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Why Is It So Hard for Therapists to Delegate? Letting Go of Control Over Scheduling, Billing, and Bookkeeping – An Interview with Bibi Goldstein

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Why Is It So Hard for Therapists to Delegate? Letting Go of Control Over Scheduling, Billing, and Bookkeeping – An Interview with Bibi Goldstein

Maybe you’re still building superbills in a spreadsheet because you know exactly how it works. Maybe you book every appointment yourself, reconcile your own books at the end of the month, and carry a running list of admin tasks in your head between sessions. Each piece feels manageable on its own, but together they eat into the time and energy you went into private practice to protect. And when someone suggests handing some of it off, letting go can be surprisingly hard.

Curt and Katie welcome back Bibi Goldstein, founder of Buying Time, LLC, to talk about why therapists hold on so tightly to scheduling, billing, bookkeeping, and social media, how to choose practice systems you can grow into, and how delegating to people or software can free up your time and even bring in more income.

Transcript

Click here to scroll to the podcast transcript.

(Show notes provided in collaboration with Otter.ai and Claude AI.)

About Our Guest: Bibi Goldstein, Founder of Buying Time, LLC

Bibi Goldstein is the founder of Buying Time, LLC, a premier virtual support company dedicated to helping entrepreneurs and small businesses streamline operations through effective systems and time management strategies. With over a decade of experience as a systems expert and productivity consultant, Bibi is a sought-after speaker and co-author of Get Organized Today, Navigating Entrepreneurship, Business Success with Ease and Building Freedom. Her expertise lies in creating scalable systems for businesses of all sizes, allowing leaders to reclaim their time and focus on growth.

With multiple certifications across a variety of software platforms, Bibi specializes in automation tools that simplify business processes and increase efficiency. She works closely with business owners to implement strategies that support long-term sustainability and success.

A long-time resident of the South Bay, Bibi lives in Redondo Beach with her husband, Mark. In her spare time, Bibi is an avid 5K runner and enjoys staying active in the community she calls home.

In this Podcast Episode: Why Therapists Hold On to Admin Work and How to Start Delegating

Bibi has been on the show before, and Katie has been a Buying Time client since 2013, so this conversation picks up with a longtime collaborator. Bibi talks about the most common mistake she sees when therapists set up their practices (choosing systems for today instead of for five years from now), how AI and automation have made delegating feel more approachable, and the emotional pull that keeps therapists doing tasks they dread. She also shares her simple happy face/sad face exercise for deciding what to hand off first and explains how online scheduling can bring clients in while you sleep, without giving up control of your calendar.

Key Takeaways for Therapists: Delegation, Practice Automation, and Online Scheduling

“Delegating doesn’t mean labor costs… You can automate things that you’re physically doing to a software, and that’s something that you should be doing.”

— Bibi Goldstein

Choose systems your practice can grow into. Bibi sees many therapists set up systems for what they need right now, then face a painful platform switch a few years later. Before you sign a contract, talk with someone who has already walked the path, whether that’s a colleague, a coach, or a systems expert. She shares the story of a Michigan group practice that committed to new software before mapping out their goals, then learned it couldn’t do what they needed.
Delegating to software still counts. Handing off work doesn’t have to mean hiring someone. Online scheduling, automated superbills, AI tools that capture notes and to-do lists, and even voice memos dropped into a folder all move work out of your head and off your plate.
Look for the worry underneath the resistance. One of Bibi’s clients kept doing superbills in Excel because she trusted what she could see. Once her new system automatically sent her a copy of every superbill, she had proof that it went out correctly, and letting go became possible.
Notice where you’re emotionally attached. Bibi sees therapists hold on hardest to money, scheduling the next appointment at the end of session, doing their own bookkeeping, and wanting a perfect social media presence. Moving billing out of the session also means you no longer have to switch from a clinical conversation to a money conversation in the same hour.
Start with a happy face and a sad face. For a stretch of time, sort each task you do under a happy face or a sad face (one client added an angry face). Begin delegating from the sad column, starting with tasks that don’t require access to sensitive client or financial information, and revisit the list every six months or so, because what feels good can change as your life does.
Delegation can grow income without adding sessions. Many therapists love creative work like writing and speaking but never find the time for it. One of Bibi’s clients in Northern California booked her first paid speaking engagement, at $1,500 for an hour, after Buying Time helped her put together a speaker sheet.
Online scheduling can bring clients in on your terms. Many people looking for a therapist would rather click a button than make a phone call, and a potential client who can book at midnight (or a former client who can return without calling) often will. Booking links can still reflect your boundaries. Katie notes you can offer consultation calls instead of full sessions and limit how many appointments get booked, and Bibi describes a therapist who opens 20-minute consults only from 9 to 11, three mornings a week, with buffers built in between them.

