If you’ve happened upon my last two pieces in the IP (Summer and Fall 2006), you’ll know that I recently launched a practice in a small town in western North Carolina. I’m sharing my experiences as an early career psychologist in hopes that others might benefit from both my successes and my mistakes.

In this installment, I’m going to use the M-word pretty frequently, so brace yourself. Now, I know that many of you will not want to hear that, unless you’ve got an infinite waiting list and a bulging Swiss bank account, you really ought to be devoting some attention and effort to marketing your practice. But marketing is so unseemly, you protest, so unbecoming for a highly educated professional such as myself. The cold, hard truth is that, in today’s tough climate, virtually all of us must take at least some steps to cultivate business or risk financial failure. You counter, But I don’t know anything about marketing! That’s right: few if any of us were taught how to establish a business in our grad school programs, so we’re faced with scrambling to get information and help from the outside world after we’ve fledged that familiar nest. But ignorance is no excuse. You must simply read everything you can get your hands on (I listed several excellent resources on starting and building a successful practice in the summer IP article). Then adopt a positive attitude and prepare to take the plunge.

It’s really not all that hard to get some marketing basics in place. In fact, the good news is that certain facets of marketing are passive! Yep, that’s right. If your nightmares about marketing your services feature cheesy polyester suits, white shoes, and obnoxious jokes, shove those crass salesperson images aside. There are some very important and effective things you can do to spread the word about your practice that do not require you to actively “sell” yourself. Let’s begin at the beginning, with the fun part. Juliet once observed to her ill-fated lover, “What’s in a name?” I ask you the same. What do/will you call your business? Based on my research, it seems many practitioners simply bill their practice as “Joe Schmoe, PhD.” In my opinion, unless you have an easy-to-pronounce and alliterative name (like Frank Froman or Sandy Ceren) however, it may be better to put on your thinking cap and devise a more creative moniker.

Naming your practice is fundamental to all that will follow. As you brainstorm potential names, you should aim for something that is distinctive, memorable, and easy to say and spell. What do you want to communicate about your services, your philosophy or approach, or perhaps your specialty? I’ll use the example of my own business name: Wellspring Psychological Services. It was important to me to convey a sense of hope, new possibilities, growth, change, and renewal. I also wanted to be able to develop a logo that would reinforce those connotations.

Marketing experts generally advise against using a business name that is tied to a particular place (unless you are absolutely certain you won’t be changing locales) or that is overly specific in terms of your services or products. At the same time, your name ought to say what it is you do; hence, my advice not to simply name your business after yourself. Be sure to register your name with the Secretary of State’s office in the state where you (will) practice. Information about how to do so should be available on your Secretary of State’s web site.

In addition to a business name, consider developing a tagline that will appear somewhere below the name. This is a cogent descriptor or compelling message that you convey with just a few well-chosen words. Again, you can make this a creative, fun process involving friends, family, or trusted colleagues. Let me share my tagline with you: “New hope, strength, and skills for change.” To me, it bolsters the wellspring idea because it’s forward-looking and, I hope, instills optimism.

Think, too, about the kinds of images and/or colors that you might use in conjunction with your business name. This leads to one of my most important recommendations: I strongly urge you to consider hiring a graphic designer to develop what’s called an “identity” for your practice. An identity will include a logo (or at least a logotype, which is just the words in your name, without an accompanying image) that will be used on your business cards, letterhead, envelopes, brochures, appointment cards, advertisements, and web site.

Why is this so important? Because the very first impression many, if not most, people will form of you and your practice will be based on these materials. What do you want these passive marketing tools to say about you? That you’re skilled, professional, and competent, certainly. But you also want these communication vehicles to be aesthetically pleasing and to stand out from the crowd. They will be your silent messengers, working for you wherever they go.

Yes, it will cost you something to work with a graphic designer, but it’s an investment that will pay off many times over during the years you are in practice. My experience in doing so was a very exciting and rewarding one. I hired a small firm called Tymcio Hoffman Design, in Hudson, OH. Astute readers may recall that I live and work in western NC. But the geographic distance posed no problem; we talked frequently by phone and the designer emailed and FedExed me various drafts and revisions until I was satisfied with the final product. I highly recommend that you include this firm as you interview graphic designers for your own project (ask for Annette at 330 655 5340, or email her at tymcio@alltel.net).

I’ll bet you’re wondering why all this so-called “marketing” information has entailed only behind-the-scenes activities. But this is part of marketing, folks! Your print and electronic materials will play a pivotal role in identifying your practice in the marketplace, setting you apart from the competition, and providing a glimpse into what you’re all about, so you’ll want to spend the time and money to do them really well.

Ready for two more “passive” marketing steps? Okay, the first is that you ought to have a good brochure. Mine presents my practice philosophy, approach to therapy as a partnership, the kinds of challenges and problems I address, and my credentials. It’s aimed at both potential referral sources and patients. The second recommendation is that you must have a web site. If, like me, you live in a rural area, you may assume that relatively few people will be checking you out online. Wrong! To my surprise, people in my little town actually do find me on the web all the time. I did many months of research before deciding what kind of site I wanted. I perused scores of therapists’ web sites, making notes about what elements seemed important to include and which sites were most attractive and compelling to me.

Then I began looking for a web designer. Generally speaking, they do not come cheap (e.g., $1500 to $2,000 or more)! At the low end of the price spectrum, alas, I ruled out quite a few whose work struck me as amateurish or downright ugly. I finally was overjoyed to discover the services offered by Division 42 member Josh Rosenthal’s online company, TherapyMatch. For a very, very reasonable fixed fee ($550 at this writing), the design firm Josh has contracted with will create a site of up to 10 pages that is fully customized (and non-boilerplate – watch out for this with other companies) to your content and stylistic preferences. You, of course, are responsible for writing the content, but you’ll receive plenty of information and tips to guide you through that process. Please visit my site (wellspringpsych.com) to view the work Josh’s design partners did for me, and go to therapymatch.com for details on everything that’s included in the web site design process.

The final bit of passive marketing I’ll address is signage – yep, the proverbial shingle. The type and size of your business sign will depend on many factors, such as your location, local regulations, and cost. My office is fortuitously situated on the short road leading to our community hospital and medical park, so there’s lots of traffic passing by every day. Thus I chose to spend some more bucks on outdoor signage that would trumpet my presence to the medical patients and physicians who travel Hospital Drive. If you, too, have the opportunity to mount one or more signs outside your building, by all means do so. Your graphic designer can provide a camera-ready file to a local sign maker, who will manufacture (and usually install) whatever size sign you specify. In my experience so far, those outdoor signs have done a lot of talking for me! (I referred at the beginning to helping others benefit from my mistakes. Here’s a tip: put your phone number on your outdoor sign if there’s room!)

Stay tuned to the IP for the next report from this newbie, in which I will expound upon more active, yet not too scary, marketing approaches and techniques.

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