Counselors and coaches many times only focus on the online marketing aspect when growing their business while ignoring an important path for creating clients: referrals. Let's talk about how can you actually ask for referrals in an organic and simple way without it coming off as "needy". If you'd like to brainstorm a gameplan together for your business you can schedule a free strategy call with us here: http://bit.ly/practicegameplan
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About the 6-Figure Practice Program:
The Six Figure Practice with Sasha Raskin, is an online program and community for helpers such as counselors and coaches, who are building their private practice. If you’re looking for a clear, step-by-step road map for creating and marketing your private practice, you're at the right place!
Free resources to grow and market your counseling private practice or coaching business:
Free 22 minutes crash course - "How to Create a Thriving Counseling / Coaching Private Practice": https://www.the6figurepractice.com/free-22-minute-crash-course
Free resources about marketing for therapists and marketing for coaches: https://www.the6figurepractice.com/blog
Free 30-minutes strategy session with Sasha Raskin: https://www.the6figurepractice.com/schedule-a-free-30-min-strategy-session/
Our accelerator program for creating a 6-figure business:
The 6 Figure Practice Program: https://www.the6figurepractice.com/the-6-figure-practice-program-accelerator/
More ways to connect:
Website: https://www.the6figurepractice.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the6figurepractice
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2174406112863019
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/the6figurepractice
Chat with me on messenger: https://m.me/the6figurepractice
Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCITSmYvj-vpwuWrOuwqYr5w
About me:
My name is Sasha Raskin. I’m a Number 1 Best Selling Co-Author in 12 Countries, a Doctoral student in Counseling Education and Supervision, a coach, a psychotherapist and an adjunct faculty at a graduate counseling program at Naropa University.
One of the things I’m enjoying the most is helping other therapists and coaches build their successful private practice so that they could actually help the clients they were taught to help, and thrive themselves. I’m almost always fully booked, so my ability to work with individuals is limited. That is why I’ve created this program to deliver powerful results and create a community where you will feel supported by each other!
This program's primary goal is to help you build a thriving private practice, in a fun and authentic way. Counselors and coaches invest an incredible amount of time, money, and effort into building their helping skills. However, when their training ends, they usually find themselves lacking the business skills that are needed to start and run a successful private practice, feel isolated, discouraged and not knowing where to start.
I believe that to be truly helpful to others, therapists and coaches have to learn to thrive themselves and definitely know how to get clients whom they can help.
This is where this program comes in. If you're willing to learn and work hard, a 6-figure private practice is within your reach in a year - 2 years. This program will give you a clear outline, and detailed instructions on how to get there.
Transcription
Asking for referrals for your mental health private practice or coaching business
From Boulder, Colorado. I'm the founder of the 6 figure practice program and my mission is to help as many counselors and coaches grow their practice so that you could thrive and your clients can thrive as well. Something important that I believe counselors and coaches do not think enough about and definitely do not do enough is growing their referral resources.
Now I do know that at least with counselors and probably with coaches, when they finish their training and they publish their website maybe with enough courage and vulnerability they will send an email once saying to their supervisors, teachers, colleagues and people that they know that they're open for business. They send that email and usually 95% of the time it's crickets. They expect for other counselors and coaches to send them clients and it just doesn't happen. It doesn't happen for many different reasons and I would like to give you a different way of creating referral sources.
First of all, I'll share with you why that's important. Now if you listen to this podcast and watch this YouTube channel or if you're watching this on Facebook live or Instagram live you probably heard me say that it's not enough to have only one marketing strategy to grow your private practice (a) because you don't want to put all your eggs in one basket, (b) you want to have clients coming to you from different doors, and many times potential clients will bounce from one place to another, for example, from Google my business to your website to maybe asking their friends and family if they know another ... a good counselor or coach. So it's important to be everywhere.
Now there is a problem also even if you're on different places online - in listings, on your website and whatnot - over relying just on online marketing is also a problem. Again, even though you are in multiple places at the same time you are still relying only on one type of strategy. And there's a whole vast world of offline marketing out there. In our program, the 6 figure practice program, we have a lot of trainings about how to actually build network systems, and I want to give you one example today.
The problem with first of all emotionally reaching out to people and asking for referrals as well as the fact that it doesn't work is that you're leading with a request, right? And that can (a) feel needy and also come off as needy to the other person as well.
The other way which I prefer is leading with value, and I'll give you an example. If I'm reaching out to a psychiatrist, one of the main things that I'm doing is ADHD coaching and business coaching and I love working with business owners who have ADHD, and I can reach out to a psychiatrist who specializes in ADHD in my area. And I don't know this person and I'm sending just a short email giving them the gift of a short email saying, "Hi, I'd love to connect. I'm a counselor and a coach. I work with ADHD. I'm looking for good psychiatrists to connect with to send my clients to. Would you like to have a conversation?"
Now if you would be on the other end of receiving this email, how would you feel? And just on the emotional level what would you prefer to receive in your email inbox, an email like this or an email saying something like I'm a counselor in your area and I'm looking for new clients? Very different. And the only thing that you're doing here is starting a relationship and you're starting a relationship with providing value to other people.
And there's the effect of reciprocity, of course, if you're sending clients to other people they (a) would want to send clients back to you, (b) you'll be fresh in their mind. So the psychiatrist would then probably reply with something like, "Yeah, I'd love to chat. When is a good time?" And I'd say, "Well, here are three times that worked for me." We got on a phone call or a video call for 30 minutes, we geek out on things we like talking about like ADHD and working with ADHD, and that creates a relationship.
Something I like doing as well is just recording a podcast episode with this person, which creates even a better relationship. And I honestly do need to have a good referral sources for me to send my clients to which I do, right? And I still receive many referrals from all those professionals in my field or related to my field that still send clients my way till this day. And that's such a great and easy way