Ever feel like you're flying blind when it comes to running the business side of your practice? In this episode of The Traveling Therapist Podcast, we dive into private practice operations with Brie Chrisman, founder and CEO of Boss Co. Brie shares how she went from virtual assistant to leading a full-blown operations agency that supports mental health professionals behind the scenes.
Whether you’re a solo therapist or running a growing group practice, this episode is packed with practical advice to help you clean up your backend systems, save time, and boost profits, without adding more to your plate.
In This Episode, We Explore…
Connect with Brie:
Website - https://heybossco.com/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/heybossco
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/hey_bossco
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/heybossco/
Connect with me:
Instagram: @thetravelingtherapist_kym
The Traveling Therapist Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/onlineandtraveling/
Signup to learn more about life as a Traveling Therapist: https://www.portablepracticemethod.com/free-training
Revolutionize Your Private Practice with AI Course: www.kymtolson.kartra.com/page/ai
Bill Like A Boss Insurance Billing Community: www.kymtolson.kartra.com/page/blab
Subscribe to the Podcast:
Apple iTunes | Spotify | Google Podcast | Stitcher | Amazon | Castbox
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Sponsored by Berries: Say goodbye to the burden of mental health notes with automated note and treatment plan creation! https://heyberries.com/therapists
Sponsored by Alma: Managing a private practice can be challenging. There are obstacles at every turn — from navigating the credentialing process, to managing finances, to finding new clients. That’s where Alma can help. Alma is on a mission to simplify access to mental health care by focusing first and foremost on supporting clinicians. https://helloalma.com/kym
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Transcript:
[00:00:00] Kym: Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Traveling Therapist podcast. Excited to have our guest today. She's not a therapist, but she helps therapists, and I love having guests like this because it really gives a lot of resources to our audience, the listeners, to just know what services are out there that can help them. So today we have Brie Chrisman, founder, and CEO of Boss Co.
[00:00:22] Brie.
[00:00:23] Brie: Thank you,
[00:00:24] Kym: to have you here.
[00:00:24] Brie: Thank you. It's exciting to be here
[00:00:26] Kym: tell us about yourself. Like who are you, what do you do? I just wanna dive into everything 'cause you have a really cool company that you're running here and I can't wait to tell everybody about it.
[00:00:35] Brie: Thank you. So I, like you said, I'm the founder and CEO of Boss Co. We are a business operations and growth strategy agency for mental health practices. So we focus on the backend processes. So looking at, all the fun things like invoicing and client intake and clinician onboarding and all of, all of that fun stuff. Like the business side of running a practice, which of course no one actually gets into running a practice to do that part.
[00:00:59] Kym: Exactly. I was gonna say, not fun for the therapists. Fun for you.
[00:01:03] Brie: Yes, fun for me. Fun for us. I am also a mom of two small children and we live in South Carolina. I started the company in 2020. So, you know, during the, uprising of all the COVID entrepreneurs, and we didn't start out in just mental health.
[00:01:19] I started out, it was just me as basically a virtual assistant. I have a background in sport event management and marketing, and obviously with COVID. There was no sports, there were no events, there were no marketing budgets. I was laid off from my job with a five month old
[00:01:34] Kym: Oh my gosh.
[00:01:35] Brie: It was like two months after he started daycare too. So we finally got all over the daycare sniffles and, and then it was like, oh, okay, well now I'm a stay home mom. This is great. So I realized that one, I did not like just being a stay at home mom. I'm very career driven. I'm very passionate about having my own life as well. And I realized that all the skills that I've built up over my years, and I've always been very much an operations brain.
[00:02:03] Always every job I ever had, you know, even from 15 on was. I would make it better than when I started. Just because that was my nature. And I was like, I could make those skills and do those skills and just not have somebody else getting all the money from it,
[00:02:19] Kym: exactly.
[00:02:20] Brie: I can make my own schedule and I don't have to work with clients that I don't like. And I was like, all right. And I told my husband . He was very hesitant. He is like, okay, well we need, you know. We're a two income household, we just gotta make sure it works. It's like challenge accepted.
[00:02:33] And within like four months, I was fully booked out. And it was a variety of industries, but we, I had one client that came on like two months after I started. She was a therapist, a solo therapist in New York City, in Manhattan. And she was planning to start a group practice and she was like a friend of a friend's, roommate from college back in the day kind, you know that very like
[00:02:55] Kym: distant
[00:02:56] Brie: Yeah.
