, like celebrations seem to be something that’s part of who Larry is, whether or not you ran a practice. Tell me a little bit about celebrations and like where that comes from, but then also why that might be important to celebrate things within a business. [DR. LARRY] Well, I mean, it made it fun for me to celebrate. You have this chance to have this practice and you work along these really cool people and a chance to just celebrate what we’re achieving but we didn’t know what we could achieve at the time, just the celebrations became bigger and bigger over time. But I just think it’s important to create the celebrations, just go to help create a really positive affirming atmosphere. On one level I think with simple creatures, we’re drawn to that which feels good and we want to avoid that, which feels bad and if something feels good, people are drawn to it. If something feels bad or toxic people probably want to avoid it or try and find a way to leave it. So I just created a positive atmosphere, which was easy for me because I really enjoyed what I was doing. I mean, I was working with some really cool people and the business, what we’re doing, I think sometimes people forget that at the core of what we do is we’re helping people improve the quality of their lives. I mean, that’s a great mission. So that’s what we did and we celebrated and when things didn’t go right, we bounce back, we all pulled together. [JOE] What are maybe just a couple bullet points that you would say if people are hearing this and say, I want to make sure that I really have the type of business, the type of practice that draws people in that isn’t toxic, that makes people feel good? Are there a couple bullet points that you’d say people should evaluate in looking at their practice? [DR. LARRY] Definitely. I mean, start with what practice would I like to be a part of? think what would really feel good for me if I was an associate? Then once you get that picture try and create that. Not everyone has the same idea about what would be feel good for them. There’s some people who just are great psychologists or social workers and they just really don’t want to have a big mental, they really don’t want to have a group practice, but if you want to have group practice and yeah, certain things feel good for you, try and implement them. Some, one of my associates said, this is like the closest thing I’ve had to summer camp. On one hand that’s light and it’s fun but on the other hand, we can’t forget the fact that this is a very serious business, that sometimes people’s lives are in our hands and we have to, the work that we do is very serious and we have to lean on each other too, create a practice where people can, just not every session goes great. But you want to have colleagues who, when you have a rough time will pick you up and you want to be the person when a rough time to pick them up. [JOE] Now when you, like, when did you start to go from having a handful of people to like breaking say 10 clinicians or really getting into a larger practice? [DR. LARRY] I would say probably, hmm, maybe eight, nine years into it. I’m not exactly sure but it just, it didn’t grow really rapidly. I mean, at times it grew more rapidly than others but at the beginning, for example, like whatever I would bring on a new associate, it wasn’t very popular. The other, the existing associates weren’t really excited about bringing someone new and they would say to me how can you bring somebody else aboard when we’re not full yet? I would say, well when that person comes aboard and it’s not just anybody, you want to bring, like people who can really enhance what you already have, when that person comes aboard, you’re not just getting them but you’re getting their network. So when, if you get a really quality person aboard it, it reflects very positively upon the entire practice and will help referrals and those referrals will go to some of my existing associates. [JOE] So take, drill into that a little bit more, because I think that’s a tension that, like I know that I felt when I added new clinicians to the practice and the way that I handled it was trying to find people that had a niche that was maybe different than ones that people currently had or where there was overflow. So I had one guy, Steve, for example, who he was a certified addictions counselor. The guy was always full and so we needed more addictions counselors to help with that overflow. What were some techniques you used to have those conversations to do that? Or maybe you didn’t feel like you had to justify it to the other clinicians? [DR. LARRY] I mean, sometimes you just, if you are the owner, you have to be strong. If something feels right for you have to decide what’s right. But it doesn’t, when you decide though, you should, I think an owner should really listen carefully to the suggestions and the thoughts and the feelings of your associates. You have to treat them like they’re really valuable because they are. They don’t have to be with you. So consider what they say but the bottom line is the decision is yours. Now, you said before like select, how did I select new associates? Having a niche was I mean that was helpful, but I