Gordon Brewer on How he Switched his Contractors to W2 Employees | GP 35

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Gordon Brewer on How he Switched his Contractors to W2 Employees | GP 35

Are you a group practice owner seeking to straighten out some financial admin? What are some of the best ways of saving money while maximizing the payroll for your clinicians? Is there a helpful solution that will save you both time and money?

In this podcast episode, Alison Pidgeon speaks with Gordon Brewer about how he switched his contractors to W2 employees.

Meet Gordon Brewer

L. Gordon Brewer, Jr., MEd, LMFT therapist | podcaster | trainer | speaker | writer is a  licensed marital and family therapist and an AAMFT Approved Supervisor. Gordon is the person behind The Practice of Therapy Podcast and Blog. The Practice of Therapy provides information and resources for clinicians starting, growing, or scaling private practices.

Gordon has worked in the human services and mental health fields for over 30 years. He has previously worked in agency settings and is currently in private practice as a therapist. He is the owner of a group therapy practice, Kingsport Counseling Associates, PLLC located in Kingsport, TN.   He has also served as an adjunct instructor and internship supervisor at East Tennessee State University.

Gordon is married to Mary “Sister” Brewer and they have one daughter, Rebecca who is an environmental educator.  Gordon is also a clergy person in the Episcopal Church (vocational deacon).

Visit his counseling website and Practice of Therapy website. Listen to his podcast here and get in touch via email: [email protected]

In This Podcast

Summary

  • How Gordon started the switch
  • Gordon’s tips from his experience of the switch
  • Setting up health insurance for his clinicians
  • Gordon’s favorite aspects of having a group practice

How Gordon started the switch

Once he had decided that he wanted to switch from having contractors to W2 employees, he went to inform his clinicians and was honest and frank with them.

What I did is I just want to people I had at the time and said ‘okay look, this is the decision I’ve made, it’s a business decision, this is how it’ll impact you and this is what’ll happen’, and I knew kind of when I did that I was gonna lose some people.

Gordon says that the switch did impact people’s minds about whether to stay or go, but most of his clinicians were on board with the idea.

I did it with the mindset of ‘okay, to some degree I’m gonna have to start over in order to make this correction.’

Making this switch, however challenging it was in the future, led to Gordon creating a profit margin down the line and also enabled him to get his clinicians’ health insurance.

Gordon’s tips from his experience of the switch

  • Decide on a day to do it, like the beginning of the year or at the start of a new month, and make sure to let you clinicians know that this shift is happening. Make the switch before or at the start of a new tax year.
  • Take the time to understand how to manage the payroll effectively, although this may be challenging at first. Making sure that you are comfortable with the payroll is important because you need to have a way of tracking both payments and payment withholding. You can find a system that works for you, but there are also systems available such as Quickbooks and Gusto that can assist you.
  • Make sure to speak to your advisors beforehand, such as an employment attorney and your accountant to make sure that you are on the right page.

Setting up health insurance for his clinicians

Gordon’s payroll structure is based on a minimal amount of hours each clinician works a week, as this helps to incentivize them to keep bringing in new clients or encourage them to stick to the same clients.

Gordon worked through Gusto to receive the Affordable Care Act insurance at the beginning of 2020.

Gordon’s favorite aspects of having a group practice

One big perk of having a group practice is you create for yourself an automatic, almost passive income source, being able to provide not only a place for people to work and practice their practice, but also creating some income for yourself while providing for others. So it’s a win-win in that sense.

One of them is feeling free to take time off when necessary because he no longer has to worry too much about the cash flow as the group practice runs itself well.

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Meet Alison Pidgeon

Alison Pidgeon | Grow A Group Practice PodcastAlison is a serial entrepreneur with four businesses, one of which is a 15 clinician group practice. She’s also a mom to three boys, wife, coffee drinker, and loves to travel. She started her practice in 2015 and, four years later, has two locations. With a specialization in women’s issues, the practices have made a positive impact on the community by offering different types of specialties not being offered anywhere else in the area.

Alison has been working with Practice of the Practice since 2016 and has helped over 70 therapist entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses, through mastermind groups and individual consulting.

Thanks For Listening!

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Podcast Transcription

[ALISON]:
You’re listening to the Grow a Group Practice podcast. Whether you’re thinking of starting a group practice, are in the beginning stages of a group practice, or want to learn how to scale up your already existing group practice, we have lots of great content for you.

