Why Should a Therapist Blog?

Should you write a blog? Here are some reasons blogging might or might not be a good fit for your practice building strategy. 

Why blog?

Because you like to write

If you prefer writing to public speaking or networking, blogging is a way you can “speak” directly to your ideal clients. You can let people get to know who you are as a therapist by sharing your ideas and your voice. If you like writing enough to write for an hour each week, blogging might be a good tool for you. If you’re comfortable with video, you can sometimes create simple videos instead of writing.

Because you have something to say

You’ll need to come up with topics regularly. You don’t have to come up with unique or earth shattering ideas for each blog entry. Your blog entries will address what your ideal clients come to you for help with. You can discuss research, share your opinions, and sometimes give advice. Your purpose here is to share your voice and how you think about these issues, not to come up with all the answers. Blogging is different from writing articles for professional journals. You’ll want to keep your voice accessible and personal.

Because you want to improve your search engine optimization

If you blog regularly, once a week or more, you can begin to improve your S.E.O… But don’t start blogging if you don’t like to write! Therapists who start blogging only because someone told them this would improve their web traffic end up feeling like the blog is a burden and a chore. Those blogs quickly end up in the graveyards of the internet.

Think carefully about whether blogging will be an enjoyable way to reach out to the people you love to work with. If the answer is no, don’t blog. You can create your strategy using dozens of other practice building tools that will fit you better. If you do decide to blog, contact me for a free consultation. We can discuss how to avoid common pitfalls and make sure your blog works to build your practice. 

Is It Hard For You to Claim Your Expertise?

One of the best ways to build a robust private practice is to become an established expert in one area of specialty. When you choose an area of specialty and then become known for that by writing, public speaking, and talking to colleagues about that specialty, your practice will grow quickly. Many therapists get uncomfortable about this and they say “I don’t want to claim to be an expert.” If you’re thinking this, maybe you need to adjust your thinking on what it means to be an expert.

If an expert is a person who knows everything about a certain issue, can help any person solve problems around that issue, has 20 years of experience, and has none of their own problems with that issue, well then perhaps you can’t be an expert. Let’s question that definition! Here’s a secret: some of the people you think are experts probably doubt themselves too.

Here’s what I think an expert is: a person who is passionate, knowledgeable, and regularly engaged with a particular issue; someone who perhaps struggles with that issue as well, and has a lot of both personal and professional experience with the issue; someone who has a lot of ideas and questions about an issue and likes to be in complex conversations about that issue.

In order to be seen as an expert, you never actually have to say “I am an expert.” As you stand tall in your knowledge, skills and point of view in your area of expertise, others will recognize that you are an expert. Perhaps your clients will recognize that you are the kind of expert they can get real help from, the kind who doesn’t claim to know everything and is open to different ideas.

The Top 10 Questions Therapists Ask Me...#10

This is the last in a series of blog posts: The Top 10 Questions Therapists Ask Me.

#10: Why aren't my practice building efforts working?!

You’re putting in a lot of time trying to build your practice. Why isn’t it working? Here are the four main reasons your efforts may not be increasing your income:

You’re trying to do too many things, not doing anything consistently.

Every worthwhile practice building method requires consistent effort over time. For example, I’ve talked to therapists who claimed that networking doesn’t work because they had some coffee dates with colleagues and didn’t get referrals from those people within a few months. Networking successfully is about building real relationships over time with referral partners. It takes time and it takes follow through.

If you find yourself trying one approach, getting fed up and trying another, you’re slowing down your success. Pick a few solid approaches, and stick with them consistently. Don’t switch your approaches before they start working!

You aren’t giving people a clear sense of what is unique about you.

If you aren’t clear about what sets you apart from every other therapist out there, all of your practice building efforts will have a much smaller impact. When you know what is unique about you as a therapist and you communicate it clearly, your practice building efforts have a powerful motor. Everything you do, from networking to improving your website to public speaking is all working to easily draw your most ideal clients into your practice.

