EP 151. From Insurance to Private Pay & 10K Months: Behind the Scenes of a Live Coaching Call Inside the Collective

(upbeat music) - Hola, my name is Liz Fernandez and I'm on a mission to help therapists expand beyond therapy by helping them double their therapy income with coaching. I am a proud first generation eldest daughter of immigrants, marriage family therapist turned multi-six figure CEO of a coaching company and the business coach for therapists. Like many of the therapists I serve, I started my coaching business as a therapist in pursuit of more career fulfillment. To create a deeper impact on my own terms, to have more autonomy, to decolonize my work, have way more options and to create financial freedom and time freedom. Orke, our ancestors have already sacrificed so, so much. It is our turn to change this narrative. And now I teach therapists and coaches, just like you, learn how to double your therapy income through coaching without sacrificing your well-being. This show is created for therapists who want to expand beyond private practice. It's a space where I will help educate and power and make you feel seen on your path to doubling your therapy income with coaching. Creating your business owner identity, building wealth through ethical selling and having work-life balance to support your health and well-being. I'm on a mission to help every therapist create more options, deep, deep impact, decolonized impact, time freedom and wealth. Join me every week as I will provide you with actionable tips to break free of cultural and professional training conditioning that limits you for maximizing your earning potential as a therapist and coach. Welcome to the Beyond Private Practice podcast. Hola, hola, welcome back to another episode of the Beyond Private Practice podcast. Before we dive into today's episode, I have something so exciting to share with you. Doors to the therapist of coach collective are officially open, but only until November 7th. This is the only time we are enrolling this year. If you've been ready to double your therapy income through private practice or coaching, I personally want to invite you to join us inside the therapist coach collective. It's my 12 month group program that helps therapists double their therapy income with coaching or with private practice. Inside, you'll get weekly live group coaching with me every single week from the moment that you join you get instant access. A step-by-step curriculum to help you double your therapy income, templates, contracts, ethical frameworks that are gonna help you protect your license, help you identify your niche, your marketing, and how to attract ideal clients, and a supportive community of therapists of color who are walking the same path right alongside you. Call replays are also available for you inside of the program with a private podcast and a Slack community channel for support in between calls. The investment for the program is one payment of $2,500 for the year or you can join with five monthly payments of 500. And I'm now booking consultation calls through November 7th. So you can book a free 60 minute strategy consultation call with me where we will map out exactly where you are, where you wanna be, and what is blocking you from doubling your income right now. We'll create a personalized plan to help you bridge that gap and I'll show you how we can support you inside the therapist to coach collective if it's the right fit. This is my gift to you during this launch and I want you to make the best decision for you and I would love nothing more than to support you inside so that you can start doubling your income in 2026, okay? So head over to the link in the show notes to schedule your free consultation and remember, doors closed November 7th. So I wanted you to be in the know and have all the information that you need to join us inside. So let's get into what we're talking about in today's episode because this one is a perfect example of the kind of coaching and transformation that happens inside of the collective. You're about to hear a snippet from one of our live group coaching calls in the collective where I coach one of the therapists in the program who had worked in community mental health for over a decade and finally decided to take that leap and go full time into private practice. She was able to book her private practice within the first 30 days that she went full time into her practice. And so when she joined the collective, she not only became booked and booked out her private practice, but it's now making over $10,000 a month while learning how to simplify, set stronger boundaries and create space to grow her coaching business without losing her peace or her income. So if you have ever thought, I want to go into private practice full time, but it feels scary, it feels intimidating. I don't know what's on the other side of that, what if it's not sustainable? This episode is exactly what you need to hear. So let's dive in. (upbeat music) It's so good to see you all. Welcome in. What are we celebrating? Let us know in the chat. Beautiful. It's so good to see you. But as you know, really, I'm doing good. I'm so happy that we get to connect. So I need a little bit of support in terms of my private practice. I'm so thankful that I'm full. But at the same time, it's hard to balance private practice and then coaching. And so I don't know if you just have any ideas, tips on how to do both. 'Cause I'm feeling really stuck. Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. And thank you for asking for coaching on this. Yeah. Let me think about how private practice has been going because you've been booked for months. I have. It's been going great. So I'm completely full. I'm saying about 30 clients a week. And so, you know, I feel like initially, I was thinking just like direct client contact. But then I forget all of the other stuff that goes with having a private practice. Treatment plans, calling parents, connecting with clients, you know, outside of sessions. So I didn't really account for all of that extra stuff that would come with it. I was just thinking direct client contact. Yeah, no, absolutely. It's the admin work. And then it worked with everything. I got my whole life, I feel. Oh, I know. But 30 friends a week, that's incredible. That is amazing. How many times do you have a total? Total is 30 a week. 30 a week, but in Canada. Oh, in Canada, I would say it's maybe closer to like 40. And that's incredible. So, you can do it. Also, we got a set up. It's easier. I know, right, that's the thing too. Or it's like, this is great. You know, it's what I wanted. But at the same time, I'm like, coaching is something that I'm still very like passionate about is just trying to find that balance because then when I'm not seeing clients or doing administrative work, I'm just wanting to do other things, like my life. So if you have about 40, are they all for the most part or through RULA? It's, I would say it's half and half. Okay, tell me more. Yeah, half was like about 20 or private pay. Yeah, so I'm having about, I know. I'm gonna talk to you. Oh, I'm so excited. That's why I'm like, it's been great. And I'm super thankful and grateful. But at the same time, I'm still feeling this calling of like more balance as well because I'm finding myself just, not even burnout, 'cause I truly love what I do every single day. I'm like, I feel passionate about it, but I still want to do coaching, so. Yeah, and all I'm really hearing is your business blew up in a great way. You will have your dream come true, right, you have so many clients, but now we've got to a point where we got to simplify. We got to simplify because what was working is not gonna work moving forward because you also want time for your life to be with your partner, to travel, to do the things that you started this business at the beginning with. Yeah, I don't wanna add something else to which will help. I'm also expecting, I'm pregnant. Thank you, so it's like, I've been MIA because I'll just balancing everything, being really pregnant. And so then that's also another thing that I'm thinking about in terms of my niche because now I'm like, I'm gonna be a first time mom. And maybe that's gonna be some feeling stuck. I felt like I should have said that, but I was sure, I wasn't sure. There's a context here. Yeah, I was like, let me give you some context. Like I'm feeling stuck for that reason too because I can see it shifting in the future where it's like first time wife, but maybe now it's like a first time mom and helping new moms through, I don't know. Yeah, some feeling stuck. Okay, this is so good. I have so many things that I might. First of all, we're gonna expand your niche. So you're not gonna be stuck after this call, okay? We're gonna expand it 'cause I've been thinking a lot about you and things like that, and what we can expand into. But this makes a lot of sense too. And then also you're expecting when are you do? March, march, okay. That's gonna come quickly. So we got to prepare that now. No, we got to prepare that now so that we can also prepare your maternity leave too whenever you ask that. So first of all, Felicia, that is. I'm so happy for you when we initially had our console last year. We like, you know, this was part of like the something you might was first seeing in your future. And here it is happening in real time. and all of them. I know it was a year, 'cause you don't know this, but I know this. We met on September 11th, our very first phone call and I was thinking back to a year where it's like I am, you know, like thankfully my private practice is doing great. Like I'm about to be a mom. Like all of these things, I'm like, who am I? I don't even recognize myself. But yeah, so I was feeling stuck mainly for that reason where I was like, I can see that being in the future, but then I'm like, I need to experience being a mom. I think before I can help other moms, as well, so that's kind of where I'm at. - Absolutely. So let's sit them by what you have going on right now and also look at numbers because it's so important to see, okay, how many clinics do we actually need? Like we don't want to just fill our caseload because we have this space. That's something that we tend to do because we come from community mental health and we're used to filling up our caseload. And so, you mentioned that you have 20 clients that are private pay, remind me of your rating and 150. And are these weekly or biweekly? For the private pay, it's like maybe half or less than half are biweekly. So maybe you have a 10 that are biweekly and then you're not biweekly. - Yeah. - And then for RULA, out of the 30, you see a week. So that would reach 20. For the other 20, let's look at RULA now. - Yeah. - Three for RULA, I believe it was 100 and something. - It's 90, 90, not for RULA. And you have for those out of the 20, how many do you see weekly and how many do you see biweekly? - Those are pretty much all weekly. - Okay, weekly, yeah. So that would mean that you have 20 RULA clients at 90 and you see those weekly. And then you have, okay, let me don't laugh 'cause math is not. - Me, there's mine. - It's not, that's what we're therapists. - Yeah, that's what we're therapists. And the reason why I wanted to do this math is because sometimes again, we take on our clients and we need to financially and this is also gonna help us have a vision for how many clients we can actually take on that our coaching clients and what come goals are there in reverse engineer so that we can prep for this month and the rest of the year but also to prep for your maternity leave. And then we'll also get into the niche of your coaching business so that we can, you can feel solid all around. - Okay. - So let me see. So we have 20 clients for RULA at 90 and that's times four. See, we have 20 times 19 times four. It's about, did I do that math break? - Are you getting like 7K from just RULA to those numbers will correct to you? - Before taxes, yeah. - Oh, hey girl, yeah. - After taxes, I'm sorry, after taxes. - Okay, so yeah, so then I did do the math right. 