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71 | Your Regularly-Scheduled Business Breakdown
If you stay in practice long enough, you'll have a business breakdown. These are periods where you're rethinking or restructuring at the highest level. During this time, things can get worse before they get better. In this episode, Camille discusses the inevitable disruptions that occur when you make big changes and shares her personal experiences of navigating a challenging time. She offers insights into how to manage these periods of upheaval and come out stronger on the other side.
Please note that Camille mentions a video podcast, but this is not happening for now :). It was an ill-fated experiment.
Key Points:- Introduction to the Episode (00:00:01)
- Understanding Disruptions in Clinical Practice (00:00:39)
- Having a full business breakdown is never fun, but it's something you can count on every few years.
- Navigating the Breakdown (00:02:11)
- An example from Camille's most recent business breakdown; perspective can help. It's okay and normal for this to happen, and you can get through the seemingly unending bits and pieces.
- Tips for Managing Business Tasks (00:04:24)
- No one feels fully prepared to deal with business disruptions. Keep a list of what needs to happen. Check things off. You'll get through it eventually whether you stress about it or whether you don't stress about it. Get help if you're stuck.
- New Podcast Platforms (00:08:06)
- The podcast will (hopefully!) be on YouTube as well as the standard podcasting platforms going forward. Check it out and let me know if you see it there!
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Camille's Helpful Links for Practitioners
Transcript
Speaker 1 (00:00)
Hi there. Welcome to In the Clinic with Camille. My name is Camille Freeman. I am a clinical herbalist and nutritionist. In this podcast, in this show, I share little tips and tidbits, behind-the-scenes peaks at things that might be helpful for other practitioners to know about doing this work. Here we are. You may notice that things are a little bit different in this podcast right now, and I'm going to explain why in this episode. I thought about calling this episode Things Fall Apart, after that famous book by Pima Chodran. But then I thought, You know what? That's a little dramatic, Camille. I'm not sure we need to go quite that extreme. But what I have been doing over the last few months, you might have noticed, there hasn't been an episode recently What's been happening is that it feels like my practice has been taken apart and I'm having to reput it back together. It's not necessarily a bad thing, it's a complex thing. It's just been a lot of admin, a lot of behind-the-scenes things all one after the other. I wanted to give you an inside scoop on that because over the years, I've noticed that this happens every so often.
Speaker 1 (01:15)
It took me probably 10 years to realize, Oh, this is just a normal part of the progression of running a clinical practice, probably running a business in general, although most of my experience has to do with working with myself and other people who have clinical practices, specifically. But it seems like what happens is every so often, every couple of years, the whole thing comes apart at the seams, often on purpose, not accidentally, but you get into a place where you're like, Wow, this is really complicated. Then you figure it out, you make your way through, and you go along for another few years, and then it all falls apart again, and you have to fix it. I wanted to share one experience of that, mine, so that when When this happens to you, maybe you will have a little bit more perspective than I did the first few times it happened to me, and you'll be able to navigate it a little bit better. Let's talk about what's been going on. First of all, some of you know this, but in February, I left my position as a university professor, where I've been working for almost 17 years.
Speaker 1 (02:20)
I had already gone down to halftime, but I left for good in February. That's been a big shift, and it triggered a a bunch of other things in my practice, which are great. Everything's good. I'm really enjoying being out on my own, and there's just a lot of behind-the-scenes work happening. The other big thing that's going on in my practice right now is I'm changing to being taxed as an escort. This sounds incredibly boring. Try not to drift off here. I'm talking about this. What that means is that I put myself on payroll, and there's a bunch of tax things that need to happen. I have to file with the Virginia I got to employer's commission, and I've got to call my accountant, and I have to meet the lawyer, and I got to figure out a reasonable salary for myself. There's just a lot of Forms and paperwork and phone calls, which I hate. I really don't like to make phone calls. These people don't text. I have to talk to them in person. All of this is happening, and it seems like every day there's a new thing. As a part of this process, I had a lawyer review a bunch of my forms, and of course, they all had suggestions and updates, which means every single form that I ever use for anything needs to be updated.
