My TV isn’t working and frankly I can’t be bothered to prioritize a call to Virgin Media to have them come out and fix it, but that’s a rant for another blog post…anyway – I am enjoying the fabulous BBC iplayer service in lieu of thousands of channels and nothing to watch.
Last week I caught the repeat of Mary Portas trying to encourage Mrs Maher to refresh her Wimbledon bakery, and failing miserably. Angela Maher reminded us constantly throughout the programme she’d been in business for 36 years and that alone qualified her to know more about retail than Mary, who does retail for a living.
But lessons were there in the programme for us therapists?
Firsty – my favourite topic, finding a niche. Maher’s bakery has a baker on site. A talented baker who can (or could if he were allowed) make artisan breads that the local yummy mummies would pay over the odds for. Mary spent the entire, toe curling programme trying to encourage Angela to leverage the expertise of this hidden gem so that her bakery would become known locally for doing one thing exceptionally well.
Here’s the thing, when you focus your time, energy and attention on doing one thing in particular really, really, really well you become perceived as an expert. And once you’re perceived as an expert you can confidently charge expert prices. Angela was astonished in the programme when Mary took a tray of artisan breads out to a local play group for a taste test with the local mums. Most of them said they’d pay £3 for the loaves they were tasting without batting an eyelid. Angela doesn’t charge anything like that for the breads she sells in the shop.
Secondly – sell the way your customers want to buy. Angela was selling cream buns, cakes and biscuits plus masses of white bread that the modern mum (and more to the point, her local customers) don’t want to feed their children all within the hideous confines of more orangey pine wood than you could shake a stick at. Mary took great pains to point out that the local population care about organic, natural, unprocessed food. Those types of foods are what they are shopping for. So why not sell it to them?
Just because you’ve been in business for 36 years, it still doesn’t mean that you’re plugged into what your customers want. Doing market research means you’re plugged into what your customers want.
How does this translate to therapy? Just like Angela’s customers aren’t buying her 36 years in business, neither are your clients. They aren’t all that interested in how long you’ve been in practice, what your methodology is and that you work with children, adolescents, adults, couples and early onset Alzheimer’s (ie: everyone). They want to know categorically that you can help with their problem and that you can help with it now.
Given too many choices, customers (and that includes your clients) get analysis paralysis. They don’t know what to do unless you tell them very clearly. Speak to their need, speak to the problem that wakes them up at 3am in a panic, make it clear you know what ails them and that you know how to help them fix it. And, unlike Angela, be ready and willing to change!
Opinion has been divided for a long time over this thorny issue. In the UK, psychological therapies are the cornerstone of mental health treatment and are crucial for helping people overcome a wealth of issues.
The arguments for “Yes” run a little bit like this – without a state regulator, anyone can call themselves a psychotherapist and can work with the public. No basic standard of training is required, no code of ethical conduct must be followed and there is no obligation to join a professional register (although, exactly because this is the state of things at the moment, lots of therapists do voluntarily do these things – I certainly do!). Those in the yes camp say that if a client is unfortunate enough to darken the doorway of a less than scrupulous therapist, the complaints procedure is complex, lengthy and ultimately, there’s nothing to stop that therapist from continuing to work – there’s no register they can be permanently struck off. Those in the “yes” camp want statutory regulation by an independent body (ie: they emphatically do not want psychotherapists regulating other psychotherapists) for psychotherapists.
Want are the “No” camp saying? Their argument against regulation lies mainly with the body that’s been earmarked to regulate psychotherapists, the Health Professions Council. Members of the UK’s two main umbrella organisations the UKCP and the BACP have both polled their members and the result is unambiguous: the HPC was inappropriate as a regulator. (Never mind how slow both organisations were to cotton on to the changing tide of public and political opinion regarding this issue, choosing to remain with their heads in the sand about it for as long as possible).
The “no” camp feels that the HPC would be unable to deal with the complexity of the field. The HPC’s guidelines state that the professions they regulate must have homogeneity of theory and practice. However, therapists from different traditions aim to do different things, and then how do we deal with those who identify as integrationist in their approach – blending a number of different techniques to meet the client’s need at that moment? The HPC assumes that therapists will all buy into the same model.
