Happy, Healthy, & Wealthy Therapists | Ep 14: Why Playing it Safe Costs More

Released: 02/13/2026

Show Notes:

In this conversation, Amanda and Joe Sanok explore the journey of therapists transitioning into private practice. They discuss the barriers faced, including the illusion of job security, financial concerns, and the fear of marketing oneself. Joe shares insights on the importance of creativity and autonomy in private practice, as well as the value of community support and continuous learning. They emphasize the need for reflection and adaptability in practice development, encouraging therapists to personalize their approach and embrace the potential for growth.

About Joe Sanok:

As a highly trained clinician with two master’s degrees and the founder of mental wellness counseling, Joe Sanok, MA, LLP, LPC, NCC has also established himself as a leading figure in private practice consulting through his role as the founder and lead consultant at Practice of the Practice. Through this organization, Joe helps fellow practitioners achieve their dreams of building successful practices that bring them true joy.

Joe’s extensive experience and knowledge have earned him a global reputation as an authority in his field. He is an acclaimed author of Thursday is the New Friday, How to Work Fewer Hours, Make More Money, and Spend Time Doing What You Want. In addition to being featured in top tier publications like Harvard Business Review and Forbes, Joe is a frequent guest on podcasts, including the highly popular Smart Passive Income Podcast, which boasts an audience of over 100,000 monthly listeners worldwide.

Over the last decade, Joe has conducted over 1,000 interviews with some of the world’s leading business leaders, scholars, and innovators, establishing himself as a highly sought after interviewer and media personality.

3 Key Takeaways:

1. The “security” of a traditional W-2 therapy job can be an illusion—when you run the numbers, private practice often offers more financial and lifestyle flexibility than expected.
2. Building a sustainable practice requires intentional reflection at every phase—clarifying your niche, standing out creatively, and consistently asking what you can delegate or redesign.
3. Community and strategic support accelerate growth—not just through information, but through accountability, implementation, and being around therapists who are expanding in aligned ways.metric.

Connect with Joe:

• Website: https://practiceofthepractice.com/
• Podcast: https://practiceofthepractice.com/listen-to-the-podcast/

Connect with Amanda:

• Follow on Instagram: @amandakbcoaching
• Check out the Amanda KB Coaching website

Make sure to hit follow/subscribe so you never miss an episode!

Sponsors:

• This episode is sponsored by Alma – learn more here
• This episode is sponsored by Jane – use code: AMANDA2MO for a 2-month grace period

Resources & Links:

SEO for Therapists Membership

Therapy Intensives Academy

Happy, Healthy, & Wealthy Mastermind

Free Training: 3 Steps to Booking Your First Therapy Intensive

Free Guide: 3 Steps to Double Your Income

SEO Freebie

Just a quick heads up, everything I share in this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. It’s not legal advice, financial advice, or tax advice. Every practice and every state has its own rules. So if you’re wondering how something applies to your situation, make sure to check in with an attorney, accountant, or another qualified professional who can give you guidance based on your specific circumstances.

Transcript:

Amanda (00:00)
well thanks so much for joining me today, Joe. I’m excited to have you.

Joe Sanok (00:03)
Yeah, Amanda excited to be on the show.

Amanda (00:05)
I know you have been doing this private practice consulting for a long time. You’ve got a ginormous podcast of your own. We’ve talked about your email list strategies and just the fact that you reach so many different therapists and talk to them at such different stages of their career, whether they’re just considering getting started, they’ve been at it for a while and they’re trying to do some things better, or even looking to scale beyond and grow with podcasting or courses or whatever that might be.

Number one, just how has that experience been for you to touch so many therapists’ lives?

Joe Sanok (00:39)
You know, it’s interesting because, you when I went into therapy, I thought, well, I’ll run some programs, I’ll do individual therapy, I’ll work under the umbrella of a CMH or a nonprofit, and maybe someday I can be an executive director if I work 40 years in the field, and then finally at the end of my career, I can get a leadership job that maybe fulfills my potential. But then as I really dug in and started to learn more about private practice and seeing how…

insulated a lot of practices are they weren’t collaborating with other practices, they weren’t talking about what was working for them. And really, it was just people that were either solo off on their own or have, you know, kind of smaller group practice. So when I had my side gig practice, I thought, I don’t like that. I like people I like talking to people I like collaborating. And so I would host these therapists, drink meetups, and just kind of ways to connect with folks in the community.

