Recession-Proofing Your Practice

Curt and Katie talk about how to prepare for economic uncertainty as one of the ripple effects from COVID-19. We talk about practical suggestions of what you can do now to weather a recession as well as continue forward with the practice you’d like to build.        

It’s time to reimagine therapy and what it means to be a therapist. To support you as a whole person and a therapist, your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy talk about how to approach the role of therapist in the modern age.

In this episode we talk about:

• The economic uncertainty as a ripple effect from COVID-19
• Looking at the research after the Great Recession
• The importance of self-assessment and business-assessment, being thoughtful about the decisions you make about your business
• Moving beyond scrambling to telehealth into changes you want to incorporate longer-term
• How to prepare for a changing world
• How critical cash flow can be during these times
• Tightening your financial practices (e.g., timely invoicing and charging credit cards, billing insurance, collecting copays)
• Focusing on profit, not growing your business
• Looking at your numbers (revenue, expenses, profit)
• How to be agile without taking on too much risk
• Understanding what you do that is the highest value offering (highest profit margin) and do more of that – maximizing your most profitable services
• Pay off and minimize debt, cutting costs to improve financial position
• Setting yourself with a rainy-day fund
• Navigating to weather uncertainty
• Exploring different business models that are focused on need versus luxury
• Being intentional with how you adjust offerings and how you are flexible in your practice
• Therapists’ requirement to manage their own needs (in therapy or otherwise) to sustain their therapy practice – clients need guidance and feel like they are getting what they are paying for
• Pay attention to your numbers to continue monitoring what you need to do
• The importance of the customer experience and maintaining your current clients
• Communicating clearly with your clients and prospects
• How to increase the quality of your offerings to sustain current clients and get new ones
• Plan for the long-term of your practice