Joe Sanok 00:00:00 Want to know the secret sauce to skyrocketing your group practice? Whether you’re already a group practice owner or aspire to be one, the Group Practice Boss conference in beautiful Traverse City, Michigan on May 6th and seven, 2025 is designed just for you. This isn’t your typical conference. Expect Ted style talks that are short, focused, and packed with actionable insights. But we believe the real magic happens when you connect with others in the field, so we’ve built in plenty of time for networking and deep conversations. You’ll leave not just with a clear plan for success, but also with new friends and a support system that will help you along the way. Don’t miss out! Reserve your spot today at practice of the practice. Com forward slash conference. Again. That’s practice of the practice. Com forward slash conference. Joe Sanok 00:01:01 This is the. Joe Sanok 00:01:02 Practice of the Practice podcast with Joe Santos. Session number 1085. I’m Joe Sam, your host. And welcome to the practice of the Practice podcast where we just wrapped up Level Up week. Joe Sanok 00:01:19 And then afterwards we had a bunch of people that were leveling up into next level practice, group practice, launch group practice boss, and we are so excited to moving into kind of this next phase of planning where we’re excited about stuff we’re offering in 2025. So if you are thinking about 2025, this show is for you. Today we’re going to unravel the secrets to not just surviving, but thriving as a group practice owner in 2025. So if you are feeling stuck or ready to take your practice to the next level, this episode is exactly what you need. So maybe you’re already a group practice owner. Maybe you are a aspiring group practice owner. Right now you’re solo and someday you want to be one. This is going to be for you, because we’ll dive into proven strategies that can help you increase your revenue, improve your team’s efficiency, and most importantly, free up more of your time. You know, to me, that’s so important that we’re putting our time into the things that are just good for us, good for our family, good for our friends, good for our bodies. Joe Sanok 00:02:18 And they were setting that example as practice owners of not just hustle culture, working harder, doing all these things, but we also have time to do the things that we enjoy. Plus, I’ll share a few tips that have personally helped me and many others as well. So whether you’re new to this journey or have been in this game for years, there is always room to grow. There’s always room to grow. So if you’re interested in taking these insights further, I’ll mention an incredible opportunity happening at the Group Practice Boss conference next May, but more on that later. So first, let’s look at the current state of group practices in 2024. There are so many challenges and also opportunities. So let’s start by looking at where group practices stand today. the landscape has really changed in the last few years, and even the way that I ran my group practice that I sold back in 2019 has shifted tremendously. And there’s a number of those things. The way I had my counseling group practice at 13 clinicians was they were all 1099 contractors, and they were paid a percentage of what they brought in. Joe Sanok 00:03:17 I would not do that now. it seems like for most people and of course, talk to your accountant and attorney that W-2 employees offer just a stability that’s there that a lot of people don’t have. And giving a fixed rate per session is oftentimes going to retain people more. And then they’re also not running those numbers all the time of, well, why am I paying Joe this much? you know, what is he doing for my percentage? and so let’s talk first about a couple of the challenges. So some of the challenges in group practice are adapting to new regulations and insurance policies. So keeping up with those things, you know, when you’re wearing multiple hats as a group practice owner, you are dealing with new regulations, insurance policies. Maybe even people in your town don’t know a lot of this stuff. managing the transition to hybrid models so that in person plus telehealth, you know, in 2020, we all had to kind of do that for a bit. But now saying, well, how much of my workforce do I want to have in person? Do I want to have be telehealth? What do my clients want? Are they asking for telehealth or are they asking for in-person? Are they sick of screens? So some of those challenges are there as well. Joe Sanok 00:04:24 There’s also a huge growing competition from larger mental health organizations. We are seeing that over and over, where a lot of these national organizations are making it hard to even like pay for like Google ads because they’re putting so much money into them. They have so much private equity behind them. But oftentimes the actual therapist is getting like 30 bucks an hour. And so I’ve seen some of my, clinicians and owners that I work with, in a consulting capacity, lose people to some of these online based places saying, oh, I can make this much, you know, through, and I won’t mention them because I don’t want to rip on them. but, you know, some of these online organizations. And, then months later, they come back and say, you know, actually, it wasn’t that great. there’s also the rising cost of running a practice. So rent is going up, staff salaries, technology, everything is going up and cost, even the drinks you may have that you offer to people coming to your your practice. Joe Sanok 00:05:18 Like those costs are all going up. But some of the opportunities right now is, you know, there’s a shakeout that’s happening, as it cost more to purchase buildings, you know, with, with at the time of this recording, you know, the cost to get a business property is, is pretty large. So there’s less people that are really thinking about it. It’s shaking out, you know, during difficult times. We see that sometimes it’s shaking things out. The increased demand for mental health services post-pandemic has never been higher. We know that new technology, tools that streamline your operations and overall