Diversify Your Income & Grow Your Private Practice
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Relying solely on clinical hours can leave a private practice financially vulnerable to instability. Diversifying your income streams is crucial to protect yourself and your private practice against unforeseen and unavoidable economic ups and downs.
This way, if one stream of income goes dry, you’ll stay afloat with another. And by having multiple streams of income, therapists can make sure they’re profiting from all aspects of their private practice.
What are multiple streams of income?
Having multiple streams of income means having income from several different sources. While you already have your private practice, another source of income may be an e-book, an online course, becoming an affiliate to an industry leader, monetizing your blog, or, in Lucinda Testo’s case, a once a month workshop for moms.
Meet Lucinda
Therapist, mom, kickboxer, and incredibly motivated human – These are just a few adjectives to describe Lucinda.
Lucinda Testo opened Unlimited You, LLC in early 2015 on a very part-time basis and moved into full-time private practice mode in fall of 2016, after working in a corporate office for nearly nine years.
Quickly after making this transition, Lucinda realized how much she loves one-on-one therapy with her clients. Lucinda’s practice offers psychotherapy, life coaching, psychotherapeutic groups, and wellness-based workshops, but at the end of the day, Unlimited You, LLC is all about self-love.
While building Lucinda’s new Brighter Vision website, one thing really stuck out to us. Not only does Lucinda’s practice offer services and groups, but she’s started a Mom’s Night Out! workshop, giving her practice a secondary stream of income.
Lucky for us, Lucinda took some time out of her day for us to pick her brain about her process, from starting her practice to picking her niche, to starting groups and workshops for multiple streams of income.
Check out our Q&A with Lucinda below.
BV: What made you decide to open Unlimited You, LLC?
Lucinda: I had worked in a corporate environment in the behavioral health field for close to nine years. While that job met my financial needs at the time, I hit a “rough patch” financially where I needed to bring in additional income. I decided the best way to do that was through private practice.
While I would be drained at the end of the work day at my corporate job, private practice energized me even though I was putting in 12-13+ hour workdays on the days that I worked both jobs. It was the best decision I ever made. Not only do I have more time with my kids and a more flexible schedule, but I also get to work with incredible clients.
BV: Choosing a niche can be incredibly daunting. How did you do it?
Lucinda: Through my own life experience, which includes a history of depression, divorce, financial strain, and raising two young children on my own for close to four years, moved me to help other women who may be facing similar challenges.
My life experiences have taught me so much and now I have the opportunity to help empower the women I work with to understand that they, too, can achieve anything they want in their life, whether it’s related to relationships, career, financial freedom, motherhood or most importantly, self-love.
BV: So you’ve taken experiences and lessons from your own life, and now implement them into your practice, that seems like a great route to take. What about your groups and workshops? What do you currently offer?
Lucinda: Currently, I offer a psychotherapeutic group for women who are in the process of going through a divorce or who are recently divorced where they can come together and learn to love their new life. While divorce can be sad and painful, there also lies an opportunity for life to be better than before.
I also offer a new mom’s group for women who are struggling with the challenges of becoming a new mother – infants are welcome at this group as I understand that childcare can be a challenge and I would not want a new mom to miss out on connecting with other mothers who are struggling with similar issues.
My workshops are my favorite, likely because they are wellness-based! I offer workshops which focus on topics such a gratitude, happiness, self-exploration and self-care.
BV: It seems like the common theme within your practice is looking within, and sharing your experiences with other women who might be in the same tough spot you used to be. Let’s talk about your Mom’s Night Out! workshops, an awesome opportunity for a secondary stream of income. How did you decide to start this group up?
Lucinda: The goal of the Mom’s Night Out! workshop was to give moms (from all walks of life) the chance to get out of the house and to spend an evening that is all about nourishing their own spirit.
When I was a single mother for close to four years, I would have killed to have had a night out once a month where it was all about ME! How can you be a good (and present) mom when you don’t take care and nourish your own spirit?
Although I am no longer a single mom, I still value my “me time”. Mom’s Night Out! workshops give moms the opportunity to take a break from the hustle and bustle of taking care of everyone else’s needs to enjoy two hours of comradery and wellness-based tips to improve their own life satisfaction.
From one of Lucinda’s latest women’s workshops, where participants made vision boards.
BV: These workshops sound like a ton of fun. Can you walk us through how you go about choosing the activity and frequency of the workshops? How do you promote these great events?
Lucinda: I have a list of approximately 20+ ideas for the Mom’s Night Out workshops. I pick one Friday per month to run the workshop and each has a different topic/theme. While only three have run so far, each has been sold out and word is spreading!
I haven’t had to change much other than realizing that NOT all the material that I create for each workshop will always get covered and that’s okay! Sometimes discussion takes on a life of its own and it becomes an environment to learn from one another instead of from me.
I post in on my website, create an Eventbrite event and create a link to it from my website. I also share it from both my Business Facebook page and personal Facebook page, it often gets shared by others from there. Current clients are often attendees and they love to bring their mom friends. Specific to the Mom’s Night Out workshops, I also reach out to the local mom’s groups. Payments for the workshop must be made ahead of time in order to reduce the likelihood of no-shows.
Well, there you have it. A look inside the brain of a private practitioner following her gut, starting a practice, creating multiple streams of income, and never looking back.
Still feeling a bit lost? Heed Lucinda’s words of wisdom:
Go for it. If it’s something that you’re passionate about, it won’t feel like work!
Nice! You made it to the end. Wanna learn more about making extra moola in your practice?
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