Amanda (01:27)
You

Joe Sanok (01:35)
And I think it really was the kind of early stages of practice of the practice. And so when I look back on the over a decade of doing this, in some ways I’m super shocked. And in some ways, when I look at even my childhood, you know, I was oftentimes, you know, one of the leaders in whether the Boy Scouts or, you know, in sports teams, I tried to, you know, add something in that added value to the community. And so it’s not shocking when I really look at kind of the skills that I developed as a kid.

But also it’s not what I thought. I thought I was just going to go into kind of a regular therapy career.

Amanda (02:10)
Yeah, I was very much the same at my, majority of what I’ve done is work at university counseling centers. And so it was the goal, it was the dream to like, I’m gonna rise into the leadership ranks of I’m gonna be the clinical director or the director. And that was as far as I thought I would go because I had no idea what the potential could be of working within the therapy field and then now working in this field where.

We both essentially help other people with their therapy careers. So it’s just really cool to see potential.

Joe Sanok (02:41)
It’s funny you say that I remember

probably back, it was right when I was started practice of the practice and it was just the side thing that I was learning, but I was working at a university counseling center and the student life director position opened up that person had got a job as a full-time faculty and I applied for it. But I let my former boss also know that it was open because I’m like, if I don’t get it, I want her to get it. Cause she was like the best boss I had ever had.

Amanda (02:55)
Mm.

Joe Sanok (03:07)
So we ended up being the final two candidates and she got the position. She’s now a dean or vice president and definitely like locked into that world. And when I think about showing up at a university like nine to five or eight to five or even longer, that sounds terrible. I’m so glad that I didn’t get that position. It would have definitely given those golden handcuffs.

Amanda (03:23)
huh.

Yes, absolutely. And I think part of that, we were talking about that a little bit before starting recording, is I know for sure my journey and so many other people’s journeys I’ve heard, when we think about, okay, everything at this job, feels really stable, it feels like good enough, right? The hours may not be ideal, but at least I’ve got health insurance, I’ve got retirement benefits. I wish I was making more, but I’m pretty set.

And if I start a private practice, now I got to do all of that stuff on my own. And for me, that was a barrier for a while of, you know, how do I figure it out financially? Like, how do I figure out how to not just make the same amount, but now I have to cover additional expenses because I am my own employer. And so what do you think are some of the most common barriers to starting a private practice?

Joe Sanok (04:19)
I think you named one of the biggest things and that’s the illusion of security. And I think that the younger generation, so I’m a young Gen Xer, know, into being a millennial, but it’s like, you know, people that went through the 2008 housing crisis that were sold this story that you go to college, you’re to come out of college, be able to buy a house, be able to do all these things. They don’t really trust the system like maybe, you know, Gen Xers or boomers do. And so they’re at a much farther point ahead because

I think that it took me a while to really look at, every year that I work at the college, I’m making less money. Because when you just look at inflation ⁓ alone, plus healthcare costs, and we had to pay into a retirement system to help current retirees ⁓ as part of that, that we weren’t even gonna see some of that money. And so it’s like, this whole system is really set up where the average worker is gonna make less money every year that they stay there unless they move up in some way and take on more responsibility. So for me,

I had to really think through, okay, what does my family actually need from me? And so both my daughters had major heart issues, had major heart surgeries before their first birthday. ⁓ I’m type one diabetic and had a history of cancer. So it’s like health stuff, we don’t mess around. ⁓ There’s a lot there. So I had to look at, well, what would a similar type of health plan cost me? And I was actually really surprised at how cheap it was. It came in,

Amanda (05:32)
Yeah.

