[JOE SANOK]
This is the Practice of the Practice podcast with Joe Sanok, session number 683.

Welcome to the Practice of the Practice podcast. I am Joe Sanok, your host and I’m so glad that you’re here. I hope that this first quarter of the year is going awesome for you. You’re probably wrapping up all of your tax things with your accountant, which is always exciting to just know that that’s closed out from the previous year. You’re probably diving into some of your big goals. Maybe you’re thinking about group practice launch that Alison and Whitney are launching. Maybe you’re thinking about starting a practice or maybe you’re expanding or even thinking about buying a practice.

That’s actually what we’re going to talk about today with Nicole Ball who actually purchased Mental Wellness Counseling from me in 2019. So it’s been fun to watch Mental Wellness continue to grow. We’re going to talk through that story. We’re going to talk through Nicole’s back story and where she’s taken Mental Wellness Counseling since she bought it in 2019. So Nicole, welcome to the Practice of the Practice podcast. Really glad that you’re here today.
[NICOLE BALL]
Thank you so much. I’m really excited to be here finally.
[JOE]
Yes, we had a few scheduling things there, so we’ve made it happen.
[NICOLE]
Right. No, I’m really excited to be here and share the story.
[JOE]
Well, let’s go back to when you were a 1099 contractor with Mental Wellness Counseling because I think sometimes people can think, oh, someone that buys a practice, they must have all this liquid assets, all this money, all these things. Maybe we can talk through that story of where you were at in life, where you said, oh, maybe I want to buy this practice from Joe. Take us back maybe the year before you bought it, like 2017, 18. What did life look like for you at that point?
[NICOLE]
I was teaching full-time at Ferris State University in the undergraduate social work program. I didn’t plan on teaching. It was just something that I wanted to dip my toes in and see if I liked it and I really ended up enjoying it. So I’ve said all along that Ferris is my full-time job. Being a professor is my full-time job. Then when I got the opportunity to be a contractor and continue to utilize, use those skills that I was teaching in the classroom, it just made my teaching that much better. So that’s really all it was in the beginning was, “Hey, I’m going to do a little bit of therapy on the side, work on paying off my student loans, hone in on my practice and on my skills so that I can be a better professor.” That was the intention in the beginning. So during that time I was teaching full time, I was doing, working with clients maybe two days a week and I also had two little ones at home. I had a kiddo in 2012 and another in 2015 so I had two young ones at home and that was my life back then. It was teaching and seeing clients a couple days a week and raising my kids.
[JOE]
One question I get a lot when someone’s thinking about opening a group practice is why would competent professionals want to be a 1099 contractor when they could just start their own practice? So for you to join Mental Wellness, what was the appeal during that phase to join a practice rather than say, start one from scratch.
[NICOLE]
I get this question a lot as, especially from new people that I bring on my practice. Really the beauty of being a 1099 is that autonomy. I can come and go as I please, I can see clients if I want to, or if I don’t want to, I can pick my own schedule. I can usually set my own rates. So for me, it just worked out really good to be able to say I’ll see a couple of clients this times a week, maybe do a morning here and there. For me it was really convenient because if I taught a class in the morning, I could see a couple clients in the middle of the day and then go back for the night or afternoon class I was teaching. So it filled that space for me. That was really the beauty at that time for me of being a 1099. I had that autonomy to come and go as I pleased and pick and choose the clients that I wanted to see. That was really, really important to me, especially at that time.
[JOE]
I still remember in early 2019, I knew that the lease was going to be up and I had signed this five year lease with that space and Practice of the Practice was taking off. I was thinking through all the different things of, I could just shut this down. I could try to have it be passive. I could sell it, but I was like, who would I sell it to? I still remember the moment when you came into my office and you said something like, so what’s the plan for July. It was like in typical, like Nicole straight forward fashion, I was like I don’t know. Here’s what I’m thinking. I think you threw it out, if you are thinking of selling, let me know. I might be interested. I’m not sure if is that how you recall the story?
[NICOLE]
It is. I, too, remember that day. I remember coming in and just a very casual conversation. You and I have always been very transparent with each other. So you were really just transparent with like, “Nicole, I don’t really know what I want to do yet. I’m still in that space where I’m trying to figure it out.” I remember just saying, “If you’re ever interested in selling, let me know.” That was the first time for me that I had ever thought about buying a practice because the long-term goal for me was to eventually possibly open up my own practice depending on how my teaching career continued to go. After I had had a few years in private practice recognizing that I really did love working with clients and I missed that so much after teaching for a few years. So, yes, I remember that moment too, where I was like, “Well, if you ever think about selling, let me know.” I was like, oh, that just came out of my mouth.
[JOE]
Well, and after it came out of your mouth and you’re like, oh, wow, I just said that what was the value in for you in even just entertaining the idea of buying a practice versus taking that same amount of money and hiring a consultant or hiring people to build your website? There’s always that argument of why would I drop this level of cash if I could just build it for half the price? What was the value in buying it versus just building it from scratch?
[NICOLE]
I get that question all the time. People ask me, well, why didn’t you just start your own practice? Why did you take something else? I just, I really feel like there’s value in the hard work that other people have done to build their practices. Like you put how many years? 13 years of blood, sweat, and tears into Mental Wellness Counseling, and there’s so much value in that. There’s value in the time that you spent, the money that you spent. A big the thing for me was the SEO, the search engine optimization online for Mental Wellness Counseling, because you had put so much into that. That was really important, especially in a town like Traverse City, Michigan, where we’re quite saturated with private practice therapist and SEO means quite a lot in this area.

