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Have you struggled with hiring after the pandemic? How should you manage your money to offer your employees benefits? What can you offer new employees when you are starting out in private practice for the first time?
In this podcast episode, LaToya Smith speaks about managing your business and making choices vs rules with Jennie Schottmiller.
Podcast Sponsor: OKclarity
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Meet Jennie Schottmiller
Jennie Schottmiller is a licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT) and licensed Certified Public Accountant (CPA) in Pennsylvania. Soon after opening her private therapy practice, Jennie realized that many of her peers struggled with accounting, tax, budgeting and cash management. In addition to her clinical practice, she now runs Simple Profit, offering free resources as well as a paid membership for small business owners.
Visit Simple Profit and connect on Facebook and LinkedIn.
In This Podcast
- Hiring
- Ensure salary safety
- Benefits
Hiring
When you want to have a group practice and you’re thinking about hiring, finding good people who are going to sign up for what you can afford to pay is really important.
Jennie Schottmiller
One of the first factors when it comes to hiring someone is finding the correct payment balance. Of course, you want to pay them as much as you can, but you cannot overpay them because it would hurt the business.
We all know how many of us, when we first started out, were underpaid, so there’s like an over-correction that happens when you hire and want to have a group practice where you [think], “I’m going to be the difference!” … and a year or two later they might be sitting with me wondering why they aren’t making any money.
Jennie Schottmiller
You need to factor in the costs of your business and what you can realistically offer to pay your new employees before you hire them.
Balance out your profit with their pay, so that it feels fair to you and fair to them.
Ensure salary safety
You have to make sure that you are following the employment laws of the state that you are in.
For example, if you choose an SCORP, you have to have a reasonable salary for making any kind of decent profit.
You need to be able to pay people what you say you will pay them. So, to prepare, see if you can build yourself a small financial “cushion” to help you make sure that you can pay your staff until the income equalizes and grows.
You can say, “Ah, I don’t have the money and I’m the sole proprietor so I can’t pay myself this month”. Okay, that’s going to be a really tough situation but no one’s going to come after you, but if you have employees and you [have a] payroll and they worked and they didn’t get paid, the government can come after you.
Jennie Schottmiller
Benefits
What is the best thing to offer your employees?
- Training benefits: For contractors, you cannot offer many benefits, but if you have W2 employees, Jennie recommends starting your employees off with something small, like a training benefit.
Offering paid training and classes to your new hires is a great way to help them develop themselves and their skills while also developing the practice’s group culture.
- Pay for phones: set up an affordable phone plan that you can pay for your hires if they will be using their phone during their work for you.
- Stipends: offer a small initial stipend to help them set up their background.
They’re going to feel cared about, [and that] you’re thoughtful, you’re thinking about what might really help them get started or help them in their skills and that’s a really good thing for a group practice to do.
Jennie Schottmiller
As you build your group, save some of the profit that you are making so that you can explore some more costly benefits for your employees.
Think of money and accounting as systems. Set them up and let them run, adjust them when necessary, but let them help you and build over time.
Useful links mentioned in this episode:
- Visit Professional memberships | OKclarity to learn more and schedule your call with an onboarding specialist.
- Visit Simple Profit and connect on Facebook and LinkedIn.
Check out these additional resources:
- Managing Your Business: Choices vs Rules with Jennie Schottmiller (part 1) | GP 179
- Practice of the Practice Network
- Group Practice Launch
- Group Practice Boss: www.practiceofthepractice.com/grouppracticeboss $149 a month
- PoP Group Practice Owners Facebook Group
- Free resources to help you start, grow, and scale
- Work with us
- Practice of the Practice Network
Meet LaToya Smith
LaToya is a consultant with Practice of the Practice and the owner of LCS Counseling and Consulting Agency in Fortworth Texas. She firmly believes that people don’t have to remain stuck in their pain or the place they became wounded. In addition to this, LaToya encourages her clients to be active in their treatment and work towards their desired
outcomes.
She has also launched Strong Witness which is a platform designed to connect, transform, and heal communities through the power of storytelling.
Visit LaToya’s website. Connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, Strong Witness Instagram, and Twitter.
Email her at [email protected]