[00:02:57] Kym: Kevin Bacon style.
[00:02:59] Brie: Yes, exactly. And I came on as like just helping her with social media. And I remember she put out a job posting of like having a support person. And I was like, raise my hand. Hi me. And she's like, oh. I didn't even think that you did that part. I was like, yes. Which obviously is my fault, but and she is still a client today?
[00:03:20] She runs a practice. She's a boutique practice. She didn't wanna go anymore than five clinicians. And very successful and really good friend now. But because of her, she was a great referral resource and so three years later, we were basically 90% mental health which we loved. And 2023 was a year where we just grew too much and then everything broke similar to every other business.
[00:03:46] Kym: Yeah, I can just relate.
[00:03:49] Brie: Yep. And I decided to do a controlled burn and I burned down half the company and it was very terrifying. But we decided, we got rid of a bunch of clients that didn't serve us. We got rid of a couple contractors that really weren't up to snuff. And we decided to go all in a mental health 'cause we were already doing it.
[00:04:05] And instead of splitting our brains for executive function purposes too we were able to go in and our mental health clients were our favorites anyway. And like what they do, you know, who they serve. And so we just were able to go deeper now instead of wider. So we're able to provide more resources, more support in a variety of ways. And now we're two years later and it's still going strong.
[00:04:31] Kym: So cool. And I, actually love that you had a problem and burned it all down.
[00:04:36] Brie: Yeah.
[00:04:36] Kym: I mean, that's been like one of my biggest struggles I'll talk about on this podcast. It's like, you know, I hire people and I know that it's not perfect. But then I like blame myself. I'm like, maybe I'm not training well enough.
[00:04:48] Maybe my system suck. And sometimes that is the case. But other times, you know, it's like I just hold onto them for too long and it, it's costing me, just 'cause I feel bad or, you know, or I think it's something I'm doing wrong. Because like you said, I mean, I'm a therapist, like, I, I don't, I don't even know what operations really means.
[00:05:05] Like, we could probably just dive into that a little bit. Like what are operations. Until I hired like a really good team to help, but I, I've done that for way too long and probably should have burned things down way earlier. So I like hearing that you actually went through that so you can help other people go through the same thing. So you can go in and say, you know what, this is not working Like that is really important I think.
[00:05:26] Brie: Yeah. And before we go into operations, that's one of our big values. When I decided that our company was going to be a, an agency, so we ended up becoming an agency model in 2022 I essentially took a look at every job that I hated and I was like, okay, what do we not wanna do?
[00:05:42] And we've successfully done that. We've created a human first culture that's capacity driven. So our team doesn't get burned out. I do, but it's because I'm the owner and I have a lot of personal life stuff. But we are very, very focused on making sure that we are first and foremost humans, and that we treat others with respect, equality, equity on our team, in our clients, our referral partners and making sure that everyone is safe, mentally, physically, emotionally and that begets really good employees.
[00:06:15] Kym: I couldn't agree more. Yep. Oh, it's amazing. So tell us for the therapists out there who hear the word operations and probably their brains just shut down completely, like mine does. Tell us like a quick every, like what are operations and like, what operations do you put into a private practice or a group practice to help them run it successfully?
[00:06:33] Brie: Yeah, so operations are basically the, if you think of like the cogs in a wheel, you know, you see like a watch or something and you have all the cogs. Those are the operations. You think of each cog as like a different piece.
[00:06:44] So we have marketing operations, so that would be, you know, obviously your strategy for Google Ads, but also making sure your website is, when you get all of those interested parties coming to your website, making sure that it is optimized with search engine optimization, but also just making sure the vibe is right, making sure the vibe fits who you are making sure that your copy is bringing in the right clients, 'cause that's the first step, you know, with getting good clients making sure that you have a process to intake them properly.
[00:07:13] Those are all operations. Looking at invoicing, how you communicate. Communication is an operation both internal and external. Looking at clinician onboarding, if you're a group practice clinician onboarding is so important because as we know retaining employees is cheaper than onboarding, especially in the mental health field because it takes so long for a practice owner to get that ROI that return on investment because it takes so long, especially if you're insurance based, to get a full case load, to be able to cover, all of the things that are required for, an insurance based therapist.
