Episode 12: How To Take Control of Your Finances With Profit First with Julie Herres
Unlocking Financial Empowerment: A Deep Dive into Financial Preparedness with Julie Harris
Exploring the Profit First System and Financial Empowerment for Therapists
The latest episode of "Raised to Empower" features an enlightening conversation with Julie Herres, an expert in financial strategies tailored for therapists. We delved into the unique financial challenges therapists face and how the Profit First system can be a game-changer. Here’s a closer look at what we discussed.
Understanding the Profit First System
What is the Profit First System?
The Profit First system is a revolutionary financial management approach that flips traditional accounting on its head. Rather than revenue minus expenses equals profit, Profit First prioritizes profit. Essentially, it’s revenue minus profit equals expenses. This system works by creating multiple bank accounts for specific purposes like operating expenses, profit, taxes, and owner’s pay. Allocating every dollar intentionally prevents overspending and ensures sustainability.
Why Therapists Need a Unique Approach
Julie Herres pointed out that conventional financial advice often falls short for therapists due to high labor costs and fixed reimbursement rates. Her book, "Profit First for Therapists," addresses these unique challenges, offering a tailored blueprint to ensure profitability and financial clarity for mental health professionals.
Personal Insights and Practical Applications
How the Profit First System Empowers Me
Implementing the Profit First system has given me a clear financial picture and confidence as a business owner. I now have dedicated accounts that allow me to save for personal milestones like vacations or maternity leave without stress. For instance, a recent vacation was totally stress-free because the money was specifically set aside for that purpose. This kind of financial planning allows you to enjoy personal time without financial anxiety.
Setting Up Your Accounts
Julie recommends starting with 5 or 6 foundational accounts to ease into the system:
Income
Profit
Tax
Operating Expenses
Owner’s Pay
Payroll (if applicable)
As you grow more comfortable, you can add accounts for specific goals, such as a "bonus" or "retirement" account for emergencies or fun expenditures.
Weekly Transfer Strategy
Fund transfers are essential to the Profit First system. Julie suggests weekly transfers for beginners to closely monitor cash flow and quickly identify any financial inconsistencies. While I do mine bi-weekly, a weekly strategy can offer better oversight for novice users.
Julie Herres’ Motivation and Insights
Helping Therapists Achieve Financial Clarity
Many private practices operate as pass-through entities, making it challenging to determine available operational funds. By allocating money into specific accounts, practice owners can gain clarity, making it easier to pay taxes, payroll, and other expenses without dipping into funds meant for other purposes.
Common Financial Blind Spots
Julie highlighted key financial blind spots, such as taxes and compensation structures. Many therapists make financial decisions based on what they see on social media without running the numbers to ensure profitability. Her advice? Always run the numbers and make informed decisions.
Empowerment through Financial Preparedness
Financial Planning for Life Events
Financial preparedness isn't just about business—it's about life. Women, especially mothers, often face financial gaps when taking time off work. The Profit First system can help build buffers against such events by creating emergency funds or specific accounts for planned and unplanned leave.
Educating Clients
Julie emphasized the importance of educating clients about their finances. Knowledge is power, and understanding your financial landscape can be incredibly liberating. Instead of merely managing finances for clients, Julie believes in teaching them to take control of their financial futures.
Final Thoughts
Understanding and managing your finances is crucial for long-term security and informed decision-making. Whether you're a therapist or another professional, prioritizing financial health is essential. If you haven’t yet, listen to the full episode. Grab Julie’s book, "Profit First for Therapists," available at major online retailers. And don’t miss the additional tools and purchase incentives on the Profit First for Therapists website.
Stay empowered!
Ashley
Transcript for Episode 12
[00:00:00] Ashley Comegys: You are listening to the Raised to Empower podcast. I'm your host, Ashley Comegys, a licensed clinical social worker with a multi-state online therapy practice. I have a passion for empowering women and mom therapists to break free of the fear, overwhelm, and oppressive systems that hold them back from taking action and building the private practice of their dreams.
[00:00:23] My goal is for you to boldly believe in yourself as a clinician and business owner. If you're looking for a place to learn, practice, building, strategy and skill, while also claiming your own power as a woman and a therapist, then you are in the right place. Welcome to the show.
