There are so, so many great business books out there! In fact, I seem to always have an ongoing list and constantly feel “behind” when I don’t have time to read them all. But there are three books that have really been instrumental in helping me design and run both my psychotherapy practice AND Simplified SEO Consulting. You may have heard about them before, but here’s my take:
Business Book 1: Profit First
Profit First is one of several excellent business books by Mike Michalowicz. While I’ve benefited from reading several of his, Profit First was instrumental in how I do business! Basically, it’s a money system for managing your finances that sounds kind of complicated at first, but makes managing money actually much easier!
At this point, I follow Profit First’s system pretty closely. For instance, I absolutely use multiple bank accounts. That’s so important for me. I can hop on my bank app at any point in time and tell if I can afford something. For my private practice, I follow his twice a month distributions (therefore my team has twice monthly pay days) and for Simplified, our cash flow is different so I have a once a month distribution day. I have tweaked the percentages to work for each of my businesses, but that’s what you’re supposed to do. 🙂
I heard Kasey Compton (owner of Mindsight Behavioral Health in Kentucky and therapist business coach) talk about this one on the Practice of the Practice podcast when I was about a year into my private practice journey. The truth is, the system sounded so complicated. Two years out, I’m SO thankful I dove right into the Profit First system and recommend it to other business owners all the time!
Business Book 2: Building a Storybrand
Building a Storybrand by Donald Miller is a game changer when it comes to marketing your business. I think I’ve read this book about 3 times. And did a group study where I met once a week with friends to talk over the concept. And (of course) filled out a brand script. Why? Because Donald Miller has a great formula down for marketing!
Furthermore, I attended the Storybrand training once on my own in Summer 2020 to perfect my own brand script and loved it so much that Danica and I went through it again together in late 2020!
At this point, we’ve had several clients come to us having read Storybrand or having worked with someone to create a brand script. We LOVE working with clients who know the Storybrand framework. Why? Because you understand your brand pretty well already! If this applies to you, please share your brandscripts with us! It gives us some GREAT information to pull from as we optimize your page!
I will say there is one place that I disagree with the advice given in the book, so you may want to check out my blog post about Storybrand & SEO here.
Business Book 3: The Ideal Team Player
In the Ideal Team Player, Patrick Lencioni identifies common problems you may face on a team and exactly the type of people you want to hire so your team runs efficiently. The words he uses to describe the ideal team player are hungry, humble and smart.
I don’t see myself as a manager. Leadership is one of those things I honestly feel pretty insecure about. However, I want to be a great leader and therefore have read many books on this topic. Of all the books I’ve read, this has been the most influential to me. Why? Because for me, a HUGE part of becoming a better leader has been hiring the right people.
In each of my businesses, I need a slightly different skillset in the people I hire. However, I need good team players for both. Therefore, I use questions designed to assess if someone is “hungry, humble and smart” throughout the application process in both businesses. Of course, I also ask questions about clinical skills for my psychotherapy practice. And for Simplified I ask about a person’s ability to learn new skills, past experience with websites, etc. But without a doubt the most important thing I look for is that their personality will fit so we can maintain a positive team atmosphere.
Constant Improvement Balanced With Focus
While I’m listing out my three favorite business books, I also wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the importance of balance. When I read a list like this I feel this immense pressure to immediately read all the books and apply all the principles. However, I’ve found that doesn’t work out so well. I tend to do better if I instead choose one business book at a time and take time to read it, evaluate what might fit for my own practice and spend some time applying it before I jump on to the next book.
Looking for SEO Help?
And of course, if you’re looking for help with Search Engine Optimization for your website, we’d love to help. Simplified SEO Consulting offers “Done for You” monthly SEO packages for those looking to outsource and “SEO Training” options ranging from several online SEO courses to our 12 Week SEO Coaching program. We specialize in helping those in the helping professions such as therapist, psychiatrists, chiropractors, SLPs and those in related areas. If you are interested, you can set up a 30 minute pre-consulting Zoom call to discuss our options!
My staff and I are experts and we know what we’re doing when it comes to optimizing websites. So, the most efficient thing you could do would be to hire us to optimize some of your pages while you add more blog posts and/or service pages and start building backlinks! We’re doing the in-depth on-page SEO that we’re really good at. Meanwhile, you’re doing additional things that are 110% necessary for a good SEO strategy but we often see therapists struggle with.
If you are ready to begin optimizing your website yourself or have the Simplified staff help you, please don’t hesitate to reach out. This is a great time to work on your website & ensure it reaches more people. To being SEO services for your private practice, please follow these steps:
First of all, our clients have the same mental health concerns they’ve always had.
We may see a dip in revenue, but people will come back to therapy.
If you’ve been in private practice for long, you’ve probably realized that there are some predictable slow times. It’s scary! The first couple of years you’re in private practice you may even wonder if you’ll survive the slow down. What if it doesn’t pick back up? And aren’t people stressed during the holiday season having to travel and visit family? Why aren’t they calling?
I think our natural instinct is to cut expenses. The first year I certainly reacted this way. I kind of panicked to be honest. But then, I did some research and learned. I realized that these slow downs were natural, to be expected. I personally started using Profit First to better management my finances.
Private practice owners always tell me they don’t have time to write blog posts. I get it, we’re busy. However, you’re bound to have cancellations in your practice this month. So, use this rare gift of time your clients will give you. Write ahead as many blog posts as you can! They don’t have to be perfect. Just choose topics relevant to your ideal clients, 
I typically recommend that you optimize around 3-4 pages per month for Search Engine Optimization. In fact, when people want to optimize more I often remind them that slow and steady wins the race and by optimizing just 3-4 we can tweak our strategy after just a few pages. However…slow times are an exception. Right now, you want to do as much work as possible as quickly as possible so you are ranking well come January.
Dependent on your phase of practice you need to focus on what the best use of your time is.
Joe Sanok is an ambitious results expert. He is a
