When and how to hire your first VA in private practice: Outsourcing for psychologists and therapists

In today’s episode, we will cover why you should outsource, how to decide what to outsource and when, the types of tasks that you can outsource and some of my tips on how to do this effectively.

Why should you outsource admin in your psychology or therapy practice?

Have you noticed that if you ask me the date or time for something I never know?

It really is a huge problem for me. I am reasonably intelligent, have a good head for many things but I cannot hold any kind of number or date in my mind so, almost as soon as a date or time is mentioned to me, I have forgotten it. Any of the students on Psychology Business School or members of Do More Than Therapy will probably be aware of this fact...

This is a problem in private practice. Even though I use all of the tools like Calendly for scheduling meetings, WriteUpp for running my clinics and Google calendar for everything else I STILL double book myself all the time. And then I procrastinate about putting it right because I find it so stressful to try and find an alternative date for someone.

In the first year of my practice, I lost a lot of money because of this. I would turn down clients because I thought I had no space when that wasn’t true and I came across as deeply unprofessional with some who I had to re-book several times. I also had a contract with a company who wanted me to keep my availability up to date on their online system so they could book their employees in with me whenever they wanted and I just could not manage to do it so I rarely got work from them. 

After 12 months of hating myself, I listened to a podcast that told me about a magical person called a virtual assistant. Until that moment, in my head, I had imagined that only very successful, established practices could afford help with admin. Coming from the NHS land of scarce admin support and the horrendously unequal way that support was distributed, had made me think I wasn’t really worth of it. I am guessing some of you may relate to that way of thinking. If that is you I am hoping this will be a lightbulb moment for you too…

If you are doing less admin you can see more clients and earn more money than you pay for admin support!

I will say that again. If you do less admin you will earn more money.

For me it was instant. I took on my first VA, Samantha Dawkins from Koala VA in Plymouth and within a week she had made me £300 simply by keeping my diary up to date on the online booking system for the company I had a contract with. She is a specialist VA and they tend to charge between £20 and £40 per hour so they are not cheap but, because she is good at what she doe, reconciling my diary every day took her only a few minutes. It would have taken me a full hour.

Even better… Once you hand over tasks that really stress you out like that you have more time available for marketing, networking events and seeing the people on your waiting list so whatever your problem whether you have not enough or too many clients, outsourcing the stuff that sucks your time and that you are just bad at is really helpful. 

How do I decide what to outsource in my psychology practice and when?

Here are some key outsourcing principles I wish I had known from the beginning:

Outsource what you are worst at first. If there is something that takes you ages because it is just not natural for you give it to someone who can do it in half the time. It will free up your time, energy and creativity for tasks that will actually bring money into your practice. There is actually quite a lot that falls into this category for me. As I mentioned the first thing I outsourced was my biggest weakness, the diary. Then I had to look at what else I messed up most frequently… invoicing… 

Next outsource things that are just overwhelming in volume. This didn’t happen to me until this year but I reached the point that the enquiries coming through my website and directory profiles became simply too much for me to handle. Again, I noticed myself procrastinating replying to anyone because I just felt too overwhelmed by my inbox. This was not good so I outsourced my inbox this year.

Then outsource tasks that you might be OK at but that don’t require your expertise. For me, this was video and podcast editing. I actually like doing those things so I didn’t outsource them for ages but I realised that the hours I was spending on them were hours I could be spending recording more episodes and going to networking events, two key priorities for my business this year. So I found the lovely Natali from Lime-VBS. Not only does she do a better job than me (you can probably hear the difference) but she also makes sure that I am accountable to recording when I say I will record. My podcast productivity has shot up as a result.

