WP113 | Top Tools: My Favorite Resources for a Thriving Practice
In this episode of the Wise Practice Podcast, Whitney dives into the essential tools and resources she relies on to simplify private practice management. From ensuring HIPAA compliance and securing BAAs to leveraging powerful EHR systems like TherapyNotes, she shares practical strategies for safeguarding client data and streamlining operations. Whitney also highlights her favorite platforms for scheduling, financial management, marketing, and communication, offering detailed insights into how tools like QuickBooks, Gusto, Canva, and Spruce can elevate your practice. Her approach combines tech-savvy solutions with actionable advice, empowering therapists to build efficient, client-centered practices while focusing on their passion—helping clients thrive.
HIPAA Compliance & BAAs
Whitney stresses the importance of confidentiality and ensuring any platform used is HIPAA-compliant. She highlights the necessity of obtaining a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) from third-party platforms to safeguard client data.
EHR Recommendations
Whitney discusses her preference for TherapyNotes as an EHR system, especially for group practices. She values its low credit card fees, integrated credit card storage, scheduling options, and features like to-do lists and online document management.
Practice Management Tools
Whitney is a strong advocate for Google Workspace, praising its features for email, calendar sync, Google Forms, Drive storage, and shared drives. She shares practical examples of how these tools are integral to her practice’s operations, from storing HR files to organizing policies and procedures.
Simplified Scheduling
Acuity Scheduling (by Squarespace): Perfect for non-HIPAA-compliant appointments like consulting calls. It integrates seamlessly with calendars, creates Zoom links automatically, and sends reminders—saving you from endless email back-and-forth.
Practice Vital: If you're using EHRs like TherapyNotes, SimplePractice, or TheraNest, this integration pulls actionable data, including retention rates and revenue per therapist. This is especially useful for group practices to track therapist performance and client retention.
Financial Tools You Need
QuickBooks: An essential upgrade from manual tracking. It simplifies tax preparation, tracks expenses, and integrates with your bank account, giving you a clear financial picture anytime.
Gusto: Beyond payroll, Gusto manages benefits like health insurance and retirement plans. Employees can access their accounts for pay stubs, making it convenient for them and you.
Marketing Must-Haves
Google My Business: A free tool that enhances your local SEO, making it easier for potential clients to find you. Collect reviews to boost credibility.
Google Analytics: Tracks website traffic, helping you identify which pages and strategies are most effective.
Aweber: This email marketing platform enables targeted communication with referral sources, clients, and leads. Automation and tags ensure that messages go to the right audience.
Branding and Design
Canva: Create polished social media graphics, flyers, and presentations with saved branding assets like logos and color schemes. Ideal for collaboration with your team.
Website Platforms
WordPress: Offers robust features and top-tier SEO but requires technical knowledge for updates. Best for customizable websites.
Squarespace: User-friendly and ideal for those who want control over minor updates and marketing changes.
Client Communication
Spruce: A versatile phone system with built-in telehealth, secure messaging, and even pre-scheduled text features. Group practice owners can monitor communication for quality assurance, making it invaluable for supervision and admin support.
Social Media Strategy
Whitney’s advice: “Don’t get too caught up in social media. Focus more on Google, where clients are searching for therapists.”
If you do engage, choose platforms that resonate with your target audience and align with your strengths. Whitney’s picks: Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Final Thoughts
From scheduling to marketing, the right tools can transform how you manage your private practice. Whitney’s recommendations ensure smoother operations, more visibility, and better client retention, leaving you free to focus on what matters most—helping your clients thrive.
Links and Resources
Looking for support and connection: Join the Wise Practice Community
Learn More about Wise Practice Consulting
Connect with Wise Practice on Instagram
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[00:00:00] Whitney Owens: Hi, I'm Whitney Owens. I'm a group practice owner and faith based practice consultant, and I'm here to tell you that you can have it all. Want to grow your practice? Want to grow your faith? Want to enjoy your life outside of work? You've come to the right place. Each week on the Wise Practice Podcast, I will give you the action steps to have a successful faith based practice while also having a good time.
Now let's get started.
[00:00:26] Jingle: Where she grows your practice, she don't play. She does business with a twist of faith. It's Whitney Owens and the Wise Practice Podcast. Whitney Owens and the Wise Practice Podcast.