think more important than even having a niche was the quality of the person. When I was interviewing somebody, I said to myself, how would I feel about being in therapy with this person? That was probably the most salient factor when I brought somebody aboard. [JOE] Yeah, I mean I remember my interview with you is having breakfast together and to just see if there was a connection. I mean that’s something that for my interviews that I continued where I’d get coffee with someone and just be like, can I have a conversation with this person and feel like they understand my vision for the practice and that they’re open and they’re the person I would want to go to therapy for? [DR. LARRY] Exactly, exactly. So two things really jumped out at me when you look at recruiting associates. One is that, is this person good with people? Are they a good community person? Bringing them in there are they going to enhance the community that we have? Are they going to, can they buy into the community that I want to have? Like we had a somewhat of a less formal environment and some people like more formal environments. So one is like, can they flow with people and can they, will they be an asset to the community? The second thing, which is so important is are they reliable? Can I count in them? If they say something, can I trust? They’re going to do what they say. That’s so important. [LEVEL UP WEEK] Are you in solo practice and wondering how to get things going, what marketing techniques to do and what the order is that you should get things done? Maybe you want to start a group practice because you’re busting at the seams, but you have no idea when is the right time. Or maybe you want a seven-figure, multiple location practice that you can grow. Also maybe you’re even growing beyond that in building e-courses, podcasts, membership communities. No matter what phase of practice you are in, we have something for you at Level Up Week. Level Up Week is March 20th through 23rd, 2023. Again, that’s March 20th through 23rd. We have over 20 webinars that are totally free. We have things like how to get a TEDx Talk, how to get more public speaking gigs, how to use Profit First in your private practice, how to pay yourself, starting a solo practice panel where we have five successful solo practitioners. We also have essential systems you have to have, how to add virtual assistance, how to add multiple streams of income, supersizing your practice to over 50 clinicians in the five simple marketing techniques every practice has to master. No matter your phase of practice, it could be that moment that you just said yourself, I need to leave my full-time job and start a practice all the way up through having a thriving group practice and you are launching something that’s going to go international, we have several webinars for you. Head on over to practiceofthepractice.com/levelup to see which webinar is the best fit for your time and your phase of practice. If you want the recordings, just register for the ones that you want and we will send you those recordings totally free of charge. Again, that’s practiceofthepractice.com/levelup, practiceofthepractice.com/levelup. [JOE SANOK] Now your practice was primarily 1099 contractors and I know there’s lots of discussions around W2s versus 1099s, especially states like California, basically you can’t do 1099s. So I’m wondering how did you think through specifically how you treated set of vision, all of that for 1099s in particular? [DR. LARRY] Well, the model that I started with was the model that I was a part of before I started my practice. I went to this other practice, it was a good experience, I learned a lot from that experience. And in that practice they used 1099s, so we use 1099s. Now by doing that, when you have a large practice it’s tradeoffs. On one hand, the trade-off is that you can make more money if you do it right but on the other hand, the other trade is that you have a greater window of vulnerability. If one of those associates does something really badly, that’s going to reflect really poorly upon the entire practice, especially these days with the internet and social media. So selecting associates carefully is really important. But getting back to your question, sometimes I go around but I usually get back to where we start. You ask me about 1099s versus W2s. Well, I always recognize that I had this window of vulnerability having 1099s. Because in some ways the people when you look at the rule of law, the people really seem like they were more fit into W2s. But the associates that I had wanted to stay 1099s, they wanted to stay that way because I guess this write-offs that they had. So when I thought about switching and we really considered doing that a number of times we decided just to stay with it with the 1099s. We never got in trouble because of that. But I know of other people, including one of our mutual friends and other people who really got in trouble because of that and it was very expensive for them. [JOE] And I think that’s where being very clear on what you’re directing, what you’re not directing. Those things are really important if you have 1099s. I mean, and that’s something in Group Practice