The Business of Psychology

• Set Up For Success 6: The bad news that broke my practice

  Set Up For Success 6: The bad news that broke my practice“I’ve got some bad news…”Every military spouse knows that at a certain time of year your partner returning from work and uttering this phrase can only mean one thing… You’ve been posted to hell.This time I was at the end of 38 weeks of solo parenting a toddler through a rough pregnancy thanks to a “surprise” deployment and had just been told we were moving 300 miles “as soon as” I gave birth. I don’t think I took it well.In that moment, the fledgling practice I had built was surely about to crumble around my ears and my children would surely grow up miserable 300 miles away from everyone who cared about them.My despair only got deeper. When my boy was orn he became ill and teh time which would have been spent packing was spent in hospital, watching his tiny body fight. Thankfully, he recovered, the move happened, and, after a few very hard months, it turned out I was wrong. Plymouth turned out to be one of my favourite cities, the children found people to love them locally (I mean, they were adorable) and my business flourished as I embraced technology and threw myself into the local business scene. I learned SO much about how to make a business work because of that “adversity” that subsequent moves felt more exciting than threatening. Now I use that knowledge to help others create practices that bring them the income, stability and fulfilment they need without the added drama of military life! I've now set up my practice in 4 different locations so, if you are setting up for the first time or perhaps hoping to jump “all in” to your practice, I wanted to share with you the 7 things I’ve learned that I think might help.Relationships are everything, and business and professional networking are essential (listen to this podcast episode: How to network as a mental health professional) A specialism creates resilience, fulfilment and marketing super-power (listen to this podcast episode: Why you should specialise - old gold that is still important).Your fees need to sustain your business for the long term (listen to this podcast episode: How to set your fees in your psychology private practice with “pricing queen” Sally Farrant)Invest in the things your clients will value the most (EMDR training is a definite yes from me) SEO is worth spending time and money on (listen to this podcast episode: How to find your ideal clients in 2025: SEO for psychologists and therapists with Chris Morin)Business is a skill you need to keep learning (don’t be hard on yourself, just get the coach or take the course) Co-create with your clients; they know what they want and value (listen to this podcast episode: Thinking differently about your practice: A tool to put the client first)This is a short one from me today but I hope you will find what you need in the links above if you are facing down the overwhelm at setting or scaling up your...

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• Set Up For Success 5: Your website doesn’t work because it was written for your peers not your clients

  Set Up For Success 5: Your website doesn’t work because it was written for your peers not your clientsMost of our websites receive very little “traffic” and many of our directory site profiles get scrolled past evey. single. time.We all know there are weird algorithms and AI at play in the online game BUT the truth is some people manage to get people onto their website or directory site profile and booking sessions with them and others don’t.The difference is the words.I got sent to the headteacher at 7 years old for filling up an entire exercise book with illegible short stories on the first day of term. If I could have stopped crying to speak I would have told them that putting words onto a page makes my head quiet. Writing feels like a conversation with myself where I can figure out what I really think without the continuous interruptions of a demanding world. These days I would call it flow.As a child I thought everyone felt that way, that everyone needed the page to structure and understand their own thinking. Of course, life has shown me that for many, my children included, the page actually veils their thoughts, forcing them to squint and sweat as they try to articulate what is perfectly formed in their minds.Ten years ago my skills as a writer set me apart and allowed me to achieve success in marketing my practice very quickly. Thanks to AI, and I do mean that, the modern world allows you to use the skills you have as a psychologist or therapist to create website “copy” or a directory profile that speaks perfectly to your ideal client group even if writing is painful for you.Here are the principles you need to stand out in the online crowd: Write Like You're Talking to a Client: This is the most important one. Don’t write for your peers! Imagine a real person who has come to you, asking, "How can you help me with X, Y, or Z?" Use natural language. If you struggle with this, try recording yourself explaining what you do to a potential client and then transcribe it. We therapists are great at connecting in person; sometimes it's just hard to get that onto paper so let technology be your friend. Record into chat gpt or gemini and ask the AI to tidy up yoru words.Specialise, Specialise, Specialise! You cannot speak to everyone in your profile. If you try, you’ll blend into the background and sound generic. Pick one particular client group – your favourite, or the people you've worked with most successfully in the past – and speak directly to them. This is a huge focus in my Start Up Your Practice programme because it's vital for attracting your ideal clients.Keep Your "Approach" Simple: Say a few confident lines about your experience and literally how you will help them. But please, for the love of all that is good, avoid jargon! Phrases like "safe space" or deep dives into your unique theoretical orientation often sound like gibberish to someone new to therapy. Stick to: "I have 25 years of experience in the NHS helping people with X, Y, and Z. I offer talking therapies like CBT and trauma-focused therapies like EMDR." That’s enough. Really. Don't List Every Training Course Ever: Your core qualification is key, plus one or two other significant accreditations (like EMDR accreditation) that truly define your practice. A two-day CPD course, while valuable for you, probably doesn't need to be front and centre here.Make Booking Super Easy & Explicit: Tell people exactly how to book. "Email me to book a consultation." "Phone me on X." Or, if you're using an online booking system (which I highly recommend, like Calendly, Acuity, or your PMS's system), tell them "Click this link to book your session directly." The less friction, the better! Be Crystal Clear About Your...

