Summary
On Grow A Small Business Podcast, Dr. Stacey Krauss, CEO of Transitions Counseling and Consulting, spoke with host Troy Trewin about what it takes to grow a mental health organization without losing sight of the people it serves. She shared how 10 years as an active-duty U.S. Army psychologist prepared her to run a business, why fast growth means constantly rebuilding systems, how coachability guides hiring, and why emotional maturity may be the most important habit a leader can develop.
Key Takeaways
- According to Dr. Krauss, since she took over Transitions Counseling and Consulting in 2021, the team has grown from 26 people to around 120 employees, and the organization is preparing to open its 15th location.
- For Dr. Krauss, success means building an organization that can continue serving its community for decades without depending on any one person.
- In a fast-growing company, systems that work today will eventually break and need to be rebuilt, from HR processes to how phone calls are answered.
- Coachability, the ability to both receive and offer good coaching, is the number one trait Transitions looks for when hiring.
- Leaders of growing teams have to stay focused on the big picture and practice emotional maturity, even when daily frustrations invite them to do otherwise.
Listen to Dr. Stacey Krauss's full Grow A Small Business Podcast interview:
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What does it take to grow a mental health practice?
The obvious answer is demand. But growing an organization that can meet that demand responsibly requires much more than opening new offices. It requires hiring the right people, building systems that can handle more patients, creating a culture that supports clinicians and having leaders who are willing to keep changing as the organization changes.
Dr. Stacey Krauss, Psy.D., ABPP, CEO of Transitions Counseling and Consulting, recently joined Troy Trewin on Grow A Small Business Podcast for a candid conversation about that journey.
The episode, “How Dr. Stacey Krauss Grew Transitions Counseling Consulting by 70% Annually: From 26 to 120 Team Members and 2 to 15 Locations While Expanding Access to Mental Health Care,” explores her path from Army psychologist to small business owner and the lessons she has learned along the way. The conversation covers growth, marketing, hiring, company culture, leadership, work-life balance and why the hardest part of growing a business is allowing yourself to change.
From Army Psychologist to Mental Health Business Owner
Dr. Krauss began her career as a psychologist in the U.S. Army, where she served for 10 years on active duty.
It is an unusual path into business ownership. But as Dr. Krauss explains in the interview, her military service gave her a world-class education in running a business. Many of the responsibilities a small business owner faces also exist in uniform, and her interest in entrepreneurship started there.
After leaving active service, her goal was to take over an established business at a natural turning point for its owner. That opportunity came in September 2021, when the original owner of Transitions Counseling and Consulting was relocating and decided to sell. Dr. Krauss took over the business and has led it ever since.
Her focus as CEO has remained clear: expanding access to care by growing the organization's services, their quality and their accessibility.
That takes discipline. As a psychologist, Dr. Krauss admits it is tempting to work in the business rather than on it, but her job is to stay focused on the company's overall performance and growth.
What Growth Has Looked Like at Transitions
During the podcast, Dr. Krauss shares a few numbers that illustrate how far the organization has come since 2021.
According to Dr. Krauss, Transitions has averaged around 70% top-line revenue growth year over year. When she arrived, the team had 26 people, most of them contractors, and two locations, one of which was brand new. Today, Transitions has around 120 employees, and the organization is preparing to open its 15th location.
She describes the journey as both thrilling and terrifying.
Part of that growth reflects a broader change in how people view mental health care. Dr. Krauss notes that if COVID had a silver lining, it was the progress made in reducing the stigma around mental health care, making it more acceptable for people to include it as part of their regular health care routine.
Transitions offers outpatient mental health services for people of all ages, including children, teens, adults, couples and families, in Arizona and Texas. Learn more about Transitions' individual counseling and therapy, psychiatry and medication management and intensive outpatient programs, or explore mental health services for families.
Why Success Means Building Care That Lasts
When Troy Trewin asked when she first felt successful, Dr. Krauss answered honestly: she is not sure she has had that moment yet, because every milestone brings a new set of problems.