Launch or Group Practice Boss, it seems like every few months there’s some new discussion about W2s versus 1099s in the same way that private pay or taking insurance or doing a combination is oftentimes a big question as well. When you think about long-term vision, goal setting, planning, how much did you, as you were growing this mega group practice, how much did you say this year, I want to achieve these key performance indicators, here’s the exact numbers I want to try to hit or letting things unfold naturally seeing how it flows? Like how much of that was you saying here’s really where we’re headed compared to letting things just unfold how they unfolded? [DR. LARRY] Well, with me it was really a spontaneous thing. I’m not saying that that’s the best way to go, but it just evolved very organically and just, people really liked what I was doing. They were, the word was out that it was a really great place to work and so people would approach me and try and get in there, but it was a different period back then. I mean there were I was developing my practice at a time where other professionals needed to work under my umbrella for billing purposes as a licensed psychologist. These days people who don’t have their doctorates in psychology probably have like some more freedom in terms of starting their own practices. It’s easier to do that. So there was some planning and a lot of things just when opportunities presented themselves. I said, okay do I want to open this store or does it not make sense? Because there are many opportunities to present themselves, presented themselves that I’m saying, no, this just really doesn’t make sense. It just, I’m not ready for it or I might never be ready for it. Do you want an example of that? [JOE] Yeah, I would love an example of that so we can give a little meat to it. [DR. LARRY] So sometimes you try things and they really don’t work the way that you want to. Like to me, I wound up having two offices and I tried having other offices before at least three times and it never really worked in terms of them being successful. What I found is that you have to have a certain leadership at these other offices. So then the only time that I was able to do that was when I had a partner in another office. And partnerships are a whole other issue because they can be really tricky. But at least when you have somebody who really has a lot invested there, imagine the other office, then it finally became successful. [JOE] When you’re looking for a partner specifically to manage an office, is that usually like a clinical director that gets a percent, is it an equal financial partner, because that’s a question that I get all the time. Like, when should you have a partner to reduce your financial liability versus then you don’t get to take home as much profits? So like what did that look like when you it out having partners for these multi-site? [DR. LARRY] Well, it could be even more profitable because yeah, you might have to share the revenues, but you can have greater revenue by, the amount of volume can make it worthwhile to have another office. But things can also go south too because you have a partner and it’s easy to get. Someone once told me it’s easy to get partners, it’s not as easy to let go of them because people have different ideas about like what’s fair. That’s one key thing. Whatever you do, keep in mind you have to try and find a formula that feels fair to all parties because if the other person doesn’t feel like it’s fair, they’re going to wind up resenting you and that’s going to be a toxic factor in the environment and in your relationship with them. So you don’t want that, you have to really struggle with that other person, with your associates to just find something that feels fair. [JOE] Yeah, it seems like fairness and really thinking what would I want is a core belief in regards to a lot of your decision making. [DR. LARRY] Right. You know what would feel fair to me and really try and when you talk with somebody else about coming to board as an associate, as a partner, definitely I would say undersell and overdeliver. If there’s anything, make sure they know everything right from the get-go things that maybe aren’t as great as they should be. Because if someone comes in thinking things are one way and they find out it’s something different, that can create a lot of bad dynamics. [JOE] Now for, I know a lot of people that are in Group Practice Boss are doing consulting right now that they may have 10 associates or clinicians at their practice, so they have a group practice. And to go from solo practice to a 10-person group practice is a huge jump in knowledge and finances. There’s all sorts of things that if you’re a solo practitioner going to 10, it is just you’re scaling differently. What would you suggest to the people that have 10 clinicians and want to get up to 29 offices or 50 clinicians or whatever number that they want to be a Larry Beer? Like what would you suggest they start thinking through setting up, like what roles should they be hiring for, all those sorts of things? [DR. LARRY] Well, you need to be patient. You have to be able to adjust to your growth and you need to have really good