[00:00:45] Whitney Owens: Hello, and thanks for listening to the Wise Practice Podcast. So glad you're here. I'm Whitney Owens. It is the end of the year and as we prepare for that, I thought I'd do an episode about my favorite tools and resources I use in my practice. If you're anything like me, when the end of the year comes to a close and you start looking at next year, you start to kind of reevaluate maybe your mission, your vision for your practice, maybe your organizational structure, you start setting goals for the new year.
It's also a time I kind of look and think Is that system effective? Do I like the process that I'm using for this, that, and the other? It could be your intake process or your hiring process. It's kind of a time of evaluation. And so I thought it'd be great to jump on and do an episode about some of my favorite platforms that I use in my private practice in hopes that this helps you as you make decisions.
I actually had another podcaster do this, the Gold Digger podcast. If you've heard of Jenna Kutcher, she is excellent. If you're looking for her, check her out. Another good business podcast and she talked about her favorite resources and I was like, huh? So i'm going to share some resources that are a little bit more business oriented And then i'm going to share some that are a little bit more to private practice But don't worry the business oriented ones you can use in your private practice.
So that's what we're up for today This is actually some content that I did in the membership communities. That's the wise practice membership community And so if you're kind of wanting to know also, what is that? What Whitney keeps talking about, I don't know what that is. It is a community of faith based practice owners and we meet every single week and do live teachings.
We have experts come in. We're going to be talking about this more on the podcast during the month of January, but just giving you that heads up that this information is the kind of stuff that I share also in the membership community, and they kind of get first access to things. And so this content was something that I presented there that I wanted to share with you on this podcast because I think it's excellent.
So but before we get into that, as you're looking into 2025, know that Wise Practice is here. We help faith based practice owners. reach their ideal practice. And when we talk about faith based practice centers, yes, that might mean someone who's overtly marketing themselves as a faith based practice and only does faith based counseling, but it also runs the gamut.
It could be someone who is a therapist, has their own practice, who believes faith's an important part of their own life. Maybe they don't talk about it a lot in their marketing or necessarily in their business. But it's a part of who they are and the decisions they make. So wise practice is a community for all of us, wherever we are on our faith journey and wherever we are in our integration of faith in our counseling and in our business.
Even I, as a practice owner, don't always market myself as a faith based practice for various reasons. And I just want you to know that everyone is welcome here in wise practice, wherever you are and how you do that marketing and how you run your practice. So if you were looking to grow your practice in 2025 and you want to consider some coaching, please reach out to us.
We have a great team at WisePractice of consultants with years of experience who are in different places as far as the type of people that they work with, either solo practice owners, group practice owners. Maybe you have a big idea you're wanting to implement and you need someone to kind of talk through that with, and you're trying to figure out that strategy.
So Go to WisePracticeConsulting. com under services. You can get some information about consulting and complete a consulting application. We'll jump on a call with you and make sure that you're getting what you need. We don't want people just You know, uncertain of what they're doing. We want you to be spending your money, time, and energy on something that works for you.
We are launching, launching mastermind groups in January. So if you're listening to this here at the end of December, and you're thinking, huh, I'd be interested in some consulting. I'm not sure about individual consulting. Maybe a mastermind group would be good for you with like minded people in a similar phase of practice that are growing together.
We're launching two of those. One is for solo practice owners looking to grow their solo practice systems and processes in place, but also a lot of the marketing piece of how do I get from three, two or three clients a week to 15 to 20 clients a week. So that mastermind is to grow that. And the other mastermind is for smaller group practices that, you know, have just hired their first therapist and really wanting to scale and figure out what foundations do I need to put in place in my group practice to really make this thing work and how can it actually make profit.
growing a group practice. So that other mastermind is for smaller group practice owners. Like I said, both are launching in January. You can head to the website to get more information or just send me an email, whitneyatwisepracticeconsulting. com. Would love to just chat with you about your practice and what's going to be the best fit for you.
So, all right, we are going to jump into the top tools and resources that I am using in my own private practice. And like I said, this is a presentation that I ended up doing with the WISePractice community and that we get together on that weekly basis and we go through content just like this 1. and so I'm going to review that information right here with you today and go quickly through each 1.