Finally, outsource the stuff that you are good at but that someone else can do. You will reach the point eventually when you need to take more strategic oversight in your business if you want to grow it. It may be at this stage that you need to think about hiring other people to do some of the tasks you actually love if your vision is to grow something bigger than a one or two person practice. This is exciting but terrifying and is kind of where I am at at the moment. In order to grow something with big impact you do need to have time to think like a CEO and that usually means letting someone else in. There will be some things that only you can do. For example, it wouldn’t make much sense for me to let someone else host my podcast or write my social media posts. A HUGE part of my business is about talking to you guys and the people my clinical work serves and understanding my community on a deep level is literally what I am all about. I get help with graphics etc but I would never want to outsource my podcast or presence on social media. It wouldn’t fit with the purpose of my business at all. It is crucial to recognise when you might need to bring on a more substantial team evaluate your vision for the business. Not every business requires this stage. I will let you know how that transition goes for me! 

Tip for growing your private practice with outsourcing.

When you have been in your practice for a while it might feel like you need to outsource quite a lot of tasks. When this happens it makes sense to map out your “client” experience from the moment they come in to contact with your website to the moment that they are discharged from working with you. Map all the tasks that happen between those two points, clinical (like sessions) and functional tasks like (feedback forms sent, invoices sent monthly etc). This is called end to end process mapping. If you have several different types of client or services you offer you might need to do this for several client groups. For example, I have this mapped out for therapy clients, organisations I support, PBS students and DMTT members separately. Then step back and look at which steps should be done by you and which should be outsourced. Then try to hire one person that can do ALL the outsourceable steps in that process. If you can do that it makes for a far better client experience. I have done this recently as I previously had lots of people doing little tasks for me and communication between us all was a challenge. Now I have one VA, wonderful Anna from Owl Business Solutions, who does all of the admin tasks for all the clinical side of my business. It is already working far better and it means my clients all know that for admin and scheduling issues Anna is the person to go to.   

If you are interested in mapping out your processes and you are a member of Psychology Business School we have a class on how to do this in Asana with processes expert Amy Mitchell so go and have a look at that one.

Tasks you might want to outsource in your psychology/therapy practice:

Diary management

Inbox management

Podcast editing

Video editing

Bookkeeping

Accounts

Community management (someone to help you run and social groups you have)

Graphics for social media

Social media scheduling

Copywriting

Things to have in place when hiring

If you employ someone you will need to make sure they are trained up in data protection, GDPR and how to handle sensitive data in accordance with your professional bodies requirements. You would also be responsible for any other training they need to do their job well.

However, most of the time you will outsource to freelancers in the first instance. These are self-employed people and it is their responsibility to make sure they have the right training. When I am looking to outsource I create a job description and interview freelancers who seem to fit the bill. I ask them to evidence that they have training in the areas I need them to be good at and have a contract with them that includes how they will process data in accordance with GDPR. A good freelancer will know exactly how to handle all of this. I would only work with people experienced with working with healthcare professionals on the therapy side of my business. 

Finally, remember when you hire a freelancer that you are still hiring them. So you need to define their goals, what success looks like for them and what you expect from them just as you would a new member of staff in a bigger organisation. It is also important to pay them for regular review meetings with you where you can evaluate progress and look for efficiencies in your systems together. 

I hope this has been a helpful introduction to outsourcing in your business. I really believe there is a lot that we should all be outsourcing to allow our practices to reach their full potential so hopefully, I have inspired some of you to do it sooner rather than later!

As ever do let me know your thoughts on this episode and if you have found it helpful please leave us a five-star review in your podcast app. I’m determined to get this podcast heard by more people this year and more reviews will help us to do that.

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Are you new to private practice? Or maybe you’ve had your practice for a while but it isn’t bringing you the fulfilment you wanted?

Do you find yourself?

• Under-charging because you don't feel like an expert
• Struggling to get enough referrals to pay your bills (or to find your first clients)
• Spending thousands on CPD courses fuelled by imposter syndrome

If any of those apply. You need to specialise.

Last year we ran a free training for mental health professionals on why finding a focus is key to building a fulfilling and impactful practice that you deserve to work in. Over 200 psychologists and therapists came along and it was such a success that we have decided to run it again to celebrate the doors re-opening to psychology business school.

So if you want a free seat on the training on April 1st at 19:30 (there will be a replay available) then sign up here.