[00:07:51] Kym: Okay. Yeah, I got it. So all the cogs in the wheel, I like that. That's a good explanation. And it's all gotta run consistently and in a really smooth manner, every single piece because like we know one of the cogs is broken, the rest of it's not gonna function either, probably. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
[00:08:07] Brie: It doesn't have to be perfect.
[00:08:09] Kym: Yes,
[00:08:09] Brie: It doesn't have to be perfect, but it does need to function.
[00:08:13] Kym: Yes, yes, yes, yes. So tell me like what is the difference in starting a private practice and then like running a private practice? What is the difference in those two things?
[00:08:22] Brie: So starting a private practice, typically, so obviously I'm not a therapist, but correct me if I'm wrong, you go into private practice to help people. You first and foremost, you're like, yep, I'm gonna start a practice where I am right now, who I'm serving, whether it's in a different group practice, whether it's in a state-based facility, inpatient, you obviously aren't liking the way they're doing things or you're not able to provide the support that you want to support, so you are going out on your own. That's like, I feel like the base most basic way to talk about it.
[00:08:53] You typically don't think of yourself as a business owner or an entrepreneur, but guess what you are,
[00:08:57] Kym: I know. Yes.
[00:08:59] Brie: And I so many people that it's like, oh, I'm a therapist, not a business owner. I'm like, Nope, you're both. You are a CEO. Whether you like it or not, you started a business, even if you're a CEO of one. You're still a CEO. Pat yourself on the back for a second. 'cause you did. It doesn't matter how big or small you took the leap, which is huge.
[00:09:16] But starting a business is very much that bootstrapping. I'm just gonna wing it till I figure it out. I heard on another one of your podcast episodes. You're talking about building the plane while you're flying it, which we use that analogy all the time.
[00:09:30] Kym: that. I was like, I totally winged it.
[00:09:33] Brie: Yes. And that's, you know, that's a startup. I mean, that's, how it is. And sometimes you feel like even if you're 5, 10, 15 years in, you're still winging it sometimes.
[00:09:41] Kym: Yeah, exactly.
[00:09:42] Brie: Um, but there's, yes, but there's a difference between winging it without a plan and wing it with a plan. Which sounds. Like, I have no idea what I'm talking about, but I promise I'll, I'll keep going.
[00:09:54] Kym: I like the analogy.
[00:09:55] Brie: yeah. So, you're just learning when you start a practice, you're learning, you're figuring it out as you go. When you're actually in a position where you're like, okay, I'm going to run this practice, you do have a more business side of things in your brain going on. So you are more strategic, you know, okay, I wanna bring on a clinician.
[00:10:13] I need X amount of profit to cover those first, you know, three to six months, I need to figure out insurance. I need to make sure their credentialing is good. Do I need an admin? So it's more about strategy. more about. Instead of just that entrepreneur bootstrap mindset, it's really focusing on your CEO type role of like actually running your, like you are a practice owner, not just a therapist who happens to run a practice. And there is a slight nuance, actually. A big nuance to that.
[00:10:41] Kym: Oh yeah, that makes perfect sense. So something I've heard you talk about and you kinda listed in your bio too, is how to increase profits without adding more to your plate. I would love to talk about that because it's like, it's tough, especially insurance-based providers. I don't know if you know a lot about me, but one of the things I do is I teach therapists how to bill insurance on their own.
[00:11:01] So how do you do that? Especially when you're like kind of fixed, right? You're fixed with these rates. And I have advice sometimes on that, but it's, it's difficult. It really is. So I'd love to just talk about that. Like, what do you do? How do you do this? How do you bring more money in when you're kind of already like restricted with what you're bringing in?
[00:11:17] Brie: Yeah. It is tougher when you have just straight insurance base. 'cause you know, you don't get to set your rates. I mean, you do obviously, but you still be beholden to the, the lovely insurance companies and the allowed amounts and all of that fun stuff. It's interesting 'cause every time if someone comes to us and we're like, we need to grow. we just need to get like five more clients, we need to market. That's not the only way towards profit. something I always talk about, and this is my favorite thing to talk about, so I'm glad we're doing this today.
[00:11:44] Profit equals revenue minus expenses. And a lot of people forget that, that there's two parts to profit. It's not just revenue. It's revenue and expenses. So revenue typically requires more work. It's more marketing. It's creating those social posts. It's doing networking, it's going to conferences, it's what, apart from CE credits and everything, but you know, networking and finding new people and doing referral coffee chats and adding more to your caseload when you are already burned out. It's adding more.