overhead, things like AI and those sorts of implementation, it’s making it easier to streamline the business. There’s a shift towards more personalized, client centric care where people, you know are kind of sick of the automated online tech company. And, you know, like I just was looking for a therapist. Their website was terrible. The way they talked about themselves was terrible. but you know what? They were recommended by someone I trust. Joe Sanok 00:06:16 They seem like a nice person, you know, in talking to them. so it’s not all about being this shiny, glossy, perfect marketed thing. You can also just be a great therapist, be known in the community, and still do some of those old school things and have them work next. Building a strong online presence to attract a wider client base has never been easier. So a couple tips for you in your group practice is to regularly review and adjust your pricing models to reflect market changes. So, it may be that your private pay, you’re going to be charging more or less, you’re going to be looking at your lifestyle. You’re going to be looking at your people in your group practice differently. Next, we’re going to invest in training for your team to ensure they’re equipped to handle both in-person and virtual sessions. But not just that to look at things that will streamline what you’re doing. So, for example, at the beginning of the year, we started implementing with part of our team asana to keep track of all of our project management. Joe Sanok 00:07:12 We were using Trello. It just wasn’t robust enough. We switched over to using slack channels instead of texting each other or WhatsApp. We found kind of ways that we have standard operating procedures and then had to do training with our team. And now, I mean, I don’t know the number off the top of my head, but I would guess we’re probably 30% more effective with the same amount of time because of implementing these tools and training people. Next, looking at partnerships with other health care providers, other integrated medicines, other people that are doing things. So chiropractors, massage therapists, a lot of people are dealing with these same issues. There may be a opportunity to office chair. There may be an opportunity to refer back and forth, to just create connections, or just to have a friend to really be able to think through, like where is there overlap in some of these different areas. So let’s let’s think a little bit deeper about your strategy and building a sustainable and scalable practice. So so now that we’ve kind of set the stage a little bit, let’s dive into some of those strategies to help you build a sustainable scalable practice. Joe Sanok 00:08:11 So this is where like the real transformation can begin. When I’m working with my consulting clients, we do a deep dive in that first 60 minute session where we look at everything, we look at infrastructure, we look at, you know, what’s working with marketing. We look at their team. We look at how are they acquiring their clients. So those kind of big three things are the things that we want to think about today. We want to think about first, optimizing your practices infrastructure. Second, building a strong team and then third, your marketing and client acquisition. So let’s dig into each of those three. So optimizing your practices infrastructure. So we want it to be that if you double or triple in size that your infrastructure can grow with you, that you’re not starting over. So a lot of times what gets us to 100 K or gets the 200 K is a lot of bootstrapping is, you know, kind of hodgepodge ING things together. We want to start to have more of a unified system. Joe Sanok 00:09:00 So we want to look at your current systems, what’s working, what’s not, what would break if you doubled the amount of clients that were coming in, or doubled the amount of clinicians that you had? We want to make sure that these systems can grow with you. We want to look at automating some of those admin tasks so that it’s not as manual. So we say okay, if someone’s copying and pasting these things, are there things we can use with things like Zapier to make there be automations that when this happens, then we do this? then we want to look at getting into a robust practice management system. So that’s integrating your scheduling, your billing, your client communication, something like therapy notes. They are a sponsor, but there’s a reason that we’ve had them as a sponsor for so many years is they do an amazing job of bringing it all together. next, we want to make sure that your practice is compliant with latest regulations in your state. So at least annually doing sort of a risk management assessment with your attorney to say, here’s all the stuff that I’ve done this year. Joe Sanok 00:09:54 Here’s the new stuff. Where is there some liability that I don’t see? We want those experts telling you where you can screw things up. we also want to look at making sure that we’re following all ethical, for your licensure in your state, but also all HIPAA standards. And then lastly, we want to look at that client onboarding process. This is so important. And so many people screw it up where you think about the average website for a counselor, someone comes to their website, the upper right isn’t a button, or maybe there is a button, but it’s not a different color, so it’s not clear. It just says like chat with us instead of schedule an intake. Then they get there and you know, more times than not, there’s just a form to fill out. That form just goes into the black hole of counseling intakes, and then maybe someone gets an email within a few days versus what if right away you can say, you know, here’s the kind of counselor I want, and then narrowed it down and said, these are the 2 or 3 people, which one do you want to schedule an intake with, or would you like to have someone call you to talk through this decision? What if someone could actually schedule their intake without ever talking to someone? Now, I know a lot of therapists think, oh my gosh, I want to make sure I or the intake coordinator, like, walks through everything. Joe