What Makes You Unique as a Therapist?

When prospects are searching for a therapist, they really want to know, “Why should I choose you instead of someone else?” How are you different?

Develop your brand in such a way that it could only describe you. 

Ask yourself: Would another therapist be able to use this brand?

What makes you unique as a therapist?
You can begin by answering these questions:

• What kinds of clients do you most enjoy working with? (Teenagers? Senior citizens? Men, more than women?)
• What training do you have to qualify you to specialize in a specific area? (Are you an EMDR Level II therapist?)
• What life experiences have you had that would be valuable to others? (Are you a step-parent, for example)?
• What makes you different from other therapists? (For example, English isn’t your native language or you know American Sign Language.)
• What is your treatment philosophy and theoretical orientation? (Do you incorporate mindfulness principles into your therapy?)
• What do you see as possible for your clients? (i.e., Stop Smoking Forever)
• What role might you play in helping your clients achieve those results? (A guarantee?)
• Is there an area where you are better than others? (Do you you have more experience and training in hypnotherapy than other therapists?)
• Is there an opportunity to serve a specific market that no other therapist is reaching? (The Sudanese population, or hearing-impaired clients)
• Where could you be the first in the market? (Introducing a new therapeutic technique, for example)
• Is there a specific result you can deliver? (Assessment and preparation for bariatric surgery or completion of a court-approved anger management program.)

Want more resources on how to brand yourself as a therapist? Purchase the Therapist's Guide to Branding Yourself Online.

So You Want to Know If You Should be on Twitter

A therapist asked me what the point of Twitter is, and this is my long-winded response.

Twitter requires engagement. If you don't spend at least 5 minutes a day "managing" your Twitter presence, you won't get a lot out of it. 

(The therapist had protected his tweets -- meaning you have to get his approval before you can see what he's tweeting. I don't recommend this. Here's why:)

Protecting your tweets limits your engagement ... these two articles (especially the 23-slide presentation in the second article) spell out why you shouldn't protect your tweets.

http://www.laurenkolbe.com/top-four-reasons-you-shouldnt-protect-your-tweets/

http://social-media-university-global.org/2010/08/more-good-reasons-to-not-protect-your-tweets/

Protecting your tweets is like going to a party and listening into all the people's conversations, but not talking to any of the people unless they ask permission first. "Hey, Terry. Is it all right if I start talking to you now?" Jump right in! And let other people jump in and see what you're sharing too. 

Most people find they get more "out" of Twitter than they put "into" it -- that is, it's a unique resource to identify ideas, people, and information that you won't find elsewhere. For therapists, I don't recommend trying to connect with potential clients on there (although there are certainly numerous therapists who have developed substantial followings and clients from Twitter), but instead use it to keep up on resources and quotes that you can share with your clients, followers (just Retweet the info you find), and share across other social media platforms (i.e., your Facebook business page). 

You can see who I'm following in the therapy world here:

https://twitter.com/#!/netherapist/following

Sometimes you'll come across things that are really interesting -- like this cartoonist, which I found on Twitter:

http://talesoftherapy.wordpress.com/2010/09/30/worms-therapy-tales-79/

Also -- Twitter has a pretty high visibility ranking for Google searches, which again helps your "know, like, and trust" factor when prospective clients Google you. (And they *are* Googling you...)

You can also connect with the media on Twitter; follow them, and they are likely to follow you back. I've made some great connections for clients on Twitter by following media folks who are on there.

Here are some therapists to emulate:

@ChildPsych

@ANormalShrink

@DaveMSW

@PeterBrownPsy (although you don't have to be as prolific a Tweeter as he is)

Don't be like these people:

@FinktheShrink (holla to all my peeps! Oh, and here's my website. And here's my website again!)

@DCAssociates (they were doing well for about 3 months on there, and then their last post was July 2010)

3) If you really don't want to monitor another channel, don't be on Twitter. It does require work (5 minutes a day or 20 minutes a week will do it) to get value out of it.