“If someone is up there thinking about this and it’s midnight and they can go to your website and book a session with you or one of your therapists, that’s likely going to happen more than them waiting the next morning and then going, ‘Yeah, I’m not gonna pick up the phone and make that appointment.’”

— Bibi Goldstein

Resources on Delegation, Practice Systems, and Virtual Support for Therapists

We’ve pulled together resources mentioned in this episode and put together some handy-dandy links. Please note that some of the links below may be affiliate links, so if you purchase after clicking below, we may get a little bit of cash in our pockets. We thank you in advance!

Buying Time, LLC, including a free 15-minute consultation: buyingtimellc.com
Buying Time Systems Inventory Checklist
15 Minutes from Overwhelmed to Organized, Buying Time’s delegation program
The 7 Best Excuses to Avoid Starting Your Private Practice, article by Katie Vernoy, LMFT

Relevant Episodes of MTSG Podcast

Meet the Hosts: Curt Widhalm & Katie Vernoy

Curt Widhalm, LMFT

Curt Widhalm is in private practice in the Los Angeles area. He is the cofounder of the Therapy Reimagined conference, an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University and CSUN, a former Subject Matter Expert for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, former CFO of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, and a loving husband and father. He is 1/2 great person, 1/2 provocateur, and 1/2 geek, in that order. He dabbles in the dark art of making “dad jokes” and usually has a half-empty cup of coffee somewhere nearby. Learn more at: http://www.curtwidhalm.com

Katie Vernoy, LMFT

Katie Vernoy is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, coach, and consultant supporting leaders, visionaries, executives, and helping professionals to create sustainable careers. Katie, with Curt, has developed workshops and a conference, Therapy Reimagined, to support therapists navigating through the modern challenges of this profession. Katie is also a former President of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. In her spare time, Katie is secretly siphoning off Curt’s youthful energy, so that she can take over the world. Learn more at: http://www.katievernoy.com

A Quick Note:

Our opinions are our own. We are only speaking for ourselves – except when we speak for each other, or over each other. We’re working on it.

Our guests are also only speaking for themselves and have their own opinions. We aren’t trying to take their voice, and no one speaks for us either. Mostly because they don’t want to, but hey.

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Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano https://groomsymusic.com

Transcript for this episode of the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide podcast (Autogenerated):

Transcripts do not include advertisements just a reference to the advertising break (as such timing does not account for advertisements)

… 0:00
(Opening Advertisement)

Announcer 0:00
You’re listening to the Modern Therapist Survival Guide, where therapists live, breathe, and practice as human beings. To support you as a whole person and a therapist, here are your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy.

Curt Widhalm 0:15
Welcome back, Modern Therapists. This is the Modern Therapist Survival Guide. I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy, and this is the podcast for therapists about the ways that we go about our work, the ways that we work in our practices behind the scenes with clients. Today’s a behind the scenes episode, and you know we as therapists love to talk about flow. We talk about emotional flow. We talk about energy flow. Mindfully going with the flow right up until we try to run a business. At which point, our flow becomes a taped together labyrinth of a bunch of different software systems, filing cabinets, and things that we just end up carrying along with us until it seems like a museum of relics of ways that businesses ran in the past, and so we are joined once again by our good friend Bibi Goldstein. She is here to talk about all of the wonderful ways that we as therapists can make our our workflow better. So thank you so much for joining us, Bibi.

Bibi Goldstein 1:21
Happy to be here. I haven’t heard the word filing cabinet in a long time.

Curt Widhalm 1:26
I’ve still got like three in my storage closet. It’s it’s a relic from working with young kids. You have to keep those records forever, and I just haven’t gotten around two digitizing.

Katie Vernoy 1:40
It’s so good to see you, Bibi. I’m really looking forward to this conversation. But before we jump in, I’m going to ask you the question we ask all our guests, which is, “Who are you, and what are you putting out into the world?”