And then I'll, when I'm talking about tools and what I didn't practice. What I'm telling you is, I'm going to mention these tools, but we could spend all day going through different ones. Like, if I could do a whole podcast episode on EHRs, a whole podcast episode on phone systems, okay? So, I can't potentially go through All the nuances of each product.
What I'm going to do is just tell you why I chose it and what I love about it. So you're getting a brief snapshot of what Whitney loves about something. Okay. I'm not going to be able to hit everything, but as you're trying to make decisions about what you're needing, this hopefully will be helpful to you.
And if there's something that I mentioned today that you're like, Oh, I really like that. I'm not, I'd like to get some more information. If you'd go to the WISe Practice Consulting website, there is a tab at the top practice resources. There you will find a lot of systems and a lot of things that I use in my own practice.
Some of them I don't necessarily use, but I believe in what they're doing. And so they're also on that resources page. Some of them are on there just because I love them. Some of them I do have affiliates with, but I promise you, I don't recommend companies and things that I don't agree with, so an affiliate is just a bonus in my mind for sharing about the work they do, but I don't share for that reason.
I share because I believe in it. So you can go there and some of the discounts, by the way, are for you. So phone system discounts, EHR discount, things like that. I'll try to remember to mention those as I go, but anytime you're needing a resource for your practice, head to the website and see what you can find there on that page, hopefully I can get you a good deal because don't we all need better deals and the stuff we're using.
And it's always really nice to have it when you're trying to figure something out, right? Today, I'm going to give you an overview of those systems and why I use them, but I need to give you this disclaimer. That confidentiality is important. We know this in the work we do. So whatever system that you're using, make sure that it has HIPAA compliance.
These are systems that I've looked into personally, but it's always good for you to do your own research at any time. And anytime you use a third party platform, you always want what we call a BAA. That's a business associate agreement. I remember when I first heard that, I was like, what are they talking about?
And so, it's actually no agreement that you have to make. It's an agreement that the company sends to you. So, you just have to ask for it. Do you have a BAA? Sure. And they'll send it to you. Save it somewhere. But it basically ensures that they're going to keep the confidential information confidential that they receive from you.
So for example, with your phone system or your EHR, they're going to have confidential client information. And yes, they can manage, they can do compliance on their end to keep things as confidential as possible, but they also need to let you know that they're doing that. And that's what a BAA is. They're ensuring that they're going to keep all that information confidential.
All right, so some of the things we're going to go through today are going to be the EHR that I use, practice management and booking softwares, accounting, financial tools, marketing, and client communications, website and social media, communication tools, project management, AI, and podcast production. So lots of fun topics today.
So EHR, EHR is your electronic health record. I kind of giggle a little as I say that because I was working with a practice owner just yesterday who had done her first interview. She's hiring her first therapist. It's so exciting. She's doing an interview and she says to the gal, Hey, what EHR are you using?
And the gal says, She didn't know what an EHR was, and I understand some of us don't know what that is, especially if we've been in the field for a while, but she was still at a, she was at another practice and still doing paper charting. That does take me back to my old days when I started my practice, I was paper charting if that ages me, or maybe it just says that I don't know enough electronics.
But, um, I'm not a technology savvy as I, I wish I was, but I'm learning, but yeah, we actually switched to, or started with really is what I should say from paper to therapy notes, literally April, 2020. That's right. I already had this scheduled. I had scheduled it back in January and February that we were going to make this change.
So, it was somewhat humorous, I guess, that it ended up being at the exact moment that everything was going to have to change. So, it was pretty wild to be able to use the EHR at that point, but I'll share with you some of the reasons why I went with TherapyNotes. I still use it, and if you go to my website, you can get two months free if you want to try it out.
Therapy notes is great for group practices because of the setup of it. That is what I'd heard across the board that was one of the best ones for a larger group practice. At the time that I selected it, and I can't say with 100 percent certainty this is still the case, but I have not heard otherwise, it has some of the best rates for credit cards.
And when you are a cash pay practice, those credit card rates are even more important because people are paying more for therapy. It's not just getting their co pays and running those on the card. So it's important to me that I picked a company that had lower credit card fees. I also love that it saves the card on file.
