Last time, I focused on some basic considerations for your marketing plan, including choosing a business name, designing an identity, and developing your primary communication materials (business card, letterhead, brochure, web site). In this installment, I’ll take us a few steps farther, but have no fear! My marketing suggestions are still pretty darn painless and are things that I believe will be easy to implement as you work on building your practice.

Let’s begin with a fundamental outlook that I think will be helpful to adopt. It is, in fact, what underlies all else in my baby-steps marketing guide, so let’s call it Cardinal Rule #1: Everyone you meet is a potential patient/client or a potential referral source! See how that vastly expands the marketplace? Your hairdresser, your kids’ teachers, your physicians, a friend of a friend, the stranger you exchange hellos with at Starbucks – all can become allies in your quest to build a financially sustaining business. And you cultivate their support, by and large, simply by being your best self in your interactions with them. In other words, be friendly, likeable, and smart. Be an attentive and empathic listener. Put people at ease by using encouraging verbal and nonverbal cues. If they like you during a casual interaction, they will probably assume that you bring those positive qualities to your professional role as well.

You can create almost constant opportunities for meeting new people by getting involved in your community. I enjoy volunteering, which is one of my key activities when I’m not working or having fun. You can do as much or as little community service as you wish, and it’s an excellent way to become known as a decent, socially concerned citizen. You can also join various professional and service organizations, such as the Chamber of Commerce (where networking is de rigueur), Rotary, American Association of University Women, or your local municipal or county advisory boards. The point is just to get yourself out there where you’ll be seen.

This may sound obvious, but I’ve encountered colleagues who don’t do it, so I’m going to be rather insistent about what I call Cardinal Rule #2: Always, always, always have an ample supply of business cards on your person and hand them out at every opportunity. Don’t worry about seeming crass. With a little practice, you’ll develop a smooth, low-key approach to getting your card into the hand of the person you’re talking with. If it’s someone you’ve just met, you can deftly offer a card as if it will help the person learn your name: “Let me give you one of my cards”. If, like me, you happen to have an unusual moniker, you can add, “My last name is a bit difficult for people. It’s KLING-en-der,” or something to that effect. As psychologists, we know how learning occurs, so let’s take advantage of it.

If you’ve done as I recommended in the previous article, your card will be eye-catching and the person on whom you’ve just bestowed it will likely offer up a compliment. This opens the door for you to say, “Thanks. It was important to me to convey a sense of hope and optimism [or whatever was key for you], and so far people are responding very positively.” Bingo! You’ve just gotten one of your messages out to someone new!

Here is the Newbie’s Cardinal Rule #3: Leave ‘em thinking that, if they or someone they know needs a therapist, you will be the one they call first. This is merely an expansion of the admonition to be your best self. So let’s return to the scenario where you’ve just given someone your business card. This automatically provides an avenue for steering the conversation – even a very brief one – onto the subject of what you’re good at. What you say here is fairly important, of course, but at least as critical is how you say it. Take a tip from our old friend William James and remember to act the way you want to feel. In this case, you don’t want to hang your head and shyly mumble a few words. You want to come across as confident, skilled, trustworthy, knowledgeable, caring, and welcoming – right? Think of this quick pitch simply as being who you are in the first meeting with a new patient. And what’s our chief goal for session number one? Yep, it’s to make a solid connection so the person will come back for session number two.

Okay, so you’re handing out business cards like mad, but you needn’t be a one-person promotional machine. Enlist the help of your spouse or partner, close friends, colleagues, and fellow small business owners. With all others who are in business for themselves, in fact, the idea is to network shamelessly – a kind of “I’ll hand out your cards if you’ll hand out mine” agreement. More on this in a moment.

Here’s a fun marketing tactic. Consider hosting an open house reception for potential referral sources. Many practice-building guides suggest making cold calls to introduce yourself to those from whom you seek referrals – an idea that I suspect my fellow newbies may find rather terrifying. And even if you don’t shrink from acting on that suggestion, it may be very difficult to get yourself onto an MD’s schedule to chat about how therapy can help her patients.

