What I'm Struggling With Right Now In My Business

This episode addresses the common guilt felt by business owners and how they can shift their mindset to recognize their valuable role in their practice. By focusing on delegation, teamwork, and embracing leadership responsibilities, owners can overcome guilt and foster a healthier business environment. 

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*Intro/outro song credit:
King Around Here by Alex Grohl

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

As a business owner, do you carry guilt? Just the fact that you get to run the business, own the business, but maybe seeing your team do a lot of the day-to-day, seeing your therapist work with the clients and you're here working on the big picture but pulling in the money, does that feel weird to you? If so, you're definitely not alone. There's a lot of business owners practice owners specifically who struggle with guilt when it comes to their businesses. They feel like their team is doing the grunt work, the leg work, and they just get to sit here and count dollars. Well, today I'm going to guide you through this mentality and how to overcome it and help you realize just how valuable you are and just how much work you're doing in your business. My name is Craig and I'm the CEO of Desi Financial Coaching. Our goal is simple to help you run a therapy practice that is permanently profitable. If you own a solo or group practice, we're here to help you build a business that creates more time, makes more money and serves more people. This is the Therapy Business Podcast, this podcast.

Speaker 1: 1:05

I remember one of my first jobs back when I was in my late teens, early 20s. I worked at a summer camp and with this summer camp we had these groups of kids, you know ages from kindergarten all the way up to probably sixth or seventh grade, and we would have about probably 10 to 15 kids in our group and all day long, in the Texas summer heat, we are with them, we're doing archery, we're going to the lake, we're doing arts and crafts, we are trying to entertain these kids for eight hours a day, five days a week. Well, we had team leaders, we had unit leaders for our camp and their job was to oversee the counselors, to make sure that the counselors were doing their jobs, to make sure the kids were happy, to make sure that everything was running smoothly. And I would sometimes look over and you'd see them kind of cruising around in a golf cart in the shade drinking a Gatorade, while we are out here in the beating sun trying to play kickball with a bunch of nine-year-olds and this feeling of wow must be nice, or it would be great if they had something to do or feeling like just this bitterness toward them for not just appearing to be doing nothing right. And so this perception has kind of sat with me for a long time, and even when I became a unit leader and was driving my own golf cart, I learned, okay, yeah, they had a lot to be doing, they were working really hard, so it wasn't as nice and kick back and put your feet up as it may have been perceived.

Speaker 1: 2:32

And then, as I moved into my business now, where I have a team under me, I realized this guilt kind of followed me, this feeling and fear that my team is going to be looking at me going oh wow, Craig doesn't work with very many clients anymore. What does he actually do all day? You know we are the ones who are in here working with our clients doing the work and who is he to be getting paid and to be counting the money and to, you know, fill in the blank. And then, as I talk to practice owners, I see that this is a recurring theme. They feel guilty when we talk about reducing their client load. They feel guilty that their team is going to be having full caseloads and that they won't. They feel guilty when they're almost afraid for their team to know how much they're making. Not that it's always appropriate for your team to know what your paycheck is, but there's just this shame really tied deep into it.

Speaker 1: 3:23

Well, I want to guide you through this and some just different perceptions that I have been working on to change my mindset on this, and this is something I'm still working on, so I am nowhere near at a place of finishing this. So just be aware that, as I share this with you, I'm on this journey alongside of you as well. So some things that have helped me in this mindset is that me not taking clients, not working with clients, is really good for the team and it's really good for the business. I've learned that me focusing on the big picture is the sole reason my team can even have clients, that they even have a job to come to every Monday. If I wasn't focusing on the finances, if I wasn't focusing on marketing and lead generation, if I wasn't focusing on all the other pieces of the business the vision, the growth, adding in different services and products and offerings and tweaking pricing and all this stuff there would be nothing to do on Monday.

Speaker 1: 4:22

And so Feeling like I was being lazy quote unquote for not seeing clients or not seeing as many clients and asking them to and asking them to do things for me in the business I realize is more internal than external. Honestly, on their perception, I don't think they feel any kind of resentment towards me. I don't think they think I'm lazy. Maybe they do, but I don't think that's the case. I think it's more things I put on myself and what I catch myself doing is not assigning tasks to my team because I'm afraid or I feel this guilt. That is really not warranted.

Speaker 1: 5:00

So what I have been working really hard on is delegating and kind of overcoming this idea that no, it's good, it's good that they do it, and creating a space where they could speak up if they feel like, okay, my plate is overfilled, my plate is overloaded. I'm working on nurturing this environment where my team members can speak up and they do. They do. When there's a time where they're feeling burnt out or they feel like they're juggling a lot, then I can step in and take an opportunity to serve them and maybe take some things off their plate temporarily. But going from a place where, when I first hired them, I was afraid to tell them or ask them to do things because I didn't want to overload them, versus giving them some autonomy, giving them some ownership of their job and giving them things to do that, honestly, a lot of times they are happy and eager to be doing. They want to be doing these things, they want to see the business grow, and that's another thing I've learned too is that my team wants the business to grow.

