What a terrifying and exciting adventure to start a therapy practice! Thought it would be fun to catch my readers up on this venture but also maybe help anyone out there thinking of doing this.
I can’t remember when or where the idea started. Dave and Scott and I decided it would be cool to start up a practice with Life Coaching, Pastoral Care and Therapy. I guess it started back when we started TRU and dreamed someday of putting a therapy practice in the community center. And then when Dave stopped Pastoring at TRU, the idea started coming together.
Here is where we are right now then I’ll catch you on on how we got to each stage.
The vision is this: We will offer therapy, faith based therapy, trauma therapy, life coaching, pastoral care, and massage therapy. Right now it is myself, Dave, and Scott’s sister Shari. Scott hopes to get his life coaching certification and finalize what he needs to do conflict mediation down the road and join us. Shari will come once a week to start offering massage therapy then when Dave gets full, she will do some life coaching. I am praying about another therapist to join us but will start without one and join a consultation group until I do.
Name. This was hard. We had done a lot of brainstorming and picked a name we thought we would use but no one loved it. We were in Arkansas and did more brainstorming and someone said, “Let’s ask Chad!” So Chad thought for about two minutes and started talking about how they came up with the name of their leather shop, Ethos Custom Leather, and we all stopped and said, “Ethos.” He said it means, basically, the essence of a person. I googled it and found it is
Ethos…the set of moral beliefs, attitudes, habits, etc., that are characteristic of a person or group.
— Cambridge Dictionary.
I love it. We get to use their old logo and everything. (see below). The official name is Ethos Therapy and Life Coaching.
Space. We are in final negotiations for a space to rent. Dave and I looked at several properties and decided that if we had trouble locating them to look at them, they might be hard for our clients to find. We looked at several size offices and several locations then found the one we are hoping/planning to secure. Initially, we were wanting a space that is 900 square feet that the landlord would have built out into three offices. It had waiting room, a tiny kitchen space and a bathroom, a back entrance and would have a tiny staff water closet. Then he showed us an older office that has all of that but two full bathrooms, tons of storage, a little bit more space at 1100 square feet, and two full bathrooms. It needs some updating and some upgrades. It also has just a little bit more privacy but is easy for clients to find, along with being walking distance from k-state and MCC and only 2 minutes from my house. So that is exciting. I’ve started thinking and dreaming about the furniture and decorating but that is overwhelming (but fun).
Business stuff. I have done all the paperwork, HIPPA, etc.. releases, stuff like that, priced business insurance, and found someone to do the credentialing and file insurance. I have started the website and should have an email address and start the social media stuff soon. I will get the LLC and tax numbers and all that rigamaroll after the first of the year.
The website has a good start and I’m doing it myself! It’s hard! I watch tutorials and dig in. Its pretty cool! There was a lot to write. I stilll need our pics and our bios.
In January, we will get spruce on our phones which will give us a phone number. Then we can get the business cards and stationary and start advertising and get the website out there. We will get therapy notes going. Dave plans to do all the phone answering, scheduling, and outreach. Go Dave!
Because I don’t yet know when the space will be ready to go into or when the lease will start, I can’t say for sure when the doors will open, but we are hoping to start up March 1.
(The significance of using the same name as Chad’s shop is crazy. A total God thing. We decided that the album we are recording will be a concept album based on the book I wrote which is based on the work I do at Homestead. Dave has started a facebook live show which will become a podcast/you tube channel. He will set up his office in the practice to be a recording studio for that. I’ve already been a guest on his show and so has Scott so we can advertise the practice on that as well as deal with pertinent topics. The practice is using a tag line that is actually a song Dave did in the past, Healing, Help, and Hope. So each of us has separate business ventures that all fall under one umbrella, Midwest Meets Manhattan, but that overlap and support and promote each other. Just as an aside, the album and the book will come out and be co promoted in early spring also.)
dianegclark 