How Susan Silver Went From Burned Out to Thriving In Business
Meet Susan!
She is a Licensed Psychologist in Denver, CO specializing in helping people break through self-defeating habits and patterns of self-sabotage that hold them back. Her mission is to utilize resilience-informed strategies to help clients bounce back from difficult situations and adapt well in the face of adversity.
When Susan reached out in the fall of 2021, she described her practice as ‘good enough.’ But in reality, she was depleted from hustling over the past two decades and - like most of us - feeling the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. She got to the point where her desire for a more fulfilling, well-balanced business outweighed the comfort of status quo.
She says,
“During the pandemic, I was working a ton and felt I needed to make some changes. Rachel helped me to clarify what I was really passionate about and what direction to focus my energy.”
Susan had been one of my very first coaching clients a few years back, so when she reached out to work together this time, it felt like a natural fit for each of us.
And thus began our journey of working together again.
Susan’s primary goals?
Work fewer hours.
Make more money.
Feel more engaged and lit up by her work.
Enjoy additional time steeped in self-care and with her family.
Highlights
Challenges:
Working too many hours
Self doubt and indecision
Unsure of her next steps
Solutions:
Examine and refine business model
Tracking systems
Expanded referral network
Journaling and mindset exercises
Results:
Increased revenue by 53%
Better work/life balance
Increased confidence
Challenges
When Susan and I started our work together, she had a pretty full practice. Finding clients wasn’t actually an issue for her, though her brain liked to offer her thoughts like “what if they stop coming” and “I don’t know how to market myself” and “I need just one more training to do help them.”
At the time, Susan was doing individual therapy via telehealth, and the many hours a day in front of the computer, engaged in intense treatment sessions, left her feeling burned out.
In addition, self-doubt kept her stuck. She was in a spinning cycle of indecision, giving over her power to other courses/certification programs (thinking they would provide the answer), and struggling to determine the best ways to continue supporting her clients without burning out.
The whole experience led her to have so many questions about what the next steps should be for her and her growing business, and a lack of clarity on how to move forward.
Solutions
We started by analyzing Susan’s business model, digging into the numbers to get clarity around her income relative to the time she was putting into her business. She began tracking her income and assessing her weekly capacity so we could understand more deeply the finances of her business.
What the numbers revealed was a story that Susan felt wasn’t aligned to the value she offered her clients. She was working far more hours than she was being adequately paid for. (This is a common revelation that’s uncovered when we get financially focused.)
One of the systems we explored and ultimately implemented was one that would allow her to limit her client capacity (hello, self-care!), streamline pricing and grow her revenue. But it wasn’t as simple as just putting this into action.
The mind drama that arises when heart-centered business owners who feel a deep sense of commitment to their clients try to make money-minded changes is steep. And it was no different for Susan.
She knew that to operate at her very best would mean making some big changes in her business, and though the journey to doing so would bring up all forms of possible resistance, she was in for it.
The plan:
+Learn how to navigate obstacles, fear, doubt and indecision
+Detach from the insurance panels (they demanded almost double the amount of time of each client session and didn’t pay value-aligned rates)
+Learn when to say yes and when to say no (based on her specific criteria)
+Create an authentic marketing strategy that leverages Susan’s strengths of building relationships one-to-one
+Build in intentional ME time for self-care, coffee with friends, a walk with the dog – really, anything that fills Susan’s heart and soul
+Commit to the capacity plan (which builds in time for everything Susan desires)
Throughout our six months of working together, Susan relied heavily on the accountability and thoughtwork that coaching provided in addition to the strategies I shared. She used the journal prompts I provided to examine her mind, challenge where it was getting stuck, and learn how to manage it more effectively… while bringing insights and roadblocks to our calls for deeper reflection and coaching.
Results
As a result of coaching and the changes Susan made in her business, she now consistently hits her financial goals (and has for the past 4 months) – increasing her monthly revenue by more than 50% since the time we started working together!
Even better, she’s doing it while working fewer hours with a better work/life balance.
Recently, I sent an email to Susan on a weekend day and I didn’t hear back for several days. She later reported that she had been spending time in the mountains with her family and was fully detached from her email. (YESSSSS!)
Not feeling chained to her business, Susan now operates from a confident knowing that her business doesn’t depend on her being in it 24/7. This is just her new normal.
Likewise, Susan no longer fears that the client pipeline will dry up. She has developed and solidified power partnerships with other industry experts who continue to refer her clients on a regular basis.
But the biggest impact of all has been on her mindset and confidence. Susan shared:
“I have grown in ways that I could not have anticipated when signing up for coaching. I feel like I am owning my expertise and “superpowers” in ways that I have not previously. I am more confident in recognizing the predictable process my brain goes through when I am up-leveling and owning my abilities to help others in beneficial ways.”
For those thinking about coaching, Susan says,
“Rachel provides compassionate support, skilled guidance and honest feedback. She is great at cutting through the “mind trash” and getting to the heart of the issue.”
Are you next?
To learn more about Susan and her counseling services and workshops, visit her website at www.drsusansilver.com
To learn more about getting these kinds of results in your business, schedule a call to speak with Rachel.