So for me, I looked at the price comparison. How much would it cost me to start a private practice and all of the years and blood and sweat and tears that would go into building something to get to a certain point where I could put in maybe a little bit more cash and have a much more established name, logo, recognizable practice that’s already so well established that I had the opportunity to move to the numbers that I wanted to see a lot faster. So yes, I could have started my own practice, but I think it would’ve just taken me a little bit longer to get to that space where I happen to be now today, two years later.
[JOE]
Yes. Now when we were valuing the business, I know that’s a question I get a lot is like, how do you even value a business, we looked at three years of income outside of me, because I wasn’t going to be staying. Then we looked through the tangible assets, like couches or artwork or things like that. Then we also looked at more like digital assets. So the rights to photos, the rights to the website, how much it would take in SEO. Were there other things that you remember that we put into that valuation that people would want to think through in regards to either valuing their own company or in valuing a company that they’re thinking about buying?
[NICOLE]
Well, I think like you said, we looked at like couches, file cabinets, things like that. That’s all stuff that can come and go very easily but the stuff that was important to me was the rights to the logo, the rights to the website, the rights to the social media platforms, the rights to just use Mental Wellness Counseling’s name. Because I didn’t just buy the business. I bought the whole business, the whole package.
[JOE]
The whole brand
[NICOLE]
The whole brand. Exactly, that’s the word I was looking for. So yes, I think that was, that again for me was really important when I was establishing whether or not I wanted to start my own because anybody can come up with a logo and a website and they do really, really great things. But when you buy something that already is well known in your community, there’s so much value in that reputation. So essentially I was buying Mental Wellness Counseling’s reputation.
[JOE]
Which I think points to, even if you have a solo practice naming it something other than, I mean the actual name of Mental Wellness Counseling was Sanok Counseling PLLC. Then we had the DBA of Mental Wellness Counseling and we transferred that DBA to you. But it’s like to not have it be based on Joe, because that’s really hard to sell if you think you want to sell at some point to have it be based on your name versus some other name that’s more global.
[NICOLE]
Absolutely.
[JOE]
So what did the bank, because I know you did some financing, you figured it out in a lot of different ways, when you’re looking at getting loans or business loans, like I didn’t see any of that side. What were things that they looked for that maybe surprised you or that didn’t surprise you in regards to them saying sure well, we’ll take a risk on Nicole and what she’s doing.
[NICOLE]
I don’t think anything necessarily surprised me. I think for me it was just more of a learning curve. I am a professor, I’m a writer, I’m a clinical therapist, but I am not a business person. At least I wasn’t at that time. So one of the first things that they said when I went for my consultation is we want to see a business plan. We know what Joe’s numbers are like, but what’s your plan moving forward? What are your expectations and what are your numbers going to look like? What are your hopes? We want to see what the next year is going to look like. We want to see what the next five years is going to look like.