[00:00:42] Welcome to this week's episode of the Raised to Empower podcast. I'm really excited about our guest today as I've actually been a fan of her podcast for a while. Our guest today is Julie Harris. She is an expert in Profit First who has helped hundreds of private tors. Owners gained financial freedom.[00:01:00]
[00:01:00] Founder of Green Oak Accounting, the country's largest firm serving the mental health industry. Julie is an accountant, consultant, speaker, author of Profit First for therapists and hosts, the Therapy for Your Money podcast. Julie lives in Virginia with her husband, three kids and three dogs. Julie, I'm so excited to have you here today.
[00:01:20] Ashley, me too. Thank you for having me. So I always like to find out a little bit of how people got into whatever it is that they're doing, and so I'm curious how you got into accounting, but especially specifically for therapists, like what kind of led you in that direction?
[00:01:37] Julie Herres: Yeah, well, so when I, um, when I started my accounting firm and there, there's a whole whole story there about like money and kind of financial baggage.
[00:01:45] But, um, I was a generalist, right? So I worked for, you know, for other people. And then even when I started my own business, I was, I worked with everybody and everyone and um, a few years in I realized like, I don't think this is working cuz I can't [00:02:00] possibly know everything I need to do to help my clients in.
[00:02:03] Construction and restaurants and this and that. Like it just, sure. It's, it's just so much. Right. I decided that I really wanted to focus in on a, a very specific niche. So my team and I kind of got together and looked at who are the clients that we love working with, and we're, we're able to have a really big impact.
[00:02:20] Um, and unequivocally our answer was, Therapists. Uh, we had a handful of therapist clients because of one of my, um, long time and one of, one of my favorite clients, Ernie. And so he kept, he had kept sending us referrals and we realized like, these are the clients that we really love working with. They are highly educated, uh, very smart, very hungry for the information that we have to share, right?
[00:02:42] So there's this thirst for knowledge that I found really interesting. Because then we can, it, it's not just like, Hey, I'm gonna throw you the keys. You take care of the accounting and don't bother me with it. There's this real, uh, interest in how, how are things working under the hood of my, my business?
[00:02:58] Yeah. And our clients were [00:03:00] also taking our advice, implementing what we were, um, sharing with them. And that felt really good. So we decided to really hone in. Then we also realized when we're sharing. Things with our clients when we're saying, Hey, we're noticing our financially profitable or successful clients are doing this, why don't you try that?
[00:03:18] Our, our clients who are struggling, were able to turn their businesses around. So that's when we really started looking at the data and saying, we can help clients in such a deeper way when we are hyper-focused on one specific industry. That's
[00:03:31] Ashley Comegys: how it all got started, which I think is interesting because hearing even like in other fields besides.
[00:03:36] Therapists and mental health that like you can niche down. And that's one of the things that yeah, we always struggle with, I think as therapists of like, oh, I, I have to serve everybody. But you even saw, you're like, I can't know everything about all of these different industries. And that translates to our work absolutely too.
[00:03:53] Julie Herres: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And like there's some, like in restaurants you have to deal with cost of good sold and sales tax and like, [00:04:00] now that's things I don't, I don't know nothing about because I'm so far in. Right. So there's, so you can, you can hyper specialize and become an expert in that one particular thing and then not know about other things and that's, that's okay too.
[00:04:10] Ashley Comegys: Absolutely. Have you found like one specific thing or maybe an area that therapists tend to have a blind spot with more than others when it comes to accounting or finances? Well, certainly,
[00:04:24] Julie Herres: uh, taxes are one area where there's just a lot. You don't know what you don't know, right? And so for startups, that tends to be at least, uh, for that first year in business, a blind spot that can also be pretty painful, come tax time.
[00:04:39] I find also that compensation is an area where a lot of, uh, people struggle, where, um, you know, when they're moving into group practice, it's not uncommon for us to hear from. Or new onboarding clients, they then we ask them like, how did you determine this? How did you decide on this compensation structure?
[00:04:56] And they'll say something like, oh, well I asked around on a Facebook group. And [00:05:00] you know, that's what people said they were doing. And while that might work for them, the question that was not asked is, is this profitable for you? Mm. Can you, can you cover your expenses by, by paying people this way, there's often a blind spot without running the numbers.
[00:05:13] And I find that that's some one area where we are excellent, where we can really look at, here's what can work for you. And does the math make sense?
[00:05:21] Ashley Comegys: Yeah. Looking at the numbers, which we, I think a lot of times in our field, or like, I don't do numbers, I don't wanna look at it, but, but it's what helps us make informed decisions.
