Five Steps To Start a Speech Therapy Private Practice Without Quitting Your Job

posted on SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

Have you toyed with the idea of starting a private practice, but the idea of quitting your job and striking out on your own gives you jitters? Believe it or not, you DON’T need to quit your full-time job before you start a speech therapy private practice. In fact, I encourage all my clients to stay at their job while they begin to build their business.

There are plenty of reasons why a ‘regular’ job as an SLP is a good gig. It’s a steady, reliable career, and by many, the pay is considered to be quite good. You know that you’re truly helping people and making a difference in your clients’ lives.

But a lot of the time, it can feel like you’re not really in control of your career. Many of us work long, exhausting hours, and despite our hard work feel we don’t command the respect we deserve. Perhaps your employer limits the type of therapy you can provide or the types of clients you can see. Many of my students who come to me are often suffering from burnout.

And while we may get small, incremental pay increases here and there, raises are not typically given, so our opportunity for upward mobility and growth is slim. For those of us with mouths to feed and mountains of student debt (all of us having two degrees under our belt!), the salary is often not enough to achieve our financial goals and provide for our families. 

By starting a private practice, you are putting yourself BACK in the driver’s seat. You can take control of your professional, personal, and financial life by starting a business - and it doesn’t have to be scary or overwhelming. How would it feel to be in control of how much you make? To be able to spend more time with your kids? To be able to practice the type of therapy YOU want to practice, on your own terms?

I want to show you how you can take this next step towards more freedom, flexibility and fulfillment, while staying on with your current employer. Here are the five steps you can take to make this transition gradually, while still reaping the benefits of full-time employment. 

1.) Start a Speech Therapy Private Practice By Seeing Clients On The Side

The first step to start seeing clients on the side is to take a good hard look at your schedule. When do you have some space in your calendar to take on private clients? For most of my students, this is usually evenings and weekends. If you are a School SLP, you may also see clients during the summer as schools are closed.

Once you figure out when you can see private clients, you’re going to want to start thinking about how many you can realistically see. Think about your capacity - outside of your full-time job, what other commitments do you have? Be honest with yourself about how much you can take on, and consider your financial goals as well. 

Since SLP’s can usually charge at least $100/hour, even just taking on a few private clients for 1-hour sessions per week could make a huge difference in your financial life. What would an extra $15,000 a year/mean to you? You can decide how much you’d like to make and work backward from there.

2.) Determine Which Clients You’ll See

After you’ve worked out when you’ll work with clients and how many you’ll see, you’ll want to work out what sort of clients you’ll work with. I always tell my clients that you want to be working with the type of clients that light you up and allow you to do your best work.

What sort of clients do you feel the most passionate about helping? Perhaps you feel you can bring the most value to children with autism, people with hearing loss, or adults with memory issues. Get clear on where you shine and who you want to help, as these will become your ideal clients.

One thing you’ll want to remember is to not solicit clients from your school district or your current employer, as that could be construed as a conflict of interest, or violate non-compete or non-solicit clauses. Instead, you’ll want to find clients who are either in neighboring school districts or don't directly conflict with your employer. For example, if you work with pediatrics in the daytime, maybe at night you could do work with adults on accent modification or transgender voice affirmation therapy.

 3.) Get Your Ducks in a Row to Start a Speech Therapy Private Practice

If you’re anything like most of the students I work with, you probably feel like you should get ALL your ducks in a row before starting your private practice. While preparation can be helpful, if you wait until you have everything 100% sorted to start your private practice, you’ll never start!

Trust me on this one - you can build as you go. You don’t need to have everything figured out before you take on that first client. What I suggest instead, is to just get a few of your ducks in a row - the basics - and then as your practice goes you can continue getting organized and set up properly.

The first three ducks you’ll want to get sorted are as follows: 

• Professional Liability Insurance
• Business License (If Needed In Your Town)
• Documentation System

Once you have these three things sorted, you can already begin helping your very first private practice client! 

Curious about the full list of everything you need to do to prepare to start a speech therapy private practice? I cover that in my free webinar, How to Start a Private Practice: Full-Time or "On The Side". Watch it on-demand here and learn about what you need to start a thriving speech therapy private practice (yes, even during a pandemic!). 

4.) Determine Your Hourly Rate

Before you can start seeing private clients, you’ll need to determine your hourly rate. So many new SLP’s make the mistake of calculating their hourly rate based on some sort of arbitrary “going rate”. Please don’t do this! Instead, calculate your hourly rate based on your value, taking into account your experience and your geographic location. 

Want to use a free calculator to see what your income potential is? For a limited time, I’m giving away access to the Annual Income Calculator as a gift for attending my free webinar, How to Start a Private Practice: Full-Time or "On The Side". Sign up here!

5.) Reduce Your Hours at Your Job as Your Private Speech Therapy Client Caseload Builds

The last tip I want to mention is that you’ll want to make this transition being full-time at your private practice gradual. Don’t just quit your job altogether the moment you’ve signed your first client!

So many of the qualms people have about starting a full-time private practice can be settled by simply staying on at their full-time job. You get to keep your health insurance, keep your consistent income, and keep building your retirement savings - all while having extra income for any start-up costs. As your speech therapy private practice grows, you can slowly begin to reduce your hours at your full-time job.

What once seemed very risky becomes a safe, gradual transition from employee to a full-time, financially stable business owner. This is exactly what I did and what I’ve been teaching others to do since 2007 - and since then I’ve helped over 10,000 ‘regular’ SLP’s start and grow their own private practices for more freedom, fulfillment, and flexibility.

I know how easy it is to tell yourself you need “more” before starting your own private practice. Perhaps you’re telling yourself you need more experience, more time, or more money.

But the truth is, you can gain clinical experience as you grow your practice. If you have enough experience to be employed - you have enough experience to bring something to the table as an independent clinician. And you DON’T need an abundance of time or money either (trust me...many of clients are women juggling full-time employment and motherhood, working their hardest to pay off debt and provide for their families!). Even just squeezing in a couple of appointments a week could make a real difference in your financial life and show you that the idea of owning your own private practice is a real possibility. 

The reality is that every day that you go without seeing private clients, you’re going without extra income and your clients are going without services. If you want to take that first step with me, my free 60-minute training is for you. How to Start a Private Practice: Full-Time or "On The Side" (even during a pandemic!) will help you get started and tell you exactly what you need to know to start your journey towards a successful speech therapy private practice.