25 times 98 times four. It's about 7,200 a week for just those. Sorry, not a week a month, a month. And then that's only the RULA ones. And then you have 10 that are for private practice or cash pay. And those are 150 times 150 and you see those weekly. 1,500 times four is 6,000. This is incredible. You're already making 20 K months. - Yeah, I know. (laughs) - I think it's incredible. - Yeah. - I'm just thinking about your community and I'm so helpful and I'm thinking like girl, we were mapping all these numbers out just. - And I was all stressed about it. Wow, look at these. So amazing, okay, that's just the 30 clients you're seeing that's not including the biweekly ones. So you mentioned that for the biweekly ones, we had, you also have 10, no, 20 RULA ones we already talked about. So all we're missing is 10 more clients 'cause it's a 30. - Yeah. - And those you see biweekly, right? - Yeah, right. - Oh, then you have 10 at 150 times two instead of 10. - Four weeks. - 10 times 150? - Yeah, right now times two. That's an extra 3K. - Okay, so right now you're bringing in about a month, like 7,200 plus 6,000 plus 3,000. It's about, okay, so it's about 13,500 that you're bringing in with all the clients that you're seeing. - Do those numbers feel accurate? - It does, it's just not what I actually keep after taxes and all of that outsourcing that goes back to my private practice, but I would say half of that are a little bit more as what I actually keep. - What you actually keep? - Yeah, how in terms of your expenses right now, what is on that list for you? - The office that I'm renting, all of these other subscriptions. I think that's my subscriptions, taxes, my office, which I'm not gonna be doing in person once I actually have the baby because I'm gonna be home. So I'm still gonna be paying the office so just 'cause of the business address and all that. Like I need to keep that. But it's pretty much subscriptions, which there's a lot that I can get rid of. - Okay, so I want us to, in terms of like just cleaning up your finances, I want us to look at the subscriptions you no longer need and just create a list of the ones I can simple practices for sure when you need anything else. And I know simple practice includes pretty much everything, maybe Google works face. - Yeah, exactly, I have that as well. - Okay, so just keeping the ones that we need and looking at okay, how much a month do I want my spending on subscriptions and how much is your rent for office? 'Cause I'm only doing one day a week, it's one, two, no, 200. - 200, 200. - 200. Okay, that's not crazy expensive, it's good. So other than that, taxi, how much are you putting off for taxes or a simple practice that's rated for you? - 30%, 30% and you're can week 30% out of each month, each month's income that you come in every two weeks. So I get paid through Rula every two weeks and then through simple practice, I have it set up where I can pay myself like by weekly, basically. - By weekly, okay. - Yeah. - Well, let's say if you're bringing in 13, 13, 500, mine is the, what is it, 30%, okay, so yeah, so it's about your, without subscriptions and your office, it looks like you, so just with the taxes separated, you're actually the numbers look like 9,450. - Yeah. - That's yours and then I will probably say that those 450 are probably the subscription and office face. - Exactly. - Yeah, which is very low expenses, which is great. - It is, yeah. So you're keeping 9K for you. Are you paying yourself about 9K or do you, or what do you pay yourself by weekly? - It looks more so like seven a month, I would say. - Yeah. - Okay. - Other like I'm putting back into like business savings and things like that. - Okay, perfect. And are you happy with those numbers? - I would say for my first year private practice, yes. I am not to say that I wouldn't be happier with less work and keeping the same that I'm bringing in. So as of right now, it feels good. But then that's gonna change, I think, you know, obviously once the baby comes, it's gonna be a huge shift financially 'cause I won't be able to see all those clients. - Yeah, no, absolutely. So what I'm seeing here too is, and the reason why I ask is because if this is a number that you're like, okay, you'll solve it with this, I would just wanna be seeing less clients. We can work with that being the goal. But also when you notice you surpassed your job salary. - Yes, I did. - Yay. - Which is so freaking easy. - Yes. - Like, can we just like to moment because I know how big that is, until beautiful. So now let me have these numbers like mapped out. I love it. So it looks like bringing home about 7K to 10K. - Ideally, we would want this to be the goal, the income that we're bringing up. Anyway, so what I would offer here is obviously you have a lot of the little times and it makes sense that they're saying you weekly because the rate is like half, nearly half of what you normally would reach. So I would offer that the goal here would be to shift how many, shift almost like the ratios of the number of clients you're seeing in terms of your you have 20. So I wonder what it would look like if you did weekly clients out 150. So if these other 10 became, became instead of bi-weekly, they were weekly, right? That would cancel out ruler. - Yeah. - Mm-hmm. - I so, I'm seeing the