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b'The Nitty Gritty\\n\\n* Why Alison Pidgeon left her Director role at two outpatient clinics to start Move Forward Counseling, a group mental health practice based in Pennsylvania\\n* The reasoning behind Alison\\u2019s choice to stop taking new clients \\u2014 plus, how she divides her time between counseling and running the business\\n* What makes growing a group mental health practice work. In the conversation, Alison shares how she approaches team building and culture creating to keep her practitioners happy\\n* How she structures pay for the other therapists in the group practice and what money goes where\\n\\nSometimes, the way you\\u2019ve worked for years doesn\\u2019t work anymore. Life changes and responsibilities shift. That was the case for Alison Pidgeon. As the former director of two outpatient clinics, Alison started feeling the itch to go out on her own. She was burned out, and with two small children at home, Alison yearned for more flexibility.\\nSo she made some big changes. Alison left her position as director and started her private practice just days later. As her practice grew, Alison made the switch from a solo private practice to a group practice. Today, seven therapists work at Move Forward Counseling alongside Alison to serve the women of greater Lancaster County community.\\nListen to this episode of What Works to hear more about what it took for Alison to scale her business from one to 7, how she shows appreciation for her staff, and how she\\u2019s established a thriving business through word-of-mouth.\\nWe release new episodes of What Works every week. Subscribe on iTunes so you never miss an episode.\\nHow to influence your company culture\\n\\u201cMy staff feels valued. They feel respected. They have flexibility and autonomy over their schedule and what kind of clients they want to see. They\\u2019re paid well so they have time to take care of themselves and take care of their families.\\u201d \\u2014 Alison Pidgeon\\nEvery company has a culture: some companies are intentional about it while others are not. Alison is someone who cares about her staff \\u2014 and through her own experience in community mental health, she learned what not to do.\\n\\u201cI saw what was happening in the agency and I did the exact opposite,\\u201d she says. And it\\u2019s paid off. Her staff are happy in their jobs, they aren\\u2019t overworked, and they have the ability to choose how they work.\\nInfluencing the culture started early and found its footing in Alison\\u2019s own ponderings: \\u201cHow would I want to be treated as a provider?\\u201d she asks. \\u201cIt was easy to take that and develop that culture in my own practice.\\u201d\\nWhy should you scale a high-touch business?\\n\\u201cPrivate practice can be quite lonely. It\\u2019s nice to have other people around. Obviously you can make more money and you\\u2019re able to scale your business and it\\u2019s not tied directly to trading dollars for hours anymore which really appealed to me.\\u201d \\u2014 Alison Pidgeon\\nSometimes there\\u2019s an identity crisis as you scale a business \\u2014 but that shouldn\\u2019t turn you away from an opportunity that\\u2019s crossed your path. As Alison continued working solo in her private practice, she realized that she could grow the practice \\u2014 and that doing so would round out the services that they provided in one place.\\n\\u201cI came up with the umbrella that we\\u2019re a practice focused on women\\u2019s issues,\\u201d Alison says. \\u201cUnderneath that, everybody has their own specialty. Not everyone is doing the same thing but I\\u2019ve been able to tie it together for the purpose of branding and marketing.\\u201d\\nSo far so good: there are currently seven providers (meet them here!) On the logistical side of things, every provider is set up as an independent contract...'