Part 1 of 2. Alexandra Whitehead is the CEO of The Practice Actuator.
To have a successful online practice, there are six steps you need to follow. If you’ve been working with insurance companies only to get clients, you might have found that while your schedule is as full as it can be, this hasn’t resulted in a better business. There might be little profit – so it’s hard to invest in your business and create additional offerings that serve both you and your clients – and it’s unlikely that you can afford to work 20 hours per week or less.
If this is you, you might be wondering about how to attract more clients online. If you were able to do this easily, your practice would have a nice balance – you’d have more financial security, and you might just get your wish of having Fridays off – forever!
Attract a Predictable Private Pay Revenue Stream
The reason why online therapists fail to attract a predictable stream of online private pay clients is that they haven’t followed the ‘six-step’ process. They might not even know that the process exists – and even if just one step is missed, it’s difficult to grow a profitable practice.
In addition, so many therapists take small ‘marketing’ steps in isolation from one another, and unfortunately, these don’t add up to additional clients or revenue. They can also be a real-time scam!
6 Steps to Attract Private Pay Clients
These are the six steps you must take if you want to have a profitable online business that includes private-pay clients.
- Even if it seems impossible right now, you should know what your future looks like
- Find out why you want the future you desire
- Discover a profitable niche and make it a reality
- Share your story (why are you working in this niche)
- Your ideal clients will love you for it!
- Traffic source: Get the right eyeballs on your irresistible deal
We’ll go through Steps 1-3 in this article, and you can explore Steps 4-6 in Part Two of this article here.
When you choose to follow this six-step process, is when you’ll get private-pay clients saying “Heck Yes!” to working with you and signing up for your services. These people are perfect clients, so it’s worth getting your system in place to attract them. It’s also where you get to shine – you know that you are highly suited to helping people who come into your world via this process.
Create a sustainable client attraction system
Let’s unpack each of these steps in greater detail, so you can self-assess where you’re at right now, and what you need to do going forward to build out this sustainable client attraction system.
Step 1: Imagine your ideal future, even though it may seem crazy
You’re probably familiar with the saying “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” It can be a mistake to just look at what everyone else is doing and decide to also do the exact same thing.
Because you’re the CEO of your business (and yes, if you’re a solo practitioner this counts!) You have the power to decide what happens to your business. You can build it from scratch. The ripple effects of building a profitable, sustainable and impactful company will be evident in your daily life.
You might imagine having a thriving online business, saying yes to speaking gigs, moving to the mountains, buying your kid’s first home, or going on holidays without changing the filter from “price: lowest to highest”.
It is possible to decide on the future you want. Possible. Far more possible than never having thought about it before (if you don’t know what you want, then how will you get it?). And remember, you don’t have to tell anyone!
If you’d like to fast-track the knowing part of your desired future, you can grab our free meditation/hypnosis audio here.
Learn more about The Practice Activator
Step 2: Find out WHY you want this future and get into it
If you’ve ever read books like “The Law of Attraction”, you’ll know how important it is to connect emotionally to your desired future, so that it feels like you’re already living in that reality.
Behind the desire for “a bigger house” and “more holidays” is always a “core desire” or the alleviation of a pain point. You can invite friends over to your bigger house for dinner parties, for example. You might be looking for deep connection or companionship, even though you have a large house.
Once you know your ‘why’ behind each desire, really feel into it and allow it to become your reality, even if it’s for 5 minutes. In this case, you’d imagine how it feels to be surrounded by great friends.
Why is this important Building a profitable business isn’t easy. Yet, it’s also not hard. It’s not easy, so why give up? It takes time to get the results that you want. When people realize that it’s not just about “being profitable” and it’s also about companionship, for example, people are much more motivated to take the actions they need to take to get what they want. So don’t skip this step!
Step 3: Uncover a Profitable and viable niche
Not having a viable niche is the biggest mistake therapists make – especially in online practice. A few years ago, Niching was trendy and fashionable. However, there was a lot of inaccurate information on the internet about how to find a niche. Many therapists mistakenly believe they have a niche. For example, “a psychologist for anxiety” is not a niche. Nor is “a psychologist for women with anxiety”.
Online practitioners need to find a niche. This is a way to stand out in a crowded market. Potential clients have another reason to book with you. YouRather than someone who might be more convenient or cheaper,
Your niche should be a small segment of the market that has a problem you can solve. For example, “a psychologist that helps teachers overcome social anxiety” is a niche.
Here’s the niching formula:
[specific person] + [specific problem] = Niche
And here’s how your niche plugs into one giant arm of your business model:
[specific person] + [specific problem] + [you and your irresistible offer] =
[client transformation] + [profitable business]
If you’re not a little bit fearful that you’ve “niched too much” – you haven’t got a niche 🙂
To overcome the fear around niching, it’s a great idea to check you’ve got a viable niche. To check for viability, you should list at least 20 niches. Then it’s time to research which ones appear to be viable.
You’ll want to choose a niche that has some competition. A lack of competition is a negative sign. This can be checked by:
- Do a Google search using your potential niche keywords,
- Amazon lets you search for books about the subject.
- Reddit forums are a great place to look to see if others are discussing the same problem as you.
A niche is viable if there is plenty of discussion about the problem. You can feel more confident the more results you get across a variety platforms.
Remember that the riches are found in the niches.
In Part Two of this article, you’ll discover why you need to share why you do what you do, and how clients use this information to decide to work with you, or not.
You’ll learn the #1 mistake you can make when it comes to presenting your services to your ideal clients. This is the key to increasing your revenue and helping more people.
And, you’ll uncover how to get the right eyeballs on your irresistible offer via a traffic source. This will help you fill your online practice with great-fitting customers on autopilot.
For FREE resources – just for Good Therapy Practitioners – including the fast way to uncovering your true desires and getting what you want in business and life + the 3-step framework for getting your first online private-pay clients, Click here
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