goal would be, I'm going to turn into space, I don't do like this, would be that we had a 20 clients that were paying you 150 weekly. Because that would bring in, I see 20 times more than 50 times four, that would be $12,000 with just 20 clients, yeah. With just, yeah, with just the 20 clients. - Yeah. - And so that would be the goal so that we could cancel out these 20 and you could be seeing 20 clients instead of 40. - Mm-hmm, yeah. It's just hard, I don't know, anybody else's experience in terms of like cash paying clients, like I worked with those. Just to get them in and keep them, but I don't know how realistic or maybe that's just what I tell myself like is to get so work with a lot of like Latino clients as well. So I just don't know how I don't know how realistic it is to just like, I don't know, keep those 20 clients like consistently. Yeah, so when you say it when you worked and it was hard to for you to get those clients, what is that process looks like how did you create because you have 10 that are 150 weekly, so that's it, that's everything that it is possible. Yeah, yeah, I was going to like little like fairs and stuff that my old job would invite me to. So that was helpful kind of getting my word out. So that really helped a lot word of mouth. I found was really helpful Instagram, at least for me, it hasn't really been a platform that's been helpful, I haven't gotten any clients from Instagram, but I'm also not posting on there either. So it's been mostly word of mouth me going out to these little like fairs and networking in that way, so that's been that was the way that I was. I was able to get those clients. Yeah, and so they've been around right there standing and have some that are finally clean, so we have evidence that it is possible. Yeah, offline marketing or online marketing, right, you are finding that offline marketing is working well for your business right now, so we can do more of that. What I want you to see is that you've already been able to create. So it can happen, right, it's unrealistic for you to have another like third another 10 clients that are going to be weakly. So that's what I want you to see is that you've already been able to create it. So it can happen right, it's unrealistic for you to have another like third another 10 clients that are going to be weakly. Okay. Yeah, that's true. And so even if like, let's say you kept the 20 that you have now that are private pay and some 10 of them are weekly, the other are better weekly, even if you took on 10 others that were weekly, right, that that's 30 not 40. And then little by little, you can like we can adjust and make space to make that number three 20 clients at a weekly rate. Yeah, and that would create more calendar space. Yes, that's what I would like. Right. And so I want you to see where are we in our minds blocking us from thinking and getting in the pockets of our clients of like is this going to be realistic for them. We clearly see that it that it can be and also. Pricing is accessible for the area that you're in and for like the average cost of the air past right now. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So you're actually really setting yourself apart in the market in the industry in the area that you're in. So it definitely is realistic. We can we can move towards that and we can have that be the goal. So that would look like I don't know if you're actually you're still accepting rule of clients, but it would look like no more rule of clients. Okay, that we're taking on and we are just prioritizing and putting our energy into the clients going into weekly sessions or or bringing in people that are interested in weekly sessions. And you can say that to right, I am accepting therapy clients for weekly sessions. Yeah, I think that's sometimes I feel like I'm really nice to because I'll have clients that will say like I'm willing to pay, but I really, really want to use insurance. And that's where I'll be like, oh, you know, well, I do also provide insurance, you know, through rule and instead of really sticking with like they're willing to pay, but that's just me trying to adjust and take people on. Yes, so this is a glad that you mentioned this because it is part of part of growth and part of scaling our time is going to be honoring our boundaries and trusting that clients will pay this right because your services are very mentioning it and they're literally telling you. I know, and so it is important for us to honor your boundaries and saying, you know, I know you really want insurance, I see that that's a priority for you, unfortunately, you know, the only way I can take you on right now is to private pay. Okay, because you your booked already. Yeah, me with that client. Yeah, right, and you can't, we can't accommodate for everyone, you had already accommodated for 20. Yeah, so I really need to work on that list. Yes, that's my struggle is like I have a hard time telling people that I want them to pay private pay not because I don't think that I'm worth it. It's more so like I feel bad that they want the help and that they would be paying that on a weekly or biweekly basis because there is the part where it's like I'm running a business, but then at the same time I'm like, but I want people to get help to like I still want to be accessible. And so it's just, I know it's a mindset thing, and me just being a help for Nagibra, I'm like, I want to help everyone and it's at the expense of not getting more private pay clients. Yes, well, we don't, you don't mean that. We're all ready for place where you get to, you get to say no to create space for the clients that are going to be aligned with you and they see then and it definitely is a mindset thing that I want us to look at you because it's, it's minding set that keeps us from