Welcome to the Grow a Group Practice podcast. My name is Alison Pidgeon, and I am your host. Today we are going to be talking with Gordon Brewer, who is a podcaster and a group practice owner but before I introduce you to Gordon, I wanted to tell you about something exciting that is launching next week. So Whitney Owens and I – who is my fellow business consultant with Practice of the Practice – have come up with a new membership community called Group Practice Boss. And it’s designed for people who have an already established group practice and just want ongoing support, and want the ability to really take a deep dive into various topics related to making sure their practice is running well, scaling up their practice, feeling more confident as the CEO of your practice, we’re going to go into all of those different topics, and every month is going to be a different theme. And so I’m really excited to be working with Whitney, she and I always have a good time together. I know some of the most popular podcast episodes that we’ve put out is when I have Whitney come on the show. So I’m excited to put together this new program. If that’s something that interests you definitely get on the list.

So we’re launching October 6th, and for the 6th and the 7th you can get the early bird price. If you don’t sign up until after the 7th, the price goes up, and then the doors close October 20th. And we probably won’t open the doors again until January at some point. So if it’s something you’re thinking about, that might be interesting to you, please go on to the website. It’s www.practiceofthepractice.com/grouppracticeboss. And you can sign up to get on the list so you can be one of the first people to know and get a reminder when the doors open, so you can get that early bird price. So I’m super excited about that and yeah, I hope to see you in the group. So let me introduce to you Gordon Brewer. Gordon is an LMFT. He’s a therapist, podcaster, trainer, speaker and a writer and he has a blog and a podcast called The Practice of Therapy, which provides information and resources for clinicians starting, growing or scaling private practices. Gordon has worked in the human services and mental health fields for over thirty years. He previously worked in agency settings and he now has his own group practice called Kingsport Counseling Associates in Kingsport, Tennessee. He has also served as an adjunct instructor and internship supervisor at East Tennessee State University.

It’s always fun to talk to Gordon. I’ve been on his podcast and we met in person last October at Killin’It Camp, so it’s always nice to hear from him and hear what he’s been up to. We got into kind of a detailed discussion during this podcast interview about how he changed his contractors over to W-2 employees. And I know for people who have already existing group practices, that’s always a big question that people have. And I share a little bit more about my experience too, because I did the same thing. So I hope you enjoy this interview with Gordon Brewer.

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[ALISON]:
Gordon Brewer, welcome to the podcast.

[GORDON]:
Well, glad to be here, Alison. I’m so thrilled that you asked me to join you for this.

[ALISON]:
Yeah. And I was on your podcast recently so I thought I would ask you to come on mine, because it’s always fun to talk to you.

[GORDON]:
Yes, it is. And it’s um, yeah, it’s always fun to just have these conversations because like we were saying before we started recording, the time goes by so fast.

[ALISON]:
Yes, yes. For sure. Yeah. So I thought maybe we could dive in today with talking a little bit about your group practice and kind of how you got started and why you started the group practice because I think that’s always an interesting story. Because obviously, that is a choice that people typically make at some point in their entrepreneurial journey. So do you want to tell us a little bit about how and why you started the group practice?

[GORDON]:
Yeah, sure. Thanks. Yeah, so probably my story is not too much different than a lot of other people that go into group practices. One of the things as a solo practitioner that happened for me is just I got real busy. And I got real just kind of overwhelmed with the number of clients I was having to see, and maintain, and really got to a place where I didn’t have room for any more new clients. You kind of reach a ceiling, a glass ceiling, so to speak. And I think what happened was, is that I realized, too, that, okay, there’s an opportunity here for me to diversify my income, so to speak, and really create some more passive income for myself and my practice, and I think one of the things to think about, just as anybody in private practice, is the fact that probably one of the lowest hanging fruits when you reach your capacity as a solo practitioner, is to make that transition into a group practice and hire somebody that you can begin referring to that can take the burden of your caseload off you, and that sort of thing. And it’s really kind of a win-win situation for the other practitioner plus yourself in that you reap the benefits in that you create a secondary income from what they produce. And so that that’s really kind of where I was, and again, probably you’ve heard that story hundreds of times, Alison, from other practitioners and they’re just their own story.

