STP 41 | Scaling your Therapy practice with Financially Savvy Hiring Practices
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Season two of scaling therapy practice starts next week. Join Lisa mustard. Don gave bureau Steve B saw. And of course myself, your host James Marland for season two, where we talk about the topic of marketing, your mental health practice. We're going to talk about topics like SEO. Webpages social media, lead magnets, uh, webinars and everything. Marketing for your therapy, practice and therapy products. Send your questions or comments about the show that you want answered or read to James? At course creation studio.com. I would love to get some audience participation on this vital topic of marketing, your mental health practice. This week I talk, I have an interview with financial expert, Clara Titus. And she tells us about how to get your therapy practice, ready to scale. Financially. Before you hire. So how do you get ready to hire? I hope you get out of the discussion as much as i got out of the discussion about knowing your numbers and being financially ready to hire now i'm with the show Hello, this is James Marland with the Scaling Therapy Practice. This is the show where we encourage you to take intentional steps towards sustainable growth. This week we have a special guest, Carla Titus. She's the Fra a fractional c e o, and Founder of Wealth and Worth Within. You can find her at Wealth Worth, wealth worth within.com. I'll have that link in the show notes. And our topic today is we're gonna talk about getting your therapy practice ready. For hiring and your next steps in hiring, and she has over, she's an expert in finance with over 15 years of a combined corporate financing, planning, analyst strategy, and online business experience.
[00:02:12] James Marland: That sounds like somebody you want in your corner when you're getting ready to hire. She provides fractional C F O services. And financial consulting to businesses owners and business owners looking to grow their business profitably. Her priorities for her clients as they grow. Our profits have the cash in the bank and pay themselves well so they can build their personal wealth. Carlo, welcome to
[00:02:34] James Marland: the show.
[00:02:35] Carla Titus: Thanks for having me. So excited to be here and be able to share, you know, a lot of ss of wisdom, hopefully, that people can take away and implement.
[00:02:44] James Marland: Yeah, we were, we were talking in the pre-show about how, how people have not, people who haven't hired or who haven't run a group practice before. Uh, they, they don't think of
[00:02:57] James Marland: all the things that they were doing. And my, my story was I had a friend who had contractors and then when she started her, her group practice, she hired the contractors on at the same rate. As she was paying them as contractors and, uh, you, you were saying there's some, there's some issues with that because she, she ran outta money. She was starting to run outta money because she didn't factor in some of the things she was missing, like operations, expense, taxes, uh, sick days, benefits, all those things. And so when she got in it to a couple months, she's like, oh, I'm working so much harder. And I'm, I'm not, I have more people and I don't have more money. So you, Carla, you help people with things like that,
[00:03:47] James Marland: right?
[00:03:48] Carla Titus: That's right. We bring them some clarity to help them understand total compensation cost of hiring an employee and converting them from a contractor to an employee, which is a much more expensive, uh, thing to do if you don't factor in all the additional costs that come with having an employee that you didn't have when you just paid a contractor.
[00:04:06] Carla Titus: Um, you know, we didn't even talk about the laptop that you might buy them or the . Technology you might be paying for monthly for them in addition to their wages and payroll taxes and benefits. So it does really make the calculation change and shift, and we look at it from a, what is your gross margin perspective so that we can assess overall, but also individually what's happening with each of the employees you bring on, and how are they contributing to the bottom line.
[00:04:32] James Marland: So we're gonna get into that topic. I'm really excited to talk about that. Hiring is one of my favorite topics to talk about because it is very important to the growth of a practice and hiring the right person at the right time. But, uh, uh, we're gonna talk out on the financial side, so I'm very excited about that. Uh, Carla though, uh, what is, uh, I I normally ask people for a tool, a tip or a piece of tech tool tip or tech, uh, that they're using. It could be related to the topic, it could be just something, you know, you found something on Amazon and you wanna tell everybody about it. So what's a, what's a piece of, what's a tool tip or tech that you have for the
[00:05:12] James Marland: audience
[00:05:12] Carla Titus: Yeah, I would say, um, even though we're talking about finances, time tracking tends to be one that a lot of people miss, and time is money and making sure that you're managing it effectively. So any tool that can help you automatically track hours work, um, on various different tasks for your business. As a business owner, we do so many things and we get.