scaling. And it's like, I feel bad, right, but and then there's also that I want to be accessible, but are you already accessible? Yeah, I think I am. You want a very much, yeah, very much accessible, California, California, private paying, your very much accessible 150, they will spend out eating in a week. Yeah, I know and it's all that. So it's like giving our brain context rate of how am I already accessible? I'm already pricing at 150, I am already accessible because I accept insurance, I have 20 clients on insurance, like if you're not a martyr. Yeah, right. And so when your brain tells you or feels had in that moment, it's like honoring your, honoring your boundary and saying, you know, I am accessible, but unfortunately, I'm a capacity for the accessibility. Right. And also, they're literally telling you they have an income. So it's not that they're telling you, I literally am homeless on a couch and I need the support or something's going to happen right? Yeah, so not crisis work. Yeah, yeah, that's true. And I know that you have experience with crisis work and I know that all parts of ourselves and our employee mindset can come in, but you are in a business owner identity now, right? Like this is a business that you're running and you already are helping people. Yeah. I need it to hear you tell me that because it's that's where I have a hard time is kind of setting those those boundaries. That's what's hard for me because, you know, I just want to help everyone, but I think to your point, it's like I already am. And ultimately, it is a business and you can still be ethical by getting paid what you think the rate should be absolutely absolutely. And so it's really about remembering right like today we're going to make a decision and we're not taking any more rule of clients. Your capacity for that if you could take on any client, it would be because some of them are biweekly, so there's like a little bit of space here and there. Yeah, we would only give those thoughts to someone that can do either a weekly session or that could do private pay only. So that we can work our way towards having fully private pay clients that you see so that we can get to the 12k month, so it's not impacting your your. It's not impacting your income at all, but is creating more space in your calendar. Exactly setting the boundaries number rule of clients, you're already capacity there. If you can continue going to the fairs, I know mental health awareness. Month is happening in October, so a lot of things will be happening. I think it would be great for us to go to those spaces and only introduce yourself as a therapist and try to bring in those other 10 clients that are going to be private pay. But also introducing yourself as a coach and also so you can get visibility off line with that. Okay, that's helpful. And I'm not surprised that Instagram hasn't been a source of clients just because we haven't been on Instagram. And so unfortunately the way Instagram works is deep, it's there and the algorithm is not going to push us to anyone if we're not sharing all the time. It makes sense and that doesn't mean it doesn't work. It just means it hasn't been a priority. The priority has been your life, getting adjusted to go on a full time, feeling your caseload, balancing and all that comes with that. So that's okay. You're not behind right this goal haven't gone anywhere. It's still here. Like you're still going to still can help people, right. We are just priorities have been in different places and that's okay. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's that's helpful. Okay. I will definitely do that. This was so helpful. I really appreciate it. And yeah, thank you for like unstucking my mind. I'm so glad you brought it here. We're going to get you to the zwanky month eventually. And in order to talk about definitely ask for coaching again, submit a submission. Okay. So you can tell me how this week went, how you're profitable. We can talk about this week, how you're feeling, how you're doing, because one week we're going to be like, I have so much play the next week, we're going to be like, oh my god, it feels like again. No, it's part of the roller coaster. Yes. When the external things happen in your private practice or someone reaches out and you're like, I feel guilty. I said, no. So that's all stuff I can coach you drew. Definitely. I invite you to come and bring it to the call so that we can support you in those areas. But yes, we're on scaling mode. Hey, like what nine months. then we would be, you know, in scaling mode, which is exciting. And then also in maternity leave, who am I? I'm like, growing up. (laughing) I love it, I love it. So next time you do, we can see what comes up this time. Yeah, yeah, next week. And then we'll also think about, like, what would you want your maternity leave to look like? And how much money do you want to have safe before you run? Even how do we want to pre-structure your business? So, yeah, that's also exciting as well. But yeah, so you can also ask me that, like, as you feel ready for that, that type of coaching. Perfect. Thank you, I appreciate you, Liz. It's beautiful. I'm so proud of you. We're celebrating you. This is so, for your place or salary, you're making 10k months, you have a full case load, private day client, you have no idea. This was so helpful. Yes, I was so glad, okay, beautiful. If you enjoyed this episode and you enjoyed the work that I share on this show, I invite you to follow, rate and subscribe to this show, share this episode, and this show with anyone that you know might benefit. This is how other Latina therapists and therapists in general find us. And if you're already not on my email list, I invite you to join my weekly email list called How to Go From Therapist to Coach. (upbeat music)