[00:12:19] Where expenses typically is taking away stuff from your plate. Sometimes you're like, I'm already. Like Brie, like some people, I've had one client come to me and was like, Brie, I already have a, I run a really lean ship. Like I don't, I, there's no expenses that I can cut. And again, I said, challenge accepted. I was like, we can find something. We can make it work.
[00:12:39] And it's not just going through your bank accounts, which we do do that, but it's not just going through your bank accounts and going line by line of like, okay, well we can get rid of this. We can get rid of this. 'Cause sometimes you can't, there's nothing in there to change, but there are certain things, there's things that we look at like, if you're creating social media graphics or things like Canva.
[00:12:57] Paying monthly versus yearly you get a discount paying yearly looking at like your QuickBooks account, maybe you're paying freelancers. Or you're paying through QuickBooks for a while paying contractors, but now you switch to like an actual HR tool. Are you still paying for that tier? Well drop that tier down. You're gonna save yourself like 300 bucks a year.
[00:13:18] So looking at those types of things, making sure that you're maximizing what you're already using. If you have multiple tools that you are using that you can combine into one. For example, if you were a solo practitioner, and you're using Alma to submit claims, but you also have an EHR. Yes. We love a nice solid EHR, but Alma can do all of that.
[00:13:37] So just combining it into one and that saves you so much, so much money, so much time. Plus that's one less thing you have to deal with. One less password. You have to remember one less, you know, process.
[00:13:48] Kym: and it's a lot of effort to like see the client in Alma, bill it in, Alma, take the note, take it over to your EHR and I mean, it's a lot of like wasted energy for stuff like that.
[00:13:56] Brie: Of, yeah. And of course they don't connect, so you have to do everything twice. and that actually is a very good segue into what I was gonna talk about next, is that time is also an expense and your executive function is an expense, and doing strengths-based things is an expense or a plus.
[00:14:14] So starting with the first one your time, this is one thing that I love to talk about. If you are sending an email, say you're sending a, like you have lead inquiries coming in from psych today or whatever if you are sent, are manually writing that email out to respond to somebody, even if, say you have one lead a day, and I probably should know this math by heart because I, I talk about this so much, but say you get one lead a day, one email, it takes you five minutes to write. If you work Monday through Friday, that's 25 minutes per week. Say you take four weeks of holiday, that's 48 weeks a year. That's 20 hours of your year that you were spending on that one email per day.
[00:14:53] Kym: Oh my gosh. Yes. Yes.
[00:14:56] Brie: insane. So instead we can set up and it's a sim. It's simple shifts. And that's the great thing about operations too, is simple shifts , are just very synergistic. They make huge, huge changes in your life, in your business, as you know. I mean, therapists, same thing. You just shift your mindset and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm a completely different person. Obviously it's not that easy, but
[00:15:16] Kym: But it does really, the little shifts make a huge deal.
[00:15:19] Brie: Yes, yes. And so , if you use Gmail using a template, just you can turn on templates and save a template and all you have to do is click like three times and that email sent.
[00:15:30] You don't need an admin to do that. You know, 'cause that just gonna cost you more money. It really is about just doing it easier doing it the easier way. Work smarter, not harder, which, everyone's like, oh yeah, let's do that. And that's such a big thing in hustle culture, but really, there are so many ways that you can do that where it's like, oh, it's just a small shift. This is easy. So that's like time focused.
[00:15:51] We really focus on executive function and strength based things in, when we consult with our clients, when we coach them, and we're not coaches, but we'll have meetings with them and they're having an issue, and we'll work through those issues with them.
[00:16:04] And the executive function is so big because for one, as a therapist, you're already holding so much for your clients. So your cup is already like 75% full by 9:00 AM. Because you know what's happening, you know which clients are coming down the pipeline, you know if it's gonna be a rough week, a day or not.
[00:16:22] Plus you have emails from insurance companies. You have to retest your CAQH, you have to do social media posts 'cause you haven't posted in two weeks. You have to record a podcast. And so figuring out a way to shift those things so you can. I like to tell people to batch your tasks. So if you have to create, instead of, you know, in the 15 minutes between sessions, like, oh, I'm gonna do one quick social media post.