people. Like one of the advantages of having a group practice is you have to enough volume coming in that you can afford to have good administrators, so getting the right administrative support. Some people what they might do is they might not offer to pay very much to an administrator and then you don’t really get a very good administrator. So you have to really try and be very good in terms of selecting, make sure they’re treated well, treated fairly, and be patient in terms of when you take those risks. Because the two biggest sources of overhead that a group practice owner has, and I think this is the case of almost everybody, is one, the cost of your administration and two is the cost of rent. So if you’re a group practice owner and everybody decides to leave you’re going to be stuck with, I mean all that rent and that’s certainly a window of vulnerability. So do it carefully. You have to, hopefully you have the other associates who are with you at this point buy into bringing in people who they like, buying into your vision of what it is. Like what are you doing that’s going to make someone want to join you? Are you, is it going to help their reputation if they join you? Are you going to provide services that they can’t afford to provide for themselves when they’re not part of you? You think people just don’t come up and join you. There’s got to be reasons why they join you and you have to be able to provide those reasons for them. Is it like they need referrals, you can provide referrals? Is it that they need some, they don’t want to deal with the billing, they want somebody to do the billing for them? Is it that they really want to learn the business and you can help them learn the business, although understand that when you do that people are going to learn, they’re going to go to school and they might wind up going and starting their own shop and you have to let that go. [JOE] It’s funny all three of my consulting clients I met with yesterday had the same question, which is similar to what you’re talking about, and that’s why should clinicians work for my group practice when they could go start their own? The way I answered it was that the competition isn’t between working with you or starting their own. The competition is between working for you or working at a nonprofit, working at community mental health, working in the schools and making 30 to 40 bucks an hour doing those things. [DR. LARRY] Or working at another group practice. [JOE] Right, or working at another group practice. And so when they started to think about it that way, and we ran the numbers that the typical school counselor in private practice could probably, even with the split do 20 to 25 sessions a week and make the same amount of money or more than they do in the schools, like that’s a much different selling point than for that group practice owner. Because they can say if you’re hitting 25 sessions a week, then this is about how much you’ll make and if you’re a 1099, then you can do your own retirement. If you’re doing the W2 model, we offer these things? What are other ways that you answered, would answer that question to a consulting client if they said, “Larry I wanted to do some hiring, but I feel worried that people are going to say, well, why should I work for you?” How would you suggest people answer that? [DR. LARRY] All right, Joe, I’m going to do something a little tricky here. I’m going to ask you like, why did you choose to work for me? [JOE] Let’s see. At that time, I knew that Kalamazoo was not going to be my long-term home. I knew that Traverse City was. I knew that I definitely didn’t want to like figure out rent, figure out website, any of that, especially knowing I was probably going to be in Kalamazoo two or three years. I definitely wanted side income to pay down student loan debt. I knew that you had a bunch of quality people there that could mentor me. [DR. LARRY] So the reputation [JOE] Yeah, could mentor me earlier in the career. [DR. LARRY] So you wanted to go to school on CFPs by learning how the successful practice worked, which is totally cool. [JOE] Yeah. And I felt supported by you. Like even from our first meeting you were asking me like, what goals do I have? I know that I would’ve, I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I knew Traverse City was going to be long-term where I moved back to. So to know that I was saying I’m probably going to move back to Traverse City at some point, but want to do this as long as it makes sense. So I think, yeah, going to the school of Larry Beer. [DR. LARRY] So you want to obviously, you want to go to a place with a good reputation, a place that feels good. One of the things that I really feel good about is I know that I hate being controlled by other people. So I really, whenever possible just try and minimize controlling the people who work for me. I say, just do what you want to do, just so long as it’s ethical because like, once again, that awareness of like, that one person’s behavior has potential to bring down the whole practice. When things go wrong step up and take care of them, own it and deal with it, which is something that sometimes people would rather not have to do, but