You aren’t comfortable with making money.

If there is part of you that feels uncomfortable with making a good living as a therapist, you probably won’t. Your money set point is the maximum amount of money you feel comfortable earning. It comes from many conscious and unconscious sources, including your family history around money and your political views. If your money set point is lower than your conscious goal, you’ll sabotage your success. Even when success is within reach, you’ll get in your own way.  

Your efforts are working, but you don’t realize it yet.

Let’s say you’ve been working consistently on practice building for several months, you’re not having any of the above problems, but your practice isn’t making you a good living. Take a look at what is happening in your practice right below the surface. Are you getting more calls than you were a few months ago? Are there more visitors to your website? Are more of your colleagues aware of your unique work? If any of these things are true, your practice may be right on the verge of a big increase. Stay with it!

 If you get stuck in your practice building efforts, don’t make the mistake of trying to do it alone. If this is the work you’re called to do, and you know you want to work for yourself, don’t give up and don’t let anyone talk you out of it. I’m here to help.   

The Top 10 Questions Therapists Ask Me...#9

This is part of a series of blog posts: The Top 10 Questions Therapists Ask Me.

#9: What numbers do I need to track in my practice?

Let’s talk about the numbers in your business. Are you glazing over? Feeling dread?  The numbers involved in your practice may bore you or stress you out. I can promise you that when you know these particular numbers, you’ll make better business decisions.

Track only what is necessary and let go of the rest, because your time is precious.  

Here I’ll tell you the 5 numbers you NEED to track in order to know what is going on in your business.

Why track at all?

Why not just do the work and let the numbers work themselves out? When you don’t track, you don’t know the true story of your business. On a good day you will feel that your business is doing well, and on a bad day you’ll feel that your business is failing. Tracking these numbers will help you step back, feel grounded, and see the real story. When you have the real story, you can adjust your strategy wisely.

So here are those 5 numbers:

Average number of sessions per month

Keep track of every single session you have, and you’ll be able to calculate this easily. The easiest way is using your appointment calendar. You may already be recording this without realizing it. Add these up at the end of the month and keep a record so you can calculate the average. Consider using a spreadsheet.

Average number of intakes per month

When you see a client for the first appointment (not counting a free consultation), note that in your calendar so that you know how many people are coming into your practice. Calculate this average over time.

Average fee

Write down the fee you charge for every single session, and you’ll be able to calculate this monthly. The easiest way is to record it in your appointment calendar, and then calculate at the end of the month on that spreadsheet.

Average number of Inquiries per month

These are the calls and emails that come in from potential clients. The easiest way to track this is using a spread sheet. On that spread sheet, have a column for each of these things: date they contacted you, name (You need to keep this spreadsheet in such a way that the identities of the people are totally protected), referral source (how they found you), and current status (playing phone tag? scheduled an appointment?). The headings will look like this:

Date, Name, Source, Status

You’ll know what practice building methods are working best,  and you’ll know for sure that no calls or emails are falling through the cracks.

Expenses per month

Track every practice expense. Consider using an online program to make this tracking easy. For a simple therapy practice, programs like mint work fine. When you know exactly what your practice costs to run, you know how much you need to earn just to pay those bills. You can also look at your expenses and cut out anything you’re not using. If you don’t track your expenses, you’re very likely to miss a bunch of deductions at tax time.

When you’ve been tracking those 5 things for a while:

You’ll see more clearly when your efforts are working. For example, if you’ve been working hard on marketing and your monthly income hasn’t gone up, take a look at your inquiries per month. If that number is going up, you’re probably going in the right direction and the impact hasn’t hit your bank account yet.

You’ll see what isn’t working. Let’s say you’ve been basing your projected income on how many sessions you THINK you have each month. If you discover you have a lower average number of appointments per month than you thought, you might adjust your schedule. Maybe you’ll discover that you need to have 20 openings in order to have an average of 15 sessions per week.

Next week I'll answer the question: Why aren't my practice building efforts working?!