The “no” camp also point out the HPC’s dismal record of dismissal, it dismisses over 70% of complaints as “no case to answer”, compared with just 10% by organisations such as the UKCP. For the most part, therapists opposed to the HPC are actually in favour of regulation, they simply do not think that the HPC is the right organisation to do it.
There’s also the “Maybe” as hinted at previously. There are plenty of counsellors and psychotherapists who do think that state regulation should happen, just not in the way that’s currently being tabled. Many have criticized the HPC for not responding more quickly and fully to the concerns put forward by the psychotherapy community, but in fairness, the psychotherapy community has been backwards in coming forwards on this issue as well.
It’s a messy and confused picture at the moment, with turf wars breaking out over who’s called what and who can work with who.
I’m English, I live in London. Regular readers might already know that. Here in the UK we enjoy (and collude in) appalling customer service. Take my experience of signing up to a new GP surgery. It’s across from my house. Literally. I popped over there to collect a form. A form. Small piece of paper with a monetary value of about 0.0000001. No big deal right.
Wrong. I didn’t have my NHS number with me. I said to the woman at the reception desk “I’ll just run home with this form, fill it in at home where I have my NHS number and bring it straight back”. She told me in no uncertain terms that I was not to take that form off site. At this point, I was merely curious so I asked why and could not get a rational answer out of her. She just dug her heals in and repeated that I wasn’t allowed to take an uncompleted form with no information on it (confidential or otherwise) off site.
I’m ashamed to say I lost my temper with her. I don’t shout when I lose my temper but I did use a “tone” with her. Frankly, it wouldn’t have been much of a big deal to leave the form, get my NHS card and come back but by then I was so angry at her attitude that I dug my heals in as much as she was digging in hers.
What’s this got to do with therapy. A lot of the time I pick up clients because I got back to them quickly. I got back to them within the time limit I set for myself – 24hrs. I got a smart phone precisely so I could get back them sooner than that in most cases. I regularly hear from clients that other therapists didn’t get back to them for days or didn’t get back to them at all.
Not good enough. What’s worse is that I hear therapists hiding behind their theoretical method as an excuse to not respond to clients. This just blows my mind. How arrogant. You are not your modality. Your clients are not your modality. Your clients likely don’t know, or care about your modality. Your clients are in pain, they are suffering. That’s why they picked up the phone to you.
Call them back. In a timely fashion. Don’t be a douche about it. Even if all your clinical hours are full there is no excuse to not return the message to thank the client for getting in touch and explaining that you’re not clients at the moment.
You may think that it’s not your job or not “the way I work” to return calls, but, and I am going to be unapologetically straightforward about this, it is. You are running a business. Ask yourself who do you want to be in your business…because when you don’t return a call or when you return it days later, THAT is what the potential client will remember about you. THAT is what they will tell their friends. That will be part of what keeps you struggling for clients.
Customer service is important. It is relevant to your job as a therapist. It’s got very little to do with your modality. Make a pack with yourself to serve your clients – both current and potential – the same way you’d like to served.
I have a confession to make. Every time my copy of Therapy Today hits the doormat, I flick through towards the back to the Professional Misconduct section. I started doing this during my training as a way of quickly working out what not to do in therapy and to get clarity on the ethical code to which I subscribe. They’re a bit like case studies that highlight what our code of ethics means in practice…well, that’s how I see them.
But what never ceases to amaze me is some of the bizarre stuff that comes before the panel, for example:
- The therapist terminated the work because she found the complainant’s disclosures too personally disturbing
- Inappropriate expressions of affection via text message with a client
- The therapist behaved in an aggressive and rude manner, intimidating the client
- The therapist altered the terms of the contract and then terminated the work without sufficient consultation and without the consent of the client
Seriously…seriously…seriously!? Would you do anything like what I’ve highlighted above if you worked somewhere else doing completely different work? Would you tolerate that kind of behaviour from another business that you had dealings with? I’m willing to bet the answer is no.