Speaker 1 (03:41)
All of this is happening, and I'm sorting through it little piece by little piece, and it's okay. I know I'll probably forget some things, and I'll have to go back and update them. But this is an example of how everything spins out of control a little bit, and then you have to slowly rein it back Like I said, it seems like this happens every few years. Some of you felt exactly this way when you were forming your business, where you were like, Oh, my gosh, I've got to file here and submit this form and get insurance and do my website. It's that feeling where you're like, There's so many things, and you feel more or less not prepared or qualified to do any of them, but somehow you do it. Okay, so that's what I'm talking about. The message that I have for you today is that as far as I can tell, nobody really feels prepared to deal with it. The best thing to do is just keep a running list, even if it's a complicated, messy, not very logical list, but just all the little things where you're like, Okay, got to do this.
Speaker 1 (04:42)
I need to do that. I should think about that. I should look into this. I should Google that. Just keep it somewhere and start going through them. For me, the most helpful thing is, after having been through a couple of cycles of this, is realizing that it does all get sorted out over time, that I can stress about it or I can not stress out about it, but eventually, one way or the other, all these things are going to get sorted out. Maybe, will you have to pay a small late fee for being late on something because you didn't realize it? Probably. That will happen every now and then. That's okay. That's just part of doing business is that sometimes you miss something. Usually, the government or whoever it is will send you a form and say, Hey, you missed this. Fyi, here's what you need to do. Okay, that'll happen, and then you'll learn better for next time. Or maybe you'll say, I think I need some help with this, and you'll reach out and you'll hire somebody, or you'll call somebody, or you'll go to the small business association or the local co-working space or something, and find somebody who knows what they're doing and get them to help you, sometimes paid, sometimes volunteer.
Speaker 1 (05:45)
Maybe you'll meet somebody who's interesting and helpful to know. Maybe you'll make a friend, or maybe you'll just have the sense of accomplishment of like, Okay, I figured this out, even though I didn't know what I was doing, I found somebody who helped me know what I was doing. The benefit of this Doing this decentralized, just like blowing things up a little bit and then putting them back together every now and then, is that you really do get a chance to look at things individually. It's been my experience that things When you put them all back together, they're better than when they were before. Sometimes it's like cleaning out a closet where sometimes it looks way worse in the middle. It looks 10 times worse than it was when you started. But by the time you finish, it feels more organized and you've gotten rid of a bunch of stuff and you know where things are and it's like, Oh, okay, this is way better. But you got to get through that really not great part in the middle. All right. Hopefully, this has been not depressing and not overwhelming, but helpful for you to understand that this is probably going to happen to you.
Speaker 1 (06:48)
Maybe you'll decide to change your niche and everything will need to change, or maybe you'll realize you want to change your whole business or you'll decide to go from being a sole proprietor to an LLC, or you'll move to a different state and there'll be new protocols and processes that you have to do, or whatever. Those are all examples of these periodic low ups that you then sort through slowly, one strand at a time, while, I will add, maintaining everything else that's going on in your practice, seeing your clients and doing your marketing and promotional activities and writing your newsletter, whatever else it is that you're doing. If this happens, when this happens, remember, it's normal. It is going to happen. It's just a matter of what the system or what the scenario is that's going to blow your business up a little bit. It's going to happen. You're going to get through it, even if it feels yucky in the middle and it feels overwhelming. It's just a matter of time. It's just a matter of slowly, slowly, slowly going through those things and that there's help available as you do it. But anyway, it's going to happen.
Speaker 1 (07:59)
It's going to happen. All right, so bringing this back to the podcast. Some of you, maybe, will be watching this on YouTube because one of the things that fell apart at the same time as I'm doing this whole S Corp situation, I found out that the podcast service I've been using, which is Spotify for podcasters, they're changing things up, and they used to have a system that's very easy. I would just log in and I would talk for a little while. I could click a couple buttons and add my intro and add a little music, and then it was done. As a FYI, I don't do any editing or anything. I just talk and post. That's my podcasting process. They took that away and it became much more complicated. There was another service involved and blah, blah, blah. It had involved sound boards and things. I'm like, I can't. I don't need to get involved with that. What happened is I'm using a different service now. I had to move the whole podcast to a different place. This new service that I'm using, which is ZenCaster, in case anyone's interested, it comes with the option to do video at the same time, and they'll just publish the podcast to YouTube as well as all the podcasting channels.
