Alison (0:08)

Welcome to Ask Alison. Y'all ask the questions about having a fun and thriving practice and I answer them. We have a worksheet for you today so you can bring this answer into your life. You can Access that@AbundancePracticeBuilding.com links where you'll also be able to ask any questions you have for Ask Alison. If you want more support, we've got some free trainings in there too. If you can't get enough Ask Alison, check out our YouTube channel for our entire Ask Alison library. Welcome back to Ask Alison. Here's today's question. Well, it's kind of like a conglomeration of a bunch of questions that I get that I just want to clear some things up about. So we're diving into some half truths in the business advice world. They get thrown around a lot. These are those statements that sound really awesome, but they skip over the hard parts. So I want to give you a full picture on some popular ideas so you can make informed decisions when it comes to your business. So we're going to talk about passive income, hiring out and alternative streams of income today. So before we do that, I want to thank TherapyNotes. They are the number one rated electronic health record system available today. They have live telephone support seven days a week and they are rated 4.9 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot and have a 5 star rating on Google. They make billing, scheduling, note taking and telehealth incredibly easy. And they also have eprescribed. So if you're coming from another ehr, they make that transition incredibly easy by importing your demographic data free of charge so you can get going right away. You can find out what more than 100,000 mental health professionals already know by using promo code abundant therapynotes.com for two free months. All right, so let's start with passive income because that sounds ideal, right? Like we hear about it all the time. The idea of making money in your sleep, freeing yourself from trading time for money by creating a course or a product or something like that. But here's the reality. Passive income is not passive. So, for example, creating a course involves a lot of upfront work for sure, right? Like you need to research your audience to make sure they actually want what you're creating. You need to choose the right platform. You need to make sure everything looks good and it works smoothly. And that is like just the very, very tiny bit of the beginning. Marketing is the real mountain. You might need a detailed strategy. You will need a detailed strategy. You'll need a launch plan. You'll need to have consistent nurturing of your audience. You'll need to have maybe free trainings or ad. And while those initial sales that you might get at first might feel rewarding, passive income only becomes ultimately semi passive after a lot of consistent work and ongoing time and financial investment. So if you're thinking of passive income, go for it. But I don't want you to think it's going to be as effortless as sometimes the way people talk about it is. Abundance would be considered like a passive income type of thing. But we have four people working full time five days a week to make it happen. So it is not effortless. Another popular piece of advice is like, oh, just hire it out. And yes, getting help. It could be a lifesaver, right? But here's what people don't mention is that not only is good help hard to find, but you're probably not a good boss. Sorry. So I recommend first knowing enough about each area of your business that you're considering hiring out to keep things moving from a operations perspective. Because sometimes things go wrong. I've learned this the hard way, from designers who didn't catch simple mistakes to a developer who ghosted me right before a deadline. Like, you want to have at least a baseline knowledge to step in if needed. And here's something that's often overlooked, the fact that you're probably not a great boss. Hiring well takes management skills. And if you're a therapist, I'm going to say that probably doesn't come naturally because we tend to over empathize with our team, we tend to have loose boundaries, we are not always clear on our expectations, and these things are exactly what make therapists call a place toxic. So I would recommend getting some very basic management training. If you're hiring anyone to do anything, make sure to set really clear expectations and have a way to follow up. Because at the end of the day, nobody's going to care about your business as much as you do. Now let's talk about another enticing idea which is multiple streams of income. In theory, it sounds really fantastic, almost like having different spouses that provide support in unique ways. But in reality, multiple streams of income mean multiple responsibilities. Similar to having multiple spouses probably. And that can quickly get overwhelming. So let's say you are developing a new course because you want to have some passive income. Let's say you also have rented out a big office building in order to sublet offices and you also have your practice running if two of those things are in a set it and forget it kind of place. Like, you have the referrals coming in you want to have for your practice, you have the building subleased and now you can focus on the course. That's great. But if two of the three things are not set it and forget it ish, then you're going to be a stress case and you are juggling way too much. You're going to get scattered, you're going to get burned out because you're stretching yourself too thin. You're juggling too much. So each of these business models can be effective, right? Like, I don't want to say passive income or alternative streams of income doesn't work. They can all be effective, but they come with hidden costs and those costs are time, energy and money. So, like passive income takes marketing efforts. Hiring requires management skills. Multiple streams of income demand extra time. Don't get discouraged if these paths feel challenging. Just be mindful of what you're taking on. Building a sustainable practice should come first. First. And if you've got the marketing set there and you have a consistent referral network that you don't have to keep working so hard on marketing your practice and you're staying full, that's a good time to consider branching out. But you've got to have your solid foundation where you know you have income coming in that supports your life. Multiple streams of income or passive income should only be considered, in my opinion, if it's something you genuinely care about and not just an attempt to make more money. Because the learning curve is so much steeper. The expenses are often so much more than a practice. It's a lot of investment and learning and in finances. And if you're just doing it for the money, you're probably going to give up having spent a lot of time and money on it. Your life would be infinitely simpler. And you can make multiple six figures with some tweaks to your practice without having to add other businesses and other business models. That was a little bit of a rant, but I hope that it gives you a real view of these strategies because advice often makes these things sound a lot simpler than they are. And I want you to make choices that align with your goals and your energy. If you're like, awesome, I am so down to do this hard work and build something my practice is in the right place for then. Today's free worksheet is a great option for you. It's called Ideas for Alternative Streams of Income. You can DM me the word sheets to get this week's worksheet and also links to all the previous worksheets so you'll have access to all of those for free. Thank you so much for watching. If you have questions for Ask Alison then go on our website and you'll find the place to submit them and I'll answer them. All right, take care. If you're ready for a much easier practice, Therapy Notes is the way to go. Go to therapynotes.com and use the promo code abundant for two months free. I hope that helped. If you have questions for Ask Alison or you want to get your hands on the worksheet for this episode, go to abundancepracticebuilding.com link if you're listening. You probably need some support building your practice. If you're a super newbie, grab our free checklist using the link in the Show Notes. I'd love for you to follow rate and review, but I really want you to share this episode with a therapist friend. Let's help all our colleagues build what they want.