Joe Sanok (05:42)
between you $500 and $1,000 a month which you’re like well that’s a gut punch but when you look at it okay so if we think about to pay even on the high side a grand a month if you have say seven or so clients that are at 150 per session you’ve paid for your health insurance for the whole month how long does it take you to do seven if you’re working a 40-hour week you know that’s a quarter of one of the weeks of the month you know so it’s like a sixteenth of your month and so I started to think it

Amanda (05:47)
You

Joe Sanok (06:10)
like the money side of it of saying, what do I actually need in regards to total ongoing clients to pay for health insurance, to pay for cars, to pay for all this like food supplies, housing, all that. And when I really did the numbers and looked at it, I think it was somewhere around like 18 clients to just bare minimum meet what I needed. And that was when I was full time at the college and doing about 11 clients on my own outside of that 40 hour week. And I had two

clinicians that were working for me doing probably 10 hours a week and I looked at it and I said right now I could leave the college and replace that college salary now with the college salary plus all of that I was making a lot more money and so then I had to say okay maybe for a little bit I won’t make as much money but the basic bottom line needs were met once you do that then it’s a lot easier to say okay then what’s the potential if I did work 40 hours a week and did 35 clinical hours what would that look like if I hired one or two

Part-time clinicians at 15 hours a week doing a w-2 or you kind of walk through what would that look like? So then you realize just how much that 40 hours Quote secure job is standing in the way of the potential of this other job, know within two years of leaving the community college I made more than what the president of the college made and so it’s like like that and I have a friend that a couple friends that still work there and we walk regularly and that was kind of the joke like when are you gonna make more than Tim makes and

Amanda (07:28)
You

Joe Sanok (07:37)
I’m like, dude, I’m on track, I’m on track. And then finally, after two years, it was like, I never could have made a college president salary ⁓ within two years of staying.

Amanda (07:39)
Mm-hmm.

Absolutely. I know again, that was something me and my colleagues would do at the university of there was, and I’m probably sure most state jobs are this way. Like you can see what everyone makes. And so we would look and see like, what does the director make? Because again, if that was our goal to rise the ranks of leadership, to make what leadership team makes, now I see that number, which is like mid 100 K.

I see that number for private practice therapists. I’m like, so many of us don’t feel like even that’s enough with the way inflation is going and healthcare costs and things like that. And so when your dream is still not enough for the life you want, like again, you do feel very much trapped in this illusion of safety because then the amount of money I’m able to save for retirement now way beats even what the university would match my contributions at and healthcare. You know, I don’t love paying for it, but

You know, I can do it and I make significantly more and my life is so much better than it was when I was working this W-2 45 to 50 hour a week job.

Joe Sanok (08:57)
Well, I think that Amanda that points to another one of those myths that you you asked about. And that’s the idea that, you know, somehow we’re we’re greedy because we want to make over six figures. I read a stat recently, and I wish I could cite exactly where it was. But it was that

the equivalent of $54,000 in 2000 is what $100,000 is now. So if in 2000, you’re like, boy, 54k would have been a ton. Okay, maybe 100 grand is what you want. But if back then you would have been like, man, okay, yeah, I can cover my needs. can, you know, do the basics. I can go out to dinner a few times a month. But yeah, that’s what due to inflation and all the costs, what 100 grand will buy you now.

Amanda (09:39)
Yeah, which sadly is just not enough. Yeah. So there’s this financial piece around the illusion of safety. think a lot of what I hear too is, you know, when you are working for someone else, there is at least this almost this like ego safety of like, you don’t have to worry about marketing yourself, putting yourself out there, trying something and failing something like, again, you might not love the job. You may not want to stay there long term, but at least you don’t have to worry about the fact that

Joe Sanok (09:42)
No.

Amanda (10:09)
you have a job, right? And, you know, even the job market these days is, up and down, but for mental health therapists who are working at community mental health or college centers, I think that’s always been relatively stable. And it hasn’t meant, you know, you have to be the one getting your own clients. So then again, once people transition into private practice, I think the fear becomes, I don’t know how to market myself. I, what happens if people don’t want to work with me? Like,

Outside of the financial component, think there’s also these worries of almost like rejection and the fear of failure of I’m not going to be able to make it work. And so why bother?

