Where are the clients?
How long did it take you to write your elevator speech? An hour, a day a week? It can take a long time to hear your inner voice and be able to condense it down to 30 seconds or less. We try to have our true self come out in that 30 seconds and we want to be memorable. For me, it took a few days and then a couple of revisions. Sometimes our voice inside is very tiny.Once you have your elevator speech down, it’s time to take some concrete action.
In order to stay in business, we must consistently have referrals coming into our practices.
Think about who is referring to you now? Can you name at least 5 referral sources? Yes? Fantastic keep building that network up. However, if you are like many said No, then it’s time we get out there and do some networking; which is again part of marketing. Breathe, you got this.
Let’s look at how to take action. First, think who the specific client I am trying to target, got some idea in your head? Now, where do you find them? The location you go will depend on where your ideal clients go? In my practice, we take action by doing what I call “pop-ups.” A pop-up is a strategic place to go to talk about what and how you do your best work. One of the places that we do pop-ups is at the offices of Victims of Crime. The good people there are called Advocates, their work is to help individuals that have been victims of a crime, any crime.
Survivors of crimes have a great many tasks to complete. They often end up having to testify in court, file paperwork for lost wages, be evaluated by medical personnel, find a new residence and work on feeling safe again. Theses Advocates are often the first people that the survivor encounters. These are advocates are under pressure to calm and work with the survivor to provide these services. The only criteria to receive services is that some type of crime has occurred. In my practice, we work with people that have experienced trauma and we help them process what has happened to them and to begin the healing process of finding a new normal.
Due to our work with this type of trauma, we have done our “pop-ups” with these Advocates.
We pick up muffins, cookies, and coffee, arranged a basket that also included our brochures and business cards; total cost around $15.00. We arrived and give them our basket and asked if they had time to talk to us about how we could help them. It is amazing that if you are polite and ask how we might better work together you can get yourself in the door often. The greatest results from this meeting are that we get to know them, they get to know us (know, like and trust = the key to developing a referral base), and we learn how to utilize their services properly. These advocates we so happy to see us and impressed we came to see them that they wanted to visit our center “just to see where we do our wonderful work.” We have created a solid relationship over time and this relationship and it has paid off for us. In many client referrals and faster payments. You see they told us a secret of how to get paid faster. Bonus.
Over the years, we continue to nurture our relationship with them and it continues to pay off. Now it’s your turn think about where you might find your ideal clients? Could it be with Park and Recreation (families issues), PTA/PTOs (women, Families, children, school issues), primary care physicians (depressions, anxiety undiagnosed pain, chronic conditions or a host of other ailments), churches (individuals, couples, families, children issues) or maybe attorneys (divorce, couples issues) or even other therapists (a host of secondary trauma issues)? On a side note many therapists won’t treat other therapists presumably for not wanting to be judged, I have found therapists to be excellent clients as they work hard and are committed to the process. Maybe a good niche for you?
On a side note, many therapists won’t treat other therapists presumably for not wanting to be judged, I have found therapists to be excellent clients as they work hard and are committed to the process. Maybe a good niche for you?
Have I convinced you to step out of your comfort zone?
Are you still hesitant what to ask? Here are a few more questions you may find useful when you do pop-ups.
- What do you see as the biggest need for your clients?
- What is the best way to work with you? (the referral source).
- Would it be useful to you to provide some of our literature? (Tear off sheets with your therapy name, address, web address and phone number (and maybe in general a check off list of why the referral), potential groups you are running or forming, brochures about some of your special programs or classes or discussions that you can provide. Make referring to you easy.
- How frequently should I check in with you or send you our literature; I certainly do not want to become a pest?
I hope you can see that these “Pop-ups” are not expensive, time consuming or hard to do. The pay off in terms of clients’ referrals will be helpful at keeping your practice full and you busy.
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THis is such a great blog post – thank you, Sherry. I’ve had this conversation too many times – but I sent the Dr a letter and nothing ever happened, but I posted once on social media, and nothing ever happened….. you offer wise advice here – consistent sources of referrals is the key to building a success Private practice – and that takes work!