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• Set Up For Success 4: Beyond the Scroll: How to Get Your First Private Practice Clients (Without Endless Social Media)

  Set Up For Success 4: Beyond the Scroll: How to Get Your First Private Practice Clients (Without Endless Social Media)If you’ve been spending any time in the online business world, you've probably been bombarded with ads telling you to master Instagram, run Google ads, or become a TikTok sensation. And while those can be part of a strategy, I'm here to tell you something that might surprise you: for therapists, often the most effective marketing isn't what's being shouted about by the noisy online gurus. If you were looking for a therapist, where would you start? Scrolling through Instagram? Probably not. Most of us would start by asking the people we trust: friends, family, and other professionals. This is where the magic of "relationship marketing" comes in. The best time investment you can make in the early days of your practice is to become "top of mind" for the people your ideal clients are most likely to ask for recommendations. This is simple, ethical, and completely aligned with your skills as a psychologist – it's about building genuine relationships! But networking feels gross!Networking feels icky, right? I was totally icked by myself at the end of my first ever networking event. I was heavily pregnant in a room full of suits and had struggled to stutter out a version of my name through the blur of sweat, nerves and heartburn. It felt totally wrong, what was the point of a clinical psychologist talking to two close to retirement managers from a printing company about perinatal mental health?No one in that room needed ME so after my horrendous introduction, I gave up. I focused on the sparkling water and listening to the local small business gossip. The event was a write-off but I might as well hear some interesting stories. And interesting stories there were! Employees were “taking the piss” left right and centre it seemed, some of them not coming in for weeks on end, supposedly many of them signed off with “stress.”Because I’d done such a terrible job of introducing myself no one expected me to contribute so I didn’t really, I just asked questions. I don’t even remember what I said or asked about. I certainly didn’t come away thinking I’d been insightful or helpful, just a bit nosey perhaps!So imagine my surprise when at the end one of the printers came up to me and offered a heartfelt thank you. He explained he’d never considered what “stress” really meant before and that he now understood his own (and I hope his employees!) reactions better. Well I never? It turns out that not everyone knows everything we know! Psychologists and therapists can offer immense value to the community when we offer our expertise, even informally. Plus when you show (rather than tell) someone what you are like as a therapist, they tend to refer to you. I even got a client off the back of that event. Building networks is miles more powerful than social media because:It's a two-way conversation, you will learn from the conversations you haveIt opens you up to collaborations with other professionals or small businesses (and we are definitely stronger together)You become the person that is recommended by a friend or trusted professionalThe principles that make it work1. Local Business Networking: Your Community ConnectionNetworking can be gross if it is done the wrong way but it can also benefit everyone in the room. Local business networking events are full of people who might know your ideal clients. Go with a specific list of professionals or businesses you think would be useful to your ideal client group (e.g., nutritionists, personal trainers, midwives, physios, yoga teachers if you work in perinatal). Your goal? Find out enough about their business to decide if you would refer to them. If you...

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• Set Up For Success 3: Don’t be a bad boss (to yourself)