Sanok 00:11:05 That’s great. But you can also do that during the intake. You can also have them come 15 minutes early to make sure you have their insurance cards or whatever you need. we want to reduce friction because when we reduce friction, what happens is it then allows clients to schedule quicker. If people can schedule quicker, you make more money, you have more sessions. You’re able to grow your practice faster. Now let’s think about building a strong team. So first we talked about infrastructure. Now we’re talking about a strong team. So we want to hire based on your culture what is it that you’re building here. So let’s think about what types of sessions we’re doing. Do we have a an office that’s focused all on women’s issues? Do we want to be the office that has an ability to help everybody? And we hire based on specialty areas? Do we want to look at, hey, we’re getting a lot of calls for the weekend and we want to have some people. We want to make sure that these team members share your vision, that your basic DNA of your practice that you established early on, that you say, okay, this is who we are. Joe Sanok 00:12:01 So with mental illness counseling, I knew that I wasn’t looking at building a second family. I already have a great family. I like my kids. I like my family members. I like my friends. there is value in enjoying who you work with. But also, I wasn’t looking at people to barbecue with after work. I had too much on my plate, so I was looking for people that would show up, be low drama, do the work, promote mental wellness, and then be able to to grow with the practice. Now, is that what I would want now? Know now that I’m past those like young kid years where it felt like I was like barely above water. I probably would say, hey, I understand more the value of having culture and enjoying being around each other, and that there’s value in those sorts of things. we want to develop a comprehensive onboarding program. So even starting to think through, okay. When someone on boards, let’s just keep track of all the stuff that they’re doing. Joe Sanok 00:12:55 So to get new hires up to speed quickly, to get them booked, hopefully before even their first day. So we know so-and-so is starting December 1st, and that we’re booking out throughout November and filling up their first week so that they can get started quickly. Whatever stage your practice is at, we know using great resources with patients is crucial to helping them get better faster. As a practice owner, I never compromised on this, but finding the right materials was a constant challenge. It’s so time consuming, especially with everything else to juggle. That’s why I recommend Psychology Tools, an online library of over 500 evidence based resources for whatever problems your clients are facing. Choose practical exercises, handouts and worksheets. Audio therapy treatment manuals and loads more. They’re even available in multiple languages and formats developed by highly qualified psychologists. Resources can be downloaded with therapist guidance to enhance skills or client guidance, helping patients make the most of each tool. It’s a game changer for saving time when delivering more effective therapy, as well as a great resource. Joe Sanok 00:14:12 Library Psychology Tools is also a smart business tool, boosting productivity and efficiency. Focus on growing your practice while your team feels better prepared for every session. It’s a win win for you and for me and for the client. Visit Psychology tools.com/joe to find out more. Use Code Joe 24 for 20% off new subscriptions. Again that psychology tools. Com slash Joe to find out more. Now we want to have those regular, kind of team building activities that foster positive work environment. We want to be able to have team meetings. We want to have ways that we work through things together. so one thing to consider is over time, implementing a mentorship program. I had this when I worked at the community college, and there was a librarian that was paired with me. She had worked at the college for, I think like 20 years. and, you know, she and her husband, you know, had me over for dinner and it was like when I had those questions about the work environment that, you know, maybe I didn’t want my boss to know. Joe Sanok 00:15:16 Maybe I didn’t want HR to know. I could go to her and say, I have this question about how I’m thinking about this. Is this right? Or, you know, just as someone that’s there. So that can really help encourage that growth and retention of your team. And last, building a strong team, setting clear expectations and providing feedback. so one thing we do is towards the end of every year, we look at what are three KPIs, key performance indicators for the next year that we can really look at. And so it might be we want to serve x number of people. We want to do x number of you know thousands of dollars in growth. We want to, you know, build new programs. We want to build out our our infrastructure and giving some numbers to that to say, what does that look like? One of our big numbers around operation was does Sam Arco, is she getting sucked into too many unnecessary meetings? And so we track how many unnecessary meetings she just gets sucked into. Joe Sanok 00:16:10 and a lot of that was happening because we didn’t have a good communication system. And so being able to say, well, like, what are we trying to do here? How do we put some numbers to that? Almost like when you’re building a treatment plan and someone says, you know, I deal with anxiety and you say, well, what does that look like? And they say, man, most mornings I wake up with like a pit in my stomach as I enter the day, you’re like, oh man, that must be really hard. Like, you know, how does that make you feel through the day? What does that look like? What do you wish happened? Oh, if I could just maybe twice a week, wake up with a pit in my stomach. Okay, now we have a new goal. We have a number to say. Let’s keep track of how many mornings you wake up with a pit in your stomach. Let’s look at what you’re doing the night before. Joe Sanok 00:16:46 Are there