Look, if you are not getting credit cards and saving them on file, you are making a big mistake. Please, get credit cards at the time of scheduling and save them so that when clients show up, it's easy for them to pay for services. And you can abide by the cancellation policy even easier. So, I can say so much about that, but I want to encourage you to make sure that whatever EHR you're using, you use their system for credit cards.
If you're using another system and an EHR, because you don't like the rates of credit cards, it gets really complicated. Maybe as a solo practice and you can manage that, but if you can integrate and use everything that's already with the HR, it's just going to make your life a lot easier. And especially if you have a group practice, you want to make it as easy as possible to track everything.
And it's so much easier to track all those fees and what's going on when you can also track the appointments and everything in one place. Therapy Notes also has to do lists that are integrated into the platform. And so it's really nice to be able to see it right there, and you don't have to, like, worry about, oh, what do I need to do right now?
And then you can move on from that. So, that's really great as well. Alright, so scheduling can happen right through the platform. Online scheduling is an option. You can put a link on your website for booking. We really enjoy that. And you can load any kind of documents that you need into TherapyNotes and into their chart.
So that's really helpful as well. All right, so let's move on to practice management and booking software. One of my favorite things always has been Google Workspace. Google Workspace, as you can understand, is through Google. That's the Gmail. You can create a Gmail account that goes along with your domain.
I'll say it is a little bit of work to do it, but it's a really great feature to have, and I think it's gotten even easier to do over time. When I did it for Water's Edge a while back, I really struggled. When I did it for the consulting business, it was so much easier. So having a website and a domain and an email that's all the same, it makes life so much easier.
So when I say that, I'm saying my email isWhitney@wisepracticeconsulting.com. whitney@watersedgecounseling.com. Waters Edge Counseling and Wise Practice Consulting are my domains for my website, and so my email looks very professional. But within Google Workspace, there are so many features that get unused by practice owners.
You have calendars that you can sync and share with one another. You have Google Forms, where you can create surveys and things to send to potential clients, and you've got to make sure you've done your configurations right, so you want to spend some time. Making sure, because what you don't want is to send something to a potential client or a past client that you have them seeing someone else's information.
That is really scary. So you want to make sure you've done everything correctly to keep all that confidential. But we use it a lot internally. We have intake forms that when someone calls, we capture that data and we get it on a Google form. So we are in Google Workspace as a practice every day, all day.
Right. And of course, we're also checking email. There's a lot of features within the emails that you can put things in folders and organize things and schedule emails. I love all that stuff. I also use the drive to store things. So I store EHR. Sorry, we were just talking about EHRs. I store HR information on my team members.
So each team member has a folder. So if there's a performance review plan, things like that, I can stick that in that folder. All of our policies and procedures are in there, and this is a more recent understanding that I did not have until this year, but you have your personal Google Drive, but you also have a shared drive within your company.
So, a shared drive allows everyone within your domain to have access to the same information. So, if you were to have your policies and procedures in your shared drive, when someone joins your practice, all you have to do is click it. And give them access to everything. And so you don't have to go in and share certain folders or share the individual documents, have access to everything immediately.
Google Workspace, hands down, it's excellent. And I would say when I look at my practice, if there was only 1 thing I could keep, it would be Google Workspace. It's it's by far my favorite thing, and I use it in both businesses. Um, there's so many more things we could say about Google Workspace, but that's.
Kind of a quick introduction to that. There are some great programs out there. I'm not, Gordon Brewer has a course on Google Workspace. If you go to practicewiththerapy. com, you can probably find that information. And if you are interested in a course on Google Workspace, Again, send me an email, let me know.
I've had a few people ask about this. I'm thinking about potentially offering it. So if it's something you're interested in, whitneyatwestpractisconsulting. com, let me know and I can put you on a list to get information. Okay, so let's talk about scheduling. So most of us can schedule through our EHR.
Please do that. That's great. Or through people calling, things like that. But with my Consulting business, I need people to be able to also schedule consulting calls. These are non HIPAA compliant, so there might be maybe a side hustle that you have or another way that you need people to be able to book calls.