For me, the ethical code to which I adhere also applies to how I see myself as a business person. I’m a therapist in private practice. But I also run a business, the business of providing therapy. It’s a very delicate type of business, my clients come to trust me, they reveal details about their lives which are intensely personal. I want to honour and respect that, but at the same time I also want to honour and respect myself as the owner and leader of my business and that means not being a douche.
The ethical codes we all adhere to and the work we do is can seem like it occupies much more of the grey areas than the black or white ends of the spectrum, but our ethical codes are also there to protect us as well as our clients. I encourage you to think not only about what type of therapist you want to be but also what type of business you want to lead.
Yes, that will mean making some incredibly tough decisions. We work with emotions, relationships, communication, boundary issues. The decisions we make that effect our work and our businesses ARE a lot more intricate and delicate than the decisions other business leaders have to make. That’s why we must avail ourselves of the support of our colleagues, our supervisors and our own therapists.
Ask yourself if the decisions you make are right for your clients, right for you and right for your business.
As I said, I’m making my way through David Diana’s book Marketing for the Mental Health Professional and I’m really enjoying it. Not only am I slow reader but I also have three or four books on the go at any one time – some fiction, something for professional development, David’s book (of course!) and the Sunday papers keep me going for most of week.
I’ve reached the end of the first section and David raises some excellent points about encouraging us to move away from the selling process and become part of buying process. He urges us to think about creating a shift where people seek us out to buy what we’re selling and develop a customer-focused sales model. He speaks about focusing on our customers’ needs and learning how to sell the way people want to buy ie; by offering solutions and not simply features.
I raise this not only because I promised to review the book for you but because I had an interesting conversation with a friend who’s been looking for a therapist. He raised the subject with me to ask for my help to find someone as the first therapist he met with disappointed. I asked if he’d be willing to say why. Apart from anything else, it seemed like a good learning opportunity for me!
He said what put him off was that this therapist was the way they enthusiastically recommended he and his partner attend a couples retreat in Europe over the summer. In the very first session while my friend was tentatively trying to introduce what had got him to the point of seeking therapy. Feeling vulnerable, feeling nervous. We both agreed you couldn’t really have picked a less inappropriate moment to pitch a couples retreat you’re organising.
Now, obviously I don’t have an issue with therapists organising couples retreats, I think it’s a great idea. It’s the way it’s being sold I have a problem with. There’s a phrase I’ve heard which goes like this – People LOVE to buy, but they HATE to be sold. What was going on for my friend here was that he was feeling sold. He also felt he was being sold in his very first session with someone who could have been potentially been his therapist.
Re-read what I wrote at the beginning of this post. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
The sales process that happened in this example is nothing like what David outlines. Was this customer focused? Was it what the client wanted? No. This therapist ended up not only failing to recruit someone into her couples’ retreat, they also failed to welcome a new client into their practice.
Here’s a tip from David’s book that might have helped – A distinguishing skill of top performing sales professionals is their ability to ask thoughtful questions of prospects. As mental health professionals, we should have a clear advantage on this one, we should and can use our skills to listen to customer needs and ask questions that get to the core of their wants.
“Marketing 101 – How to tell people what I do, not be sleazy in how I tell them and get more clients!”
So, you want to be a marketing rockstar and get more clients. Well, you’ve come to the right place if you want to book your place in the workshop. Let’s take a look at what we’ll be covering:
- Figuring out what makes you awesome – your USP is what makes you different and better and cooler than the other guys. It makes potential clients think “Hurray! This therapist/nutritionist/osteopath has the exact solution to my problem…I’m calling them right now!”
- Who’s buying what I’m selling? – Once you know what makes you awesome, you’ll need to find the people who want to buy what you’re selling immediately, if not sooner. If at the moment you’re saying “I’m a massage therapist, I’m looking for people who need massages”…well that’s not quite cutting the mustard. Your target demographic is much more complex than that and I’m going to help you find it.
