My name is Katie Vernoy and I’m a licensed therapist, coach, consultant, and speaker. I’ve navigated the same ups and downs that you have. I’ve run my own businesses, designed innovative programs, built and managed large, thriving teams, and stepped into leadership as a State Board member for my professional organization. I know how isolating it can feel as a leader and an entrepreneur. I know how hard it can be to weather seasonal fluctuations or changes in your market. I know that self-doubt or burnout can stop you in your tracks. And I also know how amazing it is to be able to pursue your life’s mission and be your own boss.
Being a business owner is hard. Especially when you’re obsessed with making the world a better place.
You know who you are. You’ve had success and know you should be grateful. But you’re exhausted and unfulfilled.
Your bigger dreams keep calling to you and pulling you away from peaceful complacency.
Your passion for life and the world keep flaring up and spurring you on toward this mission that won’t rest easy in your heart.
You are a visionary and a leader. Maybe those words don’t sit quite right for you… yet… but I’m not going to let you continue to deny it. You have a bigger purpose that you need to grow into. In order to do that, you have to fully embrace your own personal brand of leadership. Step into it and evolve – so you can make a bigger impact.
From an early age, I felt compelled to move into leadership whenever there was an opportunity. I was also called to help others, meaning I was an ambitious helper. That’s not an easy path. I’m sure you relate. Helpers are supposed to be humble and give out of the goodness of their hearts. I felt all of those things, but I also wanted to excel. I was willing to step up and manage others. I was willing to claim my successes and shout out loud when my teams won awards. I put my voice out there when others were not able to speak. I threw myself into the fray, time and again, because my passion and vision were bigger than I could contain.
There was success in that willingness to do things differently. My first management position was for a struggling mental health program that was getting ready to close its doors. I worked with my new team and we created innovative clinical programs that won awards. We were able to engage our clients and increase attendance (and clinician productivity), billing more than had ever been billed before. We became super-efficient, adding administrative team members and putting systems in place that streamlined a complex bureaucratic process. I loved managing this team, leading them to success and increased work satisfaction while preserving services in a community that really needed them.
As I continued my journey in management, I learned how differently each team must be run. I became well-versed on the hiring process, learning the unique challenges of managing helping professionals. I trained countless service providers, supervisors, and managers, providing mentorship and guidance at every career stage. I moved into the role of director, managing a large team and a multimillion dollar budget.
And then I burned out.
I knew I needed something different, but found that I would get tired just reading the job descriptions in employment ads. I was still called to help and lead others, but I needed to figure out what that meant.
I began working for myself and have now crafted a career that I truly love. I consult with professionals who are called to help others, providing strategy, accountability, and practical support for them to succeed. I maintain a private practice, providing therapy to those who have complex pasts and know they are capable of so much more. I speak on Embracing Leadership and overcoming Sacrificial Helping Syndrome (that pesky tendency many of us have – to give more than we have). I have a podcast, The Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide, and have co-founded a movement to reimagine therapy, providing workshops and conferences for therapists. I am a Board Member at Large for the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, which gives me a platform to support and advocate for California MFTs. I have found a way to step into my own leadership and I love supporting others to do the same.
I greatly appreciated your insights and support in creating a vision for the next steps in my private practice. I love the action plan you sent! I left our session feeling focused and excited about digging into the next phase of my practice. Best of all, I felt more lighthearted.
I sought out Katie’s services to help me focus my networking and marketing efforts, and integrate several arenas I had been working in—into a coherent professional narrative.
I feel like my efforts have gathered momentum and focus and am much more excited about developing my career. Areas that I had initially felt
resistance to (like networking for example) no longer have the charge they used to.
Katie is highly intelligent, warm, approachable, and collaborative. She is also incredibly insightful and has a unique way of synthesizing complex ideas into clear and actionable steps.
Katie has invited me to think a lot more expansively about my career. I am exploring developing a book, more public speaking work and moving into video content.