Speaker 1 (09:11)
So I thought, Okay, why not? I'm probably going to have to brush my hair every now and then if I'm going to do video on my podcast, but maybe it'll be helpful. This, if I do everything correctly, will be the very first podcast episode that goes up on YouTube. So if you prefer to watch something on YouTube versus listen to it on your podcasting platform, then you should have that option. There's nothing fancy on the YouTube, just so you know. It's just a video of me sitting at my desk. But anyway, maybe some people prefer that. The podcast is now going to be available going forward as a video or an audio, and we're going to see how it goes. I haven't figured out how to add music or intros and outros yet to this new system, so it's just a video or an audio of me talking. But anyway, that's what's been going on with my life. That's my little spiel to you about how things are just going to explode a little bit in your business every so often, and that's normal. It's expected. It's hard, and you're going to come out stronger on the other side.
Speaker 1 (10:23)
Okay, so have a really wonderful rest of your day. I hope you have enjoyed this, and come back and see me another time. Talk to you soon.
Hi there. Welcome to In the Clinic with Camille. My name is Camille Freeman. I am a clinical herbalist and nutritionist. In this podcast, in this show, I share little tips and tidbits, behind-the-scenes peaks at things that might be helpful for other practitioners to know about doing this work. Here we are. You may notice that things are a little bit different in this podcast right now, and I'm going to explain why in this episode. I thought about calling this episode Things Fall Apart, after that famous book by Pima Chodran. But then I thought, You know what? That's a little dramatic, Camille. I'm not sure we need to go quite that extreme. But what I have been doing over the last few months, you might have noticed, there hasn't been an episode recently What's been happening is that it feels like my practice has been taken apart and I'm having to reput it back together. It's not necessarily a bad thing, it's a complex thing. It's just been a lot of admin, a lot of behind-the-scenes things all one after the other. I wanted to give you an inside scoop on that because over the years, I've noticed that this happens every so often.
Speaker 1 (01:15)
It took me probably 10 years to realize, Oh, this is just a normal part of the progression of running a clinical practice, probably running a business in general, although most of my experience has to do with working with myself and other people who have clinical practices, specifically. But it seems like what happens is every so often, every couple of years, the whole thing comes apart at the seams, often on purpose, not accidentally, but you get into a place where you're like, Wow, this is really complicated. Then you figure it out, you make your way through, and you go along for another few years, and then it all falls apart again, and you have to fix it. I wanted to share one experience of that, mine, so that when When this happens to you, maybe you will have a little bit more perspective than I did the first few times it happened to me, and you'll be able to navigate it a little bit better. Let's talk about what's been going on. First of all, some of you know this, but in February, I left my position as a university professor, where I've been working for almost 17 years.
Speaker 1 (02:20)
I had already gone down to halftime, but I left for good in February. That's been a big shift, and it triggered a a bunch of other things in my practice, which are great. Everything's good. I'm really enjoying being out on my own, and there's just a lot of behind-the-scenes work happening. The other big thing that's going on in my practice right now is I'm changing to being taxed as an escort. This sounds incredibly boring. Try not to drift off here. I'm talking about this. What that means is that I put myself on payroll, and there's a bunch of tax things that need to happen. I have to file with the Virginia I got to employer's commission, and I've got to call my accountant, and I have to meet the lawyer, and I got to figure out a reasonable salary for myself. There's just a lot of Forms and paperwork and phone calls, which I hate. I really don't like to make phone calls. These people don't text. I have to talk to them in person. All of this is happening, and it seems like every day there's a new thing. As a part of this process, I had a lawyer review a bunch of my forms, and of course, they all had suggestions and updates, which means every single form that I ever use for anything needs to be updated.
Speaker 1 (03:41)
All of this is happening, and I'm sorting through it little piece by little piece, and it's okay. I know I'll probably forget some things, and I'll have to go back and update them. But this is an example of how everything spins out of control a little bit, and then you have to slowly rein it back Like I said, it seems like this happens every few years. Some of you felt exactly this way when you were forming your business, where you were like, Oh, my gosh, I've got to file here and submit this form and get insurance and do my website. It's that feeling where you're like, There's so many things, and you feel more or less not prepared or qualified to do any of them, but somehow you do it. Okay, so that's what I'm talking about. The message that I have for you today is that as far as I can tell, nobody really feels prepared to deal with it. The best thing to do is just keep a running list, even if it's a complicated, messy, not very logical list, but just all the little things where you're like, Okay, got to do this.