- What do I say to these people? – here’s a big clue, your potential clients have one question on their mind when they look at your website or brochure. Answer that question and you’re golden.
- Okay. Now how do I do all that stuff? – here’s the part where we look at the tools you can use and the strategies you can put in place to market your mojo. Even if you’re an introvert and you hate the phone.
Sound good? I hope so! We’ll try and cover all this in an hour an half…bring a note pad, bring pens.
Click here to buy your ticket!
Who’s this for – anyone working for themselves, anyone without a marketing department, anyone who wants more clients. As you know, I’m a psychotherapist but I spent 10 years in marketing and PR before I retrained (google me…seriously…my name is still on some press releases out there!) and I’ve been putting what I know about marketing to use in developing my own private practice. Who might want this? Yoga teachers, nutritionists, pilates people, cool/creative/freelance-y people…if you’re hustling your services, whatever they are, you need to market them.
How much does it cost? Well, a mere £25 is all. If what you learn brings you in one client it will have more than paid for itself. Plus it counts as continued professional development and that stuff usually costs crazy money!
Spaces are limited, by all means deliberate but don’t miss out! Click here to buy your ticket!
It’s all happening on 5th May at 41 Fitzroy Square, London W1T 7pm – 8.30pm
How can you get on the workshop – easy peasey lemon squeezy. Click on the button below. Go on CLICK IT! Yay you, you do something cool and you want people to know about it. You, to me, are awesome.
Click here to buy
An incredible thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago. A man called David P Diana dropped me a line to introduce himself and to flag up his newly published book. Now, I was incredibly flattered because I read his blog regularly (and love it!), he was offering to send me a copy of his book as he thought I’d be a kindred spirit and I’m hardly in the power blogging category. But as it turns out, bloggers are a really nice bunch of people and social media really can be social.
Onto the book. It’s called Marketing for the Mental Health Professional: An Innovative Guide for Practitioners. As I literally only got my copy today, I’ll save a full review for later but I do want to share with you some highlights from the table of contents:
- Secrets of Success and the Sales Stigma
- Exploring the New Marketing Model
- Where Can Marketing Take You?
- How to Sell Mental Health Services: Five Elements of Success
- Finding Your Place in the Field: Effective Strategies for Building Credibility and Earning Authority
- Understanding Buying Motives in Behavioral Health Care
- Social Networking in the Mental Health Profession
- Selling Yourself in Today’s Job Market
The list goes on…I hope there’s enough there to pique your interest! He really does seem to be delivering the goodness here, busting through some of the myths and misconceptions that some in the professional believe is (or more often, isn’t) possible when marketing a private practice.
But, unbelievably, if you buy the book you’ll also get access to the most amazing party bag of therapy goodies around at the moment. I feel like I’m about to start sounding like an ad for a closing down sale because it’s crazy what else you get when you buy the book – you’ll get another e-book on effective interventions for working with children (not written by David, I hasten to add!), a free audio seminar by Susan Giurleo, a free private practice toolkit and a bunch of other stuff. Buy the book, get the goodies. Seriously. Plus, I also just think David is a cool guy. And, I am not making any money by recommending you buy the book, I genuinely think it’s a great investment in your practice marketing skills and abilities.
Marketing for the Mental Health Professional by David P Diana
I met with Dr Phil Tyson over the weekend. He runs a Manchester-based practice called Men’s Therapy. I asked him a couple of questions about his pratice:
How did you get started marketing your practice?
I did what I saw all the other therapists doing – I took out an ad in the Yellow Pages. At huge expense. It got me no business at all. I realised that I needed to be found where my clients where looking and they were looking online. So I taught myself HTML so that I could build myself a website and then have the skills to change and update as I saw fit. Organic search engine traffic is how the vast majority of my clients find me.
How and why did you decide on a niche practice?
Again, I took a look around at what other therapists where doing and I kept seeing a “one-size fits all” approach to service delivery. Lots of long, long lists of problems that looked like shopping lists. I thought from the client’s perspective, this isn’t going to instill confidence if I say I work with every type of client who presents with every type of problem. So I decided to focus on a particular type of client that I thought was under served – men seeking therapy.