that comes with being an owner of a practice. [JOE] So awesome. Well, the last question that I always ask is, if every private practitioner in the world were listening right now, what would you want them to know? [DR. LARRY] Go work for an agency? No, I’m just kidding. Definitely not. I would just say it’s like, it’s just a really cool adventure. Owning a practice is like having another kid. Sometimes you’re really proud of it going well and sometimes you’re really frustrated with it and you’re really angry with it and then you get over those feelings of disappointment and you get back to like, get back to the program, how can I go and make things better? Having other people working alongside of you is really great, tapping into their ideas, really listen to them. I can’t tell you how much I benefited from having the energies, the thoughts, the creativity of the people who decided to go in with me. The other part is that it’s hard because you get so close to people when they leave. It hurts, but you have to let them go. That’s just like, just like we all move on to where we are. We have to let people move on to where they are. And I don’t believe in like non-competes. I think that makes, that creates a bad dynamic. [JOE] Oh, such great information. If any of you want to work with Larry to have him as your consultant you can apply over at practiceofthepractice.com/apply. We’ll get some basic information there, then we do an onboarding pre-consulting call. And Larry can help you grow your practice where you want to grow it. So Larry, thank you so much for being on the Practice of the Practice Podcast today. [DR. LARRY] Oh, it’s a pleasure. Thanks for inviting me. There’s our third one together, Joe. We’re getting to be like really experienced at this now. [JOE] Yeah, absolutely. [DR. LARRY] All right, thanks for, it’s really an honor to be part of this awesome network that you’ve developed in terms of helping people with their, growing the group practices and if there’s people out there that would like to see, if they want me to try and help them I’ll see what I could do. [JOE] That’s awesome. Thanks so much for being on the show. I always love interviewing people that are already friends and I have history with. Of course, I like interviewing new people or just interviewing people that I haven’t met before. That’s fun in a different way. But it really is just so great when you have history with people and especially before I started podcasting and when I was brand new in my career and people like Larry that took a chance on me. So it just really shows that maybe there’s someone that you said, oh, they’re pre-licensed, they’re limited licensed. I’m not sure if I want to bring them on but you never know where they’re going to go in their career and what that connection could be if you’re a part of their journey. Who knows, maybe a group practice or a mega group practice may be in your future? We couldn’t do this show without our sponsors and today actually we are our own sponsor because it is Level Up Week. This week is Level Up Week at Practice of Practice. A lot of people are giving up, but this week we are encouraging you to level up. We have over 20 webinars that are going on March 20th through 23rd. You’re going to get access to all the recordings of those for a week afterwards and then our Membership Communities Next Level Practice, Group Practice Launch, Group Practice Boss and Audience Building Academy are going to get those ongoing within the Circle community. If you want to have access to those recordings for the week after Level Up week, make sure you register for at least one of those webinars over at practiceofthepractice.com/leveleup. Also, again, we have $31,000 in prizes. This was actually something that wasn’t part of our original plan and a couple weeks ago I was like, oh my gosh, like, I have an idea and my team is always like, no new ideas Joe. I was like, I’ll do it. I’ll just take it all on. So I took it on and just started asking the people that were going to be speaking and asking our own team and looking at myself and saying like, can we give away? So we’re giving away a Group Practice Launch, which is a $1000 e-course, we’re giving away a bunch of those. We’re giving away consulting with me, consulting with Ash, all sorts of things internally. Then also a bunch of our folks are giving away free things as well. So it’s just really, really amazing to see our community and the people outside of it coming together for Level Up Week. So Level Up week over at practiceofthepractice.com/leveleup, you can read all about all the different things we have going on, things for every phase of practice. Whether you’re in solo practice or starting a solo practice, starting a group practice, growing a group practice, or leaving your group and doing more passive income type things. We have something for you over at practiceofthepractice.com/leveleup. Well, thank you so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Have an amazing day and we’ll talk to you soon. Special thanks to the band Silence is Sexy for your intro music. 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 the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.