Bibi Goldstein 1:50
Oh, I always love this question because you know it is always a good thing to remember that you know first and foremost, hopefully, what you’re putting out into the world is joy and leaving it a little bit better than than you found it, you know. So I am Buying Time. We are a virtual assistant company, and I don’t even know where the time went, but we are in February of 2027, going to celebrate 20 years in business.

Katie Vernoy 2:17
Oh my goodness, that’s wild.

Bibi Goldstein 2:20
Crazy and wild, right? You know, we started out as personal assistant and a service that was just working locally in the South Bay, and and now we are a team of more than a dozen people that are working together to help support 200 plus clients on a day to day basis in a variety of different areas, and you know, I think that that’s the thing I want to like really, really point out and get across. That I hope that I’m what I’m putting out is support and getting people the help that they need for the things that they don’t know. You know, you don’t know what you don’t know.

Curt Widhalm 2:57
We’ve covered quite a few times before that therapists are not taught business in grad school, and in the setting up of their practices and the ways of making up things as they go along, there’s the opportunities to maybe make a mistake here and there. So we ask this in a supportive way rather than a shaming way for anybody. But from your perspective, because therapists, we we are our own breed of people. As somebody who is not a therapist, what do you see that therapists might be getting wrong when they’re setting up their businesses?

Bibi Goldstein 3:34
Well, I’m going to correct you on something because while I do not have all of the initials after my name that you guys do. I still feel like there’s a part of my job that is therapy. You know, I think that one of the hardest things when you, as you mentioned, you know, you go to school to become a therapist. You go and and you learn how to do the things that as a therapist should do, attorneys, accountants, you can name it. It’s the same kind of philosophy around it. It’s that you’re going to school for that practice. You’re going to learn to become that occupation, and you know, business is something that I think that when we think about how you actually build a business. If you aren’t making mistakes, then there is an even bigger issue there. But you should you try those things that you that you think are going to work for you. But you know what? If you want to do business smart and not be in a situation where you are trying things and then going on to the next thing, and you know many of us get bright shiny object syndrome, right? We we want to like what’s the next big thing? You know, it’s social media, it’s AI, it’s this. You know, all of these different things, and I think that the biggest mistake that I have seen with a lot of the therapists that we work with, is kind of getting to a I just need something, and instead of really seeing what’s out there and what’s the right thing for them, some of them are going into practice solo and working by themselves. Some are going to partner with somebody, some are going to have a group, whatever that is. It’s it’s important to find the right thing, And so I think that what I would say is that when they’re setting up their systems, is that they’re thinking about now instead of thinking about what’s going to happen five years from now, right? Both of you have been therapists for a long time.

Katie Vernoy 5:45
Yeah.

Bibi Goldstein 5:45
What your practice looks like today is probably different than what it looked like when you first started. And so, when you’re setting up your systems, understanding and knowing what can I grow into, and what can sustain me without me having to make the change? Because it’s not necessarily a generalized statement, but I think that it’s hard sometimes to want to change softwares and to change platforms. So it’s find that thing that you like, but that can grow with you.

Katie Vernoy 6:20
I think that’s interesting because there’s the opposite issue, which is the decision fatigue and not taking any steps. At one point, I wrote this article: seven reasons why you’re not starting your private practice. Because there’s so many folks that get caught in that paralysis. You know, analysis paralysis, decision fatigue, whatever it is, and they don’t actually get started. How do you recommend folks sort through that? Because I agree, you don’t want to jump into something that’s not going to grow with you. You don’t want to, you don’t want to make a decision that’s going to bite you in the behind in a year or two. And sometimes you just got to get started. So how do you help folks decide on that because it’s it’s not easy. It’s quite a balance that has to be struck there. I think.

Bibi Goldstein 7:07
Yeah, I mean, I think that that balance is is a huge part of that. Is that you’re trying to get your business off the ground. You’re working on marketing. You’re working on all of these other things that are happening in the background. And I mean, quite honestly, shamelessly, I’m gonna say, like, find a person that’s helping somebody else who’s already been there, you know, and let them help guide you through. I’m surprised still to this day how some folks don’t find or understand the value of having a business coach or having a strategist, or having somebody that helps guide them through, even if it’s short term.

Katie Vernoy 7:46
Sure.