So for me, I had to research how to do a business plan. I had to research how to not only calculate those numbers and the expectations of those numbers I wanted to see but how to display them in a way that that made sense to me and to the people who were going to be evaluating whether or not they wanted to take a risk on me. So that’s where the majority of my energy went to is forming that business plan and really crunching those numbers. It forced me then to look five years down the road and say, okay, I’m going to buy it as is right now, but what is my plan? What am I going to change? What is this going to look like for me? Where do I want to be five years from now? Looking now, I really undersold myself because I’m last year I was where I said I was going to be in five years but they still took a risk on me. So I think just doing the business plan was a lot of work.
[JOE]
Now, when you think about creating that business plan, were there tools or books or online resources that were helpful or was it just, you found a couple things online and copied it or like what was helpful during that time?
[NICOLE]
I went online and I tend to work this way, oftentimes regardless of what I’m doing, but I go online and first of all, what the heck is a business plan? What is this thing? So just really evaluating what it is that the bank was going to be looking for because they want more than just numbers. They want to hear what your plan is. They want to hear about why this is important to the community. They want to hear about what’s the value in what you’re going to be offering as a business, a service that you’re going to be offering. So just figuring out what that meant and then going on and just looking at templates. I really tend to stay away from using existing templates, not only for copyright reasons, but also just because I like to create my own things.

So I created my own business plan based on ideas that I gathered from probably five or six different templates, maybe even 10. I remember I had a folder on my computer of different templates that I had downloaded. Then I had all of those up on a big screen and then had my own document I was working on at the same time. So I took bits and pieces of what I saw from other people’s work and created my own thing. The bank’s not looking for a specific template. At least they weren’t in my case. So that did give me the freedom to be a bit more creative in what envisioned that business plan to look like.
[JOE]
What were some key things in it that you cared about?
[NICOLE]
Oh goodness, that was a while ago, but without having it in front of me I remember just crunching those numbers. Like I said before, crunching those numbers really made me think about not only like, okay, how much is rent, utilities, SEO, marketing? How much am I going to spend on all that? But what is my vision? What do those numbers look like? Because when you make a certain amount of money? It’s hard to imagine what a bigger amount of money would look like. Can think of the number, but then to imagine what does this mean for the practice, how many people does that mean I’m going to have on? Does that mean I’m going to have to hire a receptionist? Does that mean I’m going to need a bigger office space?

For me, what I remember about putting that business plan together is, again, it really forced me to envision what this really could look like, not just, hey, I’m taking over this thing and I’m going to make it my own thing, but wow, this could be something really big, not just for me, but for my community and then possibly other communities. That’s really what the value of putting that business plan together was for me. So for people who aren’t even buying a practice, I would encourage you to develop a business plan just because it’s a way of manifesting those goals. Just like you would in a treatment plan with a client. You help develop your goals and your objectives and your action steps, but very rarely do we do that for ourselves. So that gave me a really unique opportunity to really lay it all out into a five year plan and envision it for myself.
[JOE]
I mean, even when I’m launching a new product, like I’m looking at my whiteboard right now and I’ve been brainstorming a product for people that have been reading Thursday is the New Friday. They want to build passive income. I interviewed all these people about the things they wanted. It has all the steps, all the numbers, what’s the minimum I need to sell for this to be worth it for me? So even to have like a business plan per project, say you were going to start doing more groups to just, well, let’s run the numbers on the groups. How many people do we need in the groups? How many staff do we need? How many support hours? It’s so important to do all those numbers, even if it’s not always the most fun to do
[NICOLE]
Right. It gives you an opportunity to say, is this really worth it? For me back then, and I think for anybody in a position like I was at that time, there’s that fear of failure. Like what if I do this and it doesn’t work out. So then you have to crunch the numbers of what’s the bare minimum I have to do to break even? Because I’m not going to let this fail. I am not going to let this fail. So even if I just have to break even what do I have to do? I think I was actually speaking with you and I was talking about this and you had asked me like, well, what’s the bare minimum you have to do? I crunched numbers and I’m like, “Hmm, that’s not bad?” Just to break even like, I could totally pull that off. So that means you’re only moving up from here. That helped deviate that fear that was manifesting itself a little bit at that time.
[JOE]
I think to know that breakeven point of, okay, I only need a handful of clients a week or I need to have X number of clinicians full and are they already full or are they starting from scratch? Oh no, they’re already half full. So we’re already at a breakeven point. Having that number is so helpful.
[JOE]
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[JOE SANOK]
So there’s that moment when I get the check and I walk away, I give you the keys and you’re the new owner of Mental Wellness Counseling. Take us through that first six months to a year. Were there like, holy crap. Would’ve I done moments. Were there big learning moments? Was there like I’m on top of a mountain moments? What happened in that first year?
[NICOLE]
Well, I’ll tell you the day that I got the keys, the day that we signed everything over was also the day that I signed a lease for a six-office building over on the lake. That, so I did two big things in one day. I paid X amount of money for this company, but I also signed a five-year lease for a really beautiful building. It was me and one other clinician. It was me and one other clinician that came over when we did the transfer and I’m like, wow, I’m really taking a big chance here by getting this six-office building on Boardman Lake with access to a beautiful walking trail with its own parking lot. Like it had everything that I had been looking for.

