As your clients depart on summer vacations, you may find gaps opening up in your schedule. That’s good news in terms of freeing up time to enjoy your own fun in the sun, but bad news in terms of keeping cash flow going for your therapy practice.
The summer slowdown is real, and it can hit hard if you’re not prepared for it. Here’s how to help your therapy practice weather the seasonal slowdown, whether you’re preparing in advance or facing a sudden dip in revenue that’s taken you by surprise.
{{resource}}
Preparing your therapy practice for the summer slowdown
Whether you’ve been hit hard by the slowdown in the past, or it’s your first year in business and you’re determined to avoid a bummer summer, here’s how to prepare.
Budget for a dip in revenue
In order to create a monthly budget for your therapy practice, you need to:
- Create a list of your regular, recurring expenses (e.g. rent, utilities, professional fees) and determine how much they cost you each month.
- Figure out the average amount you pay each month in irregular, non-recurring expenses (e.g. office supplies, business meals).
- Determine how much revenue you can expect to earn each month.
- Make sure your revenue can cover your expenses while paying you a personal income.
Those are the essentials. For a deeper dive, check out our article on how to build a budget for your therapy practice.
Preparing for a seasonal slowdown means building a budget that takes into account reduced revenue.
That could include:
- Setting aside money in advance (making “summer savings” a monthly budget item during the rest of the year)
- Planning ways to reduce expenses during the summer slowdown
- Setting up additional income streams you can tap during the slowdown
The most important thing is to have a detailed plan with hard numbers, and that you stick to it.
Build a summer schedule that reinvests in your business
If there’s a period where you’ll be seeing fewer clients, make specific plans to use the free time in your schedule to improve your business.
The average small business owner has an ever-growing to do list full of items that never seem to get done. This is your opportunity to check a few items off—particularly ones that will help your practice grow or become more financially secure in the future.
For example:
- Catching up on bookkeeping
- Setting up a bookkeeping system if you don’t already have one
- Organizing receipts for expenses you’ll claim on your tax return
- Doing a middle-of-the-year tax checkup so you’re ready when tax season arrives
- Setting up new scheduling or billing software that will save you time in the future
- Exploring alternative revenue streams like online courses, workshop facilitation, or self-publishing
- Planning and launching an advertising campaign on social media
- Testing out marketing channels like YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram
- Networking—having coffee with former colleagues, attending local meetups for therapists
Making sure your schedule is full during the seasonal slump has a side benefit: You’ll be taking an active role in your business, rather than passively accepting your circumstances, which can help give you a sense of agency and fight off the summertime blues.
Set expectations when it comes to extended absences
Make it clear to your regular clients what you expect from them if they need to take an extended break from therapy (two or more sessions in a row).
This is different from your cancellation policy, which typically takes the form of a cancellation cutoff, after which the client is expected to pay your hourly rate even if they don’t make it to the session.
Your extended break policy applies to foreseeable absences. For instance, if your client is planning to miss two or more sessions in a row, you might ask that they give you at least six weeks’ warning so you can adjust your schedule.
If possible, include this extended absence agreement in a package including your cancellation policy and have clients sign it when they begin ongoing treatment.
Exactly how you navigate the agreement will depend on your own style of therapy and may even vary client-to-client based on their needs. For instance, you may be more lenient about receiving notice in advance for clients you see twice a month compared to ones you see twice a week.
But make it clear that the policy is meant to keep your practice operating in a stable, sustainable way, for the benefit of your clients—not just your personal finances.
Go on vacation with your clients
Literally going on vacation with your clients would breach numerous professional and ethical boundaries. And it probably wouldn’t be much fun for either party.
But do consider scheduling your own time off to match your clients. It may make more sense to leave on vacation for a week or three during a time when your schedule would be half empty anyway.
It could mean changing up your own routine. Maybe you prefer taking a couple of weeks off each year for a ski vacation, but most of your clients are away in August.
But in exchange for going with the flow, you’ll have an easier time planning your time away, and your total income for the year may end up taking a smaller hit.
{{resource}}
What to do when the summer slowdown surprises you
Maybe it’s your first year as a self-employed therapist, or your first year where 100% of your income is coming from your own practice.
In either case, the summer slowdown has taken you by surprise. Half your clients are flying to Cancun, and the other half are canceling their sessions because “something came up” (the sun is out). Here’s how to handle it.
Double down on secondary income streams
Thanks to the wonders of the internet, today’s therapists have more opportunities than ever to set up income streams outside of regular clinical hours.
That could mean:
- Running online courses
- Facilitating online workshops for fully-remote organizations
- Providing consulting services to other self-employed therapists
- Writing and publishing ebooks, a blog, or a SubStack
- Operating a therapy themed YouTube channel and collecting ad revenue
Or it could mean more traditional revenue streams, like facilitating onsite workshops for organizations, running group sessions at recovery centers, shelters, and churches, or providing clinical supervision.
Now that your schedule has suddenly opened up, it’s time to redirect focus to your secondary sources of income.
It may not translate directly to an immediate spike in revenue—how many group therapy programs do you think you could fill up on short notice?—but it’s still a chance to get proactive and help offset the overall dip in income.
For instance, you might use the extra time to create and launch a new online course, wrap up the next draft of your ebook, or grab coffee with a leader at a local treatment center or church.
Reinvesting your time in improving your secondary revenue streams now could mean a smaller shock next year when the summer slowdown comes around.
Trim the fat from your schedule
If you’re going to be spending less time with patients during summer, keep your reduced hours concentrated over a particular period so you can use the rest of your time wisely.
For instance, if all but one of your Friday sessions will be canceled in August, ask your one remaining Friday patient if they can reschedule to a different day of the week.
If they can, it will free up an entire day of the week you can dedicate to your business—whether that’s bolstering secondary revenue streams, reinvesting in your practice with new marketing efforts, or simply catching up on patient notes.
Reinvest in your practice with new marketing
Updating the marketing channels for your private practice is like putting a new coat of paint on an old fence.
A Psychology Today profile that hasn’t changed in four years, a website that still lists your old office’s address, a Facebook page you haven’t used since you created it last July. They’re all eyesores, the kind of nagging, I-should-take-care-of-that chores that can seem like a bigger and bigger effort the longer you put them off.
Updating your marketing channels won’t just silence that nagging voice in the back of your head, it will have a measurable effect on the number of new clients you attract in the future.
Additional clients—or a long waitlist, if your dance card is already full—can help protect you from unforeseen downturns in the future. And a fresh new face for your practice can provide a confidence boost while you’re weathering the summer slowdown.
—
Need to take a holiday of your own? Learn how to plan for a vacation as a therapist.
This post is to be used for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, business, or tax advice. Each person should consult their own attorney, business advisor, or tax advisor with respect to matters referenced in this post.
Bryce Warnes is a West Coast writer specializing in small business finances.
{{cta}}
Maximize your tax season savings with limited-time pricing.