[00:05:32] Carla Titus: Super busy with demands from the team and clients and delivering services. So making sure you understand where's your time going and is it going to the right places, or is there something that you need to delegate and hire out for a much lower price point than your time, uh, to be able to save some money and get back to the things that really only you as the owner can get accomplished.
[00:05:54] James Marland: Yeah, I think knowing where your time goes is very important, and you brought up a point where if you're doing it, but you can. Pay somebody else who can do it the same or better for a lower rate, then you're, you're, you're kind of wasting your time and
[00:06:09] James Marland: money
[00:06:10] Carla Titus: Exactly.
[00:06:10] James Marland: doing it. I think, uh, the pod, the podcast, it was called Manager Tools.
[00:06:15] James Marland: They called it manager Economics 1 0 1. Just, just basic, just basically what I said, if the manager's doing it, but somebody else
[00:06:22] James Marland: can do it for the same, the same quality or better, because often people have better gifts than you. And y you're, you're taking away from the only the things you can do. So, uh, what, what, uh, do you have a favorite tool for that?
[00:06:37] James Marland: Like, uh, how,
[00:06:38] James Marland: what, what, what, uh, what can people use to
[00:06:41] James Marland: track time?
[00:06:41] Carla Titus: We've used clock five, but there's, you know, tools like Harvest and others that honestly, as long you could do it manually. You know, it doesn't necessarily have to be a tool, but it is a tip that you can use technology to help facilitate that time tracking. But if it's not required, but those tools, you know, are readily available and sometimes there's plugins so you can, um, add to your email to make it easier or to your browser so that you're not struggling to do that, you know, time tracking.
[00:07:07] James Marland: Yeah, I've used both Clock AFI for myself and for some employees and harvest for some people and employees. I think, uh, we moved to Clock iffy. Uh, well, we moved to Clock iffy because of it. It was gonna integrate with something I. Then it didn't and, uh, so, but we did like the, the, the FIDS of Clock I, where we could add projects.
[00:07:36] James Marland: I mean, you can do this in harvest too, but they had reports and projects and we could share their reports easily with our customers. Uh, I wasn't, I wasn't dissatisfied with Harvest. We were just trying to get it integrated with something. So we moved to Clocky. Um, do, uh, do you, do you have any, uh, if somebody wants to get started, do you have any tips on getting started with, uh, tracking your time or having your employees track your time?
[00:08:04] Carla Titus: Yeah, just set some parameters on what needs to be tracked and what is the purpose of tracking it. 'cause I think just tracking your time for the sake of tracking it is not really going to help you accomplish anything, but we're tracking it to understand, you know, what effort is being put into certain projects or certain tasks and
[00:08:21] Carla Titus: Driving efficiency, ideally in some of those areas that possibly we could be spending less time by, you know, looking at the way we do it and helping improve by coaching our employees on where their time needs to be spent and how they can best spend it. Not because we're trying to micromanage, but really because we're trying to find opportunities to drive efficiency for the company so we can free up their time to do bigger, better things.
[00:08:45] Carla Titus: And then make sure that once you get those reports, you're doing something with the data. Because just tracking it for the sake of tracking it is not gonna change anything. Um, so, you know, make steps or a plan on, okay, we'll tackle this two opportunity areas where we can improve and then come up with ideas and brainstorm what could be possible and how that can help you bring back some of the, you know, the time back to your team so they can do other things that are more enjoyable or that can really move the needle for the company.
[00:09:11] James Marland: Yeah, that. I think that's really important, the communication aspect, because if you just roll out, oh, we're gonna track everybody's time with this new automated program. They, they, they could be like, like, uh, if they don't know what it's for, which you explained brilliantly, like, we're gonna do bigger, better things.
