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August 6, 2025 14 mins

Financial frustration doesn't have to be the norm for therapy practice owners—there are three critical secrets to achieving peace of mind and taking control of your business finances.

• Understanding exactly where your money is going through a detailed financial snapshot
• Setting clear financial goals and making incremental changes over 12-18 months
• Implementing a cash management system like Profit First to simplify accounting
• Paying yourself regular, consistent paychecks instead of taking money sporadically
• Creating quarterly profit bonuses as a reward for business ownership
• Building cash reserves to eliminate feast-or-famine cycles
• Transitioning from working in your business to working on your business
• Designing your practice to support your ideal lifestyle, not just cover basic expenses



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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
When I meet business owners, they are frustrated with
the finances, to say the least.
There's a lot of things thatcan cause us to feel stuck or
that there's no traction.
Well, today I'm going to bewalking you through three
secrets to financial peace ofmind.
We're going to talk about threecommon areas that are a pain
point for business owners, justlike you, and ways that I help

(00:23):
them get past that and show themhow to overcome that to reach a
place of financial peace ofmind.
My name is Craig and I'm theowner of Daisy Financial
Coaching.
Our team is on a mission tomake your therapy practice
permanently profitable.
If you own a solo or grouppractice, we're here to help you
build a business that createsmore time, makes more money and

(00:46):
serves more people.
This is the Therapy BusinessPodcast.
This is a big video todaybecause I'm going to be doing a
deep dive into the most commonpain points business owners have
, which I can almost guaranteeone of them will resonate with
you and not only that, but howto overcome them.
Exactly what I do to showbusiness owners have which I can

(01:06):
almost guarantee one of themwill resonate with you and not
only that, but how to overcomethem.
Exactly what I do to showbusiness owners how to fix this
problem, so that they haveclarity, so that they have peace
, they know what's going on withthe money they're paying
themselves more.
There's just so many benefitsto this, and not only that your
business grows and you can servepeople better.
So let's dig into the threethings, and I'm going to start
here with number one.
The first flat, and how are wegoing to fix this?

(01:29):
Business owners have no ideawhere the money's going in their
business.
This is one of the most commonproblems.
Common complaints is I don'tknow what's going off my money.
Sometimes I'll even meet with abusiness owner for the very
first time and we start lookingat their finances, or I'll ask
them questions about how muchthey spent or how much did you
take home last year, and no idea, no clue.

(01:52):
I don't know what it was.
All I know is there's notanything in the bank or I'm not
getting paid where I want to getpaid.
So what do we do?
What's the fix to this and whatdoes the end result look like
after I walk a client through aprocess?
Well, they have clarity andcontrol of all cash that's in
the business, if a dollar comesinto that business, they know

(02:14):
exactly what's going to happento it, where it's going, and if
there is a deficit somewhere,they know why, they know where
and we know how to problem solvethat.
So how do we get to that point?
How do we go from no idea toclarity and control?
Well, there's three largepieces to this.
I'll move my face out of theway.
Number one we need to have afinancial snapshot.

(02:35):
We need to know where youcurrently stand in this whole
process.
What is going on with yourmoney today?
How much are you spending onexpenses?
How much are you payingyourself?
How much are you setting asidefor taxes?
Or what is your profit?
If anything, what's yourpayroll?
We want to take a look and getan idea of this snapshot.
This is what I do with a client.

(02:56):
When they first come on board.
We sign up before our firstmeeting.
They give me a glimpse intosome of their finances and I do
all the number crunching forthem.
They don't have to do anything.
They just hand me maybe theirprofit and loss statement or
cash flow statements, whateverthey have, and I dig into it and
I come to them with a reportand say here is where you are
today.
You're spending 70% onoperating expenses.

(03:17):
You're spending, you're settingaside nothing for taxes, right?
So on and so on.
And once we have an idea ofwhere you are today, then we can
set a goal for where you needto be.
And that's the second piece howdo we have clarity in our money?
Is we need to know what claritylooks like.
What does that end goal, whatdoes a healthy business look

(03:39):
like?
That's another thing I do.
So we know where you'restarting.
We need to know where you needto be financially.
That's another thing I do.
So we know where you'restarting.
We need to know where you needto be financially.
And so, with that snapshot, hereyou are.
Today.
You're spending 70% onoperating expenses, and what I
recommend for your business is30% or 40% or whatever.
And so we're going to get youto that end goal.
We're going to help you reducethose expenses.