But yeah, so when I first started into group practice, I think the first step I took was I talked to an attorney and I said, okay, what’s the liability, and all that sort of thing? And I formed an LLC at that point, but because prior to that, I was just kind of operating as a sole proprietor, just using a personal tax ID – not my social security number, but just my own tax ID. If I had it to do over again, I would have done the LLC from the get go but I didn’t. But anyway, I formed the LLC. I put a lot of thought into the name I had for my practice, which turned out to be – not to go too far off on a tangent – a great decision at that time because the name of my group practice was awesome for my SEO on my website, and my practice name is just Kingsport Counseling Associates and Kingsport’s the town I’m in – Kingsport, Tennessee. And so if anybody types in ‘counseling Kingsport Tennessee’ guess what comes up? And so that was, yeah, so I think that’s one tip I would offer to people, just thinking about if you form a group practice, really think about the name in terms of how people are going to search for you. And so if it’s available, I would always recommend your geographical area name or something like that within your name so that… or at least in your URL. So my URL is kingsportcounseling.com. And so that’s turned out to be a great thing.

So anyway, I’ve gone off on that tangent, but so when I first started my group practice, I really just tried to make it simple for myself, and hired somebody as a contractor. And I think originally what I did is just, I just kind of – and again, this is a mistake I learned from – is just kind of randomly came up with a fee split that I would do with them. And I wanted to be generous with that, but a mistake I made was I was too generous with it.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, you know…

[GORDON]:
Go ahead, go ahead.

[ALISON]:
Sorry to interrupt. I’m glad you brought that up because it is so common that practice owners – especially when they’re starting out – want to be, like, too generous because they think that is the reason why this person is going to want to come work for me. Like, the money is the only thing that’s going to sort of make that decision for them. And what I found is that’s not usually true at all. There are some therapists who are money driven, but most of them aren’t in my experience. And so I find that people are, you know, a lot more interested in, like, how flexible is the schedule, and all that kind of stuff rather than are you going to pay me more than everybody else in this area? And yeah, I get a lot of calls, unfortunately, from group practice owners who are like, oh, I started out doing a seventy-thirty split and now I’m not making any money at all. And now the money they’re bringing in seeing clients is actually going to cover the overhead because that’s how strapped they are financially. So I’m glad that you are willing to share that because I think it’s a really important thing for people, if they’re thinking about starting a group practice, to really look at your numbers, ask an accountant, just don’t pull a number out of the air.

[GORDON]:
Right. Right. And that was a big mistake I made. And it’s exactly the scenario you said, when I really looked at my numbers and really started diving in my numbers, I was having… in order to pay people, I was having to take out of what I was paying myself in order to cover that. So what I produced was actually covering them, plus what they produced. So I had… it was just too big of a split. So I learned from that.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, so how did you fix that, if you don’t mind kind of explaining? Cos I mean that’s the… you’re in this other hard spot of like, having to go back to your staff and being like, oh, guess what, I’m paying you too much.

[GORDON]:
Right. Yeah, so I think I did it kind of not intentionally in stages, but that’s what ended up happening, is I just had a frank conversation with him, and said, look, you know, I know this is a big thing, but I just can’t keep affording to pay you this split. So I’m gonna have to reduce it. So I’ve kind of, on one hand my split was… it wasn’t an across the board split, but it was more of an incentive base. So the higher the volume that they did, the higher percentage they would get paid. So yeah, in that sense it was an incentive-based thing. So what I ended up doing is just reducing all of that. Still kept that incentive-based fee schedule that I would pay the contractors, and so I reduced that, but still it wasn’t enough. I was still having to kind of… because, particularly for the higher producing people, I was still having to supplement what I paid them out of the clients I saw at that particular time.

So long story short, though, eventually I just switched over from contractors to having W-2 employees. And so what I did is I just went to the people I had at the time and said, okay, look, this is a decision I’ve made. It’s a business decision. This is how it will impact you, and this is what’s going to happen. And I knew kind of when I did that I was gonna lose some people. And I kind of… in fact, one person, I kind of saw the writing on the wall, they were really wanting to move out on their own anyway. And so I kind of knew that. I just really kind of put us out of our misery before it really happened by going ahead and saying, okay, I’m going to make this change. But so I did it with the mindset of okay, to some degree, I’m going to have to start over in order to make this correction. But fortunately, one of my higher producing therapists really was on board with doing that. And I showed her the numbers and said, okay, these are the pros and cons of me doing this for you from your perspective. But what it allowed me to do in the long run was to be able to provide health insurance for us, and for her, and build in some other things by switching over from just strictly being a contractor.