[00:09:31] James Marland: We're gonna make sure that you're spending, you're doing what you, um, what you enjoy and what the tasks that need to be done. We're trying not to waste time, you know, all those goals. If, if we don't tell them those things, they're gonna be like, oh, they don't
[00:09:45] James Marland: trust me.
[00:09:46] Carla Titus: Exactly. We don't wanna give that, you know, sense of we're micromanaging and we just wanna know every minute of your No. It's a, we wanna free you up to do better things, bigger projects, accomplish more. How can we help you and support you and coach you on the best ways to do it?
[00:10:02] James Marland: Great. All right, so we're gonna ask some questions about hiring. Thank you for that tip. By the way, the time tracking is wonderful, and I know people hate doing it, but the benefit of tracking time and knowing where your time goes. Far outweighs the, you know, if you're the owner and you're tracking your time for a week or two or a month, whatever, to figure out where it goes, it, it far outweighs the pain of doing that.
[00:10:28] James Marland: And, uh, if you can't, you can't improve what you don't measure.
[00:10:32] James Marland: You don't even
[00:10:32] James Marland: know where you are foundationally if you don't measure it. So that was a great tip. So we're gonna move into our topic on, uh, getting ready to hire. Uh, And kind of go on the financial side of getting ready to hire. But the, the first question I have here is how can you plan and project your practice finances to guide your hiring?
[00:10:57] Carla Titus: Yeah, so this is a lot of the work. We partner with our practice owners to, you know, demystify or uncover and getting some clarity on where is your practice going? Do you have revenue goals and you know, profitability goals you're trying to hit. So the first step is really understanding what are the company goals and if you haven't spent time
[00:11:19] Carla Titus: To put those together. Now it's a great time of year. Um, we're actually seeing a lot of demand for our annual budget planning, uh, process because we come together in partnership with the owner to say, okay, what are you expecting to do in revenue next year? How does that break down monthly based on the seasonality we've seen in your business?
[00:11:37] Carla Titus: What, what kind of team does it take to get to those ? Goals or how many clinical billable hours weekly does that mean you are hitting, your team needs to hit in order for that to be a reality? So we tie it back to what is the team size and roles that you need in the company to achieve this next level of growth.
[00:11:56] Carla Titus: And so it's kind of working backwards. We f first set the big goals and then say, what does it take? Once we assess the size of team, both clinical and admin, that you need to support those goals, now we can start thinking about what are the gaps we have in the existing team that we are lacking for support or for, you know, being able to do the work to deliver to our patients as the support they need.
[00:12:19] Carla Titus: And then start to get clarity on the roles that we need to hire for next. And then after that, . You have already thought about some of the costs that come with adding that additional team, um, onto your plan because you're going through what are the roles, what is the salary expectations, what are some of the costs that come with hiring those people, including the things I mentioned, like buying a laptop or having the monthly tech fees added to the cost of bringing those people.
[00:12:47] Carla Titus: And so none of that becomes a surprise because it's built into the plan proactively by you looking ahead, . And then making decisions on the timing on when you will bring those roles into the company based on the growth that you're seeing on the revenue side. So it's all interconnected, and by taking a moment to think about that proactively, now you have so much more clarity on when and how many are you going to hire.
[00:13:13] Carla Titus: And then the next step is to prepare your . Cashflow to make sure that you have the runway to be able to bring these people on board and wait for, you know, two, three months for them to get up to speed and fully, uh, delivering their own value. Because, you know, people need time when they're integrated into a new company to get their caseload up and be able to get up to that point where they're contributing beyond their cost, and then making sure that you have that runway so that you are not having sleepless nights because you
[00:13:42] Carla Titus: Hired too many and couldn't afford a cost, and now you're running out of cash in the bank account.
[00:13:47] James Marland: So, just to summarize, I wrote down a few things. Like you're, you're helping them plan from the, from the, their goal. Like you start with their goal and you work backwards to be like, okay, if you want to, if you wanna make this much money, what does that mean? And you break down the numbers. Oh, that means you'd have to have this many staff with this many sessions. Charging this much, uh, with these overhead
[00:14:15] James Marland: expenses, and I'm sure that's more complicated than that, but you're removing, you're, you're building, building the plan and removing surprises and adding
[00:14:24] James Marland: clarity.
