EP 32 | Vancouver Therapist on Building a Group Practice: Why Therapists Make Reluctant Business Owners

39 | How Do You Make the Jump From Solo to Group Practice with Laura Boyko

If you are a Canadian therapy practice owner who has spent years leading teams and still feels surprised by how different it is to lead your own group practice, this episode is for you. Cecilia sits down with Laura Boyko, MSW, RSW, [https://bewelltherapy.ca/registered-social-worker-laura-boyko-msw-rsw/] founder of BeWell Therapy [https://bewelltherapy.ca/] in Whitby, Ontario, to talk about the emotional reality of going from solo to group, why a decade of leadership experience doesn't fully prepare you for putting your own name on the door, and how to lead people well without letting every decision become an emotional one. This is the People pillar — and it is the piece most established practice owners assume they've already mastered. In This Episode: Why your leadership credentials and years running teams still won't fully prepare you for the emotional weight of a practice with your own name on the door. How to notice when a business decision is being driven by emotion, and what it takes to strip that out without becoming cold or detached. The "I should already know this" trap that hits hardest for owners with the most experience, and why private practice leadership is a genuinely different skill set. Why the post-pandemic drop in people showing up to in-person community events may run on a roughly seven-year cycle, and what that means for how you plan your practice between now and 2028. The leadership and finance gap many women in business carry, and why getting honest with your numbers and hiring for your blind spots matters more than doing it all yourself. Resources + Links Mentioned: * 🌐 Website: ceciliamannella.com [https://www.ceciliamannella.com/] * 💼 LinkedIn: Connect with Cecilia [https://www.linkedin.com/in/cecilia-mannella/] * Laura Boyko / BeWell Therapy — Instagram @bewell.therapy [https://www.instagram.com/bewell.therapy/], website bewelltherapy.ca [https://bewelltherapy.ca/] Ready to Stop Leading in Isolation? Join The Practice CEO Circle You've built something real. A full caseload, a respected reputation, a team that's growing. And if you're honest, you're carrying most of it alone, because there's no one at your level to think it through with. The Practice CEO Circle is the executive-level peer space for established Canadian therapy practice owners who are done figuring it out in isolation. A curated room of leaders operating at the CEO level, where the conversation already assumes competence and goes somewhere you haven't been. For those who are looking for something beyond another FB group. → Join The Practice CEO Circle [https://www.ceciliamannella.com/the-practice-ceo-circle]

38 | Leading a Group Practice with Haley Moore: Why Therapists Who Built a Team Are Still Acting Like a Friend Instead of a Leader

If you are a Canadian therapy practice owner looking to grow a virtual group therapy practice and have noticed that you're leading more like a friend than a boss, this episode is for you. Cecilia sits down with Haley Moore, RSW, founder of the virtual group practice Therapy Uninterrupted, to unpack how she transitioned from a solo and lonely practice to a team of six in just two years, and the leadership identity shift that growth necessitated. This is the People pillar in action, and it's the piece most established practice owners quietly skip. In This Episode: Why Haley deliberately hired a student before an established therapist, and how lower stakes plus a clean slate let her build her processes around someone still learning. Why a team of six in two years isn't slow growth at all, when business benchmarks treat 40% year-over-year as accelerated and she's far exceeded it. How standing optional weekly meetings plus twice-yearly in-person gatherings solved the team-connection problem without making the owner coordinate everyone's calendar. Why no encounter is a chance encounter in a virtual practice, so team connection and clinician comparison have to be engineered on purpose. How running short, low-cost experiments like walk-and-talk therapy and one-off workshops opens new revenue streams without committing to a lease. Resources + Links Mentioned: * 🌐 Website: ceciliamannella.com [https://www.ceciliamannella.com/] * 💼 LinkedIn: Connect with Cecilia [https://www.linkedin.com/in/cecilia-mannella/] * 🌐 Haley Moore — Therapy Uninterrupted: therapyuninterrupted.ca [https://www.therapyuninterrupted.ca/] * 📸 Therapy Uninterrupted on Instagram: LINK [https://www.instagram.com/therapyuninterrupted/] Work With Cecilia — The Practice CEO Circle™ You've built something real. A full caseload, a respected reputation, a practice that runs — mostly — on your own steam. And if you're honest, you're carrying it alone. The payroll math, the profit questions, the leadership decisions you can't talk through with your own team. The Practice CEO Circle™ is the executive-level peer room for established Canadian therapy practice owners who are done being the most advanced person in every space they're in. A curated mastermind where the baseline assumption is competence — and where you finally get to think out loud with people who actually understand what it's like to lead a practice and stay a clinician. → Join The Practice CEO Circle [https://www.ceciliamannella.com/the-practice-ceo-circle]