[00:05:31] Julie Herres: Yeah. And, and it's not about the, the numbers are not judging you, right? They're not. Mm-hmm. They, they have no agenda. The numbers will tell you, can you do something, yes or no, right? Or are you willing to make the sacrifices to make this. This work. Ultimately you have one pot of money coming in and you have a hundred percent of that to spend or do something with, right?
[00:05:49] So all of your allegations, the percentage that goes to you, the percentage that goes to taxes, all that has to add up to a hundred percent somehow. So we don't get a pass on math. [00:06:00] Right. Right.
[00:06:00] Ashley Comegys: Exactly. Exactly. One of the things I was really excited to talk with you about today is how I think there's a disservice that has been done for a lot of women with finances and especially moms, and I'll kind of share what I mean by that, that.
[00:06:22] If we are a mom and we decide, you know what, it just is what I wanna do or what makes sense for me to stay home with my children, either after having the baby or adopting or at a different period of time in life, but we're not necessarily. Taught to prepare ourselves long-term financially during that time.
[00:06:45] One of the things I've seen and heard is kind of like this off-ramp that can happen when women do take that leave and that during that time we're not setting aside money for retirement. Yeah. [00:07:00] Or you know, paying into social security or things like that. And I'm curious. We'll get into a little bit more about kind of profit first, but what you have seen when it comes to women and moms and this kind of blind, I don't know if blind spot is the right word, but it's just, I feel like this, like vacuum that ex doesn't, that like doesn't have this information available to a lot of us to kind of think through some of these things and then we're left being like, wait.
[00:07:28] I wasn't prepared for this or I missed
[00:07:30] Julie Herres: what happened. What happened? Yeah. Well, so I remember growing up when my grandfather passed away, uh, my grandmother. Wrote her very first check that next week. Mm-hmm. She had never written a check. She had never paid a bill. She did not know how to do any of those things.
[00:07:45] Um, and I remember as a, a teenager thinking that's, that's crazy. Like, I need to, to know about this and know I. What's going on in my life because yeah, here she is with holding all this grief and learning all these [00:08:00] things for the first time at 70 years old. Like, that's not, that's not okay. And, and in her case, at least he had taken care of her.
[00:08:07] But sometimes women are in the situation where I. There's a spouse, you know, actively sabotaging, right. The financial situation, right. In a case of divorce or, or, or something like that going on. And so, and so, I'm a firm believer that, um, as accountants, our role is to educate versus just do the thing for the client.
[00:08:28] Right? Um, there, and, and that's kind of old school accounting. You don't see that nearly as much anymore. I'm like, oh, just don't worry about it sweetie. Let me take care of it. Yeah. Um, that is not at all what I think is in service of the client. I think our clients should understand what is happening and how, just the basic mechanics of.
[00:08:47] The financial of their, of their practice. Uh, that doesn't mean that they need to become accountants and learn all about taxes. Sure. Right. That, that is, you always need an expert on your side. Just like, I'm not gonna become a legal expert just because I'm a business owner. Like I don't have that in [00:09:00] me.
[00:09:00] But just understanding kind of some of the basic parameters. I think for any business owner that is, Extremely helpful, but maybe even more so for women who might not do that at home, to understand how the pieces work. I think that's, that's necessary and in service to, to everyone to be in control of that.
[00:09:19] Ashley Comegys: No, I know when I first was starting in practice, I didn't have kids at the time, and it was the first time like, oh, I have control over, like how much money I'm bringing in. I did not. Have a system at the time, and I look back and I'm like, oh my goodness, this several years of where I was making good money, but I wasn't planning for my future, I wasn't setting stuff up so that I'm protected or taken care of should something happen and.
[00:09:46] I was later able to look at it differently. It's like this light bulb of, oh my goodness. Again, I didn't know what I didn't know. And I think, again, I always tell people I went into social work because I don't do numbers. Yeah. But, [00:10:00] but that, like, I didn't have to be as scared of it as I think I was. And I, I know I'm not alone in that.
[00:10:06] Julie Herres: Yeah, and I feel like I'm on a mission right in, in part with this book, but, and also with my accounting firm, I want practice owners to be unapologetic about being profitable. I want every practice out there to be profitable because it deserves to be. But I feel like often we're trying to convince our clients that you deserve to make money.