Joe Sanok (10:47)
Well, I think there are times in life, and there’s also personality types, that maybe a W-2 job is what’s best for you. There’s nothing wrong with that. I wouldn’t say private practice is somehow above other ways of being a counselor, social worker, or psychologist. But…

it’s that we aren’t really taught that that’s an option. And so ⁓ it is risky in some areas, it’s also less risky in other areas, you know, it’s, it’s risky to spend a career doing something that is just meh, you know, if you’re showing up at your job, you’re like, it’s fine. It’s paying the bills. I don’t hate it.

Like is that how you want to live your life? And so for me, the question as I was leaving was what am I gonna have more regrets around having having tried and failed to leave a job that’s super secure and to potentially fail to see what I have inside of me or to be stuck in a job and just continue to kind of play it safe. And so I tend to be a person that’s very

cautious, very careful, very methodical. ⁓ I almost always will have my three to six months of savings in my personal account, my business account. I’m just a guy that tends to be pretty practical. And so it took a lot for me to leave. But when I really thought about it, it was like, what could I do in regards to having the kind of career that I really want? And when I left the college, it then opened up putting more time into building the private practice. And then when I sold that in 2019,

That then gave me even more time to put into practice of the practice and other creative ventures to then say, okay, so even that private practice for me personally was limiting my creativity to do things bigger in the world and different in the world that I found more fulfilling.

Amanda (12:29)
Yeah, because I think there is ultimately this question you asked of how do I want to live my life? I think also how do we want to be therapists? And the way that so many of us do therapy while working under someone else, we do feel stifled in that creativity of, well, I have to do it this way, or my boss says this, or the protocol is this. And then so many people who move into private practice feel like they can actually

practice creativity and reconnect with creativity again. And I went from feeling like when I was working for someone else, like I’m, think I’m an okay therapist. There are clients I kind of connect with here or there, cause I didn’t get to pick my clients. They just got assigned to me. But then I go into private practice and I get to identify the population I want to work with. I get to choose who I feel like I’m a good fit with. And without even getting additional training, I already felt like a more confident.

And I’m like, would 100 % always rather feel like I’m better, more attuned, more present and more confident and take all the risks and some of the, you know, cons of running your own business than I would for feeling stifled in my creativity. And like, I’m an okay therapist. I’m doing okay enough.

Joe Sanok (13:50)
Yeah. And I think that even when you’re in your own private practice to evaluate what shifts are going on, you know, what are the things that as a business owner, you enjoy doing, what are the things you hate doing? We often do an activity with our consulting clients called the love hate list. It’s super simple. You just list all the stuff you do as a therapist and as an owner and as an operator. So three different kind of roles, as a therapist, you know, all those sorts of things, progress notes.

as an operator of the business, what do you have to do? And then as an owner, because those are three very separate roles, you could just be an owner that doesn’t practice and doesn’t run the business, you could be an operator owner, you could do the clinical. so listing all that, and then saying of all the stuff on here, what do I absolutely hate doing? There’s a lot of people that over time, they get sick of doing clinical supervision, for example, that’s okay to let that go, that’s okay to hire another supervisor and say I’m moving out of that.

Most people don’t like progress notes. So, you know, do we involve some AI in your progress note writing? Just finding these ways to take it off your plate and then looking at the love side of it, you really need to ask yourself, should I be doing these things? Or is that standing in the way? Like, should you be doing all the marketing, all the bookkeeping, all the everything? Or are there people better suited to do those things? And I think that as we continually evaluate the kind of clients that we’re seeing, the kind of

work that we’re doing, we’re making an iteration of our businesses that definitely fuels the life we want to live. And the energy then we put into the world is going to be more positive. It’s going to be more focused on the things we care about. And when you start to specialize in specific areas, it’s going to help the business too.

Amanda (15:33)
Yeah. And ultimately what you’re saying is we have to pause and reflect on, okay, we’ve already launched it and things are happening and things are going okay, but we have to also take stock of, we might’ve started this way, but is this also how we want to continue in our practice? Because time passes so fast. I have no idea where 2025 went, but it can be really easy to just keep going and have the status quo as opposed to, yeah, what do I?

