Do you sometimes feel a bit aimless? You want to build your practice and you have a ton of ideas… new things you’d like to offer and new ways you’d like to work. You also want to get certified in a new method and start writing more and….
You get overwhelmed.
When you work for yourself, you need one big goal to be working towards. Imagine it’s a year from now, and consider what you would MOST want to have accomplished. You need to be more specific than “build my practice.” Your goal has to be clear enough that it helps guide your decisions and allows you to map out smaller goals that will get you there.
Here are examples of big goals for 2 therapists I have helped:
Maria* set this goal: Bring my caseload up to include 10 full-fee sessions per week working with my ideal clients.
Eve* set this goal: Create a workshop I will offer repeatedly and fill it.
Both of these big goals helped the therapists to build their practices and increase their income, but the therapists were led to do that in different ways. Let’s look at the strategies that supported the 2 therapists in achieving their big goals.
Maria: bring my caseload up to include 10 full-fee sessions per week working with my ideal clients.
She got very clear on the needs and problems of her ideal clients so that she could reach out to them successfully. She used that clarity to transform her online presence and to network strategically. She wrote articles directed towards those clients. She raised fees with her clients who could afford it, and temporarily stopped accepting new low fee clients.
Eve: create a workshop I will offer repeatedly and fill it.
Eve identified what she was providing to her individual clients over and over and that they valued the most. Based on that, she created a first iteration of a workshop that cost her almost nothing to run. She reached out to colleagues to fill the workshop with the people it was meant to serve. Then she used the feedback from her first workshop to create the next iteration of that workshop.
Notice that for both of those big goals, the action steps were very different. Any one of those steps could be challenging to get through. Writing an article, reaching out to colleagues, editing your website…you might not feel like doing any of these things on a given Tuesday. Your big goal is what motivates you to power through and do it anyway.
Without a big goal, here’s what happens:
You try one thing to build your practice, and if that doesn’t bring results right away, you abandon it and try something else. You do things that are likely to get money in the door quickly, such as accepting a lower fee than you would like, taking on a client you know isn’t a great fit, or offering an appointment at a time you would rather not be at the office. These choices don’t bring you closer to the practice you really want.
What is YOUR big goal?
Make it something that excites you and feels a little bit out of reach. If you had this goal accomplished a year from now, your practice would not only be more profitable, but also more fulfilling.
Are you ready to build a bolder and more innovative private practice? Apply for a free phone consultation with me.
*Not their real names.