Do These 4 Tasks Today to Maximize Your Practice’s Growth
This article is part of Brighter Vision’s Fall Into Cash Promotion, a month of giveaways, promotions and invaluable content to help you and your private practice fall into more cash this fall season. Click here to see all of the available give-aways you can enter!
Imagine this: Your private practice is bustling, your marketing efforts are working in more ways than you thought possible, your niche is opening doors, you’ve created strong relationships within your mental health community, and you’re genuinely proud of the great clinical (and business) work you’re doing.
It’s an ideal scenario for almost all mental health professionals, and we’d love to help get you there.
But how do you get there? Where do you start?
Whether you’re just starting out in private practice, or you’ve been in private practice for quite some time now, these four steps will help set you and your practice on the road towards long-term success.
Get a Website for Your Private Practice
Your website is your biggest marketing tool. It’s the 21st century. If a business isn’t on the internet, it basically doesn’t exist. Having a private practice website is crucial.
Do you:
- Need to get found online by potential clients?
- Need a place where potential clients can emotionally connect with you?
- Need to grow your services and your client base?
- Want to increase your audience reach?
- Maximize your marketing efforts?
If you answered yes to any of these (Hint: You should have answered yes to all) then you definitely need to get your private practice a website.
If you don’t have a website, you’re losing potential clients to other practitioners who do. Your website is the epicenter of all of your marketing efforts. Most people who become your clients will have been to your website before deciding to reach out for an appointment.
Only 13% of the American population doesn’t use the internet. We don’t know who they are, but we know they aren’t reading this.
But we do know that the other 87% are internet users, and why wouldn’t you want to market your private practice toward that group of tech-savvy people?
Already have a website? Look at our ingredients list and see if your website checks ‘em all off.
Get Set Up with an Electronic Health Records Service
Picture this: You’ve just ended a breakthrough session with a client, and you have 15 minutes before your next session starts. Between writing down notes from your previous client and rushing to find notes on your next session, you’ve lost your 15 minutes of downtime and feel ill prepared for your next session.
If you had an EHR set up, this wouldn’t have happened. Many mental health professionals have found that using an EHR has improved their patient management, note organization and private practice functionality.
Check out some of these awesome EHR benefits:
- Improved accuracy
- Records are easy to update and review
- Notifications and reminders for appointments
- Increased efficiency
- Better client and practitioner communication
Don’t know where to start? Here are our top three favorite EHRs, in no particular order:
TherapyNotes
Thera-Link
TheraNest
Psst… TherapyNotes is giving away a year of their services for our Fall into Cash Campaign. Learn how you can win right here.
And although setting your practice up with an EHR may seem like a big investment now, we’re confident it’ll help your company in the long run.
Find Your Niche
We know, you’ve heard this a thousand times over. “Find your niche.” Something that’s definitely easier said than done.
Why do I need a niche? I want to treat everyone!
Try this: Write a marketing message that appeals to both widows and people with chronic pain.
Hint: You can’t.
When you try to appeal to and market to everyone, you can’t create a message that’s compelling to anyone. This is where your niche comes in handy. Niche marketing allows your practice to market to your ideal clients.
Don’t know who your ideal client is? Take our quiz to find out now.
We know, it seems a bit counterintuitive — As a mental health professional, you’re trained to be able to help anyone, but now you’re being asked to narrow your services down to select groups of people. But the truth of the matter is that modern business practices depend on niche markets.
Below are some tips for narrowing your niche:
- Think about what you’re passionate about. Brainstorm clinical areas that interest you the most.
- Think about what you’re good at. It may not be the niche you’re most passionate about, but it’s probably top five.
- Research your ideal niche in your area. Who are the other practitioners practicing this niche? Don’t get discouraged if another practice or two already have your niche. This may be a good indicator that people in your area are interested in your niche services.
- Look into any specialty trainings or certifications that might give you a leg up within your niche. Getting certified only adds to your expertise and helps you stand out from the crowd.
In addition to making your marketing efforts easier, a niche helps potential clients more easily decide if your services match their desired outcome or not.
We’ve created a list of possible niches you may want to look into further. Of course, there is a vast amount of niches in private practice, so please consider our list incomplete.
Set Your Fees — And Set Them Well!
Let’s face it: Mental health professionals tend to be underpaid, especially when considering their time, effort, education, and overall worth. And considering that your session fees will dictate the majority of your ROI, or return on investment, setting them from the beginning is essential in having a thriving private practice.
When setting your fees, The Practice of Therapy thinks it’s best to work backward and consider what you’d like to make annually to have a comfortable salary and cover your overhead. Then take rent, office expenses and other utilities into consideration.
Figuring out how to set your fees is HARD. Grab our Fee Setting Cheat Sheet here.
Of course, there are other factors to think about when setting your fees. Two of them being your competitors’ prices and your location.
Fees set by other practitioners in your area. Head over to Psychology Today, and search for practitioners within your niche who are in your area. Are their fees significantly higher or lower than what you have now?
Your location. If you’re in a high-income area, you can set your fees closer to the high end of the range you discovered. This will position your practice as a high-value practitioner in an area that can support it.
Another thing to keep in the back of your mind is why you charge what you charge. Some questions to ask yourself are:
- What income do you need to cover your bases?
- What do you need to save for paying taxes?
- What income do you need to support yourself, you children, your family?
- How narrowed is your niche?
Okay, that might look a bit overwhelming. That’s why we’ve made a Fee Setting Cheat Sheet for you, the therapist ramping up their own private practice. Check it out and mess around with different session fees until you find that sweet spot.
Easier said than done, right? Wrong.
Go ahead: Get a website, set your practice up with an EHR, find your niche, and set your fees. Check some things off your to-do list today, and profit in the long run.
Still don’t have a website? You’ve made it this far, have the first two weeks on us.
Sign up for a free trial with Brighter Vision and start getting more clients today!