I use a software called Acuity Scheduling. This is through Squarespace, which we're going to talk about domains soon, but Squarespace is the, I shouldn't have said domain, we're going to talk about those platforms for your website soon. Squarespace is what I use for my consulting website. So acuity scheduling is through that, which is really great.
And so all you have to do is send someone a link and they can schedule a call with you. It integrates with your current calendars so that it can see when you're available and not available. There is nothing worse than having to go back and forth through email and text. When are you available? When can we do this call?
I'm at this time. You're at this time. It's so annoying. Now I can just send someone a link and they can get it done. And then when they schedule it immediately creates the zoom meeting in my zoom account. It sends them the link. It automatically reminds them. I think two days before I scheduled all that in advance.
It is lovely. So very happy with my acuity scheduling opportunity. Now, another thing that I like to use for kind of a kind of managing the practice is practice vital practice vital is a software that integrates with your EHR. Now, they only integrate with specific EHRs that therapy notes is one of them.
So it's simple practice and I want to say TheraNest might be another one. But you can go to Practice Vital and get more information. And again, if you go to my website, I have a coupon code for you to get a discount on using their service, but it integrates with your platform and it really pulls a bunch of data.
They are a newer company in the past few years, so they're constantly updating and providing more information, which is great. I can see the work they're doing. I use Practice Vital in my practice on a regular basis. It tracks the number of sessions going on, how, how many outstanding notes there are. I mean, I know sometimes your EHR does that, but what this does that you might not have in your EHR is churn ratio.
And when I'm talking about churn ratio, that is how many clients are making it past four sessions and it pulls that percentage for me, which is really great. So I can use that to know are my therapists keeping their clients, how long are clients staying for? And then retention is, how many are making it to eight sessions.
I can also pull revenue per therapist. So practice vital definitely can be used for a small practice, but I would say it's really great for a group practice. Like, I, I would say, if you have several therapists, this is game changer because it's so nice to have data. To be able to bring to your therapist to say how they're really doing in their clinical work, because we're not sitting there with them.
It's hard for us to know. And so this gives me really hard data that we can work towards improving numbers and improving the practice. Because if you have poor retention, you are losing money in your practice. So it's important that you're, you're tracking that retention rate. It's one of the biggest ways that people lose money in their practice.
But back to these products and services that I use. Now we're going to talk about accounting and financial tools. QuickBooks is probably the thing that I waited the longest on that I should have gotten way sooner and I was so embarrassed about. I was literally using a checkbook https: otter. ai Early in my solo practice.
I'm so embarrassed that that was the case. I didn't want to spend money on any kind of software that I didn't absolutely positively need. Look, QuickBooks is something you need. It's like 15 bucks a month and it tracks that and integrates with your, with your bank account. And you can categorize things as what they are.
Y'all cannot imagine what it was like when I did my taxes. Yes. I did my own taxes when I was a silly practitioner with my quick book, with my checkbook ledger and receipts everywhere. It was terrible. So now I have QuickBooks and my accountant can see everything going on. In fact, my accountant can go in and do my bookkeeping for me.
Tracks my expenses and income at any point. If I want to know where I am for the year, I can go in there and look at that. It's great. And it organizes all those tax details. So QuickBooks is definitely something you want to make sure you spend the money on because it is totally worth it. And then for payroll, I use Gusto.
And it's a payroll service, but it also has so many more integrations, which is what I love about it. We have a higher version because we are a larger group practice, and so the therapists have their own accounts. They can go in and pull their numbers anytime they want, which is really great. Especially if they ever want to buy a house, they can prove their income level.
Or if they just want to see how much money they're making throughout the year, they can go look at old pay stubs and things like that. We also have our health insurance that rolls through there. Now, Gusto does have health insurance that you can purchase through their platform. I use my brother actually as my broker because he sells insurance.
And let me tell you in the South and in my family, I would be in trouble if I didn't use my brother, but he actually is a great broker. And so I don't get involved. And the things going on with him and the employees, of course, but he does manage the health insurance for my practice. And then he speaks with them individually.
But I think another great thing about having a broker is you've got someone you can personally talk to, and that will advocate for your team. So. If I were to have an employee who had a situation where the insurance wouldn't cover something, he's the one getting on the phone and fighting with the insurance company.
