I’m not saying your associates are taking advantage of you. Most of them aren’t. Most of them have never sat on your side of the desk and have no idea what it costs to keep the lights on, the office rented, the admin team employed, and the marketing engine running. They see the percentage split and they assume it reflects the work. It rarely does.

That is not their job to figure out. It IS yours.

None of these feel like much on their own. That’s exactly why they survive! They’re too small to notice when you’re looking at the big picture and too embedded to question when you are deep in the day-to-day and scanning your numbers. And then, when you stack them up across a year, the number is almost always bigger than owners expect. I have sat with practice owners who found over a thousand dollars a month in expenses they had honestly forgotten they were paying for.

But here's what I really want you to hear today: you have more options than you think. And the option that's right for your practice might look very different from what the person down the street is doing.  And that's okay.  If you are intentional about what you offer and why it is that, you will be able to answer any questions or negotiations your potential associates may come up with.

If you’re honest, you might notice that some of your decisions are being driven more by avoiding discomfort than by long-term sustainability. You say yes when you want to say no. You absorb the stress so no one else has to. You put your own needs — financial, emotional, and energetic — at the bottom of the list.

If you’re like many therapists I work with, you didn’t set out to become a business owner. You were simply full—emotionally, energetically, and in your caseload. Referrals kept coming, and it felt too painful to turn people away. So you brought on an independent contractor. Then another. Then one more.

Before you knew it, you weren’t just running a private practice—you were running a business with a team.

But here’s the catch: most therapists in this position didn’t count the cost—literally or figuratively. They didn’t run the numbers or look at the full range of responsibilities that come with the shift from solo therapist to CEO of a group practice.

So that’s where I want to start with you today.

Before you can offer a competitive rate to your therapists, you need to have a clear understanding of your practice’s financials.