We connected with long-time Practice customer, Lena Suarez-Angelino about her day-to-day workflows and how she uses Practice to manage her coaching business.
To start, give us some background on your coaching business
Lena: The niche that I work with is burnout. I've always been very sensitive to burnout. I've always had a lot of stuff going on personally and professionally throughout my life - that's where my passion for coaching exists. My focus is to help clients cope and develop mechanisms in their lives to avoid burnout and better optimize their time for a healthy work-life balance.
Before Practice, how did you manage your business and your operations?
Lena: We tried a bunch of different tools to be honest. I won't name any names, but the hardest part about searching for a platform pre-Practice was finding something that would truly do all that I needed it to. Practice has really helped to streamline a lot of the stuff that was kind of piecemealed prior.
What was it like going from zero to one? How did you get your first client?
Lena: It was through a Facebook group that I connected with somebody. Our relationship transitioned from us commenting back and forth on a thread, to a direct message conversation, and then which led to inviting her into a coaching discovery call with me and kind of jumping off from there.
At the time it felt euphoric! You're super nervous, you're super excited just overall, like, wow, somebody trusts me. Somebody believes in the change and transformation that I can provide and just feeling so honored to be given that privilege to create that space for that person. So I think that that really has been especially in private practice through my coaching, it really has been such a profound and like, the greatest compliment I think anyone could give :)
How has your business changed from the first client to now? What do you wish you knew?
Lena: The biggest change in growing my business is how I prioritize my time. As a coach, fewer clients means less income - meaning when we start out, our livelihood is solely dependent on our ability to generate business and work with clients.
At the beginning of running my own business, I was much more flexible with my time. Working on nights and weekends to make time for clients – I had to be scrappy and willing to work around the clock to generate momentum.
As the business has grown I've had to invest in tools and products that make my life easier as my business scales. That means earning income and generating more business while I'm not actually in front of my computer or at my desk. Downloadables, eBooks and other resources that act as lead magnets are a great vehicle to push my priorities forward while I'm working through other projects or on personal time.
To my future self, I wish I would have known to invest in these tools earlier and lay the foundation for workflows and products that scale my business :)
Building on that, how has Practiced helped you scale?
Lena: Since 2019, I've worked with a select group of extremely loyal clients. They've witnessed me change back and forth between various platforms; I'm like, I'm going to try this video platform, and I'm going to try this text app, I'm going to try this, that, and a third. There is a lot of overhead that clients don't see or recognize, and of course, they wouldn't!
Before Practice, I'd started to accumulate a suite of tools that I needed simply to interact and connect with my clients. One tool for files, one tool for messaging, and so on. That not only became cumbersome for the clients – but it became expensive for me to simply run by business and operate day-to-day.
I remember onboarding a client and having to say, "I'm excited to have you onboard" and then proceed to send them seven different invites to tools just so they could stay in touch with me ;)
Above all else, Practice has helped me consolidate.
Specifically, a few parts of my operations stick out as having an immediate impact. Appointment reminders have been so so valuable to push my clients to show up on time. Messaging back and forth with clients in a secure way through the customer portal is huge! I no longer need to send them to a specialized messaging app, which absolutely makes my life much easier. Practice has helped me to keep everything in one place, hopefully for a very long time.
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On the front end of your business, how are your clients getting on with Practice? What do they enjoy?
Lena: When I introduced Practice to my clients, it was a bit of relief on their end – they'd been used to using a couple of different tools to communicate with me.
I'm ultimately engaging with clients more and more using Practice. They use their client dashboard to download and check files, send me messages, and access our to-do's. Plus, the email reminders are helpful for them! It's really just the one place they check if they need to connect or interact with me. It's neat that they can use the iOS app too.
You mentioned more control of your calendar to help scale your business. How does Practice help with that?
Lena: I've worked out my meeting schedulers on Practice so that setting multiple windows of availability was healthiest for my calendar to sync and for best accuracy.
Here's a screenshot example of what I use on any given scheduler so that I'm optimizing my weeks:
And on the client-side, having multiple reminders helps reduce no-shows or cancellations. I also send invoices for my monthly membership and my 1:1 coaching container.
Interested in connecting with Lena?
Lena's approach has a little bit of something for everyone. Lena has a way of providing individual and detailed care to all of the people under her care, while also making sure that you know you aren't alone in whatever you may be going through. Lena makes sure to never make you feel judged or dismiss any of your thoughts and feelings. Lena often uses a combination of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Motivation Interviewing, as well as Solution-Focused Therapy to help you achieve your goals. Lena often uses self-disclosure and storytelling to help you understand the situations you are in. Lena is not afraid to think outside of the box to make therapy feel inviting and safe for all.
Book a discovery call with Lena: https://practice.do/lena
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