After 15 years of helping therapists and healers build successful practices, the fear and resistance many have around investing in their success still surprises me at times. Many want to have a full and thriving practice, but are afraid or unwilling to invest time and money into the business side of their practice–or don’t think they shouldn’t have to.
This is in direct contrast to most business owners in other industries who realize when they start a business that it will take time and dollars to get their business off the ground and to keep it going in the long term.
The fact that many helping professionals are reluctant to invest in the success of their practice is one of the key reasons why so many of them fail or at least struggle for years.
How Resistance Manifests:
- neglecting to schedule time to market or marketing in fits and starts
- expecting that having a website and listing on a few online directories is going to fill your practice and keep it full forever
- reluctance to invest money in marketing, or not believing you have to
- having websites that are not working or, in some cases, are just downright awful
- failing to hire administrative help even though doing so would save time and money in the long haul
- thinking you can learn and do everything by yourself, as you drive yourself into overwhelm and exhaustion
- not investing in business education: business and marketing books, taking business-building courses and workshops, investing in private consulting or coaching, etc.
Now…if this is beginning to sound like you, your resistance might start showing up right about now with thoughts like these:
“Yes, but I don’t have much money.”
“ I don’t have time to market.”
“How do I know I will get a return on the money and time I invest?’
“I don’t want to spend money when I am not yet making any.”
Part of Being Successful is Due to Strategic Investing
If any of the above statements sound like you, I hear you. I remember funds being tight when I was first building my business. However, that didn’t stop me from investing in whatever it took to make my business grow.
I hired coaches and professionals to help me. I invested in programs and courses to teach me what I needed to know…and even with the things I did know, I invested money to help me do them better. As I got busier, I hired a bookkeeper, an assistant and other professionals as required. I invested wherever I needed to in order to reach my goals. And, somehow I found the funds to do this.
I continue to invest in my business more than ever because I know it helps me get better at what I do. It helps me streamline my systems, be more efficient with my time, improve my business strategy, expand my creativity, and increase my income.
I recently hired a marketing coach who charges double what I charge. I’m doing this because even with all my years of marketing and business experience, I want to learn more and become even better at my business. I therefore knew it was important to hire someone who knows more than I do. I have no doubt that I will get a significant return on this investment.
My story is not unique.
The most successful therapists and healing artists are the ones who have invested their time and dollars into learning what they needed to know. And, many of these folks didn’t have a lot of funds when they started. What they did do, however, was make their business a priority and choose to find the time and money to make it work.
This is surely what many of your clients do as well. They don’t all have a lot of money to spend on your services, but their desire to change and grow is strong enough that they make it a priority to invest in your services.
If you resonate with any of this, you might want to ask yourself why there is a contradiction between what you expect your clients to invest in your services, and what you are willing to invest in your own success.
I am NOT saying you should spend your time and money randomly or foolishly. Any decision you make to invest money in your business should be strategic and within the context of your goals and your financial situation.
What I am suggesting is that you ask yourself these 3 questions:
1. Do you really want to succeed in private practice and if so, what does success specifically look like to you? You can’t make a plan if you don’t know what your goals are. Likewise, it will be difficult to be committed if you don’t know what you are committing to.
2. What are you able and willing to invest in terms of time and financial resources in order to reach those goals? Remember what you believe you “can afford” will depend in part on how important this is to you.
3. What risks are you willing to take as you invest? Part of succeeding in business means taking calculated risks. Not everything works out as planned and sometimes you’ll make mistakes. However, the key is to learn from these mistakes and adjust your strategy accordingly.
In the long term, if you truly commit yourself to doing what it takes to succeed, you will be successful in spite of a slow economy, high competition, or most other factors that you believe are obstacles. It’s not always easy. Sometimes you’ll feel lost, confused and completely out of your comfort zone. But, one thing is for sure, success is possible if you stick with it.
You have such helpful information, Juliet and I really appreciate it. What I know from myself is that I had to learn that yes, I had a special business but it still is a business that I have to work on. I have had to work also on my own issues of 1. money and receiving 2. wanting to be caring and wanting to be liked. As I recognized my own “stuff” I have started to do better in attracting clients, thanks to people like you who help me.