I originally sought out Katie through Linkedin due to her background in both counseling and recruitment. I was unhappy in my current career but couldn’t pinpoint where I wanted to go from there. I originally reached out to gain more info on her own path and career as I was interested in a similar path. After speaking with Katie, I was able to pinpoint what about my current job was making me unhappy. Katie had me answer a few questions prior to our appointment, which allowed her to dig deeper during our conversation. She was able to open my eyes more to what I wanted in a career while also assuring me that my needs/wants were practical. She has the perfect mix of counseling background with business knowledge to provide great advice and, in my personal case, identify solutions to my career difficulties. With Katie’s advice in mind, I went about searching for a new job that fit what I was looking for, which I was able to clarify in our meeting. I ended up landing a job that is a perfect fit and I’m very grateful for all of Katie’s help. I’m very appreciate of the time that Katie took in helping me, especially since my problem was more personal/career related than business. She was very receptive to me reaching out and I’m thankful that I was able to talk to her when I did.
Katie is wonderful. I highly recommend her. She has the ability to assist me in focusing my attention on the essential things that I need to do to enable my practice and myself to flourish. She is extremely capable, and a warm and supportive person. If you are thinking about engaging her services, do yourself a favor and go ahead. You won’t regret it.
I was fortunate enough to find Katie immediately following passing my licensing exam. I wanted someone who could help me organize my time, hold me accountable and build my private practice. Katie is smart, knowledgeable, experienced and enjoyable to work with. I met my private practice goals for that first year and have the accountability and inspiration from my regular meetings with Katie to continue to grow.
My husband and I met with Katie as we are in the process of growing our Counseling and Life Coaching practice. We were looking for affirmation that we were doing things right, and we wanted to see where we could improve regarding our brand, website, and vision. We immediately felt that Katie understood us and cared about our practice. She was able to help us to feel more confident in the direction and vision of our practice. She also gave us tailored and creative suggestions of how to improve our website, organizational systems, and maximize our time. After working together, we felt like we experienced immediate clarity on some big issues that were looming over our heads which helped us to move forward quickly and with confidence – allowing us to spend more time focusing on our clients and our family. We would recommend business coaching with Katie. She’s warm, knowledgeable, focused, and passionate about her work.
Working with Katie gave me the purpose and peace of mind that I was lacking in my business. As my graphic design business grew, I realized that I needed help with the operations functions of my day – understanding my work flow, developing my work process and isolating areas for growth. Katie helped me identify and articulate the goals and strengths of my business, and was especially adept at finding solutions. Katie is an exceptional listener and a creative thinker, and knows precisely how to distill issues down to their essential importance. Working with Katie has given me the confidence and freedom to approach each day well-equipped to prioritize my tasks and to understand how I can be the most productive through myriad challenges. Katie’s follow-up materials and professionalism along with an ability to parse out details provide winning solutions every time.
I recently hired Evolve to Thrive to assist me in planning my staffing needs and clarifying roles of my team members to help us move into our next phase of growth. I was extremely please with Ms. Vernoy’s professionalism, knowledge and thoroughness at every step of the way. Katie provided some much needed strategic thinking around the org chart and coming up with a way to help move me out of the day to day operations. This created a real shift in how I see things moving forward and I appreciate Katie’s clarity, as I look to replace my current duties and move on to new heights. During all of our meetings and phone calls, Katie was always on point, responsive, a great listener and also knew when to take control to move me towards my stated goals and needs. Evolve to Thrive also found ways to increase support and infrastructure without increasing costs by clarifying team member roles.
Thanks for all your help, ideas and documents! I really appreciate the high quality level of what you provided.
Katie has been an invaluable part of me getting my footing as a mental health professional.
Working with her has given me a whole new level of motivation, confidence, and understanding
of building a brand and practice for myself in the community. I always look forward to our
meetings, knowing that I will not only have a blast talking to her, but I’ll walk away with so many
new positive ideas and goals for myself and my practice. I am so glad that I met Katie and have
been able to supplement my clinical support from my supervisor with her vast expertise and
support in the areas of marketing, networking, and business and career planning. I have
definitely already seen positive outcomes just from 5 months of consulting with Katie. I highly
recommend it for anyone looking to gain clarity and direction in their career!
Rachel Cord, M.S., MFTI
I have been in the finance industry for 8+ years. By nature, I am very analytical and goal-oriented. The problem with these attributes is that I spend entirely too much time analyzing my business to find areas where I could be generating more revenue and increasing my time management efficiency. About a year ago I came to a point in my career where I needed someone who could help lead me down a path of efficiency, as well as someone that I could actively brainstorm with. I retained Katie at the beginning of Q4 2013. I had two goals: 1. I wanted to generate an additional $10,000 per month in revenue during that quarter, and 2. I wanted to establish a repeatable system to drive new business development, while at the same time providing a more robust client experience. Right away Katie was able to help me transform my thoughts into actionable ideas and she made it clear at the onset that she would hold me accountable to ensure that my goals were met.