[00:10:24] You have to get paid to for what you do. And this is, this is a problem that I think is especially prevalent in in the mental health industry, that practice owners will think of everyone else before they think of themselves. Yeah. Right. The clients, the community, their team members. If they have a team and like, wait, what about you?
[00:10:42] If you are not making enough money to support your own household, whatever that household may look like, that is not, that is a disservice. To everyone involved, to your clients, uh, to your, to your team, to everyone, right? If you're not able to, to stay in business, that is not helping anyone. If [00:11:00] you are worried about money while you're in session, that's not in service of anyone, right?
[00:11:03] So I, I, I wanna change this narrative that you have to take a vow of poverty to be a private practice owner, because that's crazy. That doesn't make any, any sense. You deserve to get paid well.
[00:11:13] Ashley Comegys: Well, and I think that's interesting because I wonder sometimes how much that belief of like the vow of poverty keeps people too from jumping in of like, oh, I don't think I can.
[00:11:23] Can do this or make that living wage because we are used to being underpaid by so many people. But that one of the unique things of being a business owner and working for yourself is you get to really take control of what you want that to look like and who you want to serve and what you wanna charge.
[00:11:42] If you wanna take insurance or not take insurance, or only take specific ones, and that there has to also be thought in. Okay. How do I make those decisions about what kind of money I'm making so that it can provide for me, my family, my long-term needs exactly like that. Absolutely. [00:12:00] Yeah. Absolutely. We've all been told we need to network in our private practice, but no one actually tells us how to do it or what to say.
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[00:12:54] I know you have a new book coming out, um, prophet First for Therapists, which is really, [00:13:00] really exciting. I think when this, uh, episode goes live, it actually is coming out tomorrow. Um, so, you know, that's, that's so, so exciting. So, Tell us a little bit for those who are not familiar with Profit First in general, we could spend multiple episodes going through that, but give us kinda like a brief understanding of what is Profit First.
[00:13:23] Julie Herres: Yeah. So Profit First is not an accounting system, it is a cash flow management system. I like to say that it, it, um, Helps you achieve financial freedom. So the, some of the basic premise of profit first is that it flips the accounting equation upside down. Assuming your, your listeners are mostly business owners, I hope that they all have looked at a profit and loss at some point, right?
[00:13:45] Or a p and l income statement. There's a few different names for it there. It's all the same thing. In that profit and loss, the accounting equation that you see is income minus expenses equals profit. And so what profit First does we, we turn that accounting [00:14:00] equation upside down, so we have the income minus the profit equals your expenses.
[00:14:05] By carving out profit at the very beginning, we have a smaller pot available for expenses, but you're able to make that work, right if you're able to run a private practice. On a thousand dollars a month, I know that you're probably able to find a way to run that on $950 a month, right? If you run a, your practice on $10,000 a month, you're usually able to figure a way to run that on $9,500 a month, for example.
[00:14:31] Right? You're, if you, if you. Take your pot of money available and kind of consider it to be smaller, you're usually able to make that work. So we build it into the practice so that it is no longer an afterthought. It is intentional. Does business owners take on a good amount of risk just by being a business owner, right?
[00:14:51] If clients leave or rent goes up, or clinician leaves, like you're the one holding all the cards here, you're the one who has to figure out what to do [00:15:00] next. And there, there should be a reward, uh, for that risk. So one of the ways that we do that within Profit First. Is that we separate your money into multiple bank accounts, right?
[00:15:11] We, we call this the, the small plate, uh, principle. So we basically eat from a smaller plate. I was. Raised in the finisher plate, uh, era mm-hmm. Of the eighties. And so for me, whether I eat from a big plate or a little plate, I am probably going to eat all of it. Unless I spend a lot of mental energy thinking about what I'm eating, right.
[00:15:33] I'm gonna be thinking about, am I leaving this or that? Should I have one more bite? Am I still hungry? Right? I, I spend a lot of mental energy, but if I just eat from a smaller plate, I'm naturally going to eat less. When we talk about your money, your smaller plate is multiple bank accounts. So instead of having all your cash go into one big bank account or one big plate, we have multiple smaller plates and they have specific, uh, jobs or spec specific allocations.
[00:15:57] So we have one bank account, for example, for [00:16:00] your operating expenses. That is your rent, your dues and subscriptions, your software, your liability insurance. Then you'll have a plate for profit obviously. You'll have a bank account for taxes where the business may or may not pay taxes, um, at the federal level, right?