So that's really great. So anyway, gusto has brokers through them, or you can have your own broker is what I'm telling you. And so I really like having that option available. But the health insurance runs through payroll. I have retirement and matching for my team members. I have background checks that can be run through gusto and performance evaluations.
It sends the employee evaluation and me, and we can both do it. And then it sends it to each other. It's really great. And everything gets saved. So gusto is fantastic. And again, if you use my code that's on the website, I believe you can get a hundred dollar piece of gift card when you run your first payroll.
So it's really wonderful. And I love it. Personally, I've been using it for years and really enjoy it. All right, so let's talk about marketing and client communication. So, For marketing, we could talk about so many things, right, to use for marketing, but I want to give you my top one that I find very helpful is Google My Business.
Google My Business is like it sounds, it's on Google, it's when you look for different businesses, it's that thing that pops up on the side search when you type something in, it shows you local businesses, their maps, their reviews. Make sure that your business is on there. This is a free way to market your practice.
People can give you reviews on there. That would encourage you to ask for reviews. You cannot ask clients, but you can ask friends and family that know you. They don't have to lie and say they were a client. They can just talk about their experience of you. It's important that you get those reviews because one day you're going to get a bad one.
Promise you will, you're a therapist. And then when that happens, you've got the good ones to balance it out. So Google My Business will help your SEO. It'll help local searches. It'll help with client acquisition, and it boosts your visibility on Google. So it is a win win. And another thing that I like with Google is Google Analytics.
Google Analytics tracks your site visits and what's going on on your website. You set that up through your website and through Google. It is a fabulous feature to have. I look at it every single week so that I know what things are going well on my website, how are people getting to my website, and how can I continue doing good things in my practice.
So Google Analytics is an important part of your website. And then for communicating via email, I use a platform called Aweber. There are so many email platforms out there. I started using Aweber and it's just easier to not change at this point. Who knows, I might change in the future. It is a little bit of a dated one.
But it does all the things that I need. So it allows me to do email marketing. I can communicate with referral sources this way. So like once a month, we send out a newsletter to let everybody know about things going on at the practice. It's a way to keep people updated. We also send out kind of information to potential clients.
I remember one time a client came in and said, Oh, I'm on your email list. And I just read your email about boundaries. And it was so helpful. And I was like, yeah. So it's really great to be able to communicate with your referrals, but also clients that might sign up for your email list. You can share educational information.
You can tag certain things to have specific people that you want to send an email to. So we might have a school tag or church tag so that our referral sources are organized. So if I have something that's specifically for schools, like when we do our educational event every year for school counselors, not everyone on my email list is getting that.
So they're not getting inundated with emails that aren't relevant to them. It's really great to have tags. You can also go in, you can automate emails, you can send them in advance, and you can track things in your data. So track your open rate, your click rate, and how things are going with your different emails.
So I love being able to track that data. And another one of my favorites that I use for images is Canva. Canva has the ability to save your branding, which I really love. And so you don't have to re put in all those images. And those color schemes, once you get it in there, it's saved into your account and you can use your colors, your logos and all those things super easily.
You can create images for your social media, for flyers, for slides, for presentations. It's shareable. You can have team members on your Canva accounts. They can work on things and see things and y'all can do things at the same time. We use Canva almost every single day in my consulting business. And then on a pretty regular basis within the group practice.
Websites. Now, for websites, I actually have two. I use WordPress for my group practice, and I use Squarespace for the consulting business. What I like about WordPress is it has a lot more features than a lot of the other platforms for website building, and it's extremely customizable. So it's a really great platform.
I've also heard it has some of the best SEO compared to other platforms. Now, I'll tell you, WordPress is more complicated. So So I think that if you're going to go with WordPress, make sure you've got, I think it's always good to hire someone to start and build your website. Now, you might be able to make some changes, but with WordPress, it's going to be a little more complicated.
I started with WordPress again, a long time ago for my practice website. And so I've continued with it. There weren't as many options out there at the time, but WordPress was the best at that time. And it still is a very good option for you. But for the consulting website, I use Squarespace. Some of the reasons I made those changes was it was easier for me to edit.
