How I built it.

1 · The problemYou're a strong clinician. The business under you isn't.

If you've opened a private practice, you probably know the shape of this. The clinical work is the part you trained for. The business under the clinical work is the part nobody trained you for. Bookings are uneven. Pricing is whatever the other practitioner in your city charges minus ten percent. Your "team" is you, plus an intern, plus your phone on do-not-disturb. Six months in, the question is whether you're running a business or just being self-employed with extra steps. orSix months in, the question is whether you're running a business or apologising for one.

Most of the practices I've watched close — and I've watched a lot of them close — did not close because the clinicians were bad at their jobs. They closed because the business under the clinical work was a hobby in a suit. asideThe clinicians were excellent. The business under them was held together with intentions and a Facebook page.

2 · The guideI've been the version of you that didn't make it. Twice.

I started as a child psychologist in 2008. By 2009 I'd rented a garage at fifty euros a month, because the only regulatory requirement to open a Bulgarian psychology practice at the time was a working toilet. asideThe toilet was load-bearing. Architecturally, professionally, and otherwise. By 2011 my sister and I had a real office and a purple dragon mascot suit that I wore in the park in the middle of the Bulgarian summer to get parents to sign up. asideI would rather not elaborate. The suit predates the business, the office, and any business sense at all. By 2013 we were the premium service in the city, booked six weeks ahead. The local university was sending dozens of students to intern with us; we hired three of them as teachers.

Between 2013 and 2024, I taught the same disciplinary-motivational system — "The First 7" — to over 8,000 parents across more than 100 paid seminars. We grew the practice to six locations. We failed at the sixth, hard, for almost two full years. I'd opened it in Plovdiv with a partner in 2022, certain that what had worked in our home city would work in a bigger one. It did not. So in 2022 I hired Glen Torres — a marketing coach — because I had run out of better ideas. I'd resisted marketing for nine years on the grounds that the work should speak for itself. The work was speaking for itself beautifully, into an empty room. orThe work was speaking for itself beautifully. The room was empty. Both things were true.

On April 30, 2024, I ran the system Glen had taught me for the first time on a real location. Ten days later the location was full. Within a year, students and former colleagues from international conferences started asking how I'd done it. That's where the consulting started.

3 · The planThree steps. Not three pillars.

When somebody comes to work with me, the shape is almost always the same. We don't start with strategy. We start with diagnosis.

One: get the number right. Income per square metre per month is the first thing I check. It tells me whether your space is a real business or a generous hobby. Most practices I look at are quietly bleeding here and haven't noticed because their bookings look fine.

Two: fix the operator-dependency before scaling. If revenue stops when you stop, you don't have a business yet — you have a salary with extra paperwork. The fix is mechanical: hiring, the admission conversation, the contract structure, the systems under the clinical work. Boring, decisive, and the difference between a practice that compounds and one that doesn't.

Three: put the sales motion in place. Not pitch-and-close — the structured conversation that turns a curious parent into an enrolled family without either of you feeling sold to. I learned this the slow way. You don't have to.

My job is to compress 12 years of mistakes into 3 months of decisions. That is the whole product. orI sell shortcuts. Slightly used, mostly mine, all paid for in real money.

4 · What changesIf we do this well.

Your practice runs without you sitting in every chair. Your prices match the value you actually deliver instead of the value your neighbour charges. Your team can onboard a new client without your sign-off. You take a real holiday for the first time in years.

If we don't — or if we never work together — you spend another two or three years doing what I did from 2009 to 2022. It works eventually. The dragon suit was surprisingly effective at the time. asideI am not recommending the dragon suit. But I am also not unrecommending it. You'd just rather not.