Bibi Goldstein 7:47
There is nothing in this world that I don’t believe somebody knows better than me, right? And…

Katie Vernoy 7:58
That is totally fair. I’m I’m the same.

Bibi Goldstein 8:00
And I know things better than some other people, right? So it’s all the degrees of where that experience has been, and so you know the main thing that I would look towards is who’s done it with somebody else first, and be able to strategize. What’s your vision? What do you want to do long term? Because then, for me as a systems person, and for my team, it’s easier then for us to go. Oh, you know, we know so and so who did this exact same thing, and these are the platforms that they ended up with that work well for them. I just recently had a conversation with a client who has a therapy practice with multiple therapists in Michigan, and they were having this whole conversation about how which software they wanted to go to and what they wanted to do and what they were trying to build, and they came to us after they signed up for the software, and we had the conversation with them that said, “Based on what you’re telling us, the software can’t do what you’re looking to do. So they already started to implement it, had signed a contract with it, and now we’re stuck with it. And they kind of did it backwards instead of having the conversation first of what their goals were, what they wanted to get done. So my advice in that arena is talk to somebody who already knows and has been down that path before you, whether it’s another therapist or it’s an organization like ours who works with therapists that can tell you what those examples might be based on what your long-term goals are.

… 9:45
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Curt Widhalm 9:48
We talked about delegation and systems a million years ago when we previously had you on the podcast. It’s been a few years. What has really changed in the landscape of the world, and especially for therapists in the way that they’re running their businesses?

Bibi Goldstein 10:05
I think that delegation still continues to be a place that people in general have a hard time with. It’s really hard to let go of those things that you think only you can do as good as they need to get done, and you know sometimes in understanding how we’re doing that, I will tell you that one of the greatest things about AI for us is that there are many people who are embracing it and using it in getting the information that they need, or looking for opportunities to save time, so they’re exercising that delegation muscle. Even if it’s to a software, you guys have heard me say this over and over again. Delegating doesn’t mean labor costs. Doesn’t mean costs that are outside of a software system. You can automate things that you’re physically doing to a software, and that’s something that you should be doing. That’s something that I think that no matter what is happening, find the right thing. It could be a person, could be that you need an admin, it could be that you need somebody to handle these things, but it also could be a software. We’ve recently been talking a lot with with some of our therapist clients about general things like scheduling, right? Many of us are very used to whether it’s for hair appointments, nail appointments, therapy appointments, doctors’ appointments, where you can go and click a button and book your appointment. You can find a time that works for you and choose that time. I am amazed to this day how many people I still talk to who are doing their own scheduling, direct one to one, instead of allowing a system to do it, and so you know, I think that what’s really changed is that people are more open to delegating and seeing that they don’t have to do everything themselves. I think also the other thing that I’m seeing in general is that the focus has been more on do I love doing this task, or do I dread doing this task? And so, when we’re starting to ask those questions of ourselves, it becomes easier to hand off those things that we dread doing, and delegating those. So a lot of a lot more systems and things that people are coming up with that allow them to even utilize AI in capturing session notes, in capturing to do lists, whatever those things might be, I have one therapist client which I love. She does voice notes all day long, and she puts them into a folder. And before I meet with her, I go in and I listen to all of them because she might be thinking about it at one point, but she never used anything like that. And she’s like, I like I sit down and I don’t know what I’m supposed to start with, and I’m like, then document it when you think about it, document it when you think about it. It’s as simple as that. Even using simple tools that allow for them to get it out of their brain and some place that that it goes to. So I am seeing a big change in the embracing of utilizing other systems and delegation.

Katie Vernoy 13:47
It seems like the systems that are available are becoming more and more usable and also complex. And I think there are some therapists that are a little bit technology shy. I don’t know what the right word is, and they oftentimes will get a system but not fully utilize it, or they’ll get the wrong system, like you were talking about before, or they have a moral or a clinical opposition to a system. How do you help folks sort through that to determine what matches for them and and what systems might might work for the business that they are trying to create?

Bibi Goldstein 14:32
You know that’s a really interesting question and thought because it’s not something I I really think about a lot. I will tell you that the one thing I appreciate about working with therapists is that they are very good at boundaries.

Katie Vernoy 14:49
We do. hat is our job, right?