[ALISON]:
Okay. Yeah, I was gonna say, I went through the same transition at the beginning of 2020. I changed all my contractors over to be W-2 employees and I get asked the question all the time, like, how do you actually do that? It’s one thing to start out with W-2 employees. It’s a whole ‘nother thing to already have an established staff and have to switch them over. So would you mind just sort of describing a few of the things that you had to do to switch everybody over to be W-2 employees?

[GORDON]:
Yeah, so a big part of it was, I think, is just deciding on a day – like you did, Alison. I switched mine over at the beginning of 2019. And so I really kind of just let them know that and kind of a perk for them, I was paying once a month but now I’ve gone to paying twice a month. So that was just kind of a perk for them in that they got paid twice a month. So the big thing is really kind of learning how to do payroll because you’ve got to have a way of tracking, withholding and all that sort of thing. And I did it myself using QuickBooks the first year. Just because within QuickBooks, there’s a function and a way to do employees within QuickBooks, and I set up some spreadsheets and all that kind of stuff – I kind of geek out on that stuff – but did all that and really kind of tracked it myself, which was a lot of work. I remember the first time I did payroll, it probably took me half a day to make sure I got it right.

[ALISON]:
Yeah.

[GORDON]:
Cos I was really concerned that I wasn’t going to withhold enough and all that kind of stuff. But eventually, I got a system down. And then I realized I was just making it more complicated than I needed to, and so I switched over to Gusto. And I can really recommend them as a payroll service. But I would say, first of all, just in making that transition I did talk to an employment attorney and just to make sure I had all my bases covered. I talked with my accountant around that, in terms of just making sure that I had what I needed in place in terms of documentation and that sort of thing. But if you’re going to make that switch, probably it makes sense to do it at the beginning of a tax year, is what I would recommend on that, if a person’s going to, you know, if they’re going to make a switch from having contractors to employees. And so I did that, I made that switch and, looking back, I’m so glad I did. Because when I went back and looked at my numbers, I finally was profitable, despite the fact that I was paying out, like FICA, taxes and health insurance, I mean, taxes and Medicare and social security and all that – you have to, as an employer, you pay half that for the employee. So, yeah.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, I actually had a similar experience. I feel like, yeah, we’re more profitable. My staff, I think, now sees my practice as being more of a long term place to work.

[GORDON]:
Right.

[ALISON]:
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And what did you do about the health insurance piece? Like, how did you set up health insurance for the staff?

[GORDON]:
Yeah, so the first year, I didn’t offer health insurance. The way I’ve got things structured, it’s based on clinical hours per week, and a person has to be seeing, has to be averaging fifteen clinical hours a week in order to be considered full time with my group. And so I’ve built into that, just the kind of the admin portion. I figure you take the clinical hours and you double it, so that’s thirty hours a week. So they have to be a minimum of fifteen hours per week, average, consistently. Because again, I’m using an incentive based system, even with the employees. I pay per clinical hour, is how they’re paid. And it’s really there to incentivize them to build their own case loads, and bring in their own clients and that sort of thing. And so we’ve got that in place. And so I really only had one person that was really meeting that criteria at the time. And so she and I both were still doing kind of ACA insurance, the Affordable Care Act insurance, because we ran the numbers and that was just a good way for us to do it. But then at the beginning of this year, when I switched over to Gusto, I did my health insurance through them, through their Clearing House. And that was just an easy thing to do.

[ALISON]:
Oh, nice. Yeah, I didn’t realize they did that.

[GORDON]:
Yeah, they do.

[ALISON]:
That’s great. Yeah. I ended up using an independent health insurance broker. So he was able to look at all the plans in my area and sort of give me the lay of the land. He wasn’t affiliated with any one certain insurance company, so that was super helpful, and then it was free to use his services because I think the insurance companies pay him when he signs up a new employer group. So, yeah, it worked out really well.

[GORDON]:
Yeah. Good.

[ALISON]:
Good to know about Gusto, cuz I…

[GORDON]:
Yeah, it’s a pretty… I can’t say enough about how easy it is to use and yeah, so, plug for them.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So, what’s the size and the structure of your practice today?

