Are you a therapist or coach who wakes up each morning excited about the steps you are taking to build your practice?

Or are you one who loves doing the clinical work and yet has trouble working “on” the business - meaning building the practice with marketing efforts?

Staying motivated as a sole proprietor can be a challenge. How do you do it? I’d love to hear your comments! Please share your thoughts here. (http://buildyourtherapypractice.com/casey/archives/22#comment)

If staying motivated with your marketing efforts is a challenge for you, here are some simple ideas:

1) Create a success journal. Each day, write any effort you made to get the word out about who you serve and what you help them with. As you write down all the tasks you do, it will propel you forward. I also like to write any successful results from my marketing efforts such as “Had 2 intake calls today - one scheduled an appointment.”

2) Choose only marketing activities that you like. If speaking in front of a group gives you the willies, then choose something else. If you are great with one-on-one meetings, then schedule some coffee dates and “join” with the other person just as you might in an intake session. My sister always says “The key to making money is to get the other person to talk about his or herself.”

(Note: Make sure you pick some extroverted activities if you want your practice to fill faster.)

3) Reward yourself for even the smallest of marketing efforts. After a networking meeting, I will go for a walk or read a book or play on the computer for mindless fun for a while. I have even been known to stop on the way home for an Oreo Cookie milkshake!

4) Have a Marketing Workout Partner. It is much easier (well, relatively easier) to go to the gym knowing someone is waiting there for you. By choosing a colleague, friend, family member or coach to help you with your accountability, you will see your results soaring. We all need someone who has our best interest at heart to “call us on our stuff” and support us if we get off-track.

Marketing your practice is no different. I have colleagues I meet with twice a month to discuss my business goals. I am in a coaching group with other coaches who are building fantastic practices. I have my own coach that I meet with three times a month to help me grow my business. Finally, my husband, Bob and I talk several times a week about business goals, successes and marketing strategies.

You don’t have to do this alone. Create a system that works for you!

We are starting our new 6-month, $89/month Practice Building Work Group. We will meet twice a month over the phone. We will cover everything including your ideal client, tag line, and numerous marketing strategies from business cards to websites to Psychology Today listings to creating referral partners and giving community presentations.

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Let us show you what works and what doesn’t. Plus you’ll be creating and implementing your marketing plan with support from us all along the way.

If you want to take a peek, you can right here at: http://www.attractmoreclientsnow.com/workgroup.html

We are taking advanced registrations now.

Have a great week and happy practice building!

With love and respect,

People often ask me for my “Revenue Formula.” This is either the number of clients you need to see each week or the amount you need to collect each week in order to have a financially viable practice.

Here is Casey’s Revenue Formula:

1) Identify your annual expenses. This means your monthly expenses x 12 plus those irregular expenses such as continuing education, license fees, and insurance.

2) Add to that your personal expenses that you want to pay out of your business income - your mortgage, your child’s tuition, vacation expenses, etc.

3) Divide that total by 44 and that is the amount of income you want to earn each week - your monthly revenue goal.

Why 44? It doesn’t mean you take off 8 weeks a year. It means you take off 2 weeks a year, have some sick time and are out for CEU classes. Plus there are weeks of the year when your entire caseload will seem to dry up. In order to prepare (and save) for these times, you must earn more in the other weeks than you actually will be spending.

4) Now look at that monthly revenue goal you just created. Divide that by your average hourly rate and that will tell you how many clients you need.

How “on-target” toward that goal are you?

If you aren’t there, then I recommend you figure out how to either get more clients or begin to raise your average hourly rate.

When you do that, you will happily pay your bills, enjoy your vacation and just maybe buy a new designer purse or take sailing lessons!

If you could use some support with attracting more clients, please let me know.

If you already have the Build Your Therapy Practice Self Study Course, please don’t forget that your purchase comes with a free 40-minute consultation with me.

If you haven’t yet purchased your copy of our Self Study Course, Bob’s sale will be ending at midnight on July 31st. You can get in on the deal until then at:
http://attractmoreclientsnow.com

As always, I’d love to hear your comments on this or anything else that is on your mind! You can leave your comments here.

Happy practice-building!

To your success!
Casey

How many people do you think need to know who you are and what you do before you have a full cash-pay practice?

10? 50? 2,000?

I remember when I was single. I did the “serial monogamy” method of finding a husband. It goes like this.

Go on a first date with someone. Date only that person for 2 years. Break up. Repeat.

Well, in 10 years, I dated a total of 5 people using this strategy.

But I wanted to get married.

So I started going on a lot of first dates. I would date each person for 3 to 5 times in order to get to know him.

If I like what I found, I kept dating. If not, I moved on. One week I had 5 first dates and 3 second dates! For an introvert, that was amazing!

Then I met Bob, fell in love, and we’ve been happily married for 8 years.

How does this relate to marketing?

How long would it have taken to find Bob, if I continued to date only one person every two years?

We need to be in front of a lot of prospects in order for some of them to refer to us or hire us as their therapist.

We need to go on a lot of first dates because not everyone will be a good match with us. For example, we need to do speaking, networking or building strategic alliances with different people in order for some of them to want to work with us.

Further, we need to keep in touch with those prospects on a regular basis via a newsletter or presentation in order to stay in their mind. We need to have regular contact with our referral sources, too, asking, “How can I serve you?”

Here Are Some Suggestions:

1) As you become known in your community for a specialty, you will interact with potential clients and referral sources on a regular basis. In marketing, this is called “Filling your Pipeline.” If you want water to flow into your house, you must have water in the pipeline. If you want clients, you need to keep the pump primed, with prospects and referral sources in your pipeline. This means having a focused, structured marketing plan that you implement each week or month to make sure
you are meeting these contacts.

2) Keep in touch with those prospects and referral sources on a regular basis so that they remember you. Do this with items of value.

Marketing is so much like dating. You can go out on a 1,000 first dates and never have a second date with any of them.

Or you can “get married on the first date” and stay with someone for a very long time without letting others know whom you are and what you have to offer.

Neither of those are great options if you want to be happily married.
And it is exactly the same with building your practice.

Get to know a lot of people in a structured, focused way. Keep in touch with people who are interested in what you do in a way that is of value to them. You can do this even if you are an introvert if you have a good plan and some motivation.

And answer your phone - it is ringing!

If you are wondering how to become better known in your community and discover strategies for staying in touch with referral sources and prospects, you may want to consider the Build Your Full and Rewarding Private Practice Self Study Course. If you haven’t ordered yours yet, Bob’s sale is still going on. You can get a $50 discount on it through July 31st. You can read more here.

I am curious … what do you think of the metaphor of marketing and dating? And what do you plan to do to get better known in your community? Please share your comments here.

FREE Marketing Seminar

Each month we offer a free teleseminar on  “How To Attract More Cash Paying Clients - an introduction to the Exclusive Members Program.” You can register at:

http://www.beawealthytherapist.com/freeclass.html

Happy Practice Building!

Warmly,