And how’s that worked out for you!
All my client hours are currently full and I’ve got a waiting list! The feedback I get from clients is that they’re relieved to find someone who “gets” them. Men aren’t particularly interested in hearing a lot of the usual cliches that are found on therapy websites – warm holding environment….life’s journey…all of that sort of stuff, they’re interested in hearing about the solutions. The choice of words I use on my website are very deliberate – phrases like “reaching your goals effectively and efficiently” make men feel much more comfortable about engaging with me.
Evidenced based practice is also very important to me. I’m sure it’s important to every therapist but I actively make it part of the conversation I have with potential clients but referencing research findings in my blog posts and so on. For my clients, that’s important. It does a lot to instill confidence and trust in me.
Why did you pick men as your niche?
Well, obviously I am a man, that’s an important part of it! But over and above that, counselling and psychotherapy are very female dominated professions. In fact, a lot of services are subtly more female orientated. Men perceive GP surgeries as being more welcoming to women. When do you ever see reading material in a surgery that men want to read? It’s usually women’s interest titles. Lot’s of other services are gendered as well – abuse, domestic violence, eating disorders. However, men are victims of sexual and physical abuse, domestic violence and they increasingly suffer with eating disorders. It’s more difficult for them to access these services when they’re excluded right from the get-go and nothing’s stepping into the breach to support them. Which is why so many of my clients are glad to have found me, they really do feel like someone out there gets them.
Apart from being busy and in demand, what other benefits have you found from niching your practice?
Media coverage! Journalists have found me because of my blog and my website. I’m now a regular contributor on radio and the Manchester Evening News and because I have a niche, I’m perceived as an expert.
Check out Dr Phil Tyson’s blog Mens Wellbeing
A quick post to flag up a very cool and exciting free teleseminar that my mentor and coach, Laura Dessauer, is running next week. She is so wonderful to work with. She’s gentle but firm when she knows you need it, I’d highly recommend clearly some time in your schedule to get on this call if you can. We’ve been talking a lot about niches, so this is a chance to jump in and get support from a seasoned pro, don’t miss out.
Put this date in your diary - Tuesday, April 27, 2010, at 8:30pm EST.
http://www.businesssuccessfortherapists.com/nichecall/
Here’s what Laura will be covering – If you are new to starting a private practice, or you’ve been in business for years and still missing that magic piece to help you fill your practice, then you are not going to want to miss this FREE call! Join me on Tuesday, April 27th at 8:30- EST as I share my insider strategies on how to niche and fill your practice. I’ll reveal:
The top 7 reason why people don’t niche. Yes, you are sabotaging your practice and you may not even understand why. Here I revel to you why therapists don’t niche and how this DRAMATICALLY impacts your business and keeps you from serving many (many) more clients, making a bigger impact, and creating more income. I’ll also share the 5 reasons you must niche!
The 5 niches that clients are looking help with. These are they trends of what clients are seeking and if you position yourself as an expert in one of these niches expect lucrative and rewarding results
Which niches may not be such a good idea if you are looking to create a fee-for-service practice. If you are working with these clients you may feel rewarded, but you may not see much in your wallet.
How to know if your niche is a bomb. There is a clear warning that your niche (or lack thereof) is not working. If you ignore this it may be detrimental to your business.
The 7 steps to creating an authentic and profitable niche using my Niche and Fill My Practice Signature System (you’ll get the insider secrets on creating a powerful niche, you wish you had when you first started your practice).
I’ve talking about therapy niches here quite a lot recently and my feeling is it will be useful to look at some cool niches that are out there.
This coming weekend I’ll be meeting with Dr Phil Tyson. His practice is called Men’s Therapy and he has a great, super focused blog called Men’s Wellbeing. I’m going to be interviewing him about his practice, the types of clients he works with and how focusing in on a specific client group has helped to grow his practice, not shrink it.
I’ll get our interview up by Monday at the latest, so check back to hear how creating a niche has helped Phil develop a powerful and fulfilling practice.