I think that was the biggest leap for me, was moving because from there on it was okay, we need to get furniture in this lobby. Let’s go on Amazon, let’s go to furniture stores, let’s go to resale shops. Let’s make this a beautiful space and let’s get our sign on the front door and let’s change the address on Google, all those logistical things. I was like, okay, we need to do this first. Then after that, I started hiring people. I should say hire, but I brought on contractors. I started interviewing and I remember I did so many interviews. I had done interviews before for other companies, but for something that was my own, like this was going to be my baby, it was a whole different ballgame, doing these interviews with these clinicians.

From the beginning, something that I have done because I brought on a lot of people since that first year is I tend to hire on intuition rather than resume. So I want to meet with you. I want to sit in a coffee shop. I want to talk about what your passions are and what you’re really good at and where you need to grow rather than looking at your resume. That’s something that I did. I brought on three people right away within that first month of purchasing Mental Wellness and that’s where we started.

So that first six months was really just getting the office in order, all those logistical things, bringing on those three people. So now there’s a total of five of us, all contractors. One of the big things that I wanted to do was bring on insurance. Traditionally Mental Wellness for all those years was a private pay practice. For me, when I was evaluating my five-year plan, I thought, well, what does this community need? I really identified that at the time, we really needed to accept insurance in order to serve the community. That was really important to me. So that was also a big, scary leap, getting credentialed with insurance companies. So that was what that first six months looked like, was a big learning curve in not only how to run a business, but how to manage insurance and how to be the boss and the administrator and the person answering the phones and all of that.
[JOE]
How did you think through, like, there’s always that first round of you’re wearing every single hat in the business and you’re doing it all and you’re making it happen. Then there’s a certain point when you realize I need to have some support here or the best use of my time isn’t maybe doing these three tasks. How have you thought through that, or are you thinking through that idea of either outsourcing or automating or making sure your time is spent on the best use of your time as an owner versus just always being in the trenches, getting things done?
[NICOLE]
That’s how it was in the beginning. When I first took over, I was the accountant. I was the social media, marketing manager. I answered the phones. I did the scheduling. I answered the website email else because for me, I wanted to keep my overhead costs as low as possible that first year. So my plan was is for this first year, I am going to do as much as I can on my own until I get to that point where I can’t to avoid those overhead costs. I was running myself pretty thin, but I kept my head above water and I was doing really good. We were so excited about bringing on a massage therapist, an acupuncturist, a nutritionist, and we brought on all these really awesome holistic services to fill the space in the building.