[GORDON]:
Yeah. So it would be considered a small practice. I mean, right now I’m in the process of trying to hire some new people because we’ve really grown to that point. But right now I’ve just got myself and two other clinicians. And my largest, again – and this is something I talk about just on my podcast – is really finding the right size for you. And one of the things that I’ve decided, just that is good for me, is to have a small group practice rather than a really large group practice. And so I’ve got myself and two other clinicians that are in my group. I’m looking to add two more clinicians, and maybe a third along the way. One of the things that I’m running into is just the space to put everyone. So if I add many more clinicians than that I’m gonna have to either get a second location or get another building.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, I think that’s a really good point about, like, you have to decide what feels good to you in terms of a size. Like, when I tell people I have… I guess I have seventeen clinicians now, I kind of lost track, but I have seventeen clinicians and I’m hiring a few more, people are like, oh, my gosh, I don’t think I’d ever want a practice that big. And like, that’s totally fine. That’s the beauty of being an entrepreneur, right? You can decide to have your business however you want it to be. So if you only want to have five clinicians and have a smaller group practice, then that’s great.

[GORDON]:
Right, right. Yeah. And I think too is just, as you know, Allison, one of the things that I’ve had to learn along the way is learning how to do a better job of delegating and outsourcing things. And I’m one of those people that has always kind of geeked out on the bootstrapping part of it, just kind of the inner workings of things and all that sort of thing. But there comes a point where you really have to let a lot of that go. And particularly around, you know, I think one of the first hires that I would say, regardless of being a group practice or solo practice that I tell people, is hiring a virtual assistant or an assistant to manage phone calls and set appointments and all of that kind of thing.

[ALISON]:
Yes.

[GORDON]:
Yeah. Because even as a solo practitioner, you eventually reach a point where that is just a waste of your time.

[ALISON]:
Yes.

[GORDON]:
Yes. And so probably my first hire was a virtual assistant and not a clinician.

[ALISON]:
Oh, nice. So what’s been the hardest thing for you to delegate? Or what’s been so hard to let go of you haven’t let go of it yet?

[GORDON]:
Oh, yeah, that’s a great question. Well, I think as much as anything, just kind of some of the back end kind of tech stuff. Like, I’ve had trouble this week with the website. So I’ve been kind of working through that, and that sort of thing, and really realizing, okay, that’s something I really probably should outsource at this point, and let somebody else worry about those details. And I would say, obviously, I think for a lot of people, getting someone else to answer the phone and get someone else to do intakes and all that kind of stuff, they’re worried that getting somebody else to do it they’re not going to do it as well or not do it the same way. Well, you’re right, they’re not going to do it the same way you do it. But I think allowing yourself the freedom of just letting that go and letting somebody else handle that is really just a huge thing.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, I remember when I first started, I was only seeing clients in the mornings and then I would go – and my kids were pretty little at the time – I’d go to daycare and pick them up like right after lunch and go home and then if the phone rang for a new client call, I was the only person in the practice so I was answering the phone. And I remember every time being, like, stressed out, like, oh no, are the kids going to cry? Are they going to yell? Are they gonna… you know? They were taking a nap, I was like, are they gonna wake up? And it was so stressful, just the idea that the call could get interrupted and it would be perceived as unprofessional and that kind of thing. And I just remember like that weight being lifted off my shoulders when I had an assistant who now answered the phone.

[GORDON]:
Right, right. Yeah.

[ALISON]:
Yeah. So what’s been the best thing about owning the group practice?

[GORDON]:
Well, I think one big thing is just being able to… feeling free to take time off, I think is one thing, because you don’t have to worry about the cash flow as much. I think, in my own experience. Even this past year, my wife’s had some significant health issues and so I’ve had to take a lot of time off, and just kind of put things on hold with the practice. But at the same time, I knew that there was still going to be income coming in. And that what I contributed to the practice, wasn’t as much as what other clinicians were contributing to it. So I think one big perk, I think, of having a group practice is you create for yourself an automatic, kind of – it’s not truly passive – but a passive income source. Being able to provide not only a place for people to work and practice their practice, but also creating some income for yourself. Providing [unclear]. So it’s a win-win in that sense.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, I remember too, at some point, realizing, like, oh, my time and my money are not directly correlated anymore. Because when you’re a solo practitioner, you’re like, okay, well, if I see ten clients this week, I know I’m gonna make X amount of dollars. And then next week when I’m on my vacation, I know I’m gonna make zero dollars. And if you have the right systems in place, and you obviously have enough staff to generate a salary for yourself, you could get to the point where you don’t have to see any clients, which is the point at which I got to last summer. Yeah. So I think that’s a beautiful thing. Like, it’s… my salary is not, you know, I work probably the fewest hours that I’ve ever worked in my life but I make the most money I’ve ever made in my life. So it’s definitely, yeah, your time and your money aren’t directly linked anymore, which is great.

