Other sources of income

There are a number of ways in which you can add to, or maximise, your income from your practice. Some of these will require you to have developed your techniques and to have worked in your chosen therapy for a reasonable length of time in order that you can bring sufficient experience to your role. Some are based more on teaching and research:

• teaching – both members of the public and therapy students
• mentoring
• writing articles or books
• producing training manuals
• examining
• lecturing.

If you would like more information on these topics, see Chapter 7.

Other methods of generating more income will cause you to branch out in new ways:

• corporate work, or corporate health awareness days
• selling own brand products, eg tapes, oils etc
• working flexibly, eg offering phone and email consultations, teleconferencing
• hiring out your room to others
• keeping your costs down by regular review.

Corporate work

Some organisations have therapists working regularly within the company, others may be new to the idea. If you are looking to work within the corporate sector as an addition to your practice elsewhere, you can work in a peripatetic role. And if you are only visiting the company for an hour or two each week it may be easier for you to be allocated some space and an appropriate slot.

Do think carefully about how you can maximise your time, as this will also help you in your approach to the company. For example, if you are teaching yoga or t’ai chi, emphasise their relaxation benefits and the fact that you can work with a number (state how many) of people in each class or session. And be open to offering early morning, after work or lunchtime sessions. The company may decide to pay you for your services direct, in which case you will need to have given some advance thought to what you are going to charge as your corporate rate, or they may simply provide the space and you will need to collect payment from the staff members attending your sessions.

Selling your own products

All kinds of products get sold by therapists. For example:

• herbal remedies
• relaxation tapes or CDs
• self-help manuals
• essential oils
• equipment, such as made-to-order massage couches.

These are all sources of generating passive income, which are important in their own right as well as for their ability to help you over any lean times. If your products sell well, then you might want to consider producing and marketing some of your range in a more professional way, for example, getting your relaxation CDs recorded professionally or seeking retail outlets for your products. You will need to ensure that you have appropriate professional insurance cover and that you comply with any legislation concerning your products.

Working flexibly

Many life coaches have based their practice on telephone, fax or email contact rather than face-to-face consultations, and it’s worth exploring whether your practice could benefit from this extremely flexible way of working. The good news for the clients are the savings they can make in respect of both time and money. If your sessions can be conducted over the phone, your client will not have to spend time travelling to you for a session, and they can potentially fit the session in around their work or any home commitments much more easily. And, of course, it means that both of you can work from any location without distance being a barrier.

Some therapists who work in this way specialise in very short sessions with the client – not more than 30 minutes, and request that the client pay for a block of time in advance and deduct the session times as they are used. It tends to be therapists who are involved in ‘talking’ therapies who can make the best use of this method. However, you could adapt this to other parts of your work, for example, you could let a phone or email consultation take the place of your usual free initial face-to-face consultation.

Working in this way may involve you in acquiring some different skills. Some therapists find it hard to move from face-to-face contact to advising over the phone. A possible way of getting round this problem is to invest in a webcam package so that you still see the client and their responses while you talk to them – though this does depend on the client having a similar set-up.

This way of working tends to appeal to people in the business sector who would otherwise find it hard to get the time to work with you on a personal level – so this is another way in which you could market your services.

Hiring out your room to others

If you have any space during your working week in which your practice rooms are idle, you might want to consider sharing your practice with another therapist in order to gain some extra income. The therapist with whom you share doesn’t necessarily have to offer the same therapy, in fact it can be to your advantage to have different therapies operating from the same rooms as this can help to build your practice as the two of you may cross refer. At the very least it means more people become aware of your practice.

There are some key points to bear in mind. You will need to:

• be clear about the days and times your sharer can work in the practice
• treat this arrangement as a formal business contract
• agree whether you will share the advertising in any way
• agree how you will charge for the room – for example an hourly rate or splitting the costs on a percentage basis
• consider whether the sharer will be able to use your rooms if you are away on holiday
• check that your practice complies with all the necessary regulations for the additional therapy
• agree whether you will have separate contact telephone and email addresses, or whether you will share the responsibility for handling bookings
• consider what other equipment may be required, whether there is space for this and where it will be stored
• check that the other therapist is insured, suitably qualified and has their own code of conduct
• be able to trust the other therapist to lock up and keep your property and premises safe and secure
• consider a trial period in order to test that the arrangement is workable.

You will also need to check that such an arrangement is allowed under the terms of your lease or occupation of the property, agree a minimum hire period (renewable), and issue a receipt or invoice for each booking period.

Keeping your costs down

This is an often overlooked way of increasing your income by reducing your expenditure, which many businesses forget to review. If you are keeping your monthly financial records up to date you will be able to work out just what percentage of your income is spent on various bills. If, for example, you are grossing £500 per week, but the rent for your room is £200 per week, you are effectively working for two days each week before you have even met the cost of your rent. Once you start looking critically at your finances you may be able to pick out other trends, for example spending 10% of your income each month on phone and internet bills.

Hopefully this should start you thinking about whether these high amounts of expenditure on certain items are in your best interests, and if not, what you could do to change them. If rent bills are a problem you could perhaps get someone to share your room, look for a smaller and cheaper room in the same block, or think about moving the practice into your home. With phone and internet bills, review how you are using this equipment (time of day and length of time), cut down where you can and compare the packages on offer from other phone and internet service provider, to see if you can get a better deal.

Even if you just make a saving of £10 per week, over a year that’s enough for a short holiday or maybe you could put it towards some equipment you’ve been promising yourself. When things get tough financially, you should look to cutting existing costs first before you make any major adjustments to the way you work.