[00:16:46] No, do your notes instead. Or take a break. Take, you know, deep breaths because you're already in that mindset, especially if you're like, I need, I'm, I need to be productive today. I have a million, like, you know, we're the, today, we're recording July 3rd, so. Obviously it's a holiday weekend, and so you're like, I have to get all of this stuff done so that way I can go and relax at the lake this weekend or something instead of trying to switch your brain,
[00:17:09] which I know I'm speaking to, you know, I'm speaking to the choir right here, knowing everyone knows what I'm talking about. but it's something that once you hear someone say it out loud, it's like, oh, I did know that. Okay. It's
[00:17:20] Kym: like, and why am I not doing that.
[00:17:22] Brie: And sometimes I do it too, but it's very much like you have your to-do list and you're like, instead of going down it in the order that , you wrote it out, combine the tasks that use the same part of your brain. So if you're in clinical mode. Do your notes like right after your sessions, one you'll remember better.
[00:17:40] Two, you'll be able to just check that off and feel really good about yourself. But three, you're already in that mindset. Instead of switching to marketing mode or switching to email, you know, talking about billing and appointment setting and all of that. so that means don't keep your inbox up all day.
[00:17:55] Have like set times through the day to check your inbox and be in that focused mindset. And that will save you so much time and effort, which you will get faster at your tasks because you are not having to switch back and forth.
[00:18:11] Kym: Like, you're like in the zone, like the clinical zone or the administrative zone, right?
[00:18:16] Brie: exactly. And you don't get as much decision fatigue.
[00:18:19] Kym: Yes. I'm listening to you and I'm, I don't know why I do this. I mean, hearing you, I've heard it, but I'm hearing you again. I wake up and look at my schedule. I'm like, okay, I've got two different podcasts I run. So totally different parts of the brain for these podcasts.
[00:18:32] You know, a, a client. Then I've gotta like take my dad to the doctor in between all of these and it's like, oh my God. Yeah. It's like, it's just like constant, like switch back and forth, a partnership meeting. It's like, these are different, like skill sets completely that I'm just like all day long switching between and it's like, it, it just, it makes so much sense.
[00:18:49] Like have a podcast day, have a, like a admin day, you know? And I, I, I know it, but I just, I'm saying it to you, to me, to everybody listening like. it really matters. It really is a big deal, actually, because it's so exhausting to be like, okay, now what am I doing? Like, I'm on the Traveling Therapist podcast. Now we're, we're talking about traveling and, and the, you know, it's just like wild.
[00:19:10] Brie: It's a hard shift. It really is. It's not, you know, sending the email versus email template, that's an easy shift. This is a totally, it's a total shift of a lifestyle in your business. And, as a practice owner. Those are just things you're doing in your job.
[00:19:25] Not to mention if you have a family, if you have kids, if you have kids with special needs, you're a caregiver to your parents, if you have a dog, I mean, literally there's, if you are a human being,
[00:19:36] Kym: Yeah.
[00:19:37] Brie: there are so many other responsibilities outside of work and how many times by the end of the day, you're just like, I don't wanna choose what we have for dinner because I literally can't make another decision. I cannot.
[00:19:48] Kym: That frozen burrito looks really good. That's what I had last night.
[00:19:52] Brie: yes, This week was such a hard week for us. I made this big, there's a dish in South Carolina called Chicken Fog, and it's really good. It's really easy. It's just like shredded chicken and kobasa rings and rice and chicken stock. It's delicious and it's super simple and it's healthy.
[00:20:07] And I just made a giant pot of it on Monday. 'cause I was like, I literally can't this week. I can't. And so we just heat it up all the week. Yes. Every single night. Luckily everyone loves it, so that's great. But yeah, it really cuts down on all of that and that will help you be clearer, you know.
[00:20:24] It'll cut down on expenses because you are not taking as much time to do things. So you can technically add more to your plate if you want to, or you can spend that time doing other things. And also you have more capacity for your clients. You'll be a better therapist, you'll be a better mom, you'll be a better sister or friend, a spouse because you aren't burned out because of that back and forth constant. You know, everyone says an entrepreneur wears all the hats. Well, this is how we can make sure that we only wear one hat at a time .
[00:20:52] Kym: I love it. Yeah, and of course talking to the traveling therapist here, like this is how you gave yourself more space and time and energy to actually enjoy the places you're traveling to instead of Like I used to do this. I still do it sometimes just being bogged down eight hours a day in a beautiful place that I'm looking out the window at, but can't even get out there and explore it because it's like, I've got too much stuff to do.
