OR
Online Training: Limit 10 Participants
This training is the version of the conversation I wish someone had pulled me aside for, years ago. Practical, honest, grounded in what actually works - and respectful of the fact that you don't need another guru.
You went into this work because you wanted to help people. Nobody warned you about the rest of it.
The clinician carrying a caseload that doesn't make sense anymore. The owner who's a great therapist and a reluctant operator. The early-career counselor watching senior clinicians burn out and wondering if there's a different way. The practice owner five years in who's started to feel more like a manager and less like a counselor.
You can be a brilliant therapist and still feel lost inside the practice itself. The two skill sets are different. Nobody teaches you the second one.
This is a three-hour pop-up training on what I've learned from 18 years of being in — and building — counseling practices, from small boutique offices to multi-location, insurance-billed groups. It's part operations, part orientation. The practical mechanics underneath the work, and the wisdom you need to hold it all together without losing yourself in the process.
It's the conversation I wish someone had pulled me aside for, years ago.
Come and go as you please - you will receive a full recording of the session and access to taylored follow up docuements. Refer someone to the workshop and get a free follow-up group consultation hour with me.
What we'll cover (the first 90 minutes)
The topics are practical — policy, finance, workflow, retention, team. The conversation underneath is the harder one: how to think clearly about a life inside this work, whether you're a clinician, a leader, or both.
- The biggest takeaways from 18 years — what mattered, what didn't, what I'd never do again
- Policy and procedure that actually protects you, your clients, and your team (and what's just performative paperwork)
- Financial management without the panic — the numbers you have to know, and how to stop the leak before it becomes a flood
- Workflow and organization — systems that buy back your time, and the ones quietly costing you it
- Client retention — why people stay, why they leave, and what changes when you stop guessing
- Employee satisfaction — what clinicians actually need from the place they work, and why so many practices get this wrong
- Underneath all of it — how to hold yourself together as a counselor, a leader, or both, without grinding yourself down
The next 90 minutes is yours
A full ninety minutes of Q&A — not a token ten at the end.
Bring the question you've been too embarrassed to ask in a peer group. Bring the thing keeping you up at night. Bring the policy you can't get right, the conversation with an employee you've been avoiding, the doubt you haven't named yet.
Come and go as your morning allows.
Who this is for
- Pre-licensed clinicians wondering what private practice is really like from the inside
- Newly licensed therapists weighing the leap
- Clinicians working inside someone else's practice who want to think more clearly about the structures around them
- Practice owners 5–10 years in, who suspect they've outgrown how they started
- Anyone tired of generic "start your practice" courses that don't speak to the actual day-to-day
This isn't a step-by-step business plan. It's a morning for people who want to think more clearly about the work, the practice, and themselves in both.
What you walk away with
- The full 3-hour live session
- A recording to revisit anytime
- A written transcript summary of the entire training
- Follow-up resources curated specifically to the Q&A — so the value compounds long after the call ends
Logistics
When: Wednesday, May 27, 2026 · 8:00 – 11:00 AM ET
Where: Google Meet (link sent at registration)
Investment: $100
Hosted by: Joshua Zello, LPC-MHSP, Approved Clinical Supervisor, Certified Mindfulness Professional
About Joshua
Eighteen years in mental health. Started and managed counseling practices from small boutique offices to multi-location, insurance-billed groups, community mental health settings, and academia. Managing Director of Chattanooga Counseling and Consulting. Host of The Counselor's Chair Podcast. Supervises emerging clinicians, consults with small and mid-sized business owners, and still sees clients — because I don't have a counselor hat I put on and take off. This work is part of who I am.