[00:16:17] Most private practices are passed through entities, so the, the profit flows through or passes through to the personal tax return where it is taxed, but the business can save. For taxes and pay them on your behalf. And so we have an allocation for that. Then we have an allocation for, uh, owners pay or payroll.
[00:16:35] There's a couple different ways that we do that, depending on if it's a solo practice or group practice. Um, and then we have a bank account specifically for all the income coming into the practice. So by, um, splitting the money that way. We find that instead of looking at, you know, you see your, you look at your bank balance, which is what most people do, just naturally, right?
[00:16:54] They're going to look at the, their bank balance, on their phone app or on the computer and say, oh, I have all this [00:17:00] money. Awesome. I'm going to go spend. When you look at it now, at a glance, you have so much more information. Instead of seeing all that money you see. Oh, but I only have this amount for operating expenses, so can I make this investment in my practice?
[00:17:14] Can I afford this thing? It gives you so much more information at a glance than you would have if you see all the money in one pile.
[00:17:22] Ashley Comegys: Having used this system and also not used it in the past, it really does. Help you to have a better sense, again, of not just what's coming in, but like where is it actually going?
[00:17:33] And if, okay, my expenses are now adding up to more than what I have saved for my expenses, then yeah, I need to pull back and look at that, versus just, it's all just kind of flowing out of that one account. It really, for me, has given me clarity and information to make an informed decision.
[00:17:54] Julie Herres: Yeah. And when you have that one big account, what that does not.
[00:17:57] Tell you is, you know, maybe [00:18:00] payroll is due next week and your tax payment was due two weeks ago, but you have another one in June, right? Like, there's so many little things like that where it doesn't account for the ebb and flow of money in the business or that, you know, as we record this, we're close to the end of the month.
[00:18:15] You're, if you have rent, your rent payment is due in the next couple of days, right? Yeah. So it doesn't look at all those different pieces. Um, so typically, Within profit first, you're going to transfer money on a regular cadence. For some of our, uh, clients that is weekly. Sometimes it's every other week, but that is a, a, a nice flow.
[00:18:33] Also, when you're doing it on a regular basis where it's always the same day of the week, for example, you also get some great information on what money is coming in, right? Let's say you do your transfers every other Monday, you're gonna really get a sense of how much money is usually in there. And then if all of a sudden one Monday, it's off, either up or down, you can get to fact finding right away.
[00:18:55] You can say, okay, what's going on here? Did we slow down on billing? Like some of our clients have [00:19:00] self-identified a billing issue from that much, much faster than if it's mixed into everything else. Sure. Sometimes you can say, was everyone on vacation? Did I have a lot of cancellations? At one like you at one time, you can really start looking much faster at what's happening.
[00:19:14] Do I need to course correct? So
[00:19:16] Ashley Comegys: I'm curious, you know, thinking about for a lot of women, especially if we are taking either time off to have children or. Even like medical leave or family emergency leave, right? Like that happens. How do you see Profit First being a system as a way for women to help kind of take control of their financial futures?
[00:19:39] Julie Herres: I. Yeah, well there, there's kind of the, the planned situation and the unplanned situation. I would handle probably both of those differently. So one of the beautiful things, uh, in the profit for system, again, all the details are, are in the book, but you have that profit account, and so you're moving money to that profit account on a regular basis.
[00:19:58] Typically at the end of each quarter, you're [00:20:00] going to take half of what is in that account to take home and do something fun, and you're going to leave the other half in the business as an emergency fund. And so just naturally you're going to build in a reserve there also at this is not happening usually on day one of implementing profit first, but you're going to build buffers within each of those accounts as well.
[00:20:20] So you, you're going to have a good sense of the ebb and flow of money. But ideally you're going to build a buffer of 2, 4, 6 weeks of expenses in those accounts. So that should something happen, there's, there's a couple of different spots that there are buffers, and that is, that is really helpful, right?
[00:20:36] Something is always better than nothing. Then when it comes to an event, that may be plans like perhaps maternity leave or I'm having surgery in a few months. I am a big fan of adding an additional account when there's something like that coming up. Maybe that is a maternity leave account. Right? You can call it whatever you want.
[00:20:56] Yeah. For some of our clients, it's. Expansion or, [00:21:00] uh, you know what if something happens or just an emergency account. And then you can start being intentional about putting money in that account so that you're still able to pay yourself while you are on leave. Again, something is always going to be better than nothing, so that helps you look at what is my runway?