  Set Up For Success 3: Don’t be a bad boss (to yourself)Ping… the dread came quickly. Somewhere in my mind I knew I had missed something vital in one of the 15,000 school emails that heralded the beginning of term. Sure enough, I had missed something critical. A school trip…tomorrow. One of my kids can only go on school trips if I am there to give a helping hand and a reassuring bolster for the risk assessment so making sure my diary is clear and my attitude positive for those days is really important to me. But with three kids, the craziness of the EHCP system and a lot of medical appointments to juggle things often slip through the net.This is when I am so incredibly grateful that my boss is ME and I am generally a reasonable employer. Thanks to my independent practice I was able to message my assistant to reschedule my (thankfully manageable in number) clients to later in the week and I got to witness my kid laughing with friends in an old castle. It meant so much more to me than a morning off work, IYKYK.If you’ve been teetering on the edge of going “all in” in your private practice because you need that kind of flexibility and autonomy in your life I recommend it whole heartedly and I would love to hold your hand as you jump in.To truly create flexibility you need to start with asking yourself some honest questions about what you want from your practice financially. 1. How Much Do You Really Want to Earn?Let’s be honest, this can feel a bit uncomfortable to talk about, can't it? As helping professionals, there’s often a pervasive belief (sometimes from our peers) that it’s somehow "wrong" to make good money from mental health services. But let's ditch that shame right now. You are highly skilled, highly qualified, and you deserve to be paid well for the incredible impact you make. Forget comparisons to others. What annual and monthly income makes all this effort worthwhile for you? What figure will make you feel truly rewarded and respected for your expertise? This isn’t about being greedy; it’s about sustainability. Write that figure down. This is your target. 2. How Much Time Will You Actually Spend Working?This is where reality meets aspiration. Consider:Weeks worked per year: Factor in holidays, sick days, and those inevitable caring responsibilities. For many parents, realistically, it might be 40 weeks or even less. My kids dictate that it’s less for me!Total weekly working hours: This includes everything – client sessions, admin, business development, CPD, supervision. Don't just think "client hours."Client-facing hours per week: You can't see clients 24/7. There's so much more to running a successful business. What’s your personal threshold for doing your best work? For me, it’s around three therapy clients a day. I can do more, and I did for years, but one of my core values is delivering high-quality service, and that requires time for thinking, formulating, and reading. This number is wildly personal, so be honest with yourself.Once you have your realistic weeks worked and client-facing hours per week, you can easily calculate your annual client hours. This is a critical number! 3. What Services Do You Truly Want to Offer (Right Now)?Don't overcomplicate this for your start-up phase. What's the easiest way for you to bring in income? Therapy, supervision, consultation, coaching, groups? What aligns with your current expertise and makes you feel excited? Think "kick-starting," not "long-term grand plan." 904. Tally Up Your Costs (Don't Be Afraid of This!)Now, add everything up. Include:All the software we talked about (PMS, secure email,...

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• Set Up For Success 2: Work-life balance, can any psychologist achieve it?

  Set Up For Success 2: Work-life balance, can any psychologist achieve it?“How much are you paying yourself this month?” I probably shouldn’t have wanted to throw the lamp at him when my husband asked me that but in all honestly anything not tied down was at risk on that evening.It seemed so unfair, I’d worked so hard, so many hours in front of clients, in excel spreadsheets, manually typing invoices and (of course) agonising over my inferiority as a therapist and, despite having a huge caseload, I was paying myself far less than I earned in the NHS. In fact, it was looking a lot like minimum wage.All of the self-flagelating thoughts were running through my head. Had I been reckless with money? Was I incompetent? Stupid? Bad at business? But the truth was none of those things. I had one core problem: I didn’t take myself or my expertise seriously enough. I didn’t believe (deep down) that I deserved a healthy business so I didn’t educate myself on what it took to create one.That’s why we need to work on our minds as well as our spreadsheets when we set up in private practice, especially if we need to replace our old incomes. I’m here to help you do that so you don’t have to *almost* commit a criminal offence to work it out.What is a “healthy” business?In the first year of my practice I would describe the business as unhealthy in all areas. It wasn’t meeting my financial needs and it wasn’t allowing me to flourish professionally. In fact, it was leading me closer and closer to burnout as I went to sleep every night wondering how on earth I was ever going to replace my NHS salary in my tiny windows of childcare.Coming through the other side of this experience made me re-think the platitudes around work-life balance. This experience taught me that when we say work-life balance, what we really mean is are we making “enough money” in the amount of time we want to spend working? For that reason, work life balance looks completely different in different phases of life depending on your relationship to work, your other responsibilities and your financial situation. When I was 25, working 50 hour weeks for £26,000 looked like good work-life balance for me. I ran marathons, had an active social life and cats. Fine.At 35 if you had asked me to work a 50-hour week I would have literally drowned in nappies, school emails and overwhelm. There is no one-size-fits-all all business template that will bestow you with work-life balance. Finding the right balance for you requires understanding your own personal and professional values, your financial needs and designing a business model that allows you to live with enough of both.The bit most of us missSo, rather than giving you practical stuff as you read this on your sun lounger (I really hope some of you are doing that) I want you to stick with the mind today. If you are planning a new independent practice I want you to jump into it really clear on what it needs to give you professionally and financially to allow you to feel healthy.Here are some journal prompts to help:Think of 5 pivotal moments in your career. For each one consider - what motivated you at this point of your life and what did this experience leave you with? You might want to think about learnings, passions, experiences, skills and perspectives gained. What is the common thread that runs through these important experiences? How have they shaped you as a professional? What abilities do you have that created your best work during these moments? When did you feel that you were most, in-flow and using your natural talents? Is there anything you should be doing more of in your career now to experience more of that feeling of being in flow and using your natural talents? How much money would make you...

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