You could consider just linking your Facebook business page to your Twitter account and it will post new content when you post a status update to that page. Then, you can spend 5 minutes a day monitoring your account -- following new people (the "Who to Follow" tab at the top will give you recommendations), checking to see if any of your stuff has been Retweeted (click the "@Mentions" tab), and reading the most recent 30 or 40 tweets in your Timeline, retweeting anything you liked.

What are your thoughts on Twitter?

Save the Date - NCA Conference

Put Sept. 21-23 on your calendar and save the date for the annual Nebraska Counseling Association (NCA) conference. More info to follow...

Omaha Integrative Care for Fertility -- Opening This Fall

Opening in August is the Omaha Integrative Care for Fertility, a multidisciplinary health care facility targeted to individuals and couples struggling with infertility issues.

The center's focus is on "Mind, Body, and Wellness," offering individual, couple, and group therapy, yoga and physical therapy, acupuncture, nutritional counseling, massage, and continuing education programs.

The facility will be located at 1812 N. 169 Plaza. The phone number is 402-934-1617. Their website is www.omahaicf.com.

Therapist Julie Luzarraga, LICSW is one of the practitioners involved in this new venture.

Guest Post: Improving Your Online Profile

By Michele Pariza Wacek

The moment I decided to specialize as a direct response copywriter (which means you get a response directly from the marketing materials, there’s no middle person involved, like a sales rep) I knew there would be one thing that would determine if I would be eating steak or eating mac and cheese.

And what’s the one thing? The results I got for my clients.

Therefore, improving results became a pretty big focus of mine. You might even call it a passion. And that’s why today I want to share 5 tips that can help you improve the conversions of your marketing materials. (Conversions means the number of people who buy — how many people convert from leads to buyers.) You can use these tips to improve your online profile (for example, your Therapy Directory profile.)

1. Know who you’re talking to. If I hear anyone say “women are my potential customers” or “anyone with skin is my target market” (yes, that really was a direct quote from someone who sold Mary Kay or Arbonne or something like that) I will send my border collies (both of them) to your house and force you to play fetch with them until your arm falls off. Seriously, the quickest way you can end up with the most dismal results imaginable is to try and talk to everyone. Come up with a specific customer — the more specific the better — and make sure your marketing materials speak directly to that customer.

2. Make sure you write benefits, not features. This one is probably the hardest one to “get” but also one of the most critical. People buy benefits, not features, so if you only talk about features you’re just asking for people not to buy what you’re selling.

So what is the difference between features and benefits? Features are a description of a product — for instance, if we’re talking about a diet pill, a feature would that the product is a pill. A benefit would be the solution the product provides — in this case, losing weight.

As much as you possibly can, write about why someone should buy your product. No one buys diet pills because they like taking pills, they buy them to lose weight. Think of the solution your product or service provides and write about that.

3. Work on that headline. David Ogilvy, famous ad man and author of Confessions of an Advertising Man, has said that people make the decision to read your marketing materials based your headline.

Your headline should: a. speak to your potential customers, b. contain a benefit, c. be so compelling your target market is compelled to read further. That’s a lot to ask for from basically a handful of words. So don’t rush the process — take as much time as you need to create the very best headline for your particular piece.

4. Don’t forget the call to action. You’ve got to tell people what to do next. If you don’t tell them what you want them to do, chances are they won’t do anything.

Don’t assume your potential customers know what you want them to do. They don’t. They can’t read your mind. Nor do they want to. They’re busy people. They don’t have the time or the energy to figure things out. Tell them what to do next, or don’t be surprised when they don’t do anything.

5. Use P.S.’s or captions. Postscripts (P.S.) are the second most read item in a sales piece. What’s the third? Captions. (The copy under photos, diagrams or other illustrations.) Now that you know that, think of the ways you can use either or both of those items in your pieces. Maybe you put a special offer in there or you highlight a particularly compelling benefit. Or you tell them again what you want their next step to be. Whatever you do, don’t waste that space.