Instead, she measures success by a different standard. As she puts it, one sign of success is “how well this organization can provide high quality healthcare without me there.”
In her view, the best health care companies become community resources for decades to come. That means building an organization designed to last, not one that depends on a single person.
Why Fast Growth Means Constantly Rebuilding
One of the most practical lessons in the episode is about what happens inside a company that grows quickly.
As Dr. Krauss puts it, when you are a fast-growing company, “everything breaks and has to be rebuilt.”
An HR system that works well today may not work in the next stage of growth. At Transitions, even the way the team answers phone calls has been completely reinvented two or three times because the old processes could not keep up with the volume and quality of service the team needs to provide.
Leadership roles change too. Dr. Krauss describes the need to keep “firing yourself” from tasks. As soon as a CEO starts to feel fully competent in the current version of the job, it is often a sign that it is time to move on to the next stage of growth. She estimates her own role has changed six or seven times in five years.
To prepare for those changes, she now writes out her job description for the next three years, giving her a clear picture of where she should be spending her time if she is leading the organization well.
Her team has had to adapt too, and Dr. Krauss deeply respects the team members who have grown with Transitions since the beginning.
“It takes a lot of emotional maturity to let yourself change at the pace of the organization.”
How Transitions Approaches Marketing
When asked which area of the business she has had to work on most, Dr. Krauss answered without hesitation: marketing.
The day she took over Transitions, she became the organization's chief marketer, and she has worn that hat ever since. At first, telling the company's story to strangers felt unfamiliar, but she learned that a sustainable way to connect with the people a business serves is essential to its long-term health.
Today, Transitions uses what she calls a “tale of two cities” approach. A specialized agency helps with digital marketing, while an in-house team builds referral relationships with other health care providers in the community, taking the time to learn what they do and explain what Transitions offers.
Practical marketing lessons from the episode include:
- Track the performance of every marketing activity you try, so you know what is working from the start.
- Understand how people actually find you, so you can avoid spending money on channels that are not working.
- Train your team to ask new contacts how they heard about you and to record the answers carefully.
Why Coachability Is the Number One Hiring Trait
Growing from 26 people to around 120 means a great deal of hiring, and Dr. Krauss is open about the wins and the mistakes.
Her first piece of advice is to trust yourself and your team to make hiring decisions. Hiring is not a perfect science, and waiting months to get every decision exactly right can slow a team down.
One thing she would do differently is hire senior leaders with specialized skills sooner. When she was considering Transitions' first chief financial officer, a friend who had also grown a small business encouraged her to invest more than she thought she could, because the right person would transform the organization. He was right. Until then, Dr. Krauss had been acting as a part-time CFO herself.
When it comes to who succeeds at Transitions, one trait stands above the rest: coachability.
That means being receptive to coaching and also offering good coaching to others. It matters more than past experience or how closely someone's background matches what the team does today.
How Values Become Culture
Dr. Krauss believes a company has to act on its values, even when doing so costs something.
If a strong performer or someone in a hard-to-fill role is not a good culture fit, leaders still have to act on what they say they value. As she puts it, “if you don't, those aren't really your values.”
One of Transitions' values is to cheer each other on. The team uses the science of positive reinforcement to encourage everyone to do their best work, keep learning and show up the way patients need them to in a health care setting.
That value shows up in recruiting, onboarding and even in how team members learn they are getting a raise or a promotion. The goal is to recognize contributions big and small that make Transitions a great place to work and to receive care.
What Does It Mean to Be a “Grown-Up” Leader?
Asked to name the number one habit a small business owner needs, Dr. Krauss gave an answer shaped by her training as a psychologist:
“You have got to be a grown-up.”
Leading a growing team means staying focused on the biggest picture possible instead of getting distracted by small daily frustrations. The more a leader practices emotional maturity, she explains, the healthier the team will be.
That also means taking care of yourself. Dr. Krauss keeps an 8 p.m. work curfew and has asked her team to call her out if they catch her working past it. As she explains, you can keep going nonstop for a couple of months, maybe a year or two, but not for five years. Her team needs her level and ready to make decisions every day.