Joe Sanok (15:50)
Mm-hmm.

Amanda (16:02)
love that I’m doing and I want to do more of, what do I hate that I’m doing and I want to do less of, and also is there anything I’m missing and I want to incorporate too. But I think it’s so easy to get caught up in the day to day without asking ourselves those questions, which I’ve noticed in the therapist I’ve done some consulting with, like it makes it hard for them to identify like what exactly the problem is. They just know things don’t feel like they’re going exactly the way they should be.

money might be fine, my schedule might be fine, but I don’t know what the problem is, but I’m just not happy with it. So is private practice what I want to do or should I go back to some kind of W2 job? And without knowing what’s the problem, I think it makes that question harder to answer.

Joe Sanok (16:47)
I think sometimes we think these decisions are permanent. ⁓ It can be spaghetti at the wall. It can be, hey, ⁓ I’m leaving this job. I want to leave on good terms. I want to stay connected to my boss. ⁓ And I’m really feeling like I need to go start a private practice. And maybe you try that for a while. You have good planning, good security, a good community of people around you. And then you invest a little bit in that. And then and then you give yourself a timeline. You may say, OK, after 18 months, I’m still really struggling. Or if I’m in debt.

Amanda (16:51)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Sanok (17:18)
I’m going to need to go at least get a job at Starbucks to cover my health insurance or something like that. Or maybe we go back into the therapy world and we do it slowly where you have a part-time job. ⁓ I even offered to my ⁓ boss when I was ⁓ ready to quit, I said, I will stay here, but I would need to work 20 hours a week and still get my full-time salary. I’m like, I might as well at least ask. And he just laughed and said, Joe, you know, we can’t do that. And I said, I know.

Amanda (17:39)
Yeah.

Joe Sanok (17:44)
but I wanted to at least give you the option of trying. You guys might be in a situation where you want that. ⁓ But it’s like, if you stay in good terms with people, ⁓ they’re always looking for good therapists.

Amanda (17:56)
Yes. Yeah. I like what you said too around again, like how you choose to solve whatever problem does come up. If you do want to pivot again, there’s still the opportunity for creativity there. You don’t have to go back to the agency you didn’t like or a similar type agency. You could work at Starbucks. Sometimes I joke of like, how fun would it be to do the like holiday season? kind of like where I used to work the stock room when I was in college of a department store. I’m like,

What if I just worked at Target again and did that for like three weeks and then like call the quits because I just need a little bit break from therapy. But you don’t have to do more therapy work if you’re stressed about the therapy work. You could do something else.

Joe Sanok (18:38)
Yeah, yeah, I think that’s the thing that I had to shift where it’s like, my message was you, everything’s a stepping stone, you know, middle school leads to high school leads to college leads to grad school leads to an internship leads to that first job at a nonprofit leads to CMH leads to being in leadership at some nonprofit or CMH. ⁓ And just realizing, wait, I don’t have to be a therapist, I can make money in other ways, I can do all sorts of freelance things if I want.

I can use skills that I find interesting. And so I think just for each of us to take the time to slow down and say like, what’s bubbling up here and what’s bubbling up personally and just like hobbies, things that you want to do. ⁓ For me, having very clear things that I want to do outside of work helps me be more creative. So watercolor painting. Last night I went to my improv class that I do every Tuesday. And so doing those things that are regular and scheduled and non-negotiables in my family, unless there’s a major family reason why I shouldn’t go.

That’s really important. The same sort of thing within the business. Like what are those things that I see as the vision for the business and what are those things that it’s just not my arena to cover or what can I hand off? Like just before this, ⁓ every month I have to go through some of the bookkeeping that, you know, they haven’t been able to categorize. Probably half of it was stuff that someone else could have weighed in on. And so in that email, instead of just answering it and just keeping that ball rolling for myself, I said, this is the person.

they can look at these outstanding invoices. They’re in charge of sponsors. They’re in charge of these invoices. Let’s make sure that they are included in future emails. So sometimes as business owners, we’re like, no one else can do it like me. And that’s just because we haven’t started to hand things off. We haven’t said, okay, there’s a fire to be put out here. Let’s put it out, but then let’s work upstream and say, why does this keep happening? And why do I have to be the one that puts it out? ⁓ That’s what long-term leadership is.

making yourself less and less relevant to the team.

