a book by Julie Herres
Summary
Last month I finally got around to reading (actually listening to) a book written by one of my peer advisory board members, Profit First for Therapists: A Simple Framework for Financial Freedom by Julie Herres. I expected it to expand my mind, but what I didn’t expect was how directly applicable it is to my own business, or anyone running a counseling, consulting, or coaching business.
Now, I’m not in the therapy business and the book is most appropriate for therapy practices, but coaching and chairing like we do at Vistage is a pretty similar business model. So read on if you’re in the Counselor/Therapist or Coaching business. For those in other sectors, there are other Profit First books that you might want to look into, instead.
The basic gist is that no matter how good your intentions or how self-disciplined you are at budgeting, if you keep all of your money in one or two bank accounts, your intuition can be thrown off when you look at cash on hand, leading you to make bad spending decisions. Profit First for Therapists lays out a plan to manage money using multiple bank accounts, so you always have cash on hand for payroll, monthly bills, or the real killer – periodic taxes.
I loved listening to this book read by the professional yet helpful and even cheerful author. And Julie does a great job of explaining the problem and underlying causes, laying out a simple and incremental approach to fixing your money-management, and walking you through the very doable steps. And throughout, she always keeps in mind the end goal of ensuring that you can regularly take some profits out of your business without jeopardizing its operation. Towards the end, she even talks about how to scale your business safely – something we all aspire to, right?
So, if you run a small to mid-sized Counseling, Therapy, Consulting, or Coaching business, check out Julie’s book. And if you’re in the Therapy space, you can contact Julie’s team at GreenOak Accounting for financial advisory and bookkeeping services, too.
Notable Quotes
- “I realized that there was a thread of similarities among our clients who were making a healthy profit.” – Julie Herres
- “In Profit First, practice owners take their profit first rather than paying themselves what’s left over after expenses.” – Julie Herres
- “The Profit First method creates cash flow clarity with multiple bank account budgeting.” – Julie Herres
- “With the Profit First system, we use several bank accounts to trick ourselves into spending less, just as we might use small plates to eat less.” – Julie Herres
- “I rarely see the pretend bank accounts work in real life. It’s incredibly easy to borrow from an account when you don’t even need to go through the effort of a bank transfer.” – Julie Herres
- “I think that by the time you read the end of this book, you and your business will be transformed.” – Mike Michalowicz, author of Profit First
Deeper Discussion
You’re welcome to post questions or comments here and I and maybe Julie can answer, but there are some other, deeper reviews on the interwebs.
- Good Reads, which I recommend for anyone who reads as much as I do
- Relay, which is a bank with services that support the Profit First model
- Amazon, which is where I buy my Kindle and Audible books
If you want more information, check out the website Profit First for Therapists or Julie’s Therapy for Your Money podcast.