[00:21:15] You know? And hiring my, I guess, well, she's an online business manager. I guess that's sort of what you guys do and hiring her like. changed everything. Putting these automations in place and you know, just like you're talking about.
[00:21:27] We have like a weekly meeting where we like touch base and it usually takes like two hours. The other day we were done in like 30 minutes and I was like. Wait, we don't have anything else to talk about. She's like, no, we're good. I'm like you, you've gotta be kidding me. Like, this is unbelievable. So getting to that point with working with somebody like you or your company, it's just like, it changes a lot.
[00:21:46] And also talking about that expenses, and all of that stuff, like I resisted that for so long, like spending more money to get people to help me, where, if I had done it sooner, I think I would've maybe scaled faster or better, more effectively, that sort of thing and made more money.
[00:22:01] You know, it's like the more you spend on that stuff, it allows you to be more creative or, see more clients or whatever it is that you're doing in your business. So, yeah, I mean, it just, I love people like you that can help us get the stuff straight, you know?
[00:22:14] Brie: yeah. Absolutely. And before we go on to our next topic, I wanna also touch base on the the strength based, because that, I think also it's very important for group practices.
[00:22:23] Say you're a team of three and you are the practice owner, you have two clinicians, we'll name them John and Jane. John is super type A. He is great at organization. He loves color coding. He gets his notes done super quick. Always on top of things. He's your social media person because he just kind of happened to be, maybe he was there before Jane and he's just doing it.
[00:22:45] Jane is a career, or she's more creative. She's fun. She can get stuff done. She can be type A, type B. She's your admin person right now. She's helping with scheduling and things like that. Those things probably take more out of them. Like I, I'm fairly good at creating our social media graphics and our copy, but it takes so much out of me because it's not how my brain naturally works I have to force it.
[00:23:10] And so just focusing on just talking to your team and saying, Hey, what do you like to do? What lights you up? What makes you excited? And so if we switch those roles and so John is the one doing scheduling and helping with that stuff and it's fueling his organization Love Brain.
[00:23:27] And Jane gets to be creative and do social media, I guarantee they'll be way more productive. Plus they'll be happier. They're doing things they love things that fuel them outside of obviously seeing clients. And it will basically help empower them, which again, begets really happy employees and they can do it faster because they like it.
[00:23:49] So Having that strengths focused mindset when you're bringing on clinicians is so helpful. And that can also lead to clinical too. You know, if someone like absolutely loves doing IFS but you have a specific need for CBT, you know, yes they can do CBT but they love doing IFS and they IFS and they could make more impact by doing you know, the modality that they love
[00:24:16] Kym: Yeah. Organically get more referrals.
[00:24:19] Brie: Yes, exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
[00:24:22] Kym: somebody will be, oh my gosh, she was amazing with IFS, and then you've got all these IFS people instead of CBT. Right. So important. Yeah, because I mean, I get sick of so many jobs where it's like you're just like, agency work. Any therapist listening has had to work in an agency event, at some point in the beginning, you know, and they just like literally drop like 50 clients in your lap and it's like, oh, the one thing they have in common is they all have a severe mental illness, you know, that's it, you know?
[00:24:46] And it's like, I don't care if you like working with this type of thing or that type of thing, you just have to do it. And it's miserable. The clinicians are miserable. You know, the clients maybe aren't getting the best care because they don't sort it by that, by like, what is, what is your clinical focus? It's more just like numbers game.
[00:25:02] Brie: Yeah, it's like having an empty office instead of being able to decorate it. You know, it's having that, being able to put your own spin on things and making sure that you're able to bring your own self to it. And that's, every industry, but really specifically with mental health, just because, there are so many different reasons people come to therapy and maybe talking about X, Y, Z is not your jam and you're just like, I want to be focused on people that are actually having severe crises and not, maintenance therapy.
[00:25:36] And I feel like with agencies and, and so many group therapy practices, it's really like there's a role and it's cement and it's, it's structured and you're just in, placed in the role, where instead of molding the role to the therapist, and that's so important and in any industry, that's how we've done it in at Boss Co with our employees.
[00:25:56] Because knowing what they love to do too, it, you're not always the smartest person in the room as the practice owner. And so they could have hidden strengths that you didn't know about and that could open up a huge gateway to referrals or to scaling for your practice or bring it in a different position or a different direction that you've never thought of but you love, and so that you know, you never know. So just talk to your team. Talk to your people, see what they like to do.