We were really doing good. I think February, 2020 was just such an amazing month numbers wise. I could really envision that five-year plan. I was like, wow, look at these numbers. Then the pandemic happened and March of 2020 all of those side services came to a halt. All of our face to face services came to a halt and I’m sure like anybody else listening, they remember just what that was like for everything to really slow down. So, because of that slow down in that few months my plan to outsource some of those things really came to a halt.

I was like, okay, I’m going to keep doing this. Then about three months after the pandemic, the phones did not stop ringing. I mean, it was so, and I’m sure for many people listening, it was just so intense. Therefore I brought on, I think, four more contractors in 2020, maybe five, I think looking back now. I also brought on my first intern. I also started outsourcing, so I hired a virtual assistant to answer our phones, manage our website, manage our schedules, help me out with some of the billing. That was my first little bit of outsourcing in late 2020, bringing on somebody to help me out with some of that, because we just got so busy.
[JOE]
Well, so do you think it was just the pandemic and all the stress of that that made you so busy? Was it SEO? Did you track or figure out what was working at that point?
[NICOLE]
I did not track, but obviously SEO’s big because when you would Google counseling in our area, we’re one of the first ones to pop up. So that was great because I think what happened with the pandemic is for the first time people were like, oh, counseling? For the first time they were thinking about it for the first time they were Googling it. Also I think a really unique thing that was happening in 2020 was a lot of that stigma of mental health was disappearing a little bit. People were open to saying that I need help. Especially with marriage counseling, I feel like that was something that we have just seen such arise in and we continue to see a rise in. So, yes, I think that definitely had something to do with it.

Obviously I wanted that continued growth, but I also think taking on insurance because we were able to start accepting insurance in early 2020. So I think I had, I think we had our first insurance clients a week before the pandemic started, the week we started accepting insurance. So all of this started happening all at once. Once we could take that one insurance that we decided to credential with and we let some of our partners know, we let some of the people we were connected within our networks know, “Hey, we can accept insurance now.” Then I think between that and the pandemic, the phone just kept on ringing and tons of website inquiries every single day. So, yes, 2020 was a major area of growth. I think my numbers goal for 2020 was to hit 200,000 or 150,000 was what my goal was. I figured if I can hit that a year after buying a company I’m going to be good. We made it just over 200,000 that fast in 2020.
[JOE]
That’s amazing. Oh my gosh. So if someone bought a company, they’re ready to get the practice going, what would be maybe three to five things that you’d say you have to do these things in your first year? Like, this is what you have to do if you buy a company to really amp it up?
[NICOLE]
You’ve got to make it your own. I think I had said in the beginning that there was so much value in the reputation that Mental Wellness already had, but I knew that my vision for the company was to take that and elevate it. So for me, I wanted to come with this really holistic approach where we offered meditation groups, we partnered with other holistic practices in town. We were getting referrals, not from doctors, but from yoga instructors and chiropractors and massage therapists and Reiki energy workers. So I really wanted to come from this holistic perspective of treating the mind, the body, the spirit and the relationships and how those are all interconnected.

So I think number one, I would say, how are you going to make this your own? How are you going to put your spin on it? How are you going to put your style on it? This is something I tell my students in counseling skills practice too. Like we don’t want to just produce a bunch of counselors that are exactly the same, just like we don’t want a bunch of private practices that are exactly the same. We want to serve our community and serve our clients in a way that’s important to them. For me, that was from that holistic perspective. So I really tried to spin my marketing to more of that holistic perspective and then also just the way I was networking and seeking out referrals for more of those holistic practitioners in our area. I think that would be number one.
[JOE]
That’s awesome.
[NICOLE]
I think I would also encourage people to track those numbers because even, and though that wasn’t part of the plan, I was forced into it with that business plan it really helped me to develop a vision and say I want to hit half a million dollars within five years. Because to put that number on it and to see what it will take to get to that number means that I can set really specific goals to get to that number. I can calculate when do I outsource, when do I need to back off on seeing clients, I can start letting my contractors see more clients? When do I need to bring on more? When do I need to maybe get credentialed with a new insurance company and really develop that plan specific to what I envision that numbers are going to be? For me that five-year mark was half a million dollars and I reached that in 2021. So I was able to reach that goal a lot sooner, but it was because I had that plan and I was able to envision what those numbers were going to look like.
[JOE]
That that’s so awesome. Well, the last question I always ask is if every private practitioner in the world we’re listening right now, what would you want to know?
[NICOLE]
Oh goodness. You can’t do it all. You can’t do it all. I think that was something that I struggled with in the beginning, was I’m going to do everything. I’m going to have the most amazing private practice ever. Then I’m also going to answer all the phones and I’m going to shake hands with everybody and I’m going to see all the clients and I’m going to go to all the trainings and I’m also going to raise my kids at the same time. So I think for me, I had to just remind myself that I don’t have to do it all. Not only can I outsource, but I cannot sweat. I can say, I’m not going to sweat this small stuff. Or even though it would be really cool to get credentialed with this other insurance company I can wait a couple more months.