So even though I had someone create the website, if I need to do something or want to market something, I can go in there and make some changes without the fear of like damaging the whole site. In fact, with my WordPress site, that's what we started with the consulting business. And I totally went in there and deleted it without even realizing I'd done it.
And then the girl, actually Sarah, who makes, make my website now and works with me, she calls me up and she says, Whitney, did you not like the site I made? I was like, no, it was great. Wash because we deleted it. I was like, what? Like, so anyway. That was, that was a humorous start to our working relationship, but yes, so we went with Squarespace after that, and she kept assuring me that I would be able to use it, and I was like, no, I don't want to touch it, and she said, no, no, no, I want you to get in there and use it, and she was right.
It's easy to use, and I can make updates. I can even create pages, so it's really great to have that ability. It has blogging capabilities, analytics, responsiveness.
Mobile responsiveness, excuse me, there. And so you can get it easily on your phone. There's integrations that you can do with Zapier. So if somebody were to come to my website and sign up for something, it actually puts them on the email list. So it's really great to have that integration piece. Alright, social media.
So I want to remind you, social media is great. Don't get too caught up in it. Okay. Make sure you're putting your time and energy more into Google because that's where people are going to find a therapist. Social media, when I think private practice, I think it's a bonus, right? I think you do have to think about who it is that you're speaking to.
For me in the consulting business, social media is huge because I'm talking on a more national level. Before my group practice, I do still have social media and we do get some interactions on there. The majority of people don't say they found us through Facebook, they go to Google and say they found us that way.
So the social media. Platforms that I like to use are Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, but use the ones that you think your ideal people are hanging out and that you actually enjoy. Right. And I kind of thought about TikTok for a while and some of these others, but it just seemed like I could not keep up with too many social media accounts.
So I just picked the ones that I was already doing, the ones I enjoyed and the ones where people are, they don't want to work with. So that's the ones I use for communicating with clients. We use Spruce. Spruce is a phone system that is separate from your traditional phone line. It's kind of like a Wi Fi and runs through that data and you also can put this app on your phone.
So you could communicate with clients. So it actually stays on your actual phone. You don't have to have a separate phone. There's a desktop version. I've been using Spruce for years. And again, if you go to my website, you can get a code to get, I believe it's 20 percent off your first year. Um, so make sure that you go to Wise Practice Consulting.
And click that link and see whatever the deal is that i'm offering at that time, but i've worked closely with spruce I think very highly of their company They have a lot of really cool options for practice owners that are helpful like pre scheduling text messages because you know at eight o'clock at night You're thinking about something you meant to say to that client or you're reminding them of an appointment or you're needing to cancel something But you don't want to have to do it at nine in the morning You can schedule that email to go out nine in the morning.
It is excellent. You can also tag people in messages. So when I get a message from a client. And I don't want to respond. Maybe they want to reschedule and I'm just busy that day. I can just tag my admin. She can see all the messages and she can respond without me having to go, Hey, by the way, can you reschedule this person?
Like she already can see it just by tagging her. They have a telehealth platform. It's actually our favorite telehealth platform and that's what we use. To be able to communicate with clients. You can also get faxes. You can have different communication folders so that conversations go in different places.
You can organize those conversations. I also love that we can see all the communication. So as a group practice owner. It's good to be able to see what are the conversations that are going on between clients and therapists, especially therapists that are newer to the field and under supervision. The supervisor can see that communication and we do let our therapists know that we can do that.
So it's great to be able to have that communication as well. Or if A therapist were to be sick for whatever reason, they say, Hey, can you reschedule my clients? We can go in and see all the client contact information saved in Spruce, and then we can communicate with them. So it's excellent. All right. A couple of other tools that I use for communicating.
I love Voxer messaging. That is a walkie talkie thing. It's on your phone and you can talk, it's that thing. It's a walkie talkie app. So you can communicate. I love it. And I actually use it to communicate with friends and consulting clients. Thanks. When consulting clients have quick questions about their practice, they can message me anytime and then I respond throughout the day and give them quick answers to their questions.
So it's, it's a lot of fun, especially if you're kind of a verbal communicator like I am. I love having Boxer Messaging for the consulting business. We use slack and I know some private practices also use slack for their internal communications. Again, it's an app. It integrates with Google Drive. It integrates with other things, um, other platforms that you can have all that kind of go within your slack communication.