[GORDON]:
Yeah, yeah. And then into, I think being a solo practitioner can get kind of lonely at times. And so, one of the things about having a group practice is that you really, kind of, even though you’re the boss, you still develop a group of colleagues, of people that you can kind of bounce clinical things off if you’re still seeing clients. I’m still seeing clients but I’ve drastically reduced the number of hours at which I see clients. So I only see a few clients a day. And that’s great for me. I take Fridays off, and so I get to do other things, you know, have a long weekend every week. And so that’s a big part.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, that’s great. That’s great. Yeah, so let’s shift gears a little bit and talk about your podcast, and the work you do with practice owners, helping them with their business. Your podcast is called The Practice of Therapy. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that?

[GORDON]:
Yeah, thanks. Yeah, so it’s The Practice of Therapy podcast, and my website is just simply practiceoftherapy.com. I started it… our mutual friend, Joe Sanok, here at Practice of the Practice, was really one of the people that inspired me to really kind of move into the consulting realm and really think about doing things. I started listening to Joe’s podcast, oh gosh, probably back in 2015 or so and was listening to it and just really was inspired with what he was doing. I was thinking, you know, there’s a lot of stuff that I’ve learned the hard way, just about being in practice. And so I thought, you know, why not do my spin on that? So I started the website Practice of Therapy. I think I really lucked out on that URL, that was available, and went from there. And then in 2017 I started the podcast, and the podcast has just really taken off. Probably this month, we will pass that benchmark of over a hundred thousand downloads. And so it’s really taken off. I’ve really been just kind of blown away by how much it’s grown since I started the podcast.

But much like what you do, and Joe does, here at the whole Practice of the Practice network, I just have conversations with other therapists about what they’re doing in their practices, just learning about, as I like to say, their private practice journey and what they’ve learned, and how they can be better clinicians, better practice owners and all those kinds of things.

[ALISON]:
Nice.

[GORDON]:
And so… then also on the website, I’ve developed a lot of different resources. I’ve got some courses that I’ve put together. One that is probably the best known course I’ve got is called G Suite for Therapists. And in that course, I just teach other therapists just about all the fun stuff you can do with using Google G Suite, in particular how to make it HIPAA secure and HIPAA compliant, and that sort of thing. And then just using the different tools as kind of a practice management platform for yourself.

Now also, one of the things that I think a lot of people struggle with is just the whole financial side of private practice. And so, I teamed up with – you probably… well, I do know you know Julie Harris at Green Oak Accounting?

[ALISON]:
She’s my accountant. Yeah.

[GORDON]:
Yes. She and I teamed up to create a course called Money Matters in Private Practice. And so it just teaches folks the whole financial side of private practice, and just all the things we never really learned in graduate school. And so that whole piece of it. And then I’ve got a few other digital products, I’ve got a paperwork packet and also a system that I put together for G Suite called the Session Note Helper. And it’s a system that you can set up for yourself within G Suite using Google Forms, and Google Docs, along with an add-on called Form Publisher, to create progress notes for yourself just by simply checking off some checkboxes on the Google Form and then it creates a narrative format that you can then cut and paste or edit and put in to your Electronic Health Record System, or however you want to use it. So that’s been a popular resource as well.

[ALISON]:
That’s great. Yeah, I know a lot of people that have said they purchased your G Suite course for therapists, and that it’s been extremely helpful for them. So that’s awesome.

[GORDON]:
Yeah. Good. Good. So those are all the different things. Not all of them, but I’m just continually adding to the resources that I have on the Practice of Therapy website, and then the podcast that comes out every week on Mondays, if all goes well.

[ALISON]:
So what’s your favorite part of that part of your business, so to speak, I don’t know if it’s attached to your counseling practice, or if it’s a separate business, but…?