[00:21:18] Well, I am. Recovering right. What, what can I, yeah, what can I reasonably expect to ting home? You can plan that ahead just with a simple bank account, and you know that money is earmarked for something else, so you're, you're much less likely to accidentally
[00:21:32] Ashley Comegys: spend it. Well, and you, you kind of hinted at like, okay, this may sound.
[00:21:37] Overwhelming. If you're kind of like just starting out with this, this may not be fully where you start with all of these different accounts. If someone is kind of starting out, and, and maybe this is, goes into it in, in your book, if, if someone's saying, okay, like, I wanna get started, but this feels like really overwhelming, um, thinking of all these other places that I need to put money.
[00:21:58] Like do you have a [00:22:00] recommendation of maybe those initial separate accounts to kind of start.
[00:22:05] Julie Herres: Yes, so I will, I usually recommend five or six foundational accounts. So in most cases, your current checking account is going to become your income account. Cuz especially for insurance practices, we don't wanna mess with.
[00:22:21] Any, any of that, right? We don't wanna slow down deposits or anything like that. Um, so that, that checking account becomes your income account, then we are going to have a profit and a tax account. Those can be savings accounts. Then the rest are going to be checking accounts. So we have operating expenses, owners pay, and then if you have a team, I also recommend having a payroll account.
[00:22:43] So that's if you have a team of contractors, employees, admin, right? Other people other than you. That you pay, uh, we're going to add that sixth bank account. So that's usually where I, I recommend starting before you add other accounts. Um, I, and I do talk in the book about customizing the [00:23:00] system based on your needs, but I, I, I kind of recommend starting with the foundational accounts just until you kind of get your sea legs and see how that is working.
[00:23:08] And, um, one of the first steps of implementing Profit First is just, Running the instant assessment, you're going to look at your practice and see where does your practice stand today, and that's usually where you're going to start because you're not making any wild changes on day one. You're just saying, okay, instead of having all the money in one account, we're just going to split that money up and see how things go.
[00:23:31] I'm also a big fan of starting with weekly transfers. Mm-hmm. Um, and so that means once a week you're going to make transfers from that income account to the other bank accounts. That is a little bit different from the, the traditional profit for a system, but that's just from years of experience seeing it takes a good buffer.
[00:23:50] To be able to make it two weeks without transferring money. And so I find that going one week is a lot less overwhelming and a lot more doable for most practices. Where you, [00:24:00] you all you have to do is that first transfer has to cover one week of expenses. Can we get there? And usually we can. Um, and so that's a great way to get started.
[00:24:10] I also kind of love the weekly transfers cuz if you're doing it every, every Friday for example, it's going to really quickly give you a good idea of the cadence of money going in and out of the practice. Sure. And I think that's really valuable as far as knowing as a business owner, like what does this actually look like?
[00:24:27] There's a whole lot of information there.
[00:24:30] Ashley Comegys: I'm curious, what led you to say, I need to write a book specifically to therapists, because I know like Profit First has been around for a while, and obviously you are very much invested in our field because that's who you work with, with your accounting firm.
[00:24:46] But what led you to saying like, okay, I think this is something that's really needed.
[00:24:52] Julie Herres: Well, so we, um, my team and I have been Profit First professionals for years now, and so we were very used to implementing the [00:25:00] system with our clients. As we did that, a lot of clients were coming to us and saying, I read Profit First.
[00:25:06] I, I, like, I'm drinking a Kool-Aid, right? I buy in, but I don't quite get how this makes sense. For private practice, like how I can do this for, for it to work for me. Cuz the original book is amazing. I love it. But it is a general book, right? It's intended for all industries. And so a lot of clients were coming to us and saying the, like, these allocations just don't make sense to me.
[00:25:30] Like it, how can I ever get here? And they were, they were right. This is an industry with a really high cost of labor, for example, right? Um, you don't. Always have, for example, in an insurance practice, a lot of say on what your reimbursement rate is, right? Right. You can ask for an increase, but like that's not something that you control as much as someone doing offering marketing services.
[00:25:53] So there was just a need for, for more clarity. Our goal at my firm is for every practice to be [00:26:00] profitable, and we just got to this point where I realized no matter how much we grow, I can never help every single practice out there, right? Mm-hmm. That's just not possible. We just can't ever be big enough for that, and there is a whole segment of the market that, for which that it just didn't make sense for financially for them to, to work with us.