My party plot, on the other hand, will result in bringing those people to you! And they’ll be more relaxed (and you’ll feel less intimidated) because it’s after hours and you’re wining and dining them! My suitemate and I held a reception together and, in fact, had a very encouraging response. I happen to have some graphic design talent, so I designed elegant invitations and put them in tasteful but attention-grabbing envelopes (nifty blue thingies called “pochettes” – ooh la la!) so they wouldn’t get buried on recipients’ desks. These my wonderful husband hand-delivered to the offices of MDs, dentists, other mental health professionals, clergy, and our local college counseling center staff. Being a friendly bloke, he chatted up the receptionists who accepted his deliveries and readily promised him that they’d get the invites into the addressee’s hands. We scheduled the event to start just after business hours and to last for about two hours. That way, the people we wanted to meet could easily stop by on their way home. We made it clear on the invitation that there would be good food, libations, and conversation.

Now of course the individuals who attend your shindig will want to learn more about you and why they should refer people to you. Thus you’ll need to prepare a pithy “elevator speech” about what you do (including any areas of specialization) and how patients benefit from working with you. Here’s an example: “My approach to therapy is a very interactive one. My goal is to give people tools and to suggest specific steps that they can take to overcome problems. I assign homework to help them practice what we discuss, do a lot of psychoeducation, teach stress-reduction and relaxation techniques, and work in a very focused way on building social and communication skills. For the long term, I want my patients to develop resilience and problem-solving abilities that will equip them to meet new challenges in the future. In addition to treating mood disorders, I especially enjoy working on the full range of anxiety-related problems, including PTSD, and on personality issues related to abuse, neglect, and trauma experienced during childhood.” I don’t intend for you, dear reader, to assume that I deliver the foregoing speech verbatim. But this example offers the key pieces of information that I try to work into a conversation with a prospective referral source.

Another thing I did for the open house was to put together packages of brochures and business cards as “parting gifts” for attendees. I purchased some cool, clear plastic envelopes with string ties that were just the right size for my 5x7-inch brochures. In each, I included 10 brochures and 10 cards to be given to anyone they might refer to me.

Equally important as you establish relationships with people who make formal referrals is to let them know that you are looking to reciprocate. This is especially crucial with other mental health folks, who may understandably be quite territorial. I have found, however, that if you ask them about their specialties and areas of interest – and request a few of their business cards so you can send referrals their way when appropriate – you will, in the words of John Rudisill, “set up a norm of reciprocity.” John recommended this approach during one of the marketing teleseminars sponsored by our own Div42, and his advice has held up well in my experience.

Our themes this time have been that you’ve gotta try to be “on” whenever you’re meeting new people, and you’ve gotta be bold about networking. Another no-brainer way of following this advice is simply to ensure that you provide high-quality care to the patients who come through your door (and they will come, so don’t fret too much). If you do a good job, those patients will be among your best spokespersons. The people who were referred by a physician will probably be seen for follow-up, at which time the MD gets to see and hear that their patient is getting better. And like true believers, many happy patients will tell friends and family (and friends and family will observe for themselves) how much you’ve helped them.

Let me offer an aside about people who are sent by their doctors. With my patient’s permission, I always write a brief thank-you letter and describe my initial impressions and general treatment approach. I send another brief update later in the course of therapy, and a final letter when a patient’s work with me is finished. I believe that these communications are a good thing in terms of encouraging continued referrals, and I have convinced myself that MDs notice and appreciate them for at least a nanosecond. But I no longer expect that they might take a moment to respond, let alone to express appreciation for my fine clinical work – just a heads-up that your thank-yous and follow-ups may go into a void, but write ‘em anyway.

Remember that prospective patients who don’t materialize into paying clients are also subject to forming a positive impression of you. I strive to help anyone who contacts me find appropriate care by taking time to listen, reinforcing their reaching out for help, offering tips about shopping for a good therapist, recommending colleagues, and providing phone numbers. I ask that they cite me as the referral source so my colleagues will know that I’m scratching their back. I even returned one non-patient’s second call and gave her some information about volunteering, because she’d left a downbeat message about wanting to do something meaningful after our initial conversation. Do I gain directly by going the extra mile? Nope. But I hope that gradually I will come to be seen as genuinely caring, dedicated professional in my community.

Stay tuned to the IP for the next report from this newbie, in which I will offer additional ideas for getting the word out about your practice.

Clinical psychologist Debbie Klingender eagerly awaits your questions, comments, and suggestions for future articles at drdeb@wellspringpsych.com.