Bibi Goldstein 14:52
And so they’re not willing to take something on if it kind of goes outside those boundaries. Like you know, like you just mentioned, time, technology, morals, whatever the the boundary is, that technology may not fit well for them, and so you know, I think that what I try to tell our clients a lot is do what’s comfortable for you, um, and let’s figure out how we get you the most out of a software or out of a platform, right? My favorite story is recently working with a therapist who was doing all of her super bills in Excel.

Katie Vernoy 15:39
Oh no.

Bibi Goldstein 15:40
And and I I appreciated that she’s like, but I know this, I know this, I know how it works. It can’t break on me. And I go, well, it can break on you, but now we’re delegating it. Now we’re going to get it off your plate so that you don’t have to do it. And so we introduced a system for her for scheduling and things, and I said you can do the super bills right in here, and it was difficult because she didn’t want to go in and learn how to do it. And that’s where people like me or a virtual assistant in general come into play. If it’s not something that you understand, it’s okay. It still means that you can do it more efficiently and have better records of it than having to do it in what I consider it, which is makes me feel so old because I remember when Excel was not considered a manual process is now a manual process, right? But and Excel is great for a lot of things. You can still, you know, use it for a lot of great things. But when you’re trying to send out super bills, wouldn’t you rather push one button than having to copy and paste a bunch of information into an Excel spreadsheet and then export that into a PDF and then send it out. And so, I think that what I would tell people like that is, especially because you guys bill by the hour, by the session. So, how many more sessions can you get in if you take away all the superbills that you’re doing this way? And so I think that along with boundaries, one of the greatest things that I have learned from many, many therapists is that they appreciate efficiency, and they appreciate when things can be made easier for them without anxiety. Right, knowing it goes out. So what we did was we set her up so that all she had to do when she was complete and needed to send out a super bill, it sent it. But in order to make her feel better about it, it automatically sent a copy to her, so that she knew it went out. It went out properly, and it and and it got done because that was her pain point. But I didn’t realize that that was her pain point until we had dialog and understood. But how do I know that it that the system sent it? I know when I export it and I email it that I sent it. So it’s, it’s really getting to the crux of the why in that case.

… 18:25
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Curt Widhalm 18:27
I’ve been listening to you, and you know, just kind of imagining what some of the reactions that you must hear across your career, as far as, but I don’t want to let that go, you know. And you’re describing this, and you’re describing that therapists are used to being in total control of the entire client experience, and you’re describing trying to get people to let go of operational tasks. What are some of the things that therapists are so emotionally tied to, and how do you coach them through that anxiety of letting it go?

Bibi Goldstein 19:06
I would say probably money is the first thing in the emotional side of it. There is a very big disconnect, I think, sometimes where the idea of talking to a patient in a session and then having to switch gears and talk about money and billing, and so the emotional side of that, to me, I think has been an area that we are able to approach right away because that’s something that therapists don’t want to do. They don’t want to have a money conversation and a service conversation at the same time. And many of them were doing that at the end of a session, billing and doing these things. And and so I think that one of the things that they don’t want to let go of is that scheduling piece, that piece that identifies that someone’s going to come back and come back in. So a lot of therapists will do the scheduling at the end of a session for the next session, which I always thought that this was kind of interesting with the number of boundaries that they would allow for somebody to text them to reschedule to, you know, and but they’re emotionally tied to that because now what happens to that time or that allotment of space on their calendar that they had put aside for that patient. I think that the monthly reconciliation of what their numbers look like, what their bookkeeping looks like, that’s a whole nother area that I think that emotionally is very very difficult for therapists to let go of, they want to do that. Maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised, but I am still very surprised at how many bookkeepers I know. They may not do their own billing; they may have a billing service that takes care of their billing to insurances or things like that, but they do their own bookkeeping, and that really surprises me. But they’re so emotionally attached to I provide a service, therefore I get the money, and now I want to see what I get in return for the service that I provide. I also think that social media is another area that I see a lot of emotional attachment. They want things to look perfect and represent something perfectly for them, and I think that vulnerability and and some of the things on social media that that you can show and express is probably a good thing. You don’t need it to be perfect. You actually want people to know that you are a real person, and that’s always a tough conversation with therapists. Always a very tough conversation because some come to us and they’re like, “No, well, I’m supposed to have it all together. That’s what I need my my clients to think.”

Katie Vernoy 22:24
So when you’re sorting through these things, and someone’s ready to delegate, but they don’t know what to delegate first, where do you where do you go? How do you help them get to that point where they can let some of this stuff go emotionally?