[00:14:25] Carla Titus: You got it? Yes.
[00:14:26] James Marland: Yeah. Uh, that, that sounds so beneficial because often, often the way to do it is like, oh, I got it. An extra $10,000 in the bank, I can hire five people, And it just doesn't work that way. Like, if, if you just see the money and start spending that that sounds like a, that, that just sounds like a recipe for disaster. And you're gonna, you're creating, you're creating your own problems, like you're creating your own landmines. Like my friend who hired the person and didn't realize the taxes and the overhead, uh, she, she then had to have I believe she had difficult conversations coming up, you know, with her, with her therapist. Like, either you're not gonna get a raise for five years, or, Hey, I made a mistake. You know, and sometimes it works out well and sometimes you know, it, it
[00:15:21] James Marland: doesn't.
[00:15:22] Carla Titus: Mm-hmm.
[00:15:22] James Marland: So, uh, so maybe you answered this questions, but what are some of the steps to demystify your numbers to help you make better financial
[00:15:31] James Marland: decisions?
[00:15:32] Carla Titus: Yeah. So you wanna start by understanding, um, top level revenue. What is the monthly or weekly, um, what are some of the goals that you're trying to achieve so you can look at the past six months and get a good feel for what has been possible. We don't
[00:15:47] James Marland: S So somebody who doesn't speak accounting, what is top level revenue? Is that all the money you
[00:15:54] James Marland: bring in? Top
[00:15:55] James Marland: level is
[00:15:56] Carla Titus: Yeah. So top line or top level is what we call, uh, revenue, and revenue is also called sales, and it's also called income in case you're confused, they're all the same thing. It's like the money that comes into the business from the services that you're providing every month. Um, so we started looking at that.
[00:16:15] Carla Titus: Yes, you got it. We start looking at that first.
[00:16:17] James Marland: and, and that's before, before expenses, before taxes, before Everything, it's like the top number of everything you brought in. So you, you help people understand what that number is and where it's coming. Some like you could have revenue sources where you're like, oh, that goes in there.
[00:16:35] James Marland: Like, you're not even associating with that.
[00:16:37] James Marland: So
[00:16:38] Carla Titus: Yeah. Good.
[00:16:39] James Marland: go ahead. Uh, sorry about, sorry for interrupting and sorry for my internet, but we'll
[00:16:43] James Marland: get through this.
[00:16:44] James Marland: so you help them understand their top, top
[00:16:46] James Marland: line.
[00:16:47] Carla Titus: Yeah, so we start with the top line understanding like what revenue is coming into the business and maybe there's, you know, four or five different ways that you make money. So understanding how they all come together for that total number of, you know, services that you've provided and you've collected, um,
[00:17:04] Carla Titus: For the work that you're doing. So we start there because we need to know what has been done in the past so we can then plan and project out what the future might look like. So we start with that because that is really what's available before we start. Thinking about the cost that it takes us to have a team or a practice or like admin staff.
[00:17:25] Carla Titus: So then we go down to what are the costs of delivering those services. And this would be a cost of goods soul line item in a p and l for those of you who maybe have taken some accounting. Uh, but we relabel that cost of services because in a service-based businesses, we're only gonna have labor tied to delivering the services.
[00:17:44] Carla Titus: So, We use that to understand what are the gross margins, meaning what is left after we pay our providers, um, for the practice to run on and have, you know, expenses, um, that are overhead or admin costs, like we call them, operating expenses of the business. So we have your top line revenue.
[00:18:04] James Marland: breaking it
[00:18:04] James Marland: out.
[00:18:05] Carla Titus: Yeah.
[00:18:05] James Marland: You're breaking it out and creating this picture and showing them, this is how much you make. This is what it costs you to make these items. This is what is left. I guess for other
[00:18:17] James Marland: things
[00:18:18] Carla Titus: Yeah.
[00:18:18] Carla Titus: Yeah, exactly. It's this is what
[00:18:20] James Marland: Did I get that right?