Great post Juliet. I invest time/money on my practice, fine tuning my skills as a couples therapist and social media presence incl. writing weekly posts on my blog.
I’m sure there are therapists and “business” folk as you speak of in your article, but for myself, I am overwhelmed with the services being offered by your self and MANY others that have started to offer the same including the same marketing-speak! I know I have to invest, but the problem is which is the right one – the one that will deliver what I’m paying for. Second, after I invest in a product/service, then I see it as “free”! Thirdly, “sales letters” are exhaustive to read. That’s it for the moment…
Irene,
Thanks for dropping by. 🙂 I see you on Facebook and Twitter working your magic. I am sure you are seeing the results.
Frieda,
Thanks so much for your comment and for sharing your experience. It’s always nice to hear that my posts are helpful. At least 50% of the work in succeeding has to do with working on oneself (sometimes it’s more like 99%).
Bruce, believe me there are many helping professionals that fall into this category. I come across them all the time. Although I have not done any research in this area, my experience tells me that there are more therapists in private practice that fit into this category than don’t. For you though, it sounds like you are experiencing overwhelm which is also common and understandable. If I may make a suggestion, you might try to focus on 1-2 things that make the most sense to you. Sometimes you just have to take that leap in faith and make a choice. As I mentioned in the article, sometimes we make mistakes, but the important thing is that we learn from them.Yes, there are an increasing number of people offering similar services as I do for therapists and this can feel repetitive and like “marketing speak” after a while. If it all feels like too much, you might need to turn it all off for a while. Even though I am a marketer, I get tired of it too at times. I also make sure I follow those who market in a manner that speaks to me.Thanks for dropping by.
Self-promotion and marketing is definitely not one of the things you learn in psychology grad school. The focus is always on the clients, and, oh, yes, a bit on self-care in order to stay sane. But promoting yourself? A total alien idea for most therapists I know, including myself. Recently, however, I’ve realized that if I don’t do something to market myself I will a. make a very poor living after sooooo many years of investing in my education and skill-development and, B. I will not give clients the opportunity to get my help, which, I believe, is of very high value. The questions I’m struggling with right now are: Where and in what I should put my money and energy? How do I work more without reaching the point where I am working only to pay marketing costs and taxes? What do I do first?
So the virtual workshop on practice building is very timely for me and I’m really looking forward to attending!
Cheers,
Michal
Dr. Michal Regev, Registered Psychologist, Registered Marriage and Family Therapist, Vancouver, B.C. http://www.drregev.com
Michal,
These are important questions you are asking and there are no easy answers. The most important thing is that you do something and The Practice Building Conference is a great place to start. Look forward to “seeing” you there. 🙂
Thank you, for the continual reminders about the importance of prioritizing my practice and focusing on marketing strategies. I am working on completing your questionnaire to help me move forward with the steps for building a website.
Treona
These are very helpful reminders of the challenges we face as psychotherapists. I know for me its very much not my character to focus on my own goals. I think we need to look carefully at what qualities in ourselves constitute our self esteem. For me a lot of the time its me ability to be there for others. When I am there for myself in a business sense, I begin to get a kind of existential nervousness.
Spring happening here in australia – we hope you come back soon.
Johanna
Thanks for the reminder. I attend the virtual conference last year, spent the money for the gold package. I had just lost 70 to 80 % of my income because of a loss of large referral base. I have recovered over 60% of that loss in one year meanwhile several of my colleagues re loosing ground with their practice because of the economy. What I learned in virtual conference has helped me keep my practice going. It is a lot of hard work and it is working.
Hi Juliet. Thanks for the post! My practice is just over a year old and I when I began, I had ONE client for about 5 months!! Now I have 15. I did actually put ads in the paper and suffice to say – NONE of them worked and they were super expensive. I did some Facebook ads with the same result. I’d get calls, but no one committed (no pun intended). What DID work was my website, it was the first thing I had up before I began my practice and that’s where most of my clients find me. Last month an HR manager found me and asked me to see the company’s employees and just invoice them each month! One of those employees referred me to his sister who is an HR at another company and she also has me on as a therapist for those employees. I’m getting referrals from clients too. So I learned that having a referral system and NOT advertising works best.