Um, and there's different channels that you can use to communicate with people. We also use, uh, slack in my. Women's choir when we're trying to talk to each other about different things. So it's been a really great communication device for lots of different reasons. And of course, zoom, I use zoom for our wise practice meetings for basically all the meetings and for podcasts, social media managed, not social media management, project management, excuse me there.
So project management tools to help you organize your tasks and workflow. We use Asana and that's in the consulting business. I have thought about moving this over. To the group practice. I haven't done it yet, but Asana is a way to look at all your projects, move them through a workflow, have automations going on to be able to see what everyone is working on at any given time.
You can collaborate on projects, assign tasks to one another, design templates. So for example, if you have something that you do on a regular basis, maybe it's hiring, you could create a template in advance and it's a checklist. And all you got to do is hit, hit go. Put the new hires name in there and it will create all their tasks for them to do and they can check them off as they go within the system.
It is a really wonderful platform and then for podcast production, I use Lipson. So Lipson is a way that you can go in and look at your data from all your shows. You can post your shows and then it puts all those. out there on the different platforms without you having to go to each one. I've enjoyed using it.
It's the only one I've ever used. It's the one that people have recommended and it works for exactly what I need. For AI, I use ChatGPT. I hope you all know what ChatGPT is. If you don't, take a second to figure it out. It is game changer. It'll, you can put things in, it will pop it out, you can read it to see if it's how you want to say something.
I use it for email writing. I use it to summarize data that I've been given. I use it to put presentations together. For me, I struggle with the outline of a presentation. I have something in my mind, but putting it all together can be more challenging. ChatGBT will put it all together for me, and then I can just change it for what I need.
And then take it and put it into slides. So, those are all my favorite resources. Again, I want to encourage you to head to WISePracticeConsulting. com where you can get all this under the practice resources page. And as we're closing here, I want to mention a few of my other favorite things that are not necessarily platforms.
I think all therapists need to be thinking about their own therapy. You are busy helping clients. Make sure that you're taking care of yourself. I love the wise practice community where you have resources at your fingertips. Okay. And then you can help meet other practice owners and y'all can help one another talk about the things that you're using in your practice.
So if you want to know more about the last practice community, keep listening to the podcast. Cause we're going to talk about that throughout the month of January. Head to the website under, I believe it's under services. You can get more information about membership. I have the last practice summit.
That's once a year in October in 2025. It's going to be in Greenville. Please be setting money aside for that. If that's something that you missed this year and you wish you had gone. Put that money aside so that you can go just a couple of hundred dollars every month and then you'll have that ready to go.
And I have would be remiss to not mention it here at the end is consulting. Look at all the value you just got from this episode because I have personally researched and done these resources, right? So one of the things about consulting that's so great is you've got somebody who's already done the work to understand things and has helped other people do it.
They've learned a lot. So. Yes, consulting, you're paying for guidance and direction. You're also saving yourself so much time by someone that says, hey, here's how you do it. You don't have to go to research all these things. We've already done that for you. Here it is, so it could be research. I'll in different ways to market or different ways to hire or how to pay somebody or different liability insurances.
All that kind of stuff will be right there at your fingertips from coaching. So if you're interested in working with WISePractice, again, head to wisepracticeconsulting. com and go to services, fill out an application, or shoot me an email, whitney at wisepracticeconsulting. com. I'm so glad to share these resources with you, and I'm excited about 2025 and continuing the podcast and being with you guys.
I love hearing from you. Reach out anytime. I appreciate you and may you have a wonderful holiday season and a good start to 2025.
[00:37:24] Jingle: So click on follow and leave a review and keep on loving this work we do with Whitney Owens and the Wise Practice Podcast. Whitney Owens and the Wise Practice Podcast.
[00:37:42] Whitney Owens: Special thanks to Marty Altman. For the music in this podcast, the wise practice podcast is part of the site, craft podcast network, a collaboration of independent podcasters focused on helping people live more meaningful and productive lives to learn more about the other amazing podcasts in the network head on over to site craft network.
com. The wise practice podcast represents the opinions of Whitney Owens and her guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only, and the content should not be taken as legal advice. If you have legal questions, please consult an attorney.