[00:18:21] Carla Titus: Yes. This is what it costs you to provide those services and earn that revenue in your business. Right? Because without the people that do the work, you probably won't make it.
[00:18:33] James Marland: and, uh, I, I remember my Quicken or QuickBooks where if, if my cost, my, uh, there was a ratio, you know, if it was, I. 40, 40 cents on the dollar or 40% or 60%, that was a good month. If it was like 85, 90 5%, that means you just
[00:18:53] James Marland: squeaked by. And if it was over one, that means you spent more money than you made.
[00:18:58] James Marland: And I think that's, uh, it's eye-opening when you see those black and white numbers. Like, oh, that's, that's why it felt so hard this month. I was spending more, you know, I had this big bill and I was spending more this month Than Than I made.
[00:19:14] Carla Titus: Exactly, and I think that when you're feeling that way, the numbers tend to validate that feeling because you look back and you see those percentages are . Just way too high on cost. And then you can't run a practice on margins that are too slim. And I think a lot of people that are going from like solo to group practice need to understand that your margins have to be really strong, meaning 50% or you know, 40% at least for you to be able to still be able to cover the operational costs of the business, which is all the overhead that people talk about, right?
[00:19:48] Carla Titus: So you have your rent costs, your admin costs, maybe, um, subscriptions and other things that . Our cost of doing business, and we call those operational expenses. Once you take that piece away, then what is left is either a profit, ideally, or sometimes a loss. And in those months where you had that 85% margins, you probably were running at a loss because there's just a lot of fixed costs that go into running a business and making sure that you're looking at those
[00:20:18] Carla Titus: Four numbers, really your revenue, your cost of services, your operating expenses, and your profit is really gonna start to give you much more clarity on what's actually happening in your business. And I would recommend people look at that at least monthly because it will give you a really good feel on where you're at.
[00:20:34] James Marland: All right, so you're, you're, you have a plan, you're, you understand your numbers. How do you know How do you know you can really afford to hire? I think that's a big question for people they think they can hire. You know, I think I can do it, but how do you really know when it's the right time to
[00:20:52] James Marland: hire?
[00:20:53] Carla Titus: Yeah, that's a great question. And a few markers that we look for in a business before we try to go scale it. And that's what you're trying to do when you're hiring new people. You're trying to scale and grow the business. And it takes a lot of effort, not only on your end time, you know, interviewing candidates and such, but it also takes a lot of cash, which you would be surprised 'cause a lot of people don't plan for this.
[00:21:15] Carla Titus: And so a few things that I look in a business when . Helping them understand whether or not they're ready to hire. One is they need to be running profitably.
[00:21:24] James Marland: so, but let's get into that. Uh, what are some of the unplanned expenses of hiring? You mentioned the owner's time. What, what else would fit in that category? Because I think those are, we, we, everybody's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's expenses when hiring, but it's not broken down. So what are some of those expenses? Maybe training. What,
[00:21:45] James Marland: what else?
[00:21:46] Carla Titus: Yeah, so you're gonna have your own time of interviewing and going through the process of recruiting the talent that you wanna get. You might even spend some money advertising the job posting on LinkedIn or recruiter.com or whatever websites are available that can lead you to find the right candidate for your job.
[00:22:03] Carla Titus: Um, after you've gone through the. You know, selection and you have found someone you still need to onboard and, and train them. That takes time and effort, getting them into all the systems, making sure they have the right paperwork signed. And so if you don't have a solid process there, you're gonna spend a lot of your time or your team's time trying to get all that in order.
[00:22:24] Carla Titus: Even like enrolling them in payroll, , you know, the basic things that we don't think about, but there's like probably a good 10 to 20 steps action list that you need to have ready. To onboard someone successfully, then there's a time they gotta
[00:22:37] James Marland: the therapy practice. Well in the therapy practice, sorry about the internet again, but in the therapy practice, you know, you're signing them up for their, for their, uh, uh, the health records that they get. You're signing 'em up for your payroll service. You're signing 'em up for their internet and their email account and, and the training and the time of your staff that it takes them to train. And they haven't made
[00:23:02] James Marland: any money
[00:23:02] Carla Titus: Correct.