[00:26:20] And so I wanted to be able to. Help more practice owners get this message out there because it works so well in private practice, it works so well. Um, and so that was, that was the goal. Just get, get the information out there. I think it works particularly well in, in mental health because there's, there's this, um, uh, sense of compliance for a lot of practice owners.
[00:26:43] Right. And I say that like, I think there's good and bad with that, but, but I've never seen a, a therapist client. Accidentally spend their tax money on a boat or something. Crazy risk, right. Other industries. I have seen that. Yeah. And so [00:27:00] usually if you have just a guideline, a box, like here are kind of the ways for you to know that you're doing okay.
[00:27:07] Um, therapists are really good at staying within that box, so I find that it's just helpful to have guidelines to know that you're, you're on the right path.
[00:27:16] Ashley Comegys: Well, and I think like I can speak from personal experience when I was able to start using the profit for a system. I know like obviously my podcast is called Raised and Empowered, but that is something I want to encourage and I strive to help other women feel and that I.
[00:27:33] Profit First is one of the things that helped me feel empowered because it helped me to really know what money is coming in, where can I save, where can I put additional money aside, whether it was for maternity leave, whether it was for a bonus that I'm able to kind of pull out and, you know, pay myself.
[00:27:55] And that was not built into how I was doing it before. [00:28:00] Once I was able to really have kind of those accounts or buckets to put those, you know, that money in when I'm able to then say, okay, like we've paid for this vacation because I put that aside and I, I made that money. Right? Love, like, I love, love it, that it's so empowering.
[00:28:17] And on those days when you're like, Ugh, is stuff going right? Or am I making the best decisions? For me when I've been able to look at like, no, like, look at what you've done, has just been so encouraging and so empowering for me as a business owner, as a, as a woman, as a mom, and so yeah, I'm just a big fan of it.
[00:28:37] Can I turn
[00:28:38] Julie Herres: the table and ask you some questions? Sure. Okay. All right. So I'm curious, what is the funnest thing you've done with your profit distribution?
[00:28:46] Ashley Comegys: Hmm. So last summer we, so we live in Tampa, um, and we took a vacation really close by to water and we stayed at a resort that was [00:29:00] like right on the water.
[00:29:01] And I went into it being like, look to my husband. We're not taking. All of the beach stuff for our two little ones. We're gonna rent everything on the beach so we're not having to carry it down. We're not gonna worry and stress about buying groceries cuz we were staying in a place that had a kitchen and stuff.
[00:29:18] We're just gonna. Eat whatever we wanna eat and know that it's covered. And so being able to know that that money was there and then being able to like cover birthday party presents and you know, special things that we've had planned through the year. But that vacation, it was one, it was after that that I like stepped back and I said to my husband, I was like, I'm really proud of myself.
[00:29:46] I That sounds proud. Proud.
[00:29:47] Julie Herres: Amazing. Yeah. That, that, it sounds like that was kind of one of the first vacations where you're like, we're just going to go all in. Yeah. And that was, thanks to your profit account. That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. So how [00:30:00] often do you transfer funds?
[00:30:02] Ashley Comegys: So, I currently have it set up that I do twice a month.
[00:30:07] Okay. Where I sit down and I, that's when I'm making my transfers. That's kind of when I'm doing my billing and you know, paying myself. Paying my business expenses if they're, you know, they're, most of them are automated on the credit card, but kind of paying that off. But after I'm listening to you, I'm like, okay, maybe I need to look at this a different way and do it weekly.
[00:30:26] But yeah, that's kind of how I've currently have it set up is twice
[00:30:29] Julie Herres: a month. Okay. And if it's working, you don't have to, it's not broken, don't fix it. But for someone starting, I I, I, that's one of the things that I've heard often is like, oh, twice a month, I just feel like that's not quite. Enough am I gonna miss stuff like then.
[00:30:44] Then once a week can, can work. Um, okay. My last question to you, do you have any special accounts, additional accounts that you have set up?
[00:30:53] Ashley Comegys: So I have set up. A, so it's a, it's called a retirement account, but it's not [00:31:00] actually my retirement account. Okay. The way that my retirement is set up, I have to move it into a separate account and then like write a check to the deposit in there.
