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Foreign. Welcome to Ask Allison. 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 Allison. If you want more support, we've got some free trainings in there, too. If you can't get enough Ask Allison, check out our YouTube channel for our entire Ask Allison library. Welcome back to Ask Allison. Here's today's question. I'm curious, what are some effective ways to grow income in private practice without going the group practice route? So before I answer, I'd like to thank TherapyNotes for sponsoring Ask Allison. I've talked about them for years. I know their features by heart, but what really sets them apart is that they genuinely care about your experience. It's not just about troubleshooting. They actively implement user suggested features like Therapy search, secure Messaging, and their AI feature, Therapy Fuel. Everyone at TherapyNotes believes in the product and wants you to love it, too. Plus, they're independently owned, which means no venture capital and no pressure to prioritize investors over customers. This independence allows them to keep their prices fair, to focus on innovation, and to prioritize customer experience. But with over 100,000 therapists already on board, they've proven you don't have to compromise success for quality. If you're ready to see for yourself, try TherapyNotes free for two months with the code abundant@theapynotes.com all right, so let's talk about this question. But first, yeah, I'm going to have a little rant. And this rant isn't necessarily for the person asking the question, but it might be. It's definitely for a lot of people listening or watching this right now. So here's the thing. Anytime we talk about making more money as therapists, especially outside of the therapy hour, people's ears perk up. Which is understandable. But the second you Google ways to grow your income as a therapist, you're going to get knee deep in a sea of influencers selling you the dream of passive income. You know what I'm talking about. Launch a course in a weekend, create a membership site that makes money in your sleep and retire your therapy license and build your empire. And that sounds really amazing, especially if you're tired, especially if you're burned out, and especially if you're doing everything you can and still not getting ahead. But I want to say this Loud and clear. There is absolutely no such thing as passive income. There is leveraged income, there's scalable income, there's asynchronous income. But passive income and the way that it's marketed online is an absolute myth. Do I personally make money while I sleep? I do, every single night. But do I do that alone? Not even close. I have an entire team of people working throughout the week, writing, designing, planning, implementing so that all those payments can process while I'm off duty. That is not passive, that's well structured, it's well supportive. Plus, I have marketed five days a week for over a decade. So I want to be clear, I am not anti course or anti membership or anti any of that. I actually really love the revenue streams that I've built. They've changed my life. But the truth that most people who are trying to sell you a course on this aren't going to tell you is that if you're going to build an additional income stream, you have to really love that thing you're creating, not just the money that you hope it's going to make. Because the learning curve for these things is super steep. You're going to have to learn new skills, how to write copy, how to launch, how to price and position a product, how to build an audience, how to keep them engaged. And that takes time, that takes energy, that's consistency on top of running your practice and living your actual life. If you're not genuinely excited about the thing you're building, you are going to burn out. You will quit, you will feel like you failed, when in reality it's just not the right path for most people. And also this is a big one. If you don't like marketing, do not launch a course or a membership because marketing will be your full time job if you want that thing to actually sell. So can you tell? It gets me fired up. So I feel like there are a lot of therapists being sold a half truth or maybe even a fantasy and it's not fair and it pisses me off. And it's the opposite of informed consent. So you deserve to know what you're getting into before you spend months building something that drains you instead of filling you up. I've just talked to too many therapists who have bought these courses and it's sold like it's so easy to make money, but then when they actually implement everything that this person teaches them to do, it's like a full part time job, if not a full time job in addition to what they're already trying to do when they thought it was going to be a lot easier because that's how it's sold. So, blah. Let's come back to your actual question. Can you grow your income in private practice without starting a group practice? Yes. This is where it gets exciting. Because the best, most straightforward way to grow your income in private practice without managing a team or launching a course or adding a ton of extra work is this. Raise your rates to premium rates. It's really simple. I know it's scary, but let's walk through it together. Let's say you're currently paneled with insurance and your average reimbursement is around $100 a session. You're seeing 25 clients a week, and you take six weeks off each year. And that puts your annual income at about $115,000 before taxes and expenses. Now, what happens if you switch to private pay at a premium rate? Let's go look at three different fee points. Keeping that same schedule where you're seeing 25 clients a week, six weeks off a year. Okay, if you're charging $200 a session, you're making $230,000. If you're making $250 per session, you're making $287,500 per year. And if you're charging $300 a session, you're making $345,000 a year, same number of clients, same number of weeks off. And now you've created a multi six figure income without adding hours, without hiring anyone, without launching anything new, without spending egregious amounts of money to make that. So I'll ask again, is that the kind of income you're talking about? Because if it is, raising your rates and building a premium fee, private practice is by far the simplest, most direct way to get there. Now, if 25 clients a week feels like too much for you, absolutely. I get that. Do the math. You can absolutely design a leaner schedule with fewer clients and still hit your income goals as long as your fees support the life and the business you want. So let's compare that to the alternatives for a moment. Creating and marketing a course, that's hundreds of hours of unpaid labor before you make a dollar. And again, it's only worth it if you genuinely love doing it. That also means you've probably you should, if you're going to do a course, spend some money on somebody who's going to teach you how to do that effectively. So you're looking at thousands of dollars that you've sunk just in like what you were charged to learn how to do the thing. And there's absolutely no guarantee. I've seen this with so many of my students. There's no guarantee you're going to make any money with an online course. And I've seen so many people put so much time and energy and money into an online course, and it goes nowhere. So building a group practice is another option. That means managing people, navigating HR stuff, hiring, firing, training, stepping into a completely different role. You are a leader now. You are not a clinician. It's not better or worse. It's just a really different business model and it doesn't fit for everybody. Charging premium fees in a solo practice, it lets you stay in your zone of genius. You get to go deep with your clients, work the hours that suit you best, actually take time off because your rates are sustainable. And I'm going to be honest, if your dream is to make millions, like millions of dollars, solo private practice is not going to get you there. I never say never, but the math gets really tricky at that level without scale. But if your goal is to make multiple six figures, to have strong boundaries and enjoy your life outside of work, solo practice can absolutely get you there. Especially if you niche well, if you market intentionally and you price strategically. And speaking of strategic pricing, if you're wondering how to actually set a premium fee, like what number works for you, your location, your goals, I've got something that's going to help you. This week's worksheet walks you through my favorite method for setting and adjusting your session fee. It includes everything. How to factor in taxes, time off, retirement overhead, and still hit your financial goal. If you want that, just DM me the word sheets and I will send you this link. Plus the link to all the previous ones we've shared in the series. Again, DME sheets. I'll get that right to you. Or it's linked in the show notes. You don't have to hustle harder. You don't need to build something brand new from scratch. Sometimes the smartest way to grow is to optimize what you already have. All right, you got this. 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 Allison or you want to get your hands on the worksheet for this episode, go to abundancepracticebuilding.com Links 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 for a let's help all our colleagues build what they want.