[00:23:03] James Marland: like, and the, you know, it takes a couple weeks to a couple months to get people onboarded and seeing, getting a, a
[00:23:12] James Marland: caseload where they're actually not a drain on the resources. So having the plan to, to absorb all that. Cost is, is it's gotta, it's gotta be vital.
[00:23:23] James Marland: Otherwise you're gonna, you talked about those sleepless nights, you're gonna have a couple when you're, you're paying somebody full price when they're not bringing money
[00:23:32] James Marland: in.
[00:23:32] Carla Titus: Exactly, and then you gotta give them time to train on the way that you do things in your practice, right? Remember, they're new to your company too. They might be an experienced therapist with years, you know, under their belt. That doesn't mean that their caseload is gonna be a hundred percent full tomorrow.
[00:23:48] Carla Titus: So we also have to give them time to get adjusted and get up to speed on their caseload, and that could be two, three months before they're fully contributing. . To the business. So why this is all important is because when we are planning for hiring, we are looking for not just a profitable business, but also a business that has cash in the bank, cash runway to allow for this hire that two to three months it takes for them to get up to speed and fully contributing where they're no longer costing you money, but they're actually making you money.
[00:24:18] Carla Titus: And so making sure you have that cash in the bank. In addition to all the cash you have to have available to still cover payroll and other expenses, so this is in addition to why it makes it so hard to scale sometimes, is because people are not looking at their cash runway and saving ahead of time to make sure you can cover two or three months of someone not being fully contributing to your team.
[00:24:40] James Marland: Hmm. Are there other, other, uh, ways to get to know that you really can afford to hire? I think we talked about expenses. I, I, I sidetracked you by talking about the hidden expenses, but what are, how can a practice know that they're ready? Like, is there a number? Is it a feeling? Is it a goal? Is it like
[00:25:00] James Marland: the, the magic eight ball? You know, what, what do what, how do they
[00:25:03] James Marland: know?
[00:25:03] Carla Titus: Well, so if your practice have seen that, uh, there's maybe a wait list for your services. Um, you have really strong marketing systems in place that is attracting a lot of the ideal type of patients that you wanna see and work with. If you . Are completely at capacity with your current team and you see that there is just a demand on your services, then it might be a time to start considering bringing someone else on board.
[00:25:30] Carla Titus: Even if it's part-time temporarily, maybe that converses to full-time down the road, but you know that you've exceeded what your team is capable of doing today, and you still see demand for your services. Now's the time to start thinking about. Bringing on, maybe not even just one hire. Sometimes I see practices that are bringing two or three at a time because the effort of hiring and training and onboarding is so much that it's much more efficient for us to bring on more people, knowing that we will double down on our marketing budget, maybe to attract more paying clients that are ready to sign up with our new therapist once we open up that capacity.
[00:26:07] James Marland: But it sounds like that's part of
[00:26:10] James Marland: a plan,
[00:26:10] Carla Titus: It is back to the plan
[00:26:12] James Marland: I. Yeah, back to the plan. Have that plan and you goal, it's goal oriented. You're not just hiring because, oh, it's time to hire. It's a, it's a plan. And there might be a time where you're like, I, I have enough. You know, I have enough. But that's also part of your plan because growth, you could keep growing, but there's a, a diminishing return sometimes on what you do and the effort it takes.
[00:26:38] James Marland: And if you're happy with where you're at. Which is what you plan for then, then you don't have to feel that pressure of I gotta keep growing for growth's sake. You're, you're growing because you're, you're going towards
[00:26:51] James Marland: a goal.
[00:26:51] Carla Titus: Yeah, and James, in some cases what I see happen is even practices who are not necessarily looking to grow might be having some retention issues with their own team. And, you know, for various reasons, therapists decide to change practices or leave or go work elsewhere. So they, even if they're not planning to grow, they might still be having to plan to hire because they're just replacing the people that they're losing and, you know, bringing in new people.