I plan to update my site next year. I have the cash to invest in a one of a kind site – just don’t know who to hire! And I do buy and read books by Michael Port and CJ Hayden to figure out how best to do this. It’s actually fun and I have faith.
Hi Juliet.
Am grateful for your suggestions. I am a new graduate who is ambitious to start up a private practice, and I’m very hopeful that with your comments and guidelines, I will reach places. Thanks.
For the conference am sorry not to have made to register for it, but am requesting that should you have the written speeches of that conference please kindly post them to me if it can be possible with you. Thank you, and be blessed.
It’s so true that I expect clients to invest in therapy in order to suceed in reaching their goals so I too need to invest in builing my practice in order to be successful at that. What a helpful point… thank you for this new perspective!
Anne McCormack, Dublin, Ireland
@ Treona – Glad to hear you are moving forward with the website.@Johanna _ Nice to see you here! I miss Australia. It was this time last year that I came down to enjoy your lovely spring and summer. re: your point about self-esteem being tied to helping others is true for so many helping professionals. Marketing does require focusing on your own needs for sure, but it’s also important to remember that if you really believe your work is helpful to others, you will want as many people as possible to know about it so that you can have even a bigger impact. This reality is often overlooked.
@ Elizabeth -Thanks for sharing your success. I am so pleased to hear that last year’s Practice Building Conference has helped you get clients.
@ Rachael –Congratulations on your success!
@Oluochlee – The Practice Building Conference has audio recordings that you can purchase if you can’t attend the live calls.
@Anne – You are very welcome! Thanks for stopping by.
I know how Bruce feels. I made a mistake in using the services of one coach. It was a huge leap of faith for me. It cost a lot of money and I really got nothing out of it. But I did learn what kind of coaching does not work for me and, by contrast, I have to say that so far, all of your suggestions that I’ve applied have worked for me. Needless to say, I can really appreciate your level-headedness and lack of hype.
Hey Lark!
Yes, as in anything we do, sometimes we don’t hire the right people who can help us. This is an example of one of the mistakes we can sometimes make. Happy to see you didn’t give up glad that my style is working for you. You are a delight to work with. 🙂
Thanks so much for your comments. It’s a relief to be reminded that I don’t have to already be perfect, I can make mistakes and still learn.
Encouragement is a good thing… what can I say?
I love this post Juliet, because SO many therapists don’t get that you need to invest money in your business to make money. It is a basic law of business that most healing professionals have either never come across or choose to ignore.
I think it is even more imperative that we invest in services such as marketing, business coaching or copywriting because these are the very skills that can make or break a business and they are certainly not taught in graduate school!
In my experience, the great thing has been once I have learned these new skills, I have then been able to keep using them to build my business and will continue to use them in the future.
Thanks for all your hard work in teaching us how to be successful!
I’m new here.
I’ve been working on my website with some outside help – one for technical assistance and one for SEO. It’s a long process since I can only afford to do it a bit at a time. One of my issues is that I have a group practice and the model I have been using is not working. All of the percentage I keep goes to expenses as well as about 70% of revenue from my own clients. I am pretty much the only one in the practice who works on building the business. This is not working and I’m not sure what to do.
Secondly, I’m not sure how to handle it when someone asks me for one of my presentations. I provide them for “free” to churches because that is our primary target population. When PTA’s or other organizations want it, I’m not sure how to identify a fee without scaring them off.
There are so many aspects to running a successful business that I always feel I am lagging in my efforts, even though I am working so hard on everything. I have invested money in help such as an office assistant, bookkeeper, website expertise and training, coaching etc. and taking very little home. As a result of my overall model I now have hardly enough to pay my expenses every month. Even though my revenue has increased about 55% for all of my three years of being in business.
Hi Patti,
Thanks for dropping by.
Sounds like you are working hard without reaping the benefits. I can’t respond specifically to your situation without knowing all the details. Howe er, it sounds like you really need to take a serious look at your business model and financial plan. You say you are paying for coaching so your coach should be able to help you with this. If not, I’d say you need a new coach.