Speaker 1: 6:02

It feels really weird, this business that I started all by myself I was a solopreneur for, you know, five or six years and now I have this team helping me grow it. It feels weird because the business feels like my baby and it feels like I'm asking these people to raise my baby in a sense, and that can feel really odd and bizarre and can throw me for a loop and again can make me feel like I shouldn't be asking them to invest themselves in it. But they want to. What I'm finding is they are eager to, they want to, and so in your practice, maybe you've grown it from solo therapist to now having a team of clinicians and maybe you're dealing with this guilt.

Speaker 1: 6:39

Maybe you're going through these thoughts of you know, when I was working for another practice, I was going it must be nice getting to keep the whole $200 that we're charging instead of just taking home half of it. It must be nice to be able to do X, Y and Z. Those thoughts are my team. Are they thinking that it can really hinder ourselves here. So what I want you to do is find ways to nurture that and truly see are my team as invested in the business as I want them to be? Or I won't say they're as invested as you are, but are they invested in the business? Are they hoping and working on growing your business? Do they care? Do they want your reach to reach more people? Growing your business Do they care? Do they want your reach to reach more people? My team Christine, Alicia, Vanessa all three of them care about being able to serve and reach more people. Being able to reach and help more people. Now your team is that what they're hoping for? And it's okay if you know that you have team members who are hoping to own their own practice one day.

Speaker 1: 7:40

It's also okay to be hiring and looking for therapists who have no desire to run a business. They understand the stresses of a business. They're going. I just want to provide therapy. I just want to work with people and help them overcome a lot of things. I don't want to have to deal with the marketing and the lead generation. So, really coming into this idea that creating this environment where it is really, really good for the team for you to be stepping back, for you to be doing your role, and that you don't have to justify yourself, you don't have to over-explain yourself, you don't have to act stressed out because you want them to think that you're busy and that you have a lot to do. It's okay for them to see you taking time off. It's okay for them to see that you don't work afternoons or that you don't work Fridays or that you don't do whatever it is. That is okay, and that's because this is a huge point that has really changed my perception.

Speaker 1: 8:36

It's because you're paid to stress, to carry the burden of the business. I don't want to say you're paid to stress because we don't want you to stress, but let's be honest business comes with stress. You are paid for carrying this business, the weight of this business, on your shoulders. You are paid because being responsible for other people's paychecks, being responsible for a book of clients that they are seeing, being responsible for them having a job to come to on Monday, that's a lot. That is a lot, Regardless of how many tasks you have on your to-do list. Compared to how many tasks your team does. That burden is a lot and you should be paid appropriately for carrying that burden.

Speaker 1: 9:17

There's a reason a lot of business owners don't make it and it's because of that exact thing, that exact thing, that burden that we are carrying on our shoulders, that stress that weight that we carry. So it's not an apples to apples thing and that's what I'm learning every day. Is that my task list, my to-do list, the hours I put in, it's okay if it looks different. It's okay if I don't have very many meetings in my day, but I have a client or a team member who has client meetings for the whole day. That's all right because it's not what I'm paid to do, it's not my job, it's not my role anymore. So really leaning into that, and then you're doing them a favor in that sense as well. So I've found that my team wants more clients, Most of them. Alicia is capped, but Vanessa and Christine are looking and wanting more clients. They want them. If somebody were to come in and try and work with me and I were to take them, I'd be almost stealing from Vanessa in a sense right. So me keeping that MySpace open for other things gives her a job, gives her more income. If your clinicians are paid on commission or they're paid on a fee for every session they do, then they're gonna be eager to be taking on more and more and more clients. So you not taking them on is doing them a huge favor and doing them a huge service.

Speaker 1: 10:41

This is a much different podcast, I know, as I, as I kind of sit here and just guide you through some of my thought process as a business owner. You know I like to teach, I'm a, I'm a teacher, I love coming into these things with. You know, here's four ways to improve your practice. And then sometimes it's just here's kind of what's on my heart, here's what's on my mind, here's what I'm struggling with right now in my business and I'm just in case you're struggling with it too I want to talk through it. I want to help you kind of peek into my thought process and the work I'm doing with my therapist and with my business coaches, into changing this narrative for myself, for my team and for my business. Thanks for joining us on the Therapy Business Podcast for my team and for my business help.