37 | From Free Consults to Paid Structure: What Increasing Revenue Without Raising Rates Actually Requires

If you are a Canadian therapy practice owner who keeps being told to "just raise your rates" but senses that isn't the real answer, this episode is for you. Cecilia breaks down how to increase revenue without raising rates by restructuring two things most established practice owners never question: free consults and the unpaid work happening outside the session hour. This is the Profit pillar in action, and it is the piece most practice owners skip entirely because they assume their pricing is the problem when their structure actually is. Whether you're a solo practitioner or a group practice owner, this episode is for you. In This Episode: Why your clients are never paying for the 50-minute hour, and what the session is actually a container for. The reason "just raise your rates" is the wrong fix when the real issue is how your services are structured. The real annual cost of free consults: how 10 consults a month at a $200 rate quietly drains roughly $11,000 a year. What happens to your bottom line when 60% of consult-seekers book a paid first appointment instead, and why strong website copy makes that conversion possible. How packaging assessments and between-session work as opt-in à la carte add-ons recovered $30K–$40K a year for one client, without raising rates across the board or working more hours. Resources + Links Mentioned: * 🌐 Website: ceciliamannella.com [https://www.ceciliamannella.com/] * 💼 LinkedIn: Connect with Cecilia [https://www.linkedin.com/in/cecilia-mannella/] * The Practice CEO Circle — Cohort 2 enrollment is open. Application-only, limited seats. Apply to join the room [https://www.ceciliamannella.com/the-practice-ceo-circle]

36 | Scaling Your Therapy Practice: The Complexity that Happens

If you are a Canadian therapy practice owner who is mid-scale and feeling business thinking leak into every hour of your personal life, this episode names the real cost of scaling a therapy practice — and what it actually takes to get your business and your life back. Cecilia walks through what no one warned her about: how the more you scale, the wider your world gets, and the more complexity quietly costs you presence in the relationships you love. She names the specific commitment she made six to seven years ago that gave her back her personal life and sharpened her business strategy, and why the room you sit in matters more than another business book. This is Purpose — and it is the piece most established practice owners skip entirely. In This Episode: * When you start a practice, your world is narrow — client acquisition, positioning, being a good clinician — and as you scale, it gets wider, with hiring, firing, cash flow, insurance, team dynamics, tax structures, leases, and software stacks coming at you like a fire hose that keeps getting bigger. * The real cost of scaling isn’t financial — it is showing up late to family birthdays, missing your nephew’s soccer games because you couldn’t leave a problem alone long enough to be present, and sitting through dinners you have zero recollection of the next day. * Why protecting your personal time gives you your business back — when business thinking stops leaking into every hour, your brain learns to do business thinking when you are actually doing business, and your strategy gets sharper and quicker. * The clinical skills that make you a brilliant therapist — sitting with discomfort, exploring complexity, honouring the slow unfolding of insight — are the same skills that paralyze practice owners into three weeks deciding whether to raise rates and six months researching whether to incorporate. * Why the therapy world’s competitive edge around practice ownership makes peer support feel unsafe — and why being in a room with other women running businesses interrupts the navel-gazing pattern your own brain can’t interrupt alone. Reflective Questions From the Episode Cecilia asks listeners to sit with these. Pick the one that feels most uncomfortable and stay with that one first. 1. How much wider has your world gotten — and what complexities have shown up with that? 2. How are you currently managing those complexities? Do you feel overwhelmed by them? 3. Where is your business thinking leaking into your personal life — the late-night Googling, the email on the weekends, the conversations with your partner that never stop being about work? 4. What can you commit to yourself to bring that back — to create allocated space just for business strategy thinking, instead of letting it leak into the rest of your life? 5. Where in your life are you trying to figure something out at midnight — alone — that you could be working through in a room of women who actually understand you? 6. What would it mean for you to have that room available to you every single week? Resources + Links Mentioned Website: ceciliamannella.com [https://www.ceciliamannella.com/] LinkedIn: Connect with Cecilia [https://www.linkedin.com/in/cecilia-mannella/] The Practice CEO Circle — application-only mastermind for established group practice owners (second cohort starts July). Apply to The Practice CEO Circle™ You’ve built something real. A full caseload, a team, a practice that mostly runs on its own steam. And if you’re honest, your world has gotten wider faster than you can keep up with — and business thinking is leaking into the hours you wanted for your life. The Practice CEO Circle™ is where that stops. Inside the room, we interrupt the over-thinking, we strategize together instead of alone at midnight, and we build the allocated business time that gives you back both your business strategy and your personal presence. A room of women running practices and businesses, calling each other forward, and refusing to navel-gaze. The second cohort starts in July. The application takes about fifteen minutes. → Apply to The Practice CEO Circle [https://www.ceciliamannella.com/ceo-circle-apply] Learn more about The Practice CEO Circle [https://www.ceciliamannella.com/the-practice-ceo-circle] Subscribe + Share If this episode landed for you, share it with one therapist who needs it. You know who she is. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/purpose-and-profit-the-sustainable-therapy-practice-podcast/id1821250797] | Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/6uUTRcFHMB8RqEFV2chQfU?si=3VWrG0m3TsiuZYDK-UXW2Q] Leave a review — it takes 90 seconds and helps more Canadian therapists find this work.

