From the Ground Up: Building a Business in the Mental Health Field
To become a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist (LMFT), Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC), or just about any licensed mental health clinician, you need at least a Master’s degree in a related field, along with specific classes that give the basic skills you need to be a professional counselor. Taken all together, just to become licensed, you are looking at least:
4 years of undergraduate college (usually 5 nowadays), Bachelors Degree.
2 years of graduate school (usually 3), Masters Degree.
2 years of internship (usually 3), accumulating 3000 hours of supervised work.
4 State board exams (one each year of internship, two for licensure).
Additional training and certifications.
This total can amount to at least nine years of school and training, on the low end, before you even get licensed. During all of that time, not a single required course teaches a future clinician how to run his or her own practice. In fact, most clinicians, even if they learn how, find it difficult to run the business of the practice, while devoted so much time and energy seeing clients.
This is not due to lack of ability, it is usually simply lack of passion. Most people get into helping professions to do exactly that, help people. They love connecting with clients, helping them improve their lives, and doing what they spent nearly ten years training to do. The idea of networking, marketing, doing financial projections, even the paperwork that is required for insurance in an agency, is generally the last thing a clinician wants to do.
For these reasons, most therapists, doctors, psychologists, nurses, and other clinical professionals, have very limited practices. Most of them are generally okay with this. They have no desire to do the kind of work necessary to grow beyond what they need to get by. There are only so many hours in the day that clients can be seen, and those hours are consuming of focus and energy. For some therapists, who want to build something beyond their own time frame, who perhaps want more financial security, a greater reach for helping as many people as possible, and are willing to do the business work to expand their practice; they often need an entirely new set of skills in business development and business management.
There are a number of tips and strategies that can help a person grow their business, but there is no “one weird trick” to building and growing your business, your practice, and your personal brand. While mental health is a unique field in and of itself, the same basic principles apply to almost all businesses, with a few tweaks for the individual field. I will speak at length about principles later on.
Planning or Strategizing:
The first principle of developing a business is to create a plan. This template and idea becomes your overall model for growth, direction, and impact. This allows you to know what you are, and whom you will help. You also need to find out who you need help from, whether employees, consultants, marketers, etc. Define your plan and who you will need to help you implement it.
Growth: Marketing and Networking (Business Development)
The second principle is growth. If you are going to build a brand, you need to know what you are, who you will serve, and how to get the message out there. The way you tell the story of who you are and what you do, is your strategy for growth.
Client Interaction:
For any business, you need to know how to serve your clients. You have to know who they are, what they need, and how to give it to them. Figuring out what your starting point is, and how you get them in the door, and help them, is necessary to have a thriving business.
Financial:
No matter how much a business is about helping others, you need money to function. You have to pay the bills, pay the employees, generate profit, and pay yourself. You need to know how much to charge and when not to charge. Financials are the scorecard and measurement of the business to the outside world, and to the ongoing viability of that business.
Practice Path:
There are a number of different paths a practice can take, there are private and group practices, non-profits and government agencies, there are medical practices, and disorder specific programs. Knowing what kind of program you are building is the next stage of creating your ideal practice.
Ethics in Mental Health –
There are so many laws, rules, regulations, and ethical considerations that you will run into. You will never know them all. Use your resources to help you. Have an employment attorney. Go get some extra training. Call your certifying board. The last thing you want to do is to lose your license, or pay a fine over something small that you could have avoided.
Common Issues:
You are not the first person to ever build a business in this field. You don’t have to always reinvent the wheel. You need to be able to understand what some of the challenges and successes of other businesses have been. Learning from others, and staying adaptable is paramount.
In the end, building your ideal practice is all about knowing where you are going, what the next steps are in getting there, and then implementing that next step. It takes discipline, it takes hard work, and it takes constant learning and adjustment.
When we started Coherence Associates Inc. in 2012, we had never done this before. We read books, we asked others, we strategized, and planned on a weekly and monthly basis. We took classes and started attending luncheons with local business owners. We asked questions. We made mistakes. We adjusted as we went a long. We took leaps of faith, believing in our vision of wanting to grow a mental health business that would inspire therapists to do what they love, and empower clients to grow through life’s challenges.
After a lot of trial and error, a lot of learning from mistakes and successes, we finally have a practice that is steadily growing, doing what we want it to, and taking us in positive, affirming directions we never foresaw at the beginning.
If you are looking to start a business in mental health, if you are wondering what the next stage for you is, please, ask questions. Feel free to email me, or comment below. I am always happy to answer questions, and I learn as much form you as you do from me.
Dream It! Do It! One step at a time!
Jeremy Larsen
Business Development and Office Manager
Coherence Associates Inc.
www.coherenceassociates.com
info@coherenceassociates.com