Building your private practice from the inside-out

Feeling insecure, overwhelmed, and confused are common experiences when starting a private practice. When you are unsure about how to progress forward, you are probably inclined to seek outside information and consultation. After all, much of your training has taught you to seek supervision, read research, and review evidence-based practices to ensure success for your clients. So, it makes sense that you would apply this process to your private practice development as well.

It is typical to want to gather information from other clinicians to help you determine how to start your business. You may even try to gauge your potential success by assessing the success of others. When it comes to business, this type of inquiry is considered an outside-in strategy. With an outside-in approach, you seek to develop your business using the data that you collect from your “competition” as well as what your potential clients may want and need.

The following inquiries are examples of an outside-in approach:

• What day do most clients want to be seen?
• How much do you think clients will pay in my area for services?
• Is it better to design my therapy group at night or over the weekend?
• Can I make money if I am not on insurance panels?

Doing market research and creating products based on client need is a very common practice for many types of businesses. However, this approach does not seem to translate well to the business of psychotherapy. Psychotherapy is a unique field that cannot be compared to other businesses that sell products or services.

In a private practice, you are the vessel through which your services are delivered. Therefore, you are the most valuable source of information to utilize to create your business. Your personality, your preferred modalities, and your style are specific to you and cannot be compared to any other practitioner.

When it comes to your business plan and setup, exploring your likes and dislikes will provide you with everything you need. For psychotherapy, building your ideal practice will require an inside-out strategy.

As a psychotherapist who has been trained to assess and accommodate others’ needs as a profession, shifting your focus to what you want may take some practice and reminders. Sadly, many budding private practitioners are concerned that focusing too much on their own wants and needs will alienate or deter clients. However, the opposite is usually true. When you build your practice around your own wants and needs, your business becomes aligned with you and resonates with your authenticity. Your business will be created as a reflection of how you work best, thereby attracting exactly the right clients for you.

You already know how you like to work based on your previous employment experiences. What did you like and dislike about the intake paperwork? What did you like and dislike about the policies or procedures? How did you feel about working in the evenings or on weekends? All your work experiences so far have informed you about what kind of self-employed practitioner you want to be.

To align with an inside-out strategy, consider the following:

How many hours do I want to work in private practice?
What times and days work best for me?
How much money do I want to make?
Do I want to work with insurance companies or private pay only?

Working from an inside-out mentality can feel counterintuitive at first, but it will eventually help you feel more empowered and confident in your business. When you assess your wants and needs first, you can use this as a guide to help you make business decisions. Setting up your business to work for you is the best way to have a successful practice that you truly love and enjoy.