Casey Truffo is giving away her book, Be a Wealthy Therapist, through December 13th. Here, reprinted with permission, is a sample–the first chapter.
Chapter One: How It Happens To Most of Us
On a warm day in May 1989, I sat on Sandy’s green, flowered couch and complained about my corporate job. Sandy had been my therapist for the last year. Her office was in a cute building in a sunny beach town in California. I really envied Sandy’s schedule. She did three hours of therapy in the morning, took a long lunch and sometimes a nap. She then did three hours of therapy in the afternoon. This was her Monday through Thursday schedule. She took Fridays off.
Truth told, I had always thought that therapists had cool jobs. They were paid to help people. They could set their own schedules. They must hear the most fascinating stories. I had briefly considered becoming a therapist in the early 1980s, but was scared to leave my corporate job. I was a vice president at a major California bank earning a very good living.
I watched the trees sway in the breeze outside Sandy’s window and confessed, “I have always wanted to be a therapist with a private practice, but I could never do it.” A soft smile appeared on Sandy’s face. I smiled back and it was like we both knew that, not only could I do it, I would do it.
Two weeks later I was enrolled in a graduate school on my way to my dream job.
Six years later, I opened the doors to my first private practice office.
Getting the office ready was so much fun. I was very concerned about privacy. I hired someone to install soundproofing drywall on the interior walls of the office. I had sound proofing material shot into the attic. I replaced the hollow core door to the office with a very heavy, solid core door. I made cafe curtains for the small window that faced the street.
The day my furniture came was very exciting. Here are two pieces of advice for those who haven’t opened your doors yet:
1. Measure your office before you buy your furniture – half of my furniture had to be returned as it simply did not fit.
2. Sit in your furniture before you buy it. I am 5’1” tall and I bought a very large “therapist chair.” It felt comfy in the show room. In my office however, I suddenly realized it was so big that my feet did not touch the floor. I looked like “Edith Ann”, the mischievous five-year-old character created by comedienne Lily Tomlin, swinging her feet to and fro, in her oversized chair. Not the professional image I wanted to convey.
After making the necessary furniture adjustments, the office finally looked great, but I was not prepared at all for what happened next.
I could not get a client. Not one.
I did free talks at the church on a variety of topics. I went to therapist meetings and told them I was looking for clients. I advertised in the church bulletins, which cost me more per month than my rent and brought in a total of one client in six months. I hired a very expensive graphic artist who created beautiful business cards and letterhead that sat in my desk drawer. The phone did not ring.
My dream of “three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon” was slipping away. Laid off from my day job at yet another psychiatric hospital, I decided to work on building my private practice full-time. But each month I went further and further into debt.
My friend Joe, a physician, had been lending me money to live on. I explained to him that I felt bad not repaying him and continuing to borrow money from him each month. He grinned and said, “Casey, I think of you as my retirement IRA.”
That did it. I did not want to be anyone’s IRA. I counted up my debts: $45,000. I counted up my income: $330 a month. Not good.
I made a plan. I sold my house and got a small apartment. I went back to my corporate roots and called upon my business training. I read everything I could on marketing. I hired a business coach.
There was another big hurdle to getting out of debt and making my practice financially viable – charging a fee. I was really scared of charging people. I had been told by a number of senior therapists that I could not make a good living being a therapist and so far they had been right. I was given well meaning, but ultimately bad advice about how to set fees. I was so uncomfortable talking about money with a potential client that I jumped to offer my lowest fee possible. Guilt hung over me like a cloud when I realized I was taking money just to help people. My money issues took a while to work through. This is not uncommon and we will talk much more about money and fees in the upcoming chapters.
In the beginning I made a lot of mistakes – ones I hope to keep you from making. But a few years later, I was out of debt with a full and fabulous practice.
To be honest, I feel a little let down by my therapist-training program. My teachers in graduate school had private practices, but no one taught me how to build one. No one explained what worked and what didn’t. I was very well prepared to be a therapist, but totally ill equipped to be in the business of providing therapy.
That’s why I am on this mission today. I want therapists to know how to build a great private practice. And I want them to know that they can make a good living doing it. We owe it to ourselves. We owe it to our clients. We owe it to the future of our profession. In the early 2000’s, I started teaching graduate students and newly licensed therapists how to set fees and how to build marketing plans that got them clients. These new private practitioners did so well, their supervisors called me asking what I was teaching. My friend Maria encouraged me – “No one is teaching these principles. We need to learn them. You need to teach this.” That was the day my company, Be A Wealthy Therapist! was born.
Wisdom Nugget:
Before you start thinking I am some money-hungry golddigger, let me share my vision of ‘Wealthy’: I want to wake up, at least 6 days out of 7, happy to be me, happy to be in relationships with those I love and, happy to be doing work with clients I adore (and being paid well for it.)
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