Amanda (20:33)
Yeah, I love that because I think we are all overachievers, if not high achievers. And we do all believe, especially when it comes to the therapy side of the practice, like we have to be the ones to do everything. But there is so much administrative work that goes in beyond the scenes with bookkeeping or marketing or whatever that we actually don’t have to do. I do not write my own blogs anymore. I do not write my Instagram content because

my virtual assistants have been trained to do it in a way that I would do it. So it helps me to focus on being a present and focused therapist and all of the other creative outlets that I do in my coaching and consulting business. So just to be able to like let go of some of that control actually helps us in so many more ways than I think that we even realize is possible because it feels like we have to be in control for everything to be successful, but.

things will run fine and probably actually better than imagined if you essentially what we’re doing when we hire help is we’re asking for help. I think a lot of us feel like we have to do this alone to be truly successful, but the more help I get, the more successful I am.

Joe Sanok (21:45)
Well, I think that that really points to how important it is to be in some sort of community of other people, you know, uh, how many times have you or have I picked up something where someone just flippantly says, I don’t write blogs anymore. You’re like, wait, what? And it’s like, yeah, I just give that to my assistant. It’s like, how do you do that? And it’s just that you are around someone that’s thinking different than you. And, um, you know, and being around, you know, coaches and consultants and people that have helped other people, they can start to notice trends and say,

Amanda (21:58)
Yeah.

Joe Sanok (22:13)
Hey, I’m noticing this trend in you. Let’s push back on that. To me, that investment in whether it’s coaching or consulting or communities is such a great way to be around the kind of people intentionally that you want to be around. Like, do you want to be around other people that are growing practices faster than the average person? If you do, you should probably be in some community that’s doing that and realize that investment of whatever it is. ⁓

almost always will pay you back in how much you learn, but even more so how much you implement. ⁓ We often say that we’re well past the information age, but we’re in the implementation age. And so ⁓ to me, I could learn lots of things by going on YouTube. ⁓ But half of those videos are going to be like, man, that’s not really like the style that I want to learn that thing in. Whereas if I hire someone that I know that they’re good, that’s going to help me implement so much faster. And so I think that’s the big mindset that a lot of us

Myself included, was raised in the Midwest. You use coupons, you don’t overpay for things. If you do overpay for things, they’re probably ripping you off. I’ve had to change that to really realize when I want to get to the next level, working with people that are already there helps me do that faster.

Amanda (23:15)
You

Yeah, 100%. I mean, I’m here hosting my own podcast because I was a part of your podcast mastermind where just to be able to, it wasn’t the information I needed. It was that like, I need to hear how have others done it? What have they learned from it? What are their like, maybe consider this and maybe don’t do that because that essentially helped me implement faster as opposed to I’ll get to it eventually. And so I think that I’m also from the Midwest. So I resonate with that piece of

⁓ Save money all the time. Money is scarce and also you’re not supposed to hoard it at the same time. So it’s hard to know. When is it an investment versus an expense and what are the worthwhile ones? But anything I’ve ever done where I’ve invested in something that has moved me further towards where I want to be, and that’s not always been just growing and scaling, so to speak, but sometimes it’s actually been scaling back of how do I get more intentional and

work a little bit less, not just work more and more and make more and more money. Like that’s always been a worthwhile investment or expense or whatever someone wants to call it because it helps me live the life that I want to live and have the businesses that I want to have.