[00:26:20] Let 'em go have, empower them to do. What they like to do. And the more you empower and strengthen your team and the less you micromanage it'll reap so many benefits, both in the dollar signs and employee happiness.
[00:26:36] Kym: Is there like a tool or something you recommend to like assess your clinician strengths or is it more like a kind of a structured conversation or is it just like training the group owner to just be like super observant about that stuff? Like I wonder if you have a process like you suggest for the group practice owner to do that.
[00:26:54] Brie: Yeah, it comes back to human first. Creating a company that is human first. So it's literally just having a conversation, checking in, Hey, how's it going? how are things? How are you feeling about your role? Are there things that you wish you could do more of? are there things that you want to do that you haven't been given the opportunity to do? Are there things that you really just don't like doing?
[00:27:15] Like sometimes, you know, we all know there's things that we just don't like doing that we have to, and as a business owner, you can't just, oh, you don't like doing that. Lemme take it off your plate. Like, that's not, that's not what we're here to do. We can't do that.
[00:27:26] But being able to allow your staff to do things they like to do. Helps when they have to do things they don't like, like notes. 'cause nobody likes to do notes.
[00:27:37] Kym: terrible. Of course you don't wanna do that, but how can I make it easier for you to do that thing you hate and, and more of what you love?
[00:27:43] Brie: Exactly. And that could look, you know, if you have a large practice, you could create a Google form and have a just a like check in once, once a quarter. I would say 'cause you know, once a month just gets to the point where it's annoying for the clinician. But once a quarter just to check in, like, hey, and start it with a conversation though. Don't just send them a form 'cause that's super impersonal. Like, Hey, we are doing this thing. I care about you as a person.
[00:28:07] I care about you as a clinician in the business. I also have a responsibility to my practice to make sure that it is successful, which includes you. And we are going to start this process where we're gonna get a Google form or jot form, whatever you're using, and it's just gonna ask you a bunch of questions.
[00:28:24] Just checking in, see how you're doing. It's very casual, it's very laid back. There's no big brother, there's, you're not gonna get in trouble. I just wanna hear from you. And it's that open door communication policy. And if you can create that trust, they will actually tell you what they need.
[00:28:39] And you can do that 'cause if you have a lot of clients or clinicians, you don't have time to meet with all of them one-on-one. But maybe, if you have a larger group practice and it's yourself and a clinical director and a practice director, maybe the three of you split them and you meet with each one, like for 15 minutes, once a quarter, once a
[00:28:58] you know, or just have a check-in just, hey, maybe in small groups whatever works for you and your team, because obviously every team is different, every person is different. But having that open, honest, transparent communication and that just focusing on human first is really, that's all you gotta do.
[00:29:14] It's, it's not difficult. It seems difficult when you look at like corporate America, it seems like this farfetched idea. If you just go into everything, say, I'm gonna treat this person like a human, and I hope they treat me like a human too. Super easy.
[00:29:28] Kym: Yes. So tell us about Boss Co, like what all you offer and how somebody would start working with you if they wanted to.
[00:29:35] Brie: We provide a variety of services for all different therapists, wherever you're at. So our kind of what we say is, we meet you where you are because that could be, you're super burned out. It could be that you're on vacation in Spain. It could be that you are ready, you are like, I need to take a six month sabbatical.
[00:29:54] How do I get this, these operations together? And that's another thing too, is that having your operations locked in. 'cause we've talked about why they matter what they do, but also. How does that impact you? And that's really if your operations are locked in, you're able to make sure your expenses are down.
[00:30:11] You make sure your team is running smoothly. You can take a vacation, you can travel, and like you said, you're not spending eight hours just looking out the window at a gorgeous city. You're actually exploring it because things are working in the background for you. So that's what we do.
[00:30:25] They're kind of different roles. So an operation support person, that's the person that's gonna come in very similar to a virtual assistant, but we look at it from the top down. So we're gonna look at, instead of just saying, we're gonna help you manage your inbox, we're gonna look at why your inbox is an issue. Is it a communication issue?
[00:30:40] We had one client that she's like, I have a huge inbox issue. I can't find my client emails 'cause I, I'm bombarded all the time. We went through and we kind of did a deep dive into their inbox, and it ended up being a communication issue. They didn't have any in internal communication outside of email, and she ran a bi-coastal practice, like 60 clinicians.