things that we can do right before bed and just test to see if you wake up with as much of a pit in your stomach. What reduces anxiety? Maybe green tea or green tea because it has caffeine, but maybe you know, some sort of tea before bed instead of the two martinis? Let’s see. Let’s just try that for a week and see if that helps you reduce the anxiety in the morning. Let’s let’s incorporate some workout and see if that works. Let’s maybe talk to your psychiatrist or doctor and see if that could help, maybe get a sleep test. So it then allows us to have something around a treatment plan, same sort of thing in setting clear expectations and having that feedback. The last area marketing and client acquisition we want to look at how are new clients finding you. So are they finding you via social media. So we want to make sure we have some brand consistency, some brand colors, design through Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, all those good things that we have some brand consistency there and that we’re posting regularly. Joe Sanok 00:17:42 That doesn’t mean we have to do it once a day or three times a day, but that, you know, we’re doing it if we can only do once a week, do once a week. If we can only do twice a week, do twice a week, commit to something and do it regularly. Does that mean you as the owner is doing that? No, not at all. that means that we may, you know, outsource that to somebody else. We want to implement some of those SEO strategies to make sure that you are ranking high in search engines, that you’re having regular blog content, that you have regular articles that are going there, that are good quality articles that sound like, you know, you can use AI to help with the first round of that, but we want to make sure that your own personal touch is a part of that. We want to use email marketing to stay connected with your potential and existing clients. So offering high quality things and making sure it’s segmented. Joe Sanok 00:18:23 We don’t want to be, you know, sending all these email newsletters to people if that’s not what they need. You know, if we know that people came in for help with a relationship, we should make sure our emails are primarily about relationship health, that we’re not sending them a million emails, all about everything your practice is doing. You could offer free webinars or live workshops to attract new clients, or establish your practice as an authority. Partnering with organizations like churches, parent teacher organizations, meditation communities to do different types of webinars or workshops. Locally. There’s a therapist that she offers. She calls them like glitter hikes or Glisson hikes or something like that. And it’s basically a mindfulness hike. And I think that she she asks for like a $10 donation, but it’s a good way to get her known for she’s into nature. she’s into like meditation and mindfulness. And if someone’s looking for someone that wants those things, she’s someone that would be a great referral source that people know about. and then lastly, we want to collaborate with local businesses and community organizations. Joe Sanok 00:19:24 So oftentimes you can be doing lunch and learns at local businesses, your your local rotary or your local chamber of commerce or, you know, being known amongst score mentors. So scores score is like retired people that do mentoring. they may be pointing people towards different things they need. So the more that you can be involved in those things, the better. All right. so next let’s move into some kind of practical application. I want you to just think through some imaginary practice scenarios. So let’s let’s bring these concepts to life a little bit with some imaginary private practice scenarios. So you can see how to apply these things. So I mean imagine there’s a practice that maybe they’re based in a mid-sized city. They have a mix of in-person and telehealth. they have a team of maybe five clinicians and two admin staff. So kind of smaller counseling practice, but they want to grow. They’ve been experiencing growth, but maybe they’re struggling with retaining clients and managing the increased workload. So what would we do. So step one we want to look at their infrastructure optimization we talked about. Joe Sanok 00:20:24 So first the practice will recommend that they should audit their current systems find they find that maybe their scheduling and billing process is outdated. Maybe they find that it’s insufficient. then we might encourage them to switch to an integrated practice management system that automates more of those tasks, frees up the admin time to then those admin can focus more on client engagement, after they update their client onboarding process, we might say, let’s make it a little more user friendly and streamlined, which that then reduces client drop off during the initial stages. So at every stage we’re thinking, okay, how do we get more people to click right at the beginning? Then how do we get, you know, 5% more to click that they want to schedule an appointment? How do we get 5% more to show up? How do we get 5% more? Next thing you know you got 2,025% growth. Step two would then be in building a strong team. So maybe that practice implements a mentorship program for those new clinicians, pairs them with more experienced staff to help them integrate. Joe Sanok 00:21:17 When you think about the more experienced staff, probably stay full. They probably have techniques. And, you know, how do you talk about therapy? Like, this isn’t a like one and done you know what you’re talking about in your intake. This is going to take 8 to 10 sessions for us to really work on that. And so having clinicians share with clinicians can be a really effective strategy. So next maybe they start scheduling regular like team building activities or team connection activities to strengthen those relationships. Maybe there’s some collaboration where people are sharing what they’ve found is his working and then that team might start to create some expectations. They have quarterly reviews, maybe specific goals for their own professional development or