Joe Sanok (24:30)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, totally. Well, I think that what was impressive about that cohort of podcasters is you guys, in addition to our scheduled meetings and our trainings and stuff, set up your own kind of meet and greet times to support each other. that, and that’s where, if one of you learned something that worked well or didn’t work well in a podcast, you then quickly share that information with each other. And it’s been really cool to just see how that, community has organically bubbled up from something you paid for, but now you guys are all connected and you’re going to continue. ⁓

You know, we have this event coming up in just a few weeks called the seven figure practice retreat that we’re doing in the Dominican Republic. And we have 30 or so seven figure practice owners that are coming in. It’s this really great event that is not about information. ⁓ In fact, none of what I’m helping facilitate is here. Let me teach you what to do in your practice. They’re all things and ways to help people connect with each other so that they have a long term community. So doing hot seats, doing activities to help them quickly.

find out about each other. That’s what, you know, once you get the logistics down and running a practice, finding those communities to me is that next kind of ninja step.

Amanda (25:45)
Yeah, 100 % because again, we talked about the barriers to maybe starting it, but I think there’s also those barriers to maintaining the practice in the way that you want it to be. And I think when we do that in isolation, that’s one of the things that makes it hardest for people to stay in it because they don’t have someone to see like, you’re not writing blogs anymore or you don’t have to market on Instagram or we just don’t have anyone to almost like reality check.

Hey, is what’s going on in the world right now? Like, is that everyone or is that just me? Or are there things I could do smarter, cheaper, more efficiently, whatever it is. But wherever you are, whether you’re starting or scaling your practice, community truly is everything just to be able to get that support. And it’s not the information, it’s accountability, it’s someone just to check in with us as humans around where’s our capacity and.

what else are we doing and are you doing something that does or doesn’t work for you? And it just helps us to slow down and work on the business, not just in the business.

Joe Sanok (26:49)
Yeah, yeah, so good.

Amanda (26:53)
Well, is there anything else that you think of when it comes to, essentially, you and I kind of have this similar goal of we want people to have, we want therapists specifically, all people but therapists, to have really good practices, really good lives, anything else that you ask in terms of like reflection questions, things that people think about that you’ve found have been very helpful for them.

Joe Sanok (27:16)
Yeah, I think there’s a few reflection questions that to me would be based on phase of practice. So when you’re looking at building a sustainable solo practice, usually, you’re trying to keep your risk low, and you’re doing a lot of the legwork typically, unless you have a partner or a spouse that’s helping fund it, or you’ve saved up a bunch of money, that’s typically kind of what you’re doing. And so I think the big questions to reflect on then is really, who’s my ideal client? And how do I stand out? Because

Whether that’s niching, whether that’s doing unique ways of marketing. I remember when I first started mental wellness counseling, I did this dinner and a counseling session and I did this deal where you pay for a counseling session. I think it was like 150 bucks. And then you got a hundred dollar gift card to a local restaurant back when you could buy a nice meal for a hundred dollars. So, but it was, but it was a way to like get people in instead of dinner and a movie dinner and a counseling session.

I had one couple buy it. They stayed for probably six months. So definitely made the money back for all the marketing. ⁓ but I got so much free media that probably like three or four times a week, someone would walk up to me that I knew there was like, dude, that dinner and a counseling session thing. Brilliant. It was one of these things that it didn’t take much to really implement. And then all of a sudden we were the innovative practice. We were the practice that they could really push the envelope. We weren’t the traditional therapy and it happened within

two months just because of that one thing. So how do you stand out in a really unique way? And there’s lots of ways to do that. Then once you start to have enough clients, when you’re at that 60 to 70 % full, that’s when you really want to ask yourself, do I want a group practice? And most people think that’s super hard, it’s super complicated. Typically, it takes you less than six months to go from solo into group if you’re doing it right, you know, that you’re doing the right hiring, to really just say like, where are areas that I’m not serving?

