Links

Join the Do More Than Therapy community and find out more about the membership and upcoming masterclasses at https://drrosie.co.uk/

What Needs to be in a psychology private practice business plan? Getting Money In to your Psychology Private Practice

Build it and they will come… Sadly this is not true. You do need to market your private practice in order to get clients. Thankfully the therapy side of business is not too difficult to market if you know where to look. Interventions other than therapy (books, workshops, events etc) require more “audience building” and therefore more marketing knowledge BUT it is sooooo worth it! It is likely however, that at the start of your private practice journey most of your income will come from therapy so let’s start with how to get therapy referrals…

Marketing your private practice: Referral Sources for Psychology Practices

Google search – SEO and paid ads. This basically means doing things that help get your website seen by the people that need your help. It is an art and one worth mastering in my opinion as referrals coming through your website tend to be the best fit for your work and they cost the least. Google actually provide pretty good advice on how to rank well in Google. It is almost like they want good content to be found! Here are the big hitters:

·     Get other people to link to your website (this is why getting press coverage is worth it). It gives your website more “domain authority” which is a trustworthiness score Google uses to decide where to put you in search results.

·     Use the phrases potential clients would be searching for in your headings and blog posts (in this post I am trying to rank for “psychology private practice” so it is in most of the headings. You can use tools like “Keyword Finder” and “Answer the Public” to see what people search for but common sense is pretty helpful here.

·     Publish regular content like a blog

·     Keep it simple! Google can’t make sense of complicated navigations so keep client experience at the forefront of your mind when creating your website and that will help it get found. I find it helps to imagine a very anxious person landing on my home page. In a hyper aroused state we aren’t good at concentrating and need things to be very clear. Build your site with that person in mind and Google rewards you.

·     All the other stuff is too technical for me!

Referrals from people you have worked with in the past – colleagues and previous clients (this is a great source if you are setting up in a place you have built a decent network)

Social media (There is so much to say on this but in brief, I find social media is a great place for promoting messages about mental health and promoting low cost workshops and events but I don’t think it is a great place for therapy referrals. Think about where you would look for the kind of thing you are offering. I think I would google search for a therapist so I put my marketing effort for therapy clients into Google and SEO but I use FB to promote low cost items like e-books and hypnobirthing workshops.

Directory sites. There are loads of options if you are promoting your therapy services. I find I get the best quality referrals from Psychology Today. Findatherapist.com also provides lots of referrals but they take 20% of every session fee. Counselling directory works for some people but I look expensive on there so don’t get much. Timewith is a platform to watch, especially if you are an online therapist as they are innovating a new search algorithm which should help those of us who work online to get found more easily.

Insurance companies. You can sign up to several at once through Healthcode. The big hitters seem to be AXA-PPP, Vitality and BUPA but there are others out there too. It is worth signing up for them all when you first start out but how many (if any) referrals you will get from them largely depends on who else they use in your area. It is important to be aware that they all have different caps on fees (which often change) and different payment terms. Make sure you read contracts carefully and factor in the impact of long payment terms on your cashflow. I get a lot of referrals from Nuffield Health who operate as an intermediary between insurance companies and clients in this area so it may be worth signing up with them too.

Rehabilitation companies. If you do trauma work then rehabilitation companies are often looking for psychologists to see clients who have been involved in an accident for CBT and EMDR paid for by insurance companies. Once you are on some directory sites you will probably be contacted by some of them as they really need people with our title. Some of these set shockingly low rates and have appallingly long payment terms. Be very assertive.

Solicitors. If you can build relationships with local solicitors they may send you the referrals above directly. They may also ask you to do medico-legal work if this is something you offer. If you like this kind of work this can be a great source of referrals as solicitors pay much higher fees (as there is no middle man and the budget is usually generous). Don’t make the mistake of charging what you would normally charge a self paying client (like I did at first). Solicitors expect to pay much more and these kind of referrals are often very labour intensive so find out what local colleagues are charging for solicitors and match that.

Employee Assistance Programmes. I actually don’t touch these as the ones that have approached me pay horrifyingly low fees.

Cost per client from each of these referral sources

Facebook ads, Google ads and directory sites all cost money. It is important to list out how much each one will charge you per client and factor this in to your running costs.

Marketing your private psychology practice: Services beyond therapy

Validation

I probably think your idea is amazing. But you need to know if people will pay for it. Even if you are hoping for grant funding or public funds you need to know whether you are realistically going to make any money to sustain the project before you sink lots of your time, grant funds or your own funds into getting it off the ground. If you are setting up a therapy practice you can realistically know this from your competition. Check out what people are charging and see if you can find out where they get their referrals. Competition is a good thing as it tells you there is demand for your services.

If you are doing something new/groundbreaking it is helpful to have a look for similar projects that have aimed to serve your ideal client group and see where they succeeded and where they could have improved but then you will need to TEST. Use something super simple like Leadpages to create a landing page and get people to sign up to a mailing list if they are interested in your idea. Better still use a platform like Crowdfunder to see if people will pay for it. People will be polite and say they like your idea but if they pay for it you know you are seriously on to something. You could also set up a Facebook group and invite people to join if they are interested in your topic. While Zuckerberg could always take this away from you so it is safest to get email addresses as well a FB group can be a great place to ask your ideal clients questions about what they want and need. I virtually never make a decision in my business without asking my FB followers their opinion.

