Shownotes
Why you should never be ashamed of marketing your private practice
Today I wanted to start talking to you about a topic which I don't think I've directly addressed before, but that I think is a really big deal for a lot of us who are working in psychology or therapy businesses. A lot of us tend to be very values driven, so it means a lot to us that what we're doing makes a positive impact in the world. That's a wonderful thing, and it can give you loads of energy and drive to do all of the difficult things in business that we need to do. However, it also tends to come with a rather large dose of shame, and I think you'd be a very unusual psychologist or therapist if you haven't felt a bit of shame in your business journey. To be honest, shame is probably the emotion which characterised my first year in business; as much as I think I'm a bit of a natural entrepreneur and I was very excited to be working for myself, predominantly, most of the time, I walked around feeling like a very bad person. I found it difficult to tell people what I did for a living, I kind of scurried in and out of networking events, I felt like I shouldn't be talking about what I did, and I felt embarrassed to admit that I wasn't working in the NHS anymore. That really prevented me from doing what I needed to do; it prevented me from learning about business and about marketing in those first few months, because I just couldn't stand being on a course, I couldn't stand the thought of reading a book about it, because it made me feel dirty, and shameful and horrible. And I'm not sharing that because I think that's how anybody should feel, I think completely the opposite, I wish that I could go back and give myself a good talking to! But I am sharing that because I think that for some of you starting out, that might be where you're at right now, or it may be that you have made peace with marketing and the ethics of that for marketing your private practice, but now you're marketing something different, like an online course or coaching and you're starting to feel that shame bubbling up again. So I just wanted to address that and talk about why I really don't think you should ever be ashamed of marketing or being good at marketing, because fundamentally it is something that you need in your business and that will do a lot of good in itself in the world.
Why you shouldn't be ashamed of marketing in your practice
- The number one reason that you shouldn't be ashamed to learn about marketing and to get good at it, is that all clinical practice involves selling skills or techniques to people anyway. Being good at convincing people that the technique you're going to use or the skill that you're showing them is actually going to make a difference in their life is absolutely critical to any therapy working. We know this. You know if you sound really under confident about something like EMDR when you're explaining it to somebody, they are never going to trust you with their time investment (even if they're not paying) enough to show up to those sessions and to do the work. It's the same with something like mindfulness, you have to really sell it to people in order to get them to practise it at home. You know, even if you're working in the NHS, that you need to be good at selling, otherwise people will simply not engage and show up to your sessions. So it's a critical clinical skill, and if you've been working as a successful psychologist or therapist for a number of years, I'm willing to bet you are already quite good at this. It's something that I personally had to really develop when I was starting out. In the prison service where I started, we were teaching the thinking skills course (I think when I started it was actually called enhanced thinking skills - that's not a very good, marketable name, but that's what it was called) and one of the things we had to do with every skill that we included in that course, was a section on selling the skill, and we would actually talk explicitly about how we were going to convince people and really show them that this skill was worth embedding into their lives. And you will be doing that in every therapy session where you introduce something new to people. People do not automatically go yes, I need more compassion in my life, do they? You have to show them. And you'll do that by telling stories, using metaphors, giving examples from your own life, all of the things that we do in good marketing you are doing in the therapy room in order to sell those skills to people. So any time that I've spent investing in learning how to market effectively, I can see myself using in the therapy room or in my coaching sessions. I no longer see the two skill sets as completely divided. And I think if you follow this podcast, or if you've been following me on social media for a while, you might have seen that in the Books That Make You Think episodes and videos I've been doing on social media, that every time I read a book about marketing, I learn something that I take into the clinical work that I do. And it's the same the other way around, every time I read a new research study, or I read a new book that's related to my clinical practice, I find something in that, that I translate into my marketing and the content marketing that I create for my practice. I really don't see the two things as separate. And I think if you can understand that and take that approach to learning about marketing, it really doesn't make sense to feel ashamed of spending time that you could have been spending reading about your specialism and apply some of that time to reading about marketing, because it is going to help your clients to make the most out of the time that they spend with you, whether that's in private practice, or in an NHS or charity setting. So that's the number one reason I think you should never be ashamed of learning about marketing and doing it really well.
