Creating Multiple Streams of Income For Counselors
This week, I sat down and had a zoom meeting with a clinician from Texas. We started our conversation, on our love for DIY. Do It Yourself. We both enjoy watching shows like Fixer Upper and just about any other one that has to do with DIY.
The purpose of the meeting was consultation. The clinician needed help with transitioning their practice from solo to group. The big picture was to create multiple streams of income with some of the streams being passive.
In your private practice journey, have you considered ways to create passive income? Or the idea of making the transition from solo to group practice.
I want to be first to share with you the same message that I shared with the clinician during our consultation meeting. You have the skills to create multiple streams of income. Transitioning a solo practice to a group, can be a great start to building your first additional stream of income.
Today, I want to share with you areas to focus on when transitioning from a solo practice to a group practice:
- Change the language from “I” to “We”. When clinicians operate a solo counseling practice, the focus is on the individual. While when clinicians have a group practice, the focus should be on the clinicians that are part of the counseling business.
- Create a theme that connects all the clinicians in your practice. For Santos Counseling PLLC, the theme is focused on helping the Greensboro community. Examples can include relationship, anxiety, helping women, or anger management. Overall, having a theme helps give the group practice a sense of identity.
- Focus on the marketing budget. The focus should be on how much money is being spent to market the clinicians in the group practice compared to the income generated from the clinician.
- Hire help. As the practice is growing, this essentially means that we need to go from working “in” the practice of working “on” the practice. Working on the business means that clinicians are finding smart people to do the jobs that they are doing. In my case, it would be to hire a marketing team that removes the job from me. Doing this being to free up time and allow me to do other things that help the business continue to grow.
Creative ways to start the process of adding additional sources of income:
- Identify ways to recycle your skills. For example, if you are a counselor that helps anxious kids. This can give you an edge to creating tools as a board game that helps kids navigate anxiety. Each stage of the board game can have a mixture of education and coping skills.
- Course creation. Have you thought about creating a course that mirrors what you are doing in the face to face setting? Let’s take the example of a counselor that helps adults with anger. The course can be an exact replica that connects to those who are not ready for face to face support and need a different style of aid that is still beneficial.
- Start an email list focused on those that you serve. An email list is a beautiful platform that helps you communicate with those that you serve. I like using my email list as a direct source of keeping people updated. Just like every week those that subscribe to this podcast receive an update of the new episode, the email list can serve in a similar way.
- Creating a list of ideas for multiple streams of income. The list can include so many unique and creative avenues. Check out Building Multiple Streams of Income In Private Practice.
