Holiday Stress Management: Tips from BJ Barksdale

Posted on by drk8d
kate walker training continuing education, counselor education, counselor resources

My good friend and advisory board member BJ Barksdale has some good advice for the holidays. With her permission, I am publishing her words along with some links to great articles and resources. She uses these resources with her clients and we invite you to please use and share in your own practice!

The Basics from BJ:

  1. Have an attitude of gratitude.
  2. Enjoy the process not just the outcome.
  3. Step away from your phone/computer/TV.
  4. Take the opportunity to really connect with others.
  5. Create a “NEW” Holiday Tradition.
  6. Try something new.
  7. Volunteer – Giving to others gives a “Sense of Satisfaction”
  8. Decide upon your priorities and stick to them.
  9. Stick to a budget.
  10. Laughter can be very therapeutic.
  11. 11.Eat sensibly
  12. Exercise
  13. Get some sunshine.
  14. Ask for Help – “Be Specific.”
  15. Give yourself a break – Plan for some alone time.

Stress, depression and the holidays: Tips for coping – Mayo Clinic

Ten Ways to Overcome Holiday-Related Stress

Mindfulness: Restore the Pleasure of Life’s Ordinary and Extraordinary Moments

25 Ways to Find Joy and Balance During the Holidays

Want more great resources? Stay tuned for more info from our advisory board and other super star counselor supervisors and counselor educators!

Take the Next Step in Your Counseling Career

Posted on by drk8d
Texas supervisor training speaking consulting private practice

When I am speaking at an event or consulting one-on-one with counselors, I find there is always some confusion about the next right steps to take in a counseling career. Most of us started out with a story of strength and a dream to help. We persevered over adversity or we encountered something that we thought would kill us and instead it made us stronger. Most of us leaned on the shoulder of a counselor or therapist and learned we really could be ok. For most of us, turning that story into a career was life changing. Whether we decided to work in an agency, school, or private practice, getting paid to do what we loved to do was living the dream. A few years down the road from that first client, lots of mental health professionals are ready for a new challenge, a change of client ‘scenery,’ and improved income. Private practice, supervising, and supervisor training are just a few things you can think about as you plan the rest of your counseling career.

Agency to Private Practice

For lots of mental health professionals just starting out private practice can seem scary. With a few tricks and systems however, private practice is very do-able. Part time practice can be ideal for full time parents. You can make your schedule as busy as you like. Set a higher rate for your services so you keep your practice low volume and still pay your rent and buy groceries. Those who want a lucrative, high volume, full time practice can also set a rate and a create a schedule that meets their goals. There are many affordable consultants, tools, and boot camps you can utilize to get started on the right foot, stay compliant, and stop wasting time.

Integrating Supervision Into Private Practice

Becoming a supervisor is a wonderful way to expand your skills, give back to the profession, and add another stream of income to your practice. In most states extra training is required. If your state doesn’t require extra training, I’d get some anyway. Most supervisor training programs will teach you what you’ll need to know to stay organized, stay compliant, and mentor your interns. Like private practice, supervision means taking a leap into the unknown, but the rewards are worth it. There are so many ways to integrate supervision into a practice! You can start a non-profit and allow your interns to see clients at a reduced rate. The Ann’s Place Business Model shows you how to barter supervision for interns who will see your self-pay clients who need a sliding fee-scale. This helps your interns, your community, and your bottom line. Or you can take the more traditional route and charge your interns for your supervision services.

Provide Your Own Supervisor Training

Probably the most lucrative of all of these streams of income, is offering your own supervisor training. Costs for these courses can run anywhere from $500 to $1000 dollars per person. With some concentrated effort on the front end, you can enjoy this income stream as often as you can fill the seats. Teaching will enhance your own clinical skills as well and take your practice to a whole new level

Private practice, supervision, and providing a supervisor training are just a few ways you can create a career that will keep growing and changing with you. After all, your story isn’t over. Check out my book on Amazon, “My Next Steps: Create a Counseling Career You’ll Love,” for more ideas, advice from experts in the field, and a step by step guide so you can create the career you fell in love with.

Back to School Special: Answer the Phone

Posted on by drk8d
Texas supervisor training speaking consulting

Today’s blog will be short and to the point.

Answer the phone.

The Summer doldrums are coming to an end and your client load is going to build steadily through the holidays. Clients will usually choose a counselor based on the following (not necessarily, but probably) in this order:

  1. Recommendation
  2. Specialty
  3. Which one calls back first
  4. Who can get them in quickly

I’ve talked about building a referral team who is passionate about your services and can show potential clients how to connect with you quickly and easily (see my blog: Back to School Special: Networking). If you are doing this consistently then your phone will ring. The question then becomes; will you be available to answer it?