And so maybe you see divorcing couples and you don’t want to see kids and maybe you need to have someone that sees kids in your office. Maybe you’re mostly focusing on divorcing co-parenting, but what happens five or 10 years later when someone’s going into a second marriage? So maybe you have someone that kind of focuses on that and they don’t have to be full time. They can be five or 10 hours a week or you can have them grow kind of throw. And so the question then is like, what can I hand off in getting some of those systems? And then I think

When you’re moving into group practice, some questions to reflect on really are like, what hats can I take off? Or really like, why am I the one that’s doing this? You if you can ask yourself that at every single stage, you can start to build standard operating procedures. You can start to hire people at 25 bucks an hour while you go do your clinical work. And so you’re buying hours. ⁓ You can have all of that be automated, which not only helps you, but also increases the worth of your business. Because if you eventually want to sell it,

which we’ve represented a bunch of people in selling and buying. ⁓ It’s one of those things that you can’t be hyper involved in the business that decreases the value because if Amanda’s seeing 30 clients a week and Amanda’s doing all the operations and all the marketing, we sell it and Amanda leaves. Well, two thirds of the income goes with her and all the leadership goes with her and all of the knowledge goes with her. That’s a not that’s not a valuable business to anybody. So at every phase, just having a couple core questions of

Who am I attracting to fill? ⁓ Should I be handing things off? And then why am I doing it? That kind of helps us then from start to finish throughout each phase of practice, really be able to move into that next level.

Amanda (30:53)
Yeah, I love all of those questions and it ties back to something you said earlier around just like there is power in throwing spaghetti at the wall and deciding when, how and whether or not to pivot, right? If that’s pivoting into, group practice now sounds like the thing or I’ve worked with lot of therapists who are like, I think I want an entirely different niche even though I’ve only had this one that I felt really confident in for like two months, now I want to change it. Like you can do ultimately whatever it is you want to do.

So long as it’s something that’s aligned for you, there’s a difference between growing into a group practice because you think that’s what you’re supposed to do versus, you I actually feel really passionate about doing it for X, Z reasons. Or if it is changing, some people go full virtual practices to full in-person or vice versa, or whatever they do, like you can pivot. And it’s actually, think, really important for anyone to follow what it is that they’re passionate about and excited for because that’s gonna be.

the most sustainable thing. I found it’s made me feel the most confident that I can be a therapist in a sustainable and enjoyable way when I have built the practice that works for me, not what other people have said or what I thought I’m supposed to do or some things I’ve gotten judgment for, but I’m like, this is my practice and it’s my life. Like I have to do it in the way that works for me or.

I also don’t know that it would be worth it for all the marketing and the team managing and everything that I do. So whatever you all do, if you start something and you decide to pause and pivot or readjust and refine, like all of it’s great. It’s all a part of the process. It’s a part of almost this like creativity we get to have when we choose to do something for ourselves.

Joe Sanok (32:38)
Mm-hmm. I love that.

Amanda (32:41)
Well, thanks so much for all of your time and all your wisdom that you shared today, Jo. How can people connect with you and learn more about all of the ways that you support therapists?

Joe Sanok (32:50)
Yeah, since you’re all podcast listeners, the practice of the practice podcast, we have over 1300 episodes on every phase of practice. We want you to build a thriving private practice you absolutely love. ⁓ I’d say if you want some extra help with implementation, there’s probably two tracks. ⁓ One would be consulting with one of our consultants. And so you can apply for that over at practice of the practice.com slash apply. We have consultants for early stage solo practice all the way up through.

you’re buying or selling a practice. have a TEDx speaking coach. We have ⁓ traditional publishing book writers ⁓ that can help you with all sorts of things and running your group and everything in between. ⁓ If you’re looking at more of a community, which I would highly recommend, we have the Practice Academy over at practiceofthepractice.com slash membership. And we have three different tracks within there. ⁓ And that’s going to be

sustainable solo practice, group practice launch, and sustainable group practice. So we have hundreds of practitioners that are in there. We have three live meetings a week, so 12 a month, as well as all sorts of Ask the Experts, laser coaching, and over 30 e-courses in there. So no matter your phase of practice or your budget, we’ve got something there. If you’re unsure, just go to practiceofthepractice.com, and there’s a little pop-up where you can talk to one of our staff members.

Amanda (34:08)
I’ll make sure I link all of that wonderful information in the show notes for people who just want to click in there and learn more. All right, thanks so much again, Joe.

Joe Sanok (34:18)
Thanks for having me on the show.