[00:31:09] So I have a, an account that is, I consider it part of like my profit first system. Ah, that when I am kind of going through and doing my breakdown, I have an account for that. I have, um, what I call like a bonus account, which is where, ooh, that's the money that co like I said to my husband, I wanna just plan to use this for things that if we're going on trips, we pull stuff out of there.
[00:31:32] I have used it in the past for things like paying for some, like, Again, Christmas gifts or like, I needed a, a new watch and so I pulled money from that. But I've just like, we've just kinda made the decision, like that's gonna be kind of our fun spending money so that when we are doing fun things as a family, like it doesn't have to be like, where is this coming out of?
[00:31:51] Like our regular budget? Like we have that money set aside.
[00:31:54] Julie Herres: I, I love it. Love, love, love, love. Yeah. Um, and it's so, it's so helpful [00:32:00] also to know, right? The money is there and hopefully it's for something fun, but like, should there be an emergency? Right. That's never fun. Yes. But at least like, there are places to pull money from where you're not like, what credit card do we put this?
[00:32:11] Sure. Or like, how in the world are we going to pay the ER bill or whatever it may be. Like, I, I hope it never comes set up, but I mean, that's so. Empowering as well to just know that you're gonna be
[00:32:22] Ashley Comegys: okay. No, and actually, like, this just dawned me as we're sitting here, cuz we, we've had to do stuff like that before.
[00:32:28] We're like, okay, there's a little bit of an emergency, like we can pull it from there. But when we moved into the house that we currently have, my office is what was a dining room. Okay. And we needed to close it off and so we put up. Beautiful French doors into it and had to have it all done and stuff.
[00:32:47] And we pulled some of that from the bonus money to do that. And again, it was one of those things I'm like, oh my goodness. Like I put up a wall, I put up doors. Yes. Um, and so yeah, it was one of those [00:33:00] things that that money was just set aside and we didn't like other money. We had allocated to do projects on the house.
[00:33:05] We didn't have to pull from that.
[00:33:06] Julie Herres: Then. Perfect. Okay. I'm done. Yeah. Thank you for the C tour.
[00:33:11] Ashley Comegys: Yes. No, absolutely. Absolutely. So if someone is interested in getting your book, where is it gonna be available?
[00:33:18] Julie Herres: It is going to be available most, at most online retailers where you buy books. So an Amazon, a Barnes and Noble, uh, bookshop as well.
[00:33:26] It's also available on Kindle and Okay. Audible as well. Um, I did record the whole thing, uh, myself. Yeah. So, uh, that is available as well. And you can also go to our, um, website profit first for therapists.com, where you can order as well and get some bonuses through the end of the week. Um, you can get an entry to win a one-on-one, uh, profit first strategy session with me and a few other things as well.
[00:33:52] So just through, that's just through the end of the week, that's available to you as well. And there's a whole lot of other goodies on the Profit First for therapist's website. As well.
[00:33:59] Ashley Comegys: Awesome, [00:34:00] awesome. And I know you have something kind of special for our listeners, um, of the
[00:34:04] Julie Herres: show. Yes. So if you're interested in finding out more about Profit First, right?
[00:34:09] But you're not quite ready for the book. If you go to Profit first for therapists.com/empower, you can get access to our free workbook. Um, so in that workbook, you're going to have a checklist of, here are all the steps that you need to complete. To get started with Profit First, here are the things that you're going to do every time you transfer or quarterly.
[00:34:29] Um, so it's a really simple guide to just kind of guide you through the beginning steps of profit first. So again, that's profit first for therapists.com/empower. And we'll have all
[00:34:41] Ashley Comegys: of that stuff also linked in the show notes. Julie, I have loved our conversation today, and I'm really appreciative of you coming here and sharing your wisdom and knowledge and time with us.
[00:34:52] This isn't the last
[00:34:53] Julie Herres: that we hear from you. I know This was so much fun. Thank you, Ashley. You're
[00:34:57] Ashley Comegys: welcome. Thanks for being a guest today. [00:35:00] Thank you so much for listening to the Raised to Empower podcast. Check the show notes for all links and resources mentioned in the show. If you found today's episode helpful or inspiring, be sure to share it with your therapist friends, and don't forget to subscribe to the show and leave your five star rating and review.
[00:35:18] It truly means so much to me and will help us get our message of empowerment out to other women and mom clinicians, and I'd love to connect with you in our Facebook community. So check out the show notes for the link or head to Bitly slash raise to empower to join us. I'll see you back here next week.