To say my goals for that quarter were met would be an understatement! I more than tripled my quarterly revenue goal, while at the same time increasing my business pipeline 50% and implementing repeatable, high touch, client experience. I have continued to retain Katie, and in almost a year since we started meeting on a monthly basis I have increased revenue 50% year over year. Her consultative, detailed approach has been a blessing for my business and I would recommend her to anyone who is looking to be more efficient and who wants to take their business to the next level.
Katie Vernoy continues to be a pleasant surprise to me in the business coaching world. My company is in a niche industry and a regular coaching model doesn’t fit with our goals and systems. She has custom tailored her expertise and guidance to work with me on organizing, establishing and attaining our growth goals. For the past two years, I have been the sole employee, CEO, sales, marketing, etc. for my company and as I continued to grow and hire on more help it was difficult for me to transition out of the micro-managing mindset and into an ownership and delegation position. She not only provides input, but solid, tangable systems that are applicable to any size business. I highly recommend her to anyone looking for business consulting services.
Katie is a treasure to work with. She is smart, hardworking, and thoughtful. When Katie takes on a project she puts her entire energy into it. She wants to help make others successful. I have been very lucky to work with Katie to have someone with such devotion and faith in what you do.
Katie has been instrumental in helping me transition from working as a clinician in an agency into my private practice. She is energetic, motivating and creative, and at the same time, she’s patient, grounded and logical. Katie has been able to engage with my creative exploration process, and has exceptional skill in being able to pinpoint topics with sensitivity and purpose, which has helped me feel centered in defining my professional practice. Thanks!!
Katie has been my business coach for four months, and I plan to continue working with her. I meet with Katie once a month for 1 hour each visit, and I work on projects/assignments between each meeting. Katie is an amazing coach! I highly recommend her services. Instead of telling me what to do, Katie listens and then expertly guides me to finding solutions to the challenges I’m facing with my business and personal effectiveness. With Katie’s guidance I’ve learned to work “on” my business and not “in” my business. She’s taught me valuable time management skills, and I am now able to focus most of my attention on business system development. Katie has helped me make important positive changes in my life over these past few months.
Lauren Spiglanin
Within two weeks of looking for jobs and interviewing, I was offered a position at the agency of my choice. I wanted to thank Katie Vernoy SO MUCH for all her help, insight, and attention. Our meetings together and her consultation packet were so incredibly helpful. I had never been so confident going into my interviews as I was this time around!
In just a few short meetings with myself and my office manager, I have gained huge insights in how to better communicate with him. His productivity and sales are up 200% because now I know what he needs to succeed. I strongly recommend any small “entrepreneur” led company to work with her for a month. The rewards are big.
I was absolutely blown away by the great feedback that you gave me from our mock interview and your edits on my resume. It has been rare in my experience to receive useful critical feedback in a warm and engaging way. Eventually, I’d love to focus on learning to teach and instruct in the skillful and accessible way you do.
I’m so thankful for the time that you gave me. I know that what I was given will continue to inform how I present myself professionally.
It turns out that I was offered a position with the site I was interviewing with that same afternoon. I had to turn it down due to their inability to provide me with supervision hours, but I will keep in touch with them for future reference.
If it’s okay with you, I’d like to refer my friends and tell my Clinical Practicum Director at Fuller about your services.
Thanks again,
I wanted to give you an update. I have accepted a position as a Clinician with South Coast Community Services in Rancho Cucamonga! The company offers a great salary and benefits. Also, my new resume helped me to get invited to Didi Hirsch’s Talent Engagement Roundtable (a place where I had trouble getting into).
Thank you so much for helping me fine tune my resume. It has made a difference in my search for the perfect career opportunity. I am now receiving phone calls/emails from prospective employers; which has not happened in 2 years. I will definitely recommend your services to others.
I originally met Katie at a jobs fair where I found her command of knowledge about the mental health industry to be truly uncommon. I think there’s something to be said for working with a career consultant who is specific to the industry you’re interested in. I had previously met with a generic career counselor and that mostly involved many of my inquiries being met with “Let’s look it up together!” Over the course of a handful of sessions, Katie helped me refine my search, which led to the job I currently hold and love. I am infinitely grateful to Katie!