Marketing your psychology practice makes you feel gross right?

It shouldn’t. People need what you are offering. You have to do marketing or the people who need it will not find it. Social media marketing (paid and organic), google ranking (SEO and ads), blogging, podcasting, networking/community events, physical flyers, getting mentioned/featured in the local and national press. These are all marketing options available to you.

Right now just figure out where you think your target clients hang out the MOST. Are they all spending hours on Facebook and Instagram or more likely to be found at local authority planning events.

Check out the BPS and HCPC policies on marketing and advertising. They are nothing to be afraid of. If you are generally an ethical practitioner you will do this anyway. Don’t make bold claims, don’t make people feel shame and don’t comment on anything beyond your competence. My approach with all things social media is to imagine I am talking to a client when I write anything. I never post anything I wouldn’t say to a client and so I’m not too worried about the ethical side of things.

Competition

A quick note about competition. When I told him was setting up the “Do More Than Therapy” community and the Business of Psychology podcast my husband looked confused and asked “but aren’t you just helping your competition beat you?” He did not get it.

My personal opinion is that there is no competition. There could be 100 clinical psychologists in your town all in private practice and I don’t think the demand would be met. My experience is that there is sadly more than enough need to go around. I set up the “Do More Than Therapy” community because I firmly believe if we all collaborate we can achieve FAR more than “treating” mental health problems.

Check out what people are offering and what they are charging in your area. This will give you an idea of whether your fees are realistic for the location. Make a note of their websites, see what you love about what they do and what you might do differently then REACH OUT and talk. Have coffees, make friends. You will find you pass each other referrals all the time, help each other out of tight spots and you might even get together to do something amazing. I have a couple of local psychologist friends who always inspire me. Whenever we talk I come away with an awesome idea for my practice. Love your competition J

What Needs to be in a psychology private practice business plan? Financial Planning for Your Private Psychology Practice

These are the hard but ESSENTIAL questions. Many of us (me included) go into private practice feeling guilty that we are charging anything at all. I was totally consumed by this guilt when I first started working privately. I believe that everyone should be able to access therapy for free and politically I am pretty well against profiting from the despair of others. But I have learned the (very) hard way that if you don’t do your numbers properly you will end up stressed, burned out and resentful and you can’t help anyone in that state. In the early days I had months where despite being fully booked I only just earned enough to cover childcare. This is part of the reason I think we all need to #domorethantherapy. If all you offer is therapy you will need to charge a lot for it just to get yourself a decent wage. Especially if you work with complex cases that need thinking and reflection time (all cases in my opinion) so you can’t see people back to back all day every day.

How much money do I need to take home each month to survive?

Work out what you need to live the life you want to live. Don’t think you will be OK on minimum wage if realistically that is going to leave you stressed and miserable. For me this was easy, I knew that we were OK on my NHS salary so I just aimed for that plus £200 for a private pension to start with.

How much money do I need to take home to have the lifestyle I want?

Now think honestly about what you want for your family. Our work is hard and if you don’t feel rewarded for it you will become resentful. This is good for no one so don’t lie to yourself here. Come up with an ideal salary per month that you would like to make.

Services

What are you going to offer? I have learned the hard way that you definitely need something in this box that is NOT a 1:1 service (like therapy) as you will burn out really quickly if all of your income comes from therapy and you can never take a sick day. It is the opposite of the flexibility many of us need. So think creatively, could you offer workshops or group courses? Could you do some writing? Offer an online course? Many of these things will take around a year to make profitable (especially if it is an online option) but you need to start with them in mind so you make the time to make them a reality.

Now you have figured out what you are going to offer and what you are likely to be spending on running costs you can work out what you NEED to charge.

A: How much money do you need to bring in to cover your salary, expenses and the taxman?

B: How many hours are you planning on working?

C: How many of these can be “billable” / money making?

Now divide A by C.

For example, if I know that to give me the salary I want, put aside 25% for tax and cover my overheads I need to make £6000 a month. And I know that I have 20 “money making” hours a week (in a solely therapy practice this could look like 4 clients a day over a 5 day week) that would mean I need to earn at least £75 per hour to cover my expenses. Once you know this rate you have to be hard line about it. Any work you do for less than this is not sustainable. Of course you can do work at a lower rate if you happen to have an insurance company or solicitor paying higher rates for some of your hours.

It is important to be realistic and consider here how many people you are comfortable with seeing back to back and how easily you will be able to fill groups/sell products in the early days.

You might feel icky about it. In fact you probably will. But you shouldn’t. We are very good at empathising with the fact our clients who are struggling financially often suffer from the stress that brings. What makes you think you are some sort of superhero that is immune to this effect? We cannot do good work if we are stressed about money so you have a responsibility to look after yourself in this area. You may be surprised at how high your fee has to be to achieve comfort and stability.

Your financial commitment:

I (name)…………………… commit to looking after myself so I can best serve others and my family. My minimum hourly rate is …………… I will never work for less than this unless I have earned enough elsewhere to compensate for it.