What Growth Means for Patients and Families
Behind the numbers in this episode is what Dr. Krauss describes as the focus of her job: expanding access to care.
More locations can make it easier for families to find an office closer to home, and better systems, like the phone processes the team has rebuilt several times, can make it easier to reach the organization and get started.
Dr. Krauss describes mental health care as an enduring need in the community, not a fad. That is why so many of her lessons ultimately come back to the same goal: building an organization that can serve its community for the long term.
Dr. Krauss's Final Advice for Small Business Owners
The episode closes with five quick questions. Dr. Krauss's answers include:
- The hardest part of growing a business: Allowing yourself to constantly change. In her words, “You can have everything your way, or you can grow, but you cannot have both.”
- Her favorite business book: Bringing Out the Best in People by Dr. Aubrey Daniels, which she describes as science meets HR.
- A learning resource she checks regularly: Harvard Business Review, for thinking about where business is headed.
- A tool every small business should use: A weekly scorecard with repeatable, clearly understood key numbers that show how the company is doing.
- What she would tell herself on day one: Spend less time worrying, because you will figure it out, and set up your accounting structure as if you were already a much larger business.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Dr. Stacey Krauss?
Dr. Stacey Krauss, Psy.D., ABPP, is CEO of Transitions Counseling and Consulting. She served for 10 years as an active-duty U.S. Army psychologist and has led Transitions since 2021.
How has Transitions Counseling and Consulting grown since 2021?
According to Dr. Krauss, Transitions has averaged around 70% top-line revenue growth year over year since 2021. The team has grown from 26 people to around 120 employees, and the organization, which had two locations in 2021, is preparing to open its 15th location.
What does Transitions look for when hiring?
The number one trait Transitions looks for is coachability, meaning someone who is receptive to coaching and also offers good coaching to others. Dr. Krauss says this matters more than past experience.
What is a company scorecard?
A scorecard is a short set of key numbers that show how a business is performing. Dr. Krauss recommends reviewing it every week and making sure everyone on the team understands exactly what each number means. It can be as simple as a spreadsheet or a document.
What services does Transitions Counseling and Consulting provide?
Transitions Counseling and Consulting offers mental health services for people of all ages in Arizona and Texas. Services include individual counseling and therapy, group therapy, relationship and couples counseling, psychiatry and medication management, and intensive outpatient programs, with telehealth available when appropriate. Availability depends on location and individual needs.
Listen to Dr. Stacey Krauss on Grow A Small Business Podcast
The full Grow A Small Business Podcast conversation goes deeper into Dr. Krauss's path from Army psychologist to CEO, the challenges of growing quickly, and the hiring, culture and leadership lessons that have shaped Transitions Counseling and Consulting.
Listen to the full interview with Dr. Stacey Krauss
About Dr. Stacey Krauss
Stacey Krauss, Psy.D., ABPP, is CEO of Transitions Counseling and Consulting. She served for 10 years as an active-duty U.S. Army psychologist and is board certified in both Clinical Psychology and Business and Organizational Consulting Psychology.
Learn more about Dr. Stacey Krauss and her background.
Her professional experience includes executive-level roles leading behavioral health teams for the Department of Defense and designing and directing nationally accredited training programs for future psychologists. She is licensed to practice in Arizona and Texas.
Today, she leads Transitions Counseling and Consulting's work to expand access to mental health care for children, teens, adults and families in Arizona and Texas.
Find Mental Health Support for Your Family
Transitions Counseling and Consulting offers mental health services for children, teens, adults, couples and families in Arizona and Texas, with telehealth available when appropriate. Contact Transitions or call (602) 363-0629 to schedule an appointment or ask which services fit your needs.
At Transitions Counseling and Consulting, we provide compassionate, evidence-based mental health care for children, teens, and adults. Our personalized treatment options help individuals and families find the support they need to improve their mental health and move forward with confidence. Explore our services to learn how we can help.