(04:00):
And I see you're only payingyourself 20%, but you want to be
paying yourself more, so we'regoing to move you up to 50% or
whatever it is.
We want to know what that endgoal is.
So your starting point and yourend point.
And again, when I sit with aclient for the first time this
is our first meeting they'regetting.
Here's where you are today,here's where I'm going to take
you or I'm going to help you getto.

(04:21):
And then the third piece is thework we do together and they're
pretty intensively for the firstsix months or so is putting
that game plan into action.
We want to put it into work.
What that looks like is slowand incremental changes.
So here you're, at 70%.
Let's set a target for maybegetting your operating expenses
down to 67% by the end of the.

(04:43):
A couple percentage points eachmonth, start slowly bringing it
down, or every quarter bringingit down, so that over 12 to 18
months.
At that point you're at thatend goal.
And much like losing weight, wedon't want to lose 30 pounds
overnight.
We want it to be a healthychange and a sustainable change.

(05:06):
So I don't want somebodyjumping in and cutting their
operating expenses by 30% andexpecting it to be okay.
Usually, usually it's not.
So we want that slow,incremental change and that's
how we implement it and that'show we get you to that clarity
and peace of mind.
All right, the second flat, thesecond problem that most

(05:26):
business owners have that I helpthem with is not paying
yourself what you're worth,why'd you get into business man
If you're not paying yourselfwhat you're worth?
Why'd you get into business manif you're not paying yourself?
Right?
I say that jokingly, but it'salso true that we get into
business.
We quit our nine to fives, wequit our day job.
We did whatever to work forourselves for a reason, and, yes

(05:47):
, we would do it to serve peopleand we do it to help others
make more money or solve aproblem.
And we do it to serve peopleand we do it to help others make
more money or solve a problem.
We do it to make an impact onour community or on the world.
But you could do that workingfor someone else.
You could go find anestablished company and go work
for them and make the sameimpact, or at least a similar
impact, right?

(06:08):
No, the reason we go intobusiness for ourselves is for
selfish reasons, and that's okay.
Let me say that upfront.
I that is 100% okay.
In fact, I want us to recognizethat, that it's okay to have
selfish things and want to makemore money or want to have more
freedom of time, cause that'struthfully, why we work for
ourselves.
There's a lot of reasons and Iwant you to maybe reflect on

(06:31):
that.
Why did I go into business formyself versus for another
company?
And then, am I paying myselfwhat I'm worth?
Am I working 80 hours a weekfor scraps?
Would I be making more if Iwent and worked for someone else
?
Am I paying myself like the CEOor the most important employee

(06:51):
in the company?
Because that's what you are,and if you're not, we need to
fix that.
And let me tell you, mostbusiness owners are not.
Most of them are not payingwhat they're worth.
Even some of them I'd say mostof them don't feel satisfied
with their pay.
They feel like they want tomake more.
Some of them will come and belike I feel like I'm making, I'm
doing okay, but I'm like youcan be paying yourself more if

(07:12):
you really want it, and, ofcourse, no one turns that down
right.
So we want to take you from notpaying yourself what you're
worth to paying yourself moremoney more consistently.
That's the other piece.
We want it to be on aconsistent basis where you can
count on it month to month.
So how do I do that?
How do I help my clients get tothis point?
Well, number one is we need acash system.

(07:34):
We need a system in place towatch, monitor and really be
purposeful with those dollars.
I always say I want you to beproactive, not reactive when it
comes to your money, and so thesystem I recommend and that I
help my clients implement isprofit first.
This is taking the complexityof accounting and bookkeeping

(07:55):
and making it as simple andunderstandable as possible.
Former fourth grade teacherhere I like simplicity, so
that's what I want, and simpleis what we use.
If it's too complicated, we'regoing to ignore it.
Hence accounting documentsYou're probably not looking at
them and using them, but you'reusing your bank account and
that's what Profit First leansinto is your behavior.
Looking at your phone, lookingat your bank account to see how

(08:17):
do I stand in operating expenses, in profit, fill in the blank.
So we need that cash system.
That's exactly what I deliverto my clients.
I show them here's the accountswe need.
I help them get them set up.
I help them monitor, make themoves, take the money, put it
into each account and thentroubleshoot when problems arise
, which no change is never easy.
So those things are going tohappen.

(08:38):
We're going to hit thoseroadblocks.
Next thing that I prioritize isregular paychecks.
Listen, if you worked forsomeone else, they wouldn't let
you take whatever money youneeded when bills were due,
rents due or mortgage paymentsdue.
Oh, I'll pull a couple thousandout of the business account.
Oh no, I got to go mydaughter's ballet lessons.

