Let’s Talk about Money

Asking, making more and confidence in your numbers

Money can be a tricky topic to talk about. It has always felt a bit taboo to me to talk with other clinicians about prices, how well they are doing and even to look at my own money situation. It honestly took me a few years to get comfortable looking at my money in my practice. Once I got over my fear and uncomfortableness it transformed my practice and mindset around money. In this weeks blog post I want to share a few tips and ideas that helped me get over the money talk.

Asking

When do you ask your client to pay you? How do you ask them to pay you? Do you feel beyond uncomfortable asking them for money?  I sure did! I would seriously dread the end of the session with a client when I had to ask them how they would pay for today? I would dream about someday having a front desk and just telling my clients to go to the front desk and check out. I knew that would be awhile before I had a front desk so I had to figure out how to get comfortable asking for money.

How I slowly began getting over my awkwardness was to look at how I began the conversation about money with clients and where the awkwardness was coming from. It came from me- shocking I know! I felt so worried and anxious about money that asking someone to pay me for what seems easy to me felt weird. I knew how to choose foods and make meal plans to meet my nutritional needs so to me that was not worth much. Asking someone to pay me for that felt weird and they would believe my knowledge was not worth that. I needed to stop putting my money worries and beliefs on my clients- step one. Step two start owning my worth. Step two took a bit more time, practice and self-work for me to own my worth. We might need some more blog post on step two!

Confidence In Your Numbers

Now that we are on the road to feeling like to can ask for money and what we are worth its a really good idea to start to track and keep up with your numbers. What I mean by that is looking at what come into your practice and what goes out. First off, how do you keep currently keep track of things, or do you? If you do not start with something simple like an excel document what you spend money on and who pays you. Secondly, set up a time to look at all this consistently. I do bookkeeping every Friday. This helps me to make sure I stay focused on what I am spending money on, who owes, and how the practice is doing overall. Lastly, set goals for your practice in regards to money. If you are wanting to make $60K this year, then how many clients do you need to see weekly to get there?

• 60,000 /your session price = number of sessions
• Number of sessions/ 50 (weeks you plan on working this year) = number to see a week

When you know how many sessions you need a week it makes it crazy easy to keep on track and get there!

Making More

Now you know how to get to your goal of making your salary, what if you want to grow more?! Y’all know I am always a supporter of growth and taking your practice bigger and bigger if that is what you want.  Give yourself some time to daydream. Once you have a thriving practice what brings you joy? What areas do you want to spend your time in? What would help your clients even more? Thinking about how best to serve your clients and where you might be able to help them more is a wonderful way to keep growing your practice to new level.

This week I want y’all to do the work of talking about money!

• Where are your hang-ups about money?
• How are you tracking your money?
• What are your money goals and what will it take to get there?
• Once you are secure in your day to day practice how else can you best serve your clients?