Speaker 1 (04:42)
I need to do that. I should think about that. I should look into this. I should Google that. Just keep it somewhere and start going through them. For me, the most helpful thing is, after having been through a couple of cycles of this, is realizing that it does all get sorted out over time, that I can stress about it or I can not stress out about it, but eventually, one way or the other, all these things are going to get sorted out. Maybe, will you have to pay a small late fee for being late on something because you didn't realize it? Probably. That will happen every now and then. That's okay. That's just part of doing business is that sometimes you miss something. Usually, the government or whoever it is will send you a form and say, Hey, you missed this. Fyi, here's what you need to do. Okay, that'll happen, and then you'll learn better for next time. Or maybe you'll say, I think I need some help with this, and you'll reach out and you'll hire somebody, or you'll call somebody, or you'll go to the small business association or the local co-working space or something, and find somebody who knows what they're doing and get them to help you, sometimes paid, sometimes volunteer.
Speaker 1 (05:45)
Maybe you'll meet somebody who's interesting and helpful to know. Maybe you'll make a friend, or maybe you'll just have the sense of accomplishment of like, Okay, I figured this out, even though I didn't know what I was doing, I found somebody who helped me know what I was doing. The benefit of this Doing this decentralized, just like blowing things up a little bit and then putting them back together every now and then, is that you really do get a chance to look at things individually. It's been my experience that things When you put them all back together, they're better than when they were before. Sometimes it's like cleaning out a closet where sometimes it looks way worse in the middle. It looks 10 times worse than it was when you started. But by the time you finish, it feels more organized and you've gotten rid of a bunch of stuff and you know where things are and it's like, Oh, okay, this is way better. But you got to get through that really not great part in the middle. All right. Hopefully, this has been not depressing and not overwhelming, but helpful for you to understand that this is probably going to happen to you.
Speaker 1 (06:48)
Maybe you'll decide to change your niche and everything will need to change, or maybe you'll realize you want to change your whole business or you'll decide to go from being a sole proprietor to an LLC, or you'll move to a different state and there'll be new protocols and processes that you have to do, or whatever. Those are all examples of these periodic low ups that you then sort through slowly, one strand at a time, while, I will add, maintaining everything else that's going on in your practice, seeing your clients and doing your marketing and promotional activities and writing your newsletter, whatever else it is that you're doing. If this happens, when this happens, remember, it's normal. It is going to happen. It's just a matter of what the system or what the scenario is that's going to blow your business up a little bit. It's going to happen. You're going to get through it, even if it feels yucky in the middle and it feels overwhelming. It's just a matter of time. It's just a matter of slowly, slowly, slowly going through those things and that there's help available as you do it. But anyway, it's going to happen.
Speaker 1 (07:59)
It's going to happen. All right, so bringing this back to the podcast. Some of you, maybe, will be watching this on YouTube because one of the things that fell apart at the same time as I'm doing this whole S Corp situation, I found out that the podcast service I've been using, which is Spotify for podcasters, they're changing things up, and they used to have a system that's very easy. I would just log in and I would talk for a little while. I could click a couple buttons and add my intro and add a little music, and then it was done. As a FYI, I don't do any editing or anything. I just talk and post. That's my podcasting process. They took that away and it became much more complicated. There was another service involved and blah, blah, blah. It had involved sound boards and things. I'm like, I can't. I don't need to get involved with that. What happened is I'm using a different service now. I had to move the whole podcast to a different place. This new service that I'm using, which is ZenCaster, in case anyone's interested, it comes with the option to do video at the same time, and they'll just publish the podcast to YouTube as well as all the podcasting channels.
Speaker 1 (09:11)
So I thought, Okay, why not? I'm probably going to have to brush my hair every now and then if I'm going to do video on my podcast, but maybe it'll be helpful. This, if I do everything correctly, will be the very first podcast episode that goes up on YouTube. So if you prefer to watch something on YouTube versus listen to it on your podcasting platform, then you should have that option. There's nothing fancy on the YouTube, just so you know. It's just a video of me sitting at my desk. But anyway, maybe some people prefer that. The podcast is now going to be available going forward as a video or an audio, and we're going to see how it goes. I haven't figured out how to add music or intros and outros yet to this new system, so it's just a video or an audio of me talking. But anyway, that's what's been going on with my life. That's my little spiel to you about how things are just going to explode a little bit in your business every so often, and that's normal. It's expected. It's hard, and you're going to come out stronger on the other side.
Speaker 1 (10:23)
Okay, so have a really wonderful rest of your day. I hope you have enjoyed this, and come back and see me another time. Talk to you soon.
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