Making the leap to hire someone can be scary. Allowing calls to go to voicemail can be scarier. I love to talk with counselors in private practice about my biggest mistakes but hiring a professional to answer our phones did much more than just increase our client loads at achievebalance.org. She streamlined our practice, improved client care, created an amazing client experience, and helped eliminate the client-therapist-money triangle.

Here’s what our phone answering professional at achievebalance.org does for us daily:

  • Collects credit card information to secure the first session
  • Utilizes a script which has increased client conversion rates for every therapist in our offices (measured by the number of phone calls who complete a first session)
  • Calls clients the day before (or Friday before) their session to confirm
  • Fills empty slots with wait-listed clients and clients needing to get in quickly
  • Calls late-cancels and no-shows to inform them they will be charged the full amount of their session using the credit card information on file
  • Follows up with past clients to see how they are doing

Still not convinced?

Imagine you decide to hire a professional for $9/hour. And let’s say to start, you want this person to work two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon Monday – Friday. That is $36 per day for five days or about $180 per week. If you are a cash-only therapist, this is probably close to what you charge for one session. One and one-half sessions would pay for one week of part-time professional phone-answering.

If your goal is to average 60 sessions per month at $140 per session, wouldn’t it be worth donating six of those sessions to pay for a part-time professional to answer your phones and KEEP your client roster at 60 sessions per month?

Watch for future video blogs when I share the intake script our phone answering professionals use. You can see a demonstration of our script on our DVD set Private Practice University.

Cash: The Ultimate Fear Killer

Posted on by drk8d

New entrepreneurs know fear is a part of success just like a cramp is a part of winning a marathon. Sadly, fear is also a part of failure. Fear-based decisions, like neglecting marketing, DIY bookkeeping, and solo decision-making, can kill a practice before its third anniversary. Worst of all, the fearful owner of a struggling young practice may start to see each client as a dollar sign rather than a relationship. Don’t get me wrong; fear will be your constant companion on the road to success in business. You just can’t let him drive. In this blog, I’ll cover the number one tool that will help mitigate new-entrepreneur fear and replace it with confidence: cold hard cash.

Cash Bridges the Gap
Cash bridges the gap between the startup phase of a new business and the profitable phase. With a financial safety net, new business owners can be creative and take more risks. They will focus less on the desperate “PLEASE give me referrals” attitude and focus more on building a brand and networking in the community. Best of all, a FSN allows new business owners to take less from their profits and actually invest back into the business. Ideally, when the new business owner is ready to grow he will be debt free.

Let’s take Bob as our example.
Bob has a great job at a supermarket but he’s ready to join the entrepreneurial world and open a real estate office. He has read lots of business books and knows:
• Mistakes are inevitable and expensive.
• It takes time to market and develop referral sources.
• He has to keep the lights on and the rent paid.
• He doesn’t have the expertise to do every job by himself so he will have to hire help if he wants to stay out of trouble and grow.
• He has his own rent to pay and groceries to buy.

Scary stuff.

Where can Bob get the FSN net so when costly mistakes happen they don’t tank his new business? How can he keep the lights on until the community starts banging his door down? What can he do besides get another credit card or bank loan in order to grow?

Here’s what I recommend:
1. Enlist your supportive partner. Bob’s husband Stan has a great job in the oil and gas industry and he fully supports Bob’s decision to go into real estate. They agree that for one year Stan will carry a heavier load paying the family bills so Bob can put any profit he earns back into his business. Because he is less pressed to take home an income, Bob can build his brand, enhance his business skills with continuing education, hire an assistant to take phone calls when he’s with clients, and purchase software to stay organized.
2. Don’t quit your day job. While Bob was going to school to get his real estate license, he kept his job managing a supermarket. Once he became fully licensed and ready to start the business, he managed to reduce his schedule to part time. If the supermarket had refused to allow Bob to work part time, Bob had already decided he would take a job working nights so he could work on building his business during the day.
3. Live on the feathers not the chicken. Bob knew about the cyclical nature of business from working at the grocery store. He and Stan sat down and looked at the family finances and created a lean-but-comfortable budget. They agreed to live off this lean budget even when Bob’s business was booming and put any extra profit into a FSN savings account. Since the family’s basic needs were always met, Bob didn’t panic and make fear-based decisions when cash flow was down.

To be a successful business owner you must realize mistakes are inevitable and expensive; it takes time to build a network of referral sources; and you must reinvest in your business not leach from it. There lots of resources to help you build your FSN. Why not schedule a consultation with Kate Walker Training and create a strategy today?