client satisfaction. So these are all opportunities for the intake coordinator to say, okay, let’s start. You know, improving this team. Let’s support these clinicians in different ways okay. So then when we get through that phase, phase three, step three, maybe more around marketing and client acquisition. And the practice starts to enhance its online presence by updating the website with more SEO optimized content that also looks good on a cell phone. Joe Sanok 00:22:16 I recently heard that 70 to 80% of all people searching for counseling are looking on their phone. So if your website doesn’t look good on a phone, you’ve got to work with an IT coordinator to help with that. So that would lead to more client inquiries for this imaginary scenario. Maybe they launch a series of free monthly webinars on popular mental health topics, so that can be a funnel for attracting new clients. It can be something to promote on the Facebook page, on Instagram and TikTok, things like that. And then the practice partners with local businesses offering mental health workshops and creating kind of luncheon learns and different partnerships with with both sides. So what we typically see with this kind of plan when we do this in consulting is within six months to practice, usually sees at least a 25% increase in new clients and 15% improvement in client retention. Typically, there’s higher satisfaction with the staff due to better systems and that team dynamic. All right. So when we think about all of this there’s going to be growth obstacles. Joe Sanok 00:23:12 So let’s talk through that. So every growth journey comes with its different sets of challenges. So let’s talk about some common obstacles and how to overcome them. So first we want to manage those growing pains. So we want to be balancing the quality of care with the number of clients to avoid burnout. So that people are offering good quality care. With the number of clients. We want to start to ensure that there’s consistent client experiences across multiple locations. So if you have someone go at one location, maybe you’re offering different locations. We want to make sure that there’s a streamlined process. I worked at a place once before I had my own practice, and they had multiple locations, and one location got 90% of the referrals, even though there was people that lived closer to the other location. So if I were the owner of that business, I would have asked, why is this the case? Why what’s working and not working with this other location? Next, we want to start dealing with the increased admin load as things start to grow. Joe Sanok 00:24:07 You got to know when to hire more support staff. So having an algorithm as to when there’s a certain number of clients coming in or a certain number of clinicians, when do we hire a part time support staff? When do we look at having a full time? When we have two full time, how does that look? Or do we have some sort of services where we outsource this? Next, we want to look as we grow at navigating those financial strains during the scanning process. How do you reinvest those profits back in the business? When do you do that versus taking your owner’s share out? So a couple of things around your client retention strategies. You can personalize your services. So the clients, know that you’re listening. You can follow up regularly in all sorts of HIPAA compliant ways, whether that’s text you can do surveys, things like that. we can also ask for feedback to make adjustments in regards to, you know, what clients want. We can also train your staff, on exceptional customer service, like small gestures that really matter. Joe Sanok 00:25:01 I remember when I learned that Mac, when they were looking at building their Genius Bar, in their Apple stores, they sent those people to concierge training at high end hotels. What an amazing thing to do. Where it’s like, we want these people to act like concierge at a fancy, fancy rest or a fancy, hotel. That’s insane. That’s such a good idea. We’ve covered a lot today, and I hope you’re feeling inspired and equipped to take your practice to new heights. But if you’re ready for even more. More growth, more support, more success. There’s a next step you can take. So why should you attend the group practice boss conference? Well, it is right around the corner in May 2025. When you attend, you’re going to get access to exclusive strategies and insights from top experts in the field. We are going to have TEDx X style short form trainings, with also the opportunity to network with like minded owners and potential partners. These workshops are designed to help you implement what you’ve learned and create actionable growth. Joe Sanok 00:26:12 We also want to work together to create friends, create that community, because oftentimes we go home and the people that are in our communities are not the people that are giving us the best advice. So if you’re serious about scaling your practice and making 2025 your breakthrough year, don’t miss this opportunity. Visit practice of the practice. Com for a conference to secure your spot at the Group Practice Boss conference here in Traverse City, Michigan. Your future self will thank you. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. Thank you for, just being an amazing person. We couldn’t have done this show without psychology tools. Psychology tools was developed by highly qualified psychologists to make resources that you can download and use in your sessions. You can focus on growing your practice while your team feels better prepared for every single session. It’s a win win for you and for your team. Visit Psychology Tools commu to find out more and use code Joe 24 for 20% off all new subscriptions. Thank you so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Joe Sanok 00:27:14 Have a great day. I’ll talk to you soon. Special thanks to the band silence Sexy for that intro music. And this podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter cover. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the producers, the publishers or guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.