[GORDON]:
Yeah. It’s really kind of, you know, I guess just the structure of it right now… As a matter of fact, I met with my accountant last week, and so might be changing some of the things around. But right now it’s under my LLC, Kingsport Counseling Associates, and it’s just a DBA under that – practiceoftherapy.com. It’s treated as a separate entity underneath the umbrella of my private practice. But yeah, I think the thing that I love most about doing that is just all the different networking opportunities there are and just being able to learn from others. And in that sense I’m a bit selfish in that I get a lot of free advice and help from others, and just learn from others in many different ways. But I think it’s also built a lot of community because I think about if I hadn’t have started The Practice of Therapy, I wouldn’t have met you, Alison, I wouldn’t have come in contact with Joe, and Whitney Owens, and the list goes on and on of all the people that we just kind of have this great circle of colleagues that are doing things to help people in their practices.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, I’m glad you brought that up because I think that is such a cool part about being a part of either Practice of the Practice, or Practice of Therapy, or just whatever you’re kind of going to to connect with other practice owners who maybe have kind of the same mindset as you in terms of business building and that kind of thing. And it’s always so inspiring to hear from other group practice owners, like, what they’re doing and different ideas they’ve come up with and what’s working for them. And I know you and I have known each other, talked over the past few years, but we finally met in person at Killin’It Camp last October.

[GORDON]:
Yes. Yes.

[ALISON]:
Yes. It was almost a year ago, and it was so nice to finally meet you in person. I felt like I already knew you pretty well.

[GORDON]:
Yeah. Yeah. Same for me. And I’m so happy we’re doing it again this year, just not in person, which that’s just indicative of the year. But I think it’s going to be another great virtual conference. A lot of great people are going to be there.

[ALISON]:
Yeah. And are you speaking in Killin’It Camp this year?

[GORDON]:
Yes, I am. I’m going to be doing another kind of breakout session on G Suite again, just kind of introducing people to that and how they can use it in their practice. And I’m sure we’ll have other conversations along the way throughout that event. I know one thing that’s near and dear to my heart is just helping people really figure out – and this kind of goes along with what we said earlier here – is figuring out the kind of practice they want to have that meets their lifestyle. Because I think all of us go into private practice for different reasons. But if it doesn’t line up or meet the expectations of your lifestyle, then you probably need to rethink things.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, because that’s definitely a recipe for burnout. If you’re working crazy hours, and you feel like a business is running you, then you’re not going to obviously last too long. Yeah. So yeah, I think that’s so important. And that’s actually the topic I’m kind of talking about at Killin’It Camp, which is like, how do you keep scaling up your practice but also reduce your work hours at the same time? Because I think people often don’t think those two things go together. They think, oh, the bigger my practice gets, the more hours I’m gonna have to work. But it’s actually, in my experience, been the opposite. Because you hire people to do all the things you used to do when the practice was smaller.

[GORDON]:
Right, right. Yeah.

[ALISON]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, Gordon, it’s been so great talking with you. It’s always fun to hear what’s going on with you. And if folks want to get a hold of you, or if they want to check out your podcast, how can they get in touch with you?

[GORDON]:
Yeah, absolutely. First of all, they can visit the website, practiceoftherapy.com. And they can always email me at [email protected]. The podcast, you can find it on all the podcatchers, it’s on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, we’re on Amazon Music now, and Google Play, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, all the main podcatchers. You can just do a search and find us, and it’s just The Practice of Therapy podcast.

[ALISON]:
Awesome. Well, Gordon, thank you so much. It was nice talking to you today.

[GORDON]:
It was great to talk to you, Alison.

________________________________________

[ALISON]:
Well, it’s always so fun talking to Gordon. I’m glad that I got to hear about his group practice and what he’s been up to with creating his ecourses. We’re going to be virtually at Killin’It Camp next week. So that will be fun too, to connect again with him. And we’ll talk to you all next time.

Grow a Group Practice is part of the Practice of the Practice Podcast Network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you grow your group practice. To hear other podcasts like the Imperfect Thriving podcast, Bomb Mom podcast, Beta Male Revolution, or Empowered and Unapologetic, go to practiceofthepractice.com/network. If you love this podcast, will you please rate and review on iTunes or your favorite podcast player.

This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. This is given with the understanding that neither the host, Practice of the Practice, or the guests are providing legal, mental health, or other professional information. If you need a professional, you should find one.