Bibi Goldstein 22:39
I think there’s a couple of different things. I’m going to stick to my tried and true way of doing it. Is really, I spend enough time with people in all industries, and the best thing that I can get them to do is to start to document what they’re doing on a day to day basis. I still do it myself every probably about six months or so, and I simply we have a full program, but I simply take a piece of paper and I write a happy face and a sad face on it, and I draw a line between them, and I make sure that while I’m doing something, is this making me happy or is this making me sad? I had I had a client not too long ago, she said, “I fixed your sheet,” and I said, “What does that mean?” She goes, “I added a third column, and it’s an angry face.” I thought, “Okay, maybe I need to add that.” But it’s that kind of thing that you have to start from something so simplistic to understand where do you start, where do you go to, right? What’s the individual pieces we start with? Everything that’s under the unhappy face, and we figure out in there, are there things that can be delegated that don’t require anybody to have sensitive information access to things. You know, we have these conversations all the time, especially with therapists about HIPAA and and all of the requirements around there. And so, you know, it’s really important to them to make sure that if they are going to outsource some things, that what are those things that don’t require sensitive information, and that includes financial information. You know, to many of us, financial information is sensitive information, and we’ll start there. I think that once somebody gets in the habit of delegating, it’s really, really, really easy to start getting them to take more off their plate, and the reason why I do want to touch on the revisiting this exercise and the reason why you do it is because all of us have changes in our life and in our mood and the circumstances and the environment. So what used to be on my happy face could now be under my sad face because things in my life have changed, and so that’s why we tell you to revisit it every once in a while and find those additional things that you can outsource or that you can find a software that does. There’s so many apps and softwares out there now that you can do pretty much anything and get pretty much anything off your plate.

… 25:29
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Curt Widhalm 25:33
What do you find are the the tasks that end up making therapists more profitable? I mean, as you see people in their unhappy column, in their happy column, what are the things that they can delegate that actually makes them more money? You talked about being able to replace the time that they’re spending things by adding in more sessions. I don’t think a lot of us want to work more. I think there are opportunities to be able to save money and not just have to replace that with more work in the process. So, what are some of the things that you see that actually can be delegated that might not be so apparent in ways for therapists to be able to make money?

Bibi Goldstein 26:16
You know, I think that probably the first place that I would initially think about is that you know the the marketing aspect of things, the day to day administration of having somebody or a software that actually takes care of their scheduling, that takes care of those things. Those are the obvious ones to me. I think that therapists sometimes underestimate their own ability to be creative when it comes to some of the things that people need out there. But you know, it’s things that I know several, I probably would say that 90% of the therapists that work with us, they love the creative aspect of things, writing articles, being able to like get themselves out there and get their word out there a little bit more. Speaking, that’s a huge part of it. One of our therapist clients in Northern California; just finished helping her set up her speaker sheet and get herself out there, and she booked her first speaking engagement, and she’s getting paid $1,500 to go speak in front of people. And she’s like, “Wait a second, I can go do this for an hour?” And it’s it’s really about how what you want to be doing. If you want to be that person who’s in front of people, and you have a message and a good message, and she does. She has a great message. So it’s how how we were able to kind of get her to see that you can still fill up that hour, but you can fill it up with a lot more in that time frame by getting out there and making yourself a subject matter expert.

Katie Vernoy 28:04
Therapists probably have a really clear sense of how marketing would make them money. I’m not sure that they have as much of a sense on how scheduling makes them money, and delegating scheduling makes them money. Can you talk through that? I know we’re running short on time, but but you know, can you talk through how does something like that make someone money?