[00:27:17] Carla Titus: So . They always have to be ready to hire, I think in the most, most cases because even if you manage to retain a portion of your population that's very happy working here, you might lose others unexpectedly. And you know, what we see is in general, even if a practice is not growing, they're still hiring two or three a year regardless to just replace the ones that they're losing.
[00:27:38] James Marland: Yeah, that, that makes sense. Uh, couple questions left here. Uh, how do you manage your practice finances without the overwhelm? Because, uh, so let me state that again. Uh, therapists and practice owners are very busy people and thinking about all these things and like, oh, I gotta know what my top line is and my expenses. And I have, I have to have goals where, you know, all, all this stuff is just one more layer of running a business and, and all these are very good things. There's a lot of good things, but it can be overwhelming. So do you have some recommendations for a practice owner for managing their finances for, without feeling overwhelmed?
[00:28:18] Carla Titus: Yeah, like we mentioned, let's start with the, you know, four numbers that I gave you and making sure that you're in tune with that, uh, first before you start making any kind of plans. And then if you, you know, feel like you're not . Equipped, you know, to go do some projections or forecasting. There's a lot of people offering services to help support you, create a plan and be able to guide you on what are the things you need to think about, um, going forward, which is a lot of the work we do is really
[00:28:49] Carla Titus: Forward focus to make sure that you're proactively thinking about what comes next, and even just sitting down and thinking about what comes next for my practice and starting to go through that exercise on your own. It's gonna put you in the driver's seat of starting to control what you want to happen in your practice going forward rather than waiting for it to happen to you and then feel like you're reacting to everything that's happening around you.
[00:29:13] Carla Titus: Think about, hey, in the next three months we expect to hire one or two people because maybe . One or two people will leave my practice, or because we're growing. So start to think ahead and just ask yourself those questions. Where do I want my practice to be by the end of the year? Where do I want my next three months goal to look like?
[00:29:30] Carla Titus: How many clinical billable hours should I have? Those are questions that you can continue to just . Ask yourself, you know, every quarter even, and revisit your plan or twice a year to just think ahead and start to do that proactive planning rather than waiting for those for you to just react to what's happening.
[00:29:47] Carla Titus: Because sometimes it feels like chaos and there's too much going on, and finance is just one of the many things you do as a business owner, right? Um, so dedicate, carve out some time, one hour a month, one hour a quarter. I don't think I'm asking for too much there to just look at your numbers, look at your plan, and start to think about
[00:30:04] Carla Titus: Where do you want this to go? And worst case, if you need help, we have, you know, those type of support services that we will be happy to partner with you all to take that overwhelm away. But it is something you can start doing on your own and just kind of get the feel for it and get familiarized with it if you haven't before to get started.
[00:30:21] James Marland: Yeah, I, I really think some of those, um, some having the plan and then not just putting it on the shelf, but revisiting it and making sure your numbers are in line. I. Will really save people a lot of stress and anxiety over where things are going. I think the first thing is you gotta get, you gotta know, you know, you gotta get started and demystifying those numbers like we talked about. Um, we're gonna wrap up with, uh, the downside of not planning. So for the people who are like, oh, I don't need the plan. You know, I don't need to know my numbers, I'm doing fine. What's some of the downside for, for people who might not, uh, take some of this
[00:31:02] James Marland: advice?
[00:31:02] Carla Titus: Yeah, so if you're not actively planning, we talked about that cashflow piece, right? So the problem is gonna show up on its own because you're gonna run outta cash if you didn't have a good runway before you got started hiring. And what you're gonna see is you're gonna start to . See your cash balance go down on your bank account every month and you're gonna be asking What's happening, even though I'm making all this money, where is it going?
[00:31:25] Carla Titus: And this is a common question we get, and it's because you added expenses before you're brought in the revenue, right? So there's gonna be a fluctuation. And if you're not ready for that fluctuation, To happen. You will start to feel it in the stress of your bank account balance, um, going down over time.