Or even though it would be really, really cool to develop this support group or this retreat that can wait because I don’t have to do everything right now. I think for maybe many of us, and I’m definitely guilty of having that all or nothing attitude, I’m going to either do it all and I’m going to do it all right now. I’m going to really be amazing and it’s going to be so awesome or I’m just not even going to do it. So for me, I’ve really had to teach myself over the past couple years that you need to meet yourself in the middle because you can’t do everything and you’re just going to burn yourself out. If you burn yourself out, you can’t be there for your clients. You can’t be there for your contractors. You can’t be there for your family and you can’t be there for yourself. So for me, showing up means, recognizing that it’s okay to back off, it’s okay to not do everything, and it’s okay to not sweat the small stuff.
[JOE]
So awesome. And Nicole, if people want to follow Mental Wellness Counseling, if they want to check out the website, what’s the best ways for them to learn more about Mental Wellness Counseling?
[NICOLE]
The best way is our website and that’s just www.mentalwellnesscounseling.com. You can also find us on Facebook at Mental Wellness Counseling, and we’re also on Instagram, Mental Wellness counseling, TC. So that’s a great way to keep up with us. We’re adding clinicians all the time. We have a lot of big plans for 2021. I’m looking at opening up our second site in the state of Michigan in 2021. So lots of great things happening in the website’s the best way to keep an eye on what we’re doing.
[JOE]
Awesome. I think you’re new to the new year, because I imagine it’s 2022 that you’re planning to do that. Not 2021.
[NICOLE]
Thank you. Oh my gosh. Here we are.
[JOE]
That’s okay. I mean, it just shows that, I still am writing 2021 on checks and stuffs.
[NICOLE]
Me too. Yep. So yes, 2022, big plans for us.
[JOE]
There we go. Cool. Well, Nicole, I’m so proud of all the things you’ve done with Mental Wellness and it’s so cool to see just that continue on and all that you’ve done there. So thanks so much for being on the Practice of the Practice podcast.
[NICOLE]
Thanks for having me, Joe.
[JOE]
So go take some action. Nicole talked about these things. Maybe it’s that you someday want to sell your practice. Do things that are going to help you to step out of the way of that future sale. So if you’re doing a ton of the counseling, maybe it’s time to bring some other people in, maybe it’s time to hand some things off. Part of the value of a company is building that reputation, is building that SEO, is building all those different aspects of it so that there’s something outside of just your own work. And to realize that you can’t do it all, just like Nicole said, at the end of the interview, you can’t do it all, nor should you do it all. And allowing yourself to say, where is that zone of genius? Where do I actually want to spend my time?

Also thank you so much to Therapy Notes. Therapy Notes has been one of our longest sponsors. They are sponsoring a ton of episodes this year. They’re sponsors for our conferences. They just are amazing. So when it comes to electronic health records, Therapy Notes is the best. They get the highest scores in almost every area compared to all the other EHRs that are out there. Also, you can get some free months if you use promo code [JOE] at checkout. As well for free, they will help you transition from whatever EHR you’re working with and they have full support for you. So there’s no reason not to switch to Therapy Notes if you are not using them.

Thank you so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Have a great day. I’ll talk to you soon.

Special thanks to the band Silence is Sexy for your intro music. We really like it. And this podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. This is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.