Build a More Valuable Practice by Diversifying Referral Streams
Diversifying referral streams will strengthen and add resilience to any mental health practice. Furthermore, diversifying referral sources will make the practice more valuable to a potential purchaser. The goal in […]
Make new plans guaranteed to overcome stalled marketing
If stalled marketing is holding back the growth of your practice, you have come to the right place. From 2004 through 2006, my organization had flattened out. We did not […]
Making Opening Day a marketing event
We have only one Opening Day and you want to use it as a first draft of a series of marketing campaigns. Unfortunately, there are so many distracting details to […]
How to use everything to reinforce your branding messages
There are aspects of your practice that offer prospective clients the branding message of your mental health practice. It may be a positive or a negative message, but it is there […]
How to grow consistent community marketing: Community Connection Plan
For the first 20 years of my practice, we struggled with our marketing our mental health practice. We needed to find a community marketing system that we all could embrace […]
Growing pains: Outgrowing your brand and how to fix it
Over the years of growing our practice, we found ourselves outgrowing our brand. My practice started as a partnership–until my partner took a university job. Then it was just me–until […]
Starting a new business? The start-up blues
Every one underestimates the challenges of starting a new business. Starting a new business is hard. It is hard even after you read everything you can find and done tons […]
5 best marketing favorites in psychotherapy practice
I presented a workshop at a hospital on practice development. I had just gone over our marketing favorites when a participant raised her hand. She said, “Yes, I get that […]
Push and pull marketing for mental health
Professional marketers talk about two types of marketing, push and pull marketing. Let’s start with some definitions. Push marketing A push strategy involves promoting your services directly to the customer […]
Connecting therapists with each other: An interview with David Klow
David Klow, the founder of Skylight Counseling Center, has a unique way of connecting therapists with each other. I first heard about his “Therapist on Tap” events via his email […]
Social media builds practices: An interview with Dr. Kelly Flanagan
There are questions about whether using social media builds practices. I weigh in on the topic here. Following is an email interview with Dr. Kelly Flanagan, a friend and practice […]
Developing deeper referrer relationships: How to broaden your reach
Whenever a clinician begins a new referrer relationship, that clinician becomes the point person for that connection. And we want the clinician to nurture that referrer relationship until the point […]
How to convert solid referral relationships into fan clubs
You have identified a prospective referrer and have begun to build that referral relationship. What do you actually want to say in that first meeting? What is your objective in […]
Finding your community: The location and space
Space and location. These are one of the first decisions new practice owners make. In many ways, it is all about the location and then the spaces you have within that […]
The benefits of creating demand in your community
Creating demand needs to be a constant focus when starting a practice. When any service is in demand, people are generally willing to pay more for it. Furthermore, they tolerate […]
Weekly business demand #5: Planning marketing
Marketing does not need to be done every day. . . but therein lies the trouble. We cannot ignore daily chores like scheduling, doing therapy, billing, and collecting. We know […]
A marketing video on a practice-wide marketing system
This marketing video lays out some of the details of how we developed a systematic way of marketing a mental health practice to the community. It includes a low-key method […]
Creating demand by marketing
Practices succeed when they market services to the community they reside in a consistent, congruent, and appealing way. But creating demand by marketing does not come natural to many of […]
Spectacular belly flops in marketing
Me doing a belly flop: I approach the diving board with enthusiasm and commitment. I bounce high into the air, reaching the apex of my dive only to suddenly realize […]
Rainmaker Lessons: Staying optimistic when marketing
In Ford Harding’s book about those who are super salespersons, he talks about “enthusiasm” as a key characteristic possessed by these rainmakers. (Ford Harding (2006), Creating rainmakers: The manager’s guide […]
Social media marketing: Good or bad?
Social media marketing is all the buzz these days. When I began building a practice there was no social media. In fact no internet. We did it the old-fashioned way […]
Finding the right psychotherapy markets
We have three major psychotherapy markets in the mental health field: potential clients, potential clients’ trusted advisors, and insurance companies. We need to connect with each of these in order to […]
Branding: A name, some services, and how the dream becomes real
There are many misconceptions about what branding is. Usually, the first thing that comes to mind is a name, a sign, a logo, or a design used in marketing materials. […]
Types of marketing: What works for you?
The types of marketing that are used today has gotten more complex with the advent of the internet. When I began is was all about getting to actually meet people […]