(09:01):
I got to pay for those.
Let me go pull a couple hundredout of the.
The company wouldn't let you dothat.
Right, you'd be fired.
If you're constantly pullingmoney out as you need it, we
want you to be paid like a CEO.
We want you to be paid as ifyou were.
Pretend your company went outand hired you to manage it.
If another company came to youand hired you, you would expect

(09:21):
to be paid regularly, the sameamount of money on a same rhythm
.
So that's what I want you to doto yourself and that's what I
help my clients do.
Is we pinpoint a what do youneed to be taking home?
And then B how much?
What is that and how do we getyou to what is?
What percentage of your revenuewould equal that?
And we work it backwards,reverse engineer it.

(09:42):
You need X dollars.
Then you need to put X percentof your revenue into this
account and start payingyourself.
How often do you want to payyourself?
Weekly, biweekly, monthly, andlet's get you set up on that
rhythm.
And then finally, my favorite,the quarterly profit bonuses.
You've invested everything intothis business your time, your

(10:06):
money, years of your lifebecause, let's be honest,
especially in the early daysalthough I don't know that it
ever truly gets easier youprobably shed some years of your
life into this business of juststress and sleepless nights or
working really hard.
You deserve to be compensatedfor owning the business.
Your paycheck is your salaryfor running the business.
Your quarterly profit bonus isliterally a reward for owning a

(10:28):
successful business, being theowner, and what I do is I help
you implement, set it up.
So this is systematic.
It's not a one-time thing, it'sa habit.
Every three months, cash is setaside in your bank account to
be paid to you as a bonus, andthis is not to be used on
reinvesting in the businessright, because we got to grow.
No, this is not to be used onreinvesting in the business
right, because we got to grow.

(10:49):
No, this is to go on a vacation.
This is to buy that big flatscreen TV you've been wanting.
This is to fill in the blank.
This is to help you get out ofdebt.
Whatever you are focused ondoing, whatever you want to do,
that's what I want that money tobe utilized for.
So this is how we solve thatproblem of feeling like you're
not paid what you're worthregular paychecks, quarterly

(11:11):
bonuses and, finally, the thirdpiece.
The third thing that mostbusiness owners struggle with
that I help them fix is theirbusiness feels like a J-O-B,
just like what we were talkingabout.
You leave a nine to five forthat freedom, that time, that
money.
For that freedom, that time,that money.
And yet we're stuck working forourselves as the boss.

(11:32):
There's no difference.
We are just the boss who'sworking on us way too hard.
So what I want you to realizeand to accomplish, and in order
to have financial peace of mind,your business needs to support
your ideal work and life balance.
It needs to have.
You need to be balanced in whatyou want.
How much time do you want to beworking in the business?

(11:53):
How many hours do you want towork?
How much do you want to be paid?
That's where we should bestarting, and then again working
backwards, reverse engineeringthis business to support that.
So how do we get there?
Well, number one I help myclients build up a cash reserve.
Using that profit first system,helping them watch that,
helping them set goals, we buildup some cash savings.

(12:15):
This makes sure that you neverget stuck in feast or famine.
This means if the business issuccessful, then you're still
getting paid consistently.
If the business is struggling,you're still getting paid
consistently the same amountbecause you have a safety net a
cash safety net so that if youlose a big client, your paycheck

(12:38):
doesn't take a hit.
You have the money to help youmove through that, to get
through it.
Until you fill in those roles,revenue peaks back up.
It also means moving less inthe business and more on the
business, taking that ownershiprole, and this is what I help my
clients do.
Once the cashflow system is inplace, we start strategizing

(12:59):
their business, whether it'shiring, whether it's scaling,
whether it's looking at theirproducts, whether it's looking
at their day-to-day tasks.
How do we get you to be more ofan owner versus somebody who's
doing all the work inside thebusiness?
We want it to be where, if youwere to take a four-week
vacation, you would come backand the business made more money
than it did before you left,right.

(13:19):
So that's what I want to helpmy clients do and that's how we
get that ideal work-life balance.
And then finally, mostimportantly, your business
should support your lifestyle.
I don't want this to be a whatdo I need to cover the bills?
I want it to be how much do Ineed to make to achieve the
ideal, perfect lifestyle?

(13:40):
The one where I can travel andvacation as much as I want.
The one where we can go out toeat as often as we want.
The one where we can buywhatever we want or we can give
however much we want.
What does that ideal lifestylelook like?
And then we're going to craftand create a business that
supports that.
Thanks for joining us on theTherapy Business Podcast.

(14:03):
Be sure to subscribe, leave areview and share it with a
practice owner that you may know.
If your practice needs helpgetting organized with its
finances or just growing yourpractice, head to
therapybusinesspodcom to learnhow we can help.
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