Personal Accountability in Private Practice with Nikki

Nikki provides counseling, therapy, and psychotherapy for grief and loss within Coastal Connecticut, through her EMBRACE Grief model. She also offers CEUs on “Getting Comfortable with Grief” and mental health evaluations for immigration.

Your experience with Bootcamp in one sentence: Learning what it means to be an entrepreneur and woman in business for myself.

How were you feeling before you signed up for Bootcamp?: Scattered. I had just stopped taking insurance a few months before, was unclear on how to have the conversation with new clients calling, and was feeling discouraged that potential clients perceived me as "too expensive." I had been working part-time in an ER setting to supplement my income and didn't want to do that forever but didn't know how I could possibly support myself in private practice solo as a single person with a hefty mortgage payment.

What did your private practice look like before Bootcamp started?: I was taking pretty much whoever called, unclear about what my niche was and who my ideal client was.

How do you feel after Business School Bootcamp for Therapists?: I’ve been in BSB since Spring 2017. Over the past 2 and a half years, I've increased my fees for 1:1 counseling, niched into grief and loss which is really my zone of genius, offered CEU trainings to other therapists looking to get more comfortable with supporting clients through grief and loss, increased my fees for immigration evaluations, marketed myself to new attorneys/expanded my referral base, quit my part-time job in the ER setting and have been solo in private practice for the past 7 months and living comfortably to boot! Now, I'm expanding my services to the spectrum of relationships while still maintaining my niche in grief work—modern dating, heartbreak, couples counseling, and divorce counseling.

How have your private practice and life changed after Bootcamp (processes, clinically, work-life balance, financially)?: I have so much more clarity. I have a clear consent and intake process. I've really honed in and owned my niche, have felt confident enough to offer my expertise to other clinicians, and my trainings have been very well received. As for work-life balance... I no longer work 24 hours per week in the emergency room (which was 3-4 evenings per week/weds-sat and wreaked havoc on my social and dating life) + 12 clients/week at private practice. I didn't realize how exhausting the ER work and working evenings was until I left. In the month after leaving the hospital (May 2019), I earned twice as much as I did in April 2019 and have consistently earned that. I'm not far from it, and I look forward to my first 10K month in 2020!!!

What would you say to someone else who is on the fence about joining Business School Bootcamp for Therapists?: It's totally worth the investment, whether paying in full or a little more with the payment plan. BSB is like therapy for your business. Do we expect overnight results in therapy? No. Its the same with BSB; your business is not going to transform itself overnight, but if you work through all the modules, stick with it, and believe you can have the practice of your dreams, you will get there. And like I say to my therapy clients, therapy is an investment. The work you do now, the skills and tools you develop, you get to keep forever. BSB is the same: it’s an investment in your present and your future.

What do you wish you had known about private practice before you started?: I don't regret the route that I took into private practice back in 2012, flying by the seat of my pants and learning as I went, balancing private practice with full-time work, then taking a hiatus from private practice to deal with my own grief from the unexpected and untimely death of my husband in 2013, then doing private practice full-time then thinking I couldn't make it work and picking up the part-time ER gig, then quitting the ER gig and making it work full-time (Okay, in truth, I still pick up 2-4 shifts/month at the hospital, but on my terms and on days—not evenings—that work for me). But, having said all that, I kind of wish this were a course in grad school OR something I knew about back in 2012 when I first started in private practice.