[00:31:42] Carla Titus: And so this is why we want business owners to proactively start to think about, you know, when is a good time to bring the hire? Can I afford to do so by looking at the metrics we shared today? And then not wait to react. Because what happens is people think, oh, I, I'll just get a line of credit because, you know, I'm scaling and I'm growing and everybody will give me money.
[00:32:01] Carla Titus: But when they, the panic sets, it's too late to get a proof for a line of credit because the banker's gonna be like, well, this doesn't look very pretty and you're about to run outta cash. So we really do not wanna be owed money when you're about to not be able to pay us back. So the best time to proactively think about
[00:32:19] Carla Titus: Scaling and how you're gonna finance that. Scaling is before it starts to happen. So don't be reactive. Think ahead. Get that line of credit in place if you need it, or as a safety net, or as a backup plan so that you don't end up having to put your personal . Money into the business to just get you through this season of life, if that's even an option in the case, um, of, you know, growing the group practice.
[00:32:41] Carla Titus: And again, we just don't want you to be stressed out during this process because you didn't plan it properly. So let's get that clarity and that stress out of the way by having a proper plan in place that tells you what to expect and when to expect it.
[00:32:54] James Marland: Great. Uh, what's, uh, we're gonna, we're gonna do our wrap up. What's one takeaway you want people to take away from this? If they could remember one thing, what's one thing you want them to remember from this
[00:33:09] James Marland: episode?
[00:33:10] Carla Titus: That it's really important to take some time to work on your business by doing the proper planning so that you don't get caught by surprise on the other side of it.
[00:33:21] James Marland: And, uh, my takeaway is just know your numbers. Uh, like, if you don't know your numbers, you're sort of like fumbling around in the dark and you're, you're hoping things work out or you're thinking things will work out. You're believing things will work out, but then you're, you're creating your own problems.
[00:33:36] James Marland: So know your numbers. Uh, so we have, um, a webpage and where people can find you. Uh, so, so Carla, the webpage is Wealth and Worth. Oh wait. Is it Wealth and Worth Within? Wealth Worth within? There's no. And so wealth worth within.com and it looks like you have a service that can help people. It's called projections and forecasting services.
[00:34:01] James Marland: Can you talk about that for a minute?
[00:34:02] Carla Titus: Yeah, we provided both, uh, one year and three to five year projection services for business owners, looking for some clarity and creating that plan in collaboration and partnership with an experienced C F O that works with other group practices that understands the needs of the business and, you know, A healthy margin and profit that you wanna run at and how to best create a action plan to achieve those goals.
[00:34:26] Carla Titus: So if you need some support and you think you're ready, you know, to bring in some expertise from a financial, um, person into your company to help you get some clarity, we do provide those, um, services. So they're welcome to book on the website or reach out to us, uh, directly at [email protected] and we'll be happy to jump on a, uh, clarity call to just
[00:34:50] Carla Titus: Let you know how we can best support you and where you're at and how this service might meet your needs
[00:34:55] James Marland: Awesome. So there you can get a clarity call by going to the website, wealth worth within.com and the, there was an email address, what was
[00:35:05] James Marland: the at
[00:35:06] James Marland: there team. Okay. [email protected] and I'll put all this in the show notes for you and you can find them on Facebook and
[00:35:17] James Marland: Instagram. It looks like by Wealth Worth within.
[00:35:20] James Marland: So the same as their Webpage and also LinkedIn. Okay. Wealth worth within. Uh, Carla, it's been wonderful. Uh, thank you so much for the service that you do. Thanks for being
[00:35:32] James Marland: on the
[00:35:32] James Marland: show.
[00:35:32] Carla Titus: thanks for having me. I appreciate the time.
[00:35:34] James Marland: It was great. Thanks. Thanks again.
[00:36:31] James Marland: Thank you for listening to the scaling therapy practice I hope you enjoyed the show I want to remind you that the content shared today is for general information and entertainment purposes only It shouldn't be considered as legal or tax advice If you need a professional advice in those areas please consult with a licensed attorney or accountant but thank you so much for listening The scaling therapy practice is part of the psych craft network
