Setting Up and Maintaining an Effective Private Practice

A Practical Workbook for Mental Health Practitioners

Philippa Weitz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429918896
• Topic: Psicología
• Subtopic: Contabilidad financiera

Counsellors, psychotherapists and psychologists are proud to belong to the helping professions. Those working within these professions see themselves as caring people trying to help others to understand themselves better, to feel better about themselves, and to help them get over various traumas and difficulties that they have experienced either within their lives or personalities. Talking about money and thinking of their clients, and the units of therapy time, as items of income can be uncomfortable. Many counsellors, psychotherapists and psychologists may not easily view their private practice as a business. But that is what it is and the primary role of any business is to be profitable. In this volume, the author guides us through practicalities of setting up and maintaining a private practice, and addresses the tensions and problems faced by the practitioner trying to both provide care and run an effective business. The author provides clear models and examples that practitioners will be able to adapt to their own circumstances, for example showing them how to set up accounts.

Chapter One
Marketing

Getting your first clients—telling the world about your business

“No clients, no business”

In this section I shall look at how you can get clients, because without clients you have no business. This was where Donna and her colleagues took a wrong turn.

It is always getting your foot on the first rung, getting the first clients, that is so difficult. No one knows who you are, you have not built up a reputation, and there is plenty of competition.

Let’s dive in and start finding you clients. There is quite a lot to think about in order to achieve that.

1.1 Marketing and advertising

1.1.1 Marketing—getting yourself known

Marketing is a broader word than advertising. This is about how you get yourself known and gain (and retain) your professional reputation as a counsellor.

1.1.2 Setting short- and long-term goals

Workbook Question and Answer Session:

What are the major long-term goals for my private practice that I wish to achieve over a 5-year period?

How am I going to achieve these long-term goals?

What are my immediate short-term goals that I wish to achieve within my first year?

How am I going to achieve these short-term goals?

If you can decide on what you want from your business, your goals, then you will know better how to market yourself. Think about Donna’s and Simon’s goals which were quite different, some were more achievable than others. Think about setting realistic goals. As these are your first serious questions you are likely to change your mind about your short- and long-term goals when you have gone further through your reading and planning, so you may wish to revisit these again.

1.1.3 Deciding what is unique about your business

In the jargon—you need to decide what is your “USP”—your unique selling proposition. Do I sense some of you getting a bit phobic suddenly!? This is just the sort of language to turn me off. In plain English what you do need to decide is what you have to offer, and how it is different to any of your competitors. I suggest you start your answer on rough paper as this exercise is not that easy and you will have a few false starts.

Example

Simon was the only qualified child counsellor in a 50-mile radius; this would give him an edge over others for working with children. Donna’s group ignored their combined training, skills and experience in the police, probation service and prison service as they might have been well placed to think about taking some additional training and developing work in those sectors where they are already known.

Starting to answer these questions will lead you to think not only what is unique about your practice but also about how you can adapt your previous work to the current context by bolting on some additional training.

Workbook Question and Answer Session:

1. What is unique about my private practice?

2. How can I sum this up in no more than 10 words?

1.1.4 Soul searching questions

Three questions that you must ask yourself before you set out in business, and answer in detail are:

Workbook Question and Answer Session:

What service can I (my practice) offer?

How different is my practice to that of my competitors?

What can my practice offer that is unique?

The answer to these three questions will determine how you develop your practice/business and will form the basis of all your marketing and will underpin your business.

As a result of this exercise you may come up with a short phrase that you want as part of your logo—this is called a USP. Have a look at correspondence from other companies and you will start to notice that a number include a USP. If you think it is over the top, then leave it, it is certainly not essential for a professional clinician. What is important is that you think about it.

Workbook Question and Answer Session:

What is my USP?

Workbook Question and Answer Session:

Do I need to get any additional training, or to buy in specialist skills, to equip me for achieving my goals?

1.1.5 Deciding on your marketing strategy

Once you have decided on your major goals and your USP there are some more general questions you may need to ask yourself before you can start to put together your business plan and marketing strategy:

Workbook Question and Answer Session:

Does the business need to support me full time?

Do I want to develop a big and well-known practice? How ambitious am I?

Do I want to be known for my academic interests and join the conference circuit etc.?

Do I need to get better known at all?

Do I want to have a small practice that develops from my current work?

What client group(s) do I wish to work with?

What type of counselling/psychotherapy work am I best at?

How well am I already known in the counselling world?

Do I find these types of questions difficult?

Whatever the answers to these and the other questions you ask yourself, the answers will be quite unique according to your strengths and weaknesses. Be ruthlessly honest about both as these will help you to decide whether to proceed with setting up a private practice and what hurdles you might need to overcome along the way. At any point during these questions you may decide that private practice is not for you. It is not for everyone.

1.1.6 The ultimate goal in marketing

The ideal goal for the development of your business, from a marketing point of view, will be to develop your professional reputation and competence to such an extent that you do not need to undertake any additional marketing.

Meanwhile the rest of us have to use marketing as a means of getting ourselves known!

1.2 The target for your marketing

First of all you need to decide to whom you are advertising your services. You will probably need to inform the following groups—how will you do this?

Workbook Question and Answer Session:

• The general public HOW?
• Your counselling colleagues HOW?
• Associated professions such as psychologists, psychiatrists, GPs, etc. HOW?

1.2.1 The general public

On the whole the general public has little awareness of the true nature of counselling, psychotherapy, psychology or psychiatry, or understands the differences between each if these professional disciplines. Consequently there are many myths flying around that are generally unhelpful for you when you are looking for clients as there can be a severe mismatch. They have also no idea what are valid qualifications or who might be a good practitioner. You are about to be an ambassador for your profession with that client—you need to get it right for their sake and make spot on decisions about who to accept and who not to accept for private counselling. Good assessment, as in other sectors of the counselling industry, remains one of the cornerstones of good practice. If you are not experienced in assessment this might need to be one of the first areas that you invest in, for your continuing professional development.

The man in the street in distress looking for help may take one of several possible lines of action:

• They will go to see their GP (see the section below regarding GPs).
• They will look in Yellow Pages, yell.com or Thompson’s Directory
• They will ring the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) or the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) and will be given names from the BACP or UKCP directory (BACP and UKCP are not the only organisations—there are other professional organisations).
• They will ring The Samaritans, the Citizens Advice Bureau or other self-help organisation.
• They will ask a friend who they know has been in counselling for a recommendation.
• They will search the internet.

Through one of the above routes you may receive your client: my experience is that all the above can lead to inappropriate referrals (there is no perfect referral source in private practice, but assessment will help you select who is most suitable for private counselling help).

Example

One of the first private clients Joanna received from a GP referral set fire to her ho...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• CHECKING YOUR MOTIVATION FOR SETTING UP A PRIVATE PRACTICE
• SOME INITIAL WORDS OF ADVICE
• HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
• CHAPTER ONE Marketing: Getting your first clients—telling the world about your business
• CHAPTER TWO Setting up the structure of the business
• CHAPTER THREE The practicalities of running the business
• CHAPTER FOUR Specific issues for a counselling business
• CHAPTER FIVE Working self-employed within the NHS
• REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READING
• APPPENDICES
• INDEX