If you even do just one of these tips, you should start seeing better results. Work on all five and you might be amazed at how much your results improve.

About Michele: Considered one of the hottest direct response copywriters and marketing consultants in the industry today, Michele PW (Michele Pariza Wacek) Your $Ka-Ching!$ Marketing Strategist, has a reputation for crafting copy and creating online and offline marketing campaigns that get results. Michele started writing professionally in 1992, working at agencies and on staff as a marketing/communication/writing specialist. She started Creative Concepts and Copywriting LLC in 1998 and has never looked back.

Marketing Your Practice - Part IV

Here’s how to find out if a specific marketing strategy is working for you:

• First of all, what do you spend per month on this marketing tactic (either in terms of money, or time, or both)?

• Do you track new client referral sources?

• How many inquiries per month do you get from this marketing source? (You probably only track how many become clients, not total inquiries.)

• How does the number of new clients from this marketing source compare to a year ago?

• What your the top referral source overall? How does this tactic compare, in terms of number of referrals?

• Do the kinds of clients I get from this marketing source match my “ideal” client profile? Do I enjoy working with these clients?

• Are these clients profitable? Do they pay, on average, a reasonable fee for the services?

Next, do some simple math. Multiply the number of clients you got from that marketing strategy last month times the number of sessions you saw them times a reasonable fee (what you actually get paid, not what you charge).

For example, you might have gotten two new clients from the Yellow Pages last month, and saw the clients a total of 4 times. You charge $100 an hour, but collect an average of $85. So take 85 x 4 x 2 = $680.

Next, look at how much you, individually, spent on your Yellow Pages ad last month. Let’s say the ad costs $475 total each month, and you and the other therapists in your practice split it 4 ways. That’s about $120 for your investment.

Your return on investment is 11-to-1 ($680 + 120 = 5.66).

Your return on investment (or ROI) should be at least 5-to-1 for any advertising you do.

If you’re not getting at least a 5-to-1 return on your Yellow Pages investment, you can do 2 things:

– Improve your Yellow Pages ad by redesigning it

– Spend the money elsewhere

Marketing Your Private Practice - Part III

You are already successful in getting SOME new clients, otherwise you wouldn’t be in practice, right?

But are you getting the right kind of clients? Ones that appeal to your clinical skills and strengths? Ones that can pay your fees — or whose insurance lists you as a preferred provider?

My goal when working with therapists is to help you identify what you’re already doing well that attracts your ideal clients and to encourage you to do more of that — but to do it consistently, so you don’t have that “feast or famine” look to your appointment books.

The temptation is to take as many billable hours as you can right now and worry about marketing later, but that’s exactly what leads to feast or famine.

The problem I find with most therapists is that when you put something on your to-do list that has to do with marketing, you’re the only one making sure it gets done. If a client emergency comes up, marketing is what suffers. That’s okay once or twice, but marketing has to be a priority — you need to be consistent. It’s better to do one thing consistently than to do four or five things only once.

I conducted a survey of therapists recently and found that the majority of therapists responding spent one hour EACH MONTH on marketing their practice. That's not really enough to build your brand. An hour a week will get you closer to filling your practice.

Some therapists nationally have done an excellent job creating their personal brand. Their name is synonymous with the work they do. What kind of work do these therapists do?

– Dr. Ruth [sex]

– Michele Weiner-Davis [relationships]

– Frank Pittman [affairs]

You can either build your brand yourself, or capitalize on a national brand … especially a well-known one. For example, you might be “Omaha’s Dr. Ruth.”

Even if you only want a handful of new clients each month, you can attract your ideal client by conscientiously choosing what kind of clients you want to work with, and using some specific strategies to attract those kinds of clients.

For example, if you want to work with clients on stress management issues and you like the way Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) insurance reimburses, put together a brown bag lunch talk on “Reducing Stress on the Job” and pitch it to an employer who has BCBS as their insurance provider.

Read more in Part Four.