Bibi Goldstein 28:28
When someone is looking for a therapist, when someone is having the thought to go and talk with someone, many times, a lot of it is that they don’t actually want to have that initial interaction. And when you can make things easiest for people, meaning someone can click a button and book an appointment with you, the fact that they can do that in such an easy fashion and get to you, they’re going to do that before the person that they have to pick up the phone and call, and that’s where I would say is the biggest place where that conversion happens is the immediacy of someone feeling like I took the first step. I have an appointment. I took the first step. Instead of oh, I got to sit down and make some phone calls and I have to figure this out. But this was somebody referred to me. Let’s just say, and if I can go and I have three referrals, and I can have an ease of use in getting that person’s attention. I’m going to take that first. Most all of us will. We’re going to go to least resistance. And so, what I would say is that when you are looking at how scheduling can make you money, it’s. It can make you money while it’s working in the background. If someone is up there thinking about this and it’s midnight and they can go to your website and book a session with you or one of your therapists, that’s likely going to happen more than them waiting the next morning, and then going, yeah, I’m not gonna pick up the phone and make that appointment. So that’s how I would say it. It’s just it’s an ease of use thing that a lot of us don’t think about that can bring in even returning patients. Returning, we we see that a lot. Somebody that hasn’t come back for a session in six months or a year, all of a sudden, they show up on the calendar, makes it easier for them.

Katie Vernoy 30:55
And I think the thing that a lot of therapists get worried about is protecting their time or having their schedule be controllable, because there’s a lot of factors in where you put someone on the day, where you put put a lot of those things, and all of those things are workable within some of these systems. You don’t necessarily have to have a new client sign up for a full session; they can sign up for a consultation call, and then you can schedule them from there. You can have limits on how many appointments can get scheduled. You can set all of those things within these systems. But I think folks just go to I’m losing my calendar, and that means I’m going to have a horrible schedule. And you really actually can work with the system to make sure that it works properly. And so I appreciate you you explaining that the the part about the making money because I that makes so much sense. And I think the additional objection is well, then I lose control of my calendar. And there’s a lot of ways. I mean, get a system that helps you have some of those limits and parameters that you build in.

Bibi Goldstein 32:04
It’s it’s a really good point because you can. Every system that connects to booking appointments, you can block out your calendar. You can block out the timing, right? You can have different links for different things. One of our therapists who does this really really well from the consultation perspective, she only does consultations first thing in the morning three days a week, and she only blocks out for that link from nine to 11, for that link for 20 minutes at a time, and she gives herself 20 minutes in between. So she only does two consults in an hour, and so she has figured out what those breathing points are. Because you can set that up in the in the appointment link. In the appointment link, you can say, “I want a 20 minute buffer before and after. So I love that idea.

Curt Widhalm 32:55
Where can people find out more about you and the work that you do and how to work with you?

Bibi Goldstein 33:01
So our website is obviously the best place to go. Buyingtimellc.com. I think that you guys actually have a direct link to our systems inventory, which is another area, not necessarily our 15 minutes from overwhelmed to organized, which is where we do the delegating sheet that I talked about earlier, but we also have a systems inventory checklist because this is another area that I think is super important for people to recognize. Look at your credit card bill, figure out what you’re paying for and what you’re paying for every month that you don’t use anymore, and that systems inventory checklist works great. But there’s also the opportunity to book a consult with us right on our website. We spend you know 15 minutes with you to just really kind of understand the overview of what you’re getting to, what you’re looking for support with, and you know the biggest thing that I would like to express to everybody is, you know when you work with somebody and you ask for support, that’s always hard in the beginning. It’s always hard to ask for people for help. We work differently than your traditional virtual assistant because we are a team. Okay, when you come to us, you’re not just hiring one virtual assistant with one set of skills. You come to us, you have a team. We have everybody from administrative, marketing. We have systems experts. We have certified bookkeepers on our team. We do everything where somebody can come to one place and have us handle their entire back office, and so that’s you know a big unique difference from just going and hiring a virtual assistant.

Katie Vernoy 34:43
And I think the thing that’s really helpful with that is you help sort through what to delegate first, and you have the capacity, or sometimes you build the capacity to support someone in getting the things off their plate in the order that makes sense to them and what’s going to be best for their business. So, I’ve been a a client of yours for how long has it been at this point? Is it 10 years? It’s longer. It’s like 15?

Bibi Goldstein 35:08
Longer. You have been you’ve been a client of ours since 2013.

Katie Vernoy 35:15
Oh my goodness, 13 years. So, I cannot say enough positive things, but I I always appreciate your wisdom, Bibi. Thank you so much for spending time with us and sharing what you know with our audience. So make sure that you check out what Bibi’s got going over on buyingtimellc.com.

Curt Widhalm 35:33
And we will include links to those in our show notes over at mtsgpodcast.com. Follow us on our social media. Join our Facebook group to participate and make all of the conversations that go on over there. And until next time, I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy and Bibi Goldstein.

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