[00:30:59] So everyone was communicating via email. Her billing team was emailing her every time a credit card declined. All of her clinicians were coming to her if they wanted to do a group or start a new training or something like that, instead of gonna the clinical director. So once we cleaned all of that up, we set up an internal communication system.
[00:31:16] Her inbox was so much more manageable. And then we also came in and helped her manage that from there. But so we really, instead of just treating the symptoms, we look at the actual problem too and then help you with the symptoms. 'cause you're never gonna, you know, you're never gonna not have a busy inbox, but at least we can cut it down a little bit.
[00:31:33] And then you're not paying us to go through inbox for like hours. It'll be 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there instead. So we do that sort of, you know, the operation support daily. Daily help with, you know, client facing things, clinician onboarding you name it, all of that. And then we have one of my favorite services, we do business audits.
[00:31:55] So we do it from a full business perspective, a marketing perspective, and an HR perspective. And so looking at how everything is running, how you're working. Doing really a deep dive into that to see where we can find ways to streamline, to make your life easier, to cut down expenses, to get you to a point where your business is set up for scaling.
[00:32:15] 'cause we all know, like I think I said in the beginning of the episode, we scaled super fast and we broke because we didn't have the sustainability, it wasn't sustainable. So we're coming in and figuring out ways to make you sustainable and make you available to scale. And if you don't wanna scale, that's great. Then that just means scaling up your travel time
[00:32:33] Kym: That's right. How
[00:32:34] Brie: instead of your
[00:32:35] Kym: work?
[00:32:36] Brie: Yes, exactly. And then there's a newer service that we've been doing that we love. It's been kind of just natural. It's a natural progression that we've done several clients and we're like, oh, we should just make this a one-off service too.
[00:32:47] And that's HR support, so operations management, HR management. Really focusing on especially those bigger practices that have a huge wait list that are having to onboard clinicians, like they just constantly have job postings out. Those are the group practices that we do a lot of this with.
[00:33:03] It's a lot of like LGBTQ plus therapy practices because that is obviously a hard hit community right now in the political economic climate that we're in. And there's just a constant need for lgbtq plus affirming therapy practices. So we've been seeing a lot of that. And it's great though because we can help support bringing those clinicians on and that's going through and making, setting them up with their benefits and setting them up in the payroll service.
[00:33:29] Making sure that they set up their CAQH especially 'cause a lot of, a lot of group practices we've found higher pre-licensed clinicians. And so we help them walk through, making sure that they're set up with their panels. We don't do credentialing, but we walk them through the steps as needed and then we pass 'em off to the billing team.
[00:33:45] But just all the operational, like admin stuff that's really annoying for therapists, practice owners to onboard clinicians. We have a whole streamlined process that we implement. And then we have operations like practice directing, so like fractional practice directing.
[00:34:02] So helping if the practice owner is like, I want to keep my practice, I want to keep the value and the impact we're making, but I also don't really wanna see clients anymore because I want to travel, do retreats across the globe. I wanna write a book. I wanna be a thought leader, a speaker. I don't want to be in the day to day.
[00:34:22] I wanna still be connected, but I don't wanna be in the day to day. That's when we can step in and say, okay, we've got you. And we work kind of in tandem with the practice director. They handle, or excuse me, the clinical director, they handle the clinical side. We handle the the operations side and the business side, and really making sure that everything is working properly and we're the point of contact for all the questions and all the things instead of the practice owner.
[00:34:44] Kym: Amazing. Yeah. Now, do you do social media or No. 'cause you kind of
[00:34:48] Brie: we don't, we don't, we, I, that was one of those, like I started a company and everyone needed social media, so I just did it. And then we finally sunsetted that a couple years ago. So yes, no, we don't do that. But we do have referral partners that we work with. So if you ever need a credential or a biller, a website developer, website templates, things like that, that are specifically for therapists that we have vetted um, referral partners that we send people to. So one stop shop, but we don't do, we like to focus on what we do best.
[00:35:18] Kym: Love it, And what's your website so everybody can find you if they'd like to.
[00:35:22] Brie: yep, it's, Hey, Boss Co, heybossco.com.
[00:35:26] Kym: Nice. Well, thank you Brie. Thanks for being
[00:35:29] Brie: Kim. Appreciate it.
[00:35:30] Kym: what you're doing.
[00:35:31] Brie: Thank you so much