35 | Treating Yourself as the Asset: The Identity Shift Most of us Resist

If you are a therapy practice owner who treats her own time as a discount line and dresses up depletion as service, this episode reframes treating yourself as the asset of your therapy practice — not as selfishness or entitlement, but as the most ethical leadership stance you can take. Cecilia walks through why your wisdom, energy, decisions, and creativity are appreciating assets in your business, what shifts the moment you start protecting them with systems, and how the asset frame extends outward to your associates, admin, accountant, supervisor, peers, and clients. This is Purpose — and it is the piece most established practice owners skip entirely. In This Episode * Why treating yourself as the asset of your therapy practice is not entitlement, objectification, or transactional language — it is the precondition for everything else you actually want to build. * The gut-punch leadership question Cecilia sat with for years: who in your business, including you, is being protected as the asset whose time, energy, and decisions are systematically guarded — and what does it tell you that this isn’t how you treat yourself? * Why “I’m behind” misunderstands the nature of who you actually are — your wisdom and decision-making capacity are appreciating assets, and every year you’ve spent in this work has made you more valuable, not less. * What changes when you extend the asset frame outward — to associates, admin, accountant, supervisor, peers, and clients — and how it reshapes feedback, hiring rejection emails, conflict, and how you respond when someone (including you) makes a mistake. * The difference between asset-based leadership and entitlement — why “take what’s yours, demand what you deserve” is the patriarchal version of this teaching, and what the feminist collaborative version actually sounds like. Reflective Questions — Cecilia’s Rumbling Questions Cecilia explicitly asks listeners to sit with these. Pick the one that feels most uncomfortable and stay with that one first. 1. Where are you not seeing yourself as the asset right now — your schedule, your time, your attention, how you’re managing your team, your hiring? 2. How are your time, energy, decision-making, creativity, and health the assets of your business — and how are you currently treating them? 3. What conversations do you need to be having from the position of being an asset, with whom, and about what? What conversations have you been avoiding? 4. How would you deliver a hard conversation differently if you believed the other person was also an asset? 5. How would you rise from a failure as an asset, gathering another layer of value rather than feeling diminished? 6. What is different when you see your business as a lasting asset — yours and everyone else’s — for years to come? Resources + Links Mentioned Website: ceciliamannella.com [https://www.ceciliamannella.com/] LinkedIn: Connect with Cecilia [https://www.linkedin.com/in/cecilia-mannella/] The Practice CEO Circle — application-only mastermind for established group practice owners (next cohort starts July). Apply to The Practice CEO Circle™ You’ve built something real. A full caseload, a team, a practice that mostly runs on its own steam. And if you’re honest, you’ve been treating your time as a discount line — free for everyone — while the wisdom and decision-making capacity that built this practice goes unprotected. The Practice CEO Circle™ is where that stops. Inside the room, we learn to see ourselves and each other as assets — protecting time, decisions, and energy with systems, rumbling with the hard conversations together, and leading from recognition instead of depletion. The next cohort starts in July. Application takes about fifteen minutes, followed by a fit call. → Apply to The Practice CEO Circle [https://www.ceciliamannella.com/ceo-circle-apply] → Learn more about The Practice CEO Circle [https://www.ceciliamannella.com/the-practice-ceo-circle] Subscribe + Share If this episode landed for you, share it with one therapist who needs it. You know who she is. Leave a review — it takes 90 seconds and helps more Canadian therapists find this work.