- Secondly, marketing is really important because it sustains your practice and allows you to provide a continuity of service, especially if you can learn an ongoing process that becomes embedded into the way that you work week after week, because if you don't really get your marketing straight (and in my online course, the roadmap to a successful online course, where I teach people how to market passive or semi passive income products, I call this your marketing machine), if that machine isn't set up correctly and functioning on autopilot in the background of your practice, week after week, then what you get is these kind of boom or bust cycles, where you'll find a good referral stream, maybe there's somebody who has a lot of referrals to pass on to you, and so you have a time where you're very, very busy in your clinical practice and don't do any marketing, because you're extremely busy, but then you start finishing up with those clients and you realise, oh, God, I haven't got anybody booked in for August, what am I going to do? I can't pay the bills. So then you have to spend loads of time on marketing and suddenly you're staying up late into the night doing loads of social media, going to loads of networking events, and that that panic, that flurry of activity, will impinge on your clinical work. It's much better for everybody if you have a set number of hours per week that you spend on marketing, you know exactly what you're doing in that time, and it just sort of functions as part of your working week, every week. That way, you provide a continuous service to your clients, everybody knows what they can expect from you, and you feel contained within your work as well. You're not going through this emotional rollercoaster every few months, which allows you to provide a safer space for your clients. Actually, I would probably go so far as to say that if you run a private practice, and you're not investing time in marketing, I don't think that is particularly ethical, because having been there, I know that it often leads to some quite challenging relationships with clients. Also, I didn't plan to talk about this today, but if you don't have good marketing, then you will often end up taking on clients that you shouldn't take on, because you're worried about paying your bills. The reason I wasn't going to talk about this is I don't want to bring up more shame for anybody, but I think that we've all done that, I've certainly done it. Definitely in the early days of my practice before I had my marketing nailed down, if I was feeling tight financially, I would take on anybody, even if I didn't really think that they were the best fit for me, I would take them on anyhow, because I needed the money. And that's the reality. If you're running your practice because you need the income and somebody comes and knocks on your door and says I'd like to see you, even if you don't think they're a great fit, if you really need that money, or you're not going to be able to pay your rent or your mortgage, you're going to say yes. So good marketing makes sure that you're not in that position. Thankfully, I haven't been in that position for a little while. Now I feel very confident to say ‘oh, actually, I've got a colleague who's better for you’ and refer on. And I definitely think once you adopt that attitude, then you start attracting the right kind of people for your work a lot more, and I'll talk a lot more about that in a future podcast episode on money mindset. But I do think that there is an element of reality, if your marketing machine doesn't function properly, you're going to end up needing to take on clients who perhaps aren't a perfect fit for you, and that's not right for them, and it's not right for you. So getting that marketing machine working properly, it's good for your mental well being and it means that you can provide an ethical and values led service to your clients, because you're not constantly having to think about your paycheck at the end of the month.
- Another thing that we think about with marketing, is ultimately the aim of it is to bring more money into your practice, and often that can feel a little bit shameful for us. It's difficult talking about money; you'll hear me stumbling when I talk about it on the podcast, you'll hear me backtracking and saying ‘oh, I didn't quite mean it like that’ quite a lot when I talk about money. And that's because it's a bloody awkward subject for us, we don't like talking about it, we often have lots of shame wrapped up in the idea of making money, but actually, that doesn't make sense. When you talk to people who are really experienced in private practice, that's when your eyes really open to the fact that making more money in your practice actually means that you have the ability to do a lot more good in the world. Firstly, because you can be more confident that you're still going to be around in a few years time for that person that wants to come back and have a follow up with you. If you haven't got enough money in your practice, it's much more likely that you're going to end up chucking it in and going back into employment, and then when that person wants to follow up with you, there's not going to be a practice to come back to. So for that continuity of service, it's really important that you do make decent money in your practice. But also, making more money means that you pay more tax, and that funds the NHS, and I can't see what is bad about that either. It also means that you will have some money left over to invest in passion projects. You will have heard me, if you’ve followed the podcast for a while, I've done a whole series on online courses, and one of the things that I mention in that series is that not every online course is about making profit. There are online courses that you might want to make that are actually there to help people that can't afford therapy. Now these online courses, you're not going to put a huge marketing budget behind them, you're mainly going to be using them to give to people who come to you for therapy but can't afford your services. Creating something like that costs money, but it's not going to make you very much money. So if you're really good at marketing the rest of your services, maybe your therapy services and maybe some higher ticket online courses that you've created, then that is how you make the kind of money you need to spend it on creating resources for people that really can't afford to pay for your services. Or even maybe giving away some therapy sessions pro bono. I would always recommend doing that through another organisation like a charity or partnering up with a GP practice, and I've talked more about that in other episodes, which I'll link to in the show notes. It's not usually a great idea to just offer pro bono sessions within your own practice, because means testing is such an ethical nightmare, in my opinion, but there are lots of ways that you can give back if you've got more money in your practice, and you need good marketing in order to make that extra money. So you should never ever feel bad about making more money in your practice.
In summary, please, please don't let shame stop you from learning about marketing, and implementing good marketing strategies in your practice, you really owe it to yourself and to your clients to learn to do marketing well. And if you do want to learn about marketing yourself ethically, then do come over and check out psychologybusinessschool.com, where we've got everything that you need to set up and grow your psychology or therapy practice, whatever stage you're at in your marketing journey.
I hope this has been helpful, and I hope if you were struggling with any shame about your marketing, that it has alleviated some of that for you today. I remember being in that position, and I remember how painful it was, so solidarity to you if you're there right now. But please do reach out, use some of our resources at psychologybusinessschool.com. Get involved in the community over on Instagram, I'm @rosiegilderthorp and just spend some time with other people in private practice who have been through this transition and learning to market themselves, and I promise you that shame will lift and you might even start to enjoy it.
Links
Episode 79: How to set up as a social enterprise with Traci Lewis
Mentioned in this episode:
Free Client Checklist
Do you sometimes wake up at 2 am worried that you’ve made a terrible error that will bring professional ruin upon you and disgrace your family? I’m laughing now but when I first set up in private practice I was completely terrified that I had “missed” something big when setting up insurance or data protection. Even now, three years in, I sometimes catch myself wondering if I have really covered all the bases. It is hard, no impossible, to think creatively and have the impact you should be having in your practice if you aren’t confident that you have a secure business. BUT it can be overwhelming to figure out exactly what you need to prioritise before those clients start coming in. I’ve created a free checklist (plus resources list) to take the thinking out of it. Tick off every box and you can see your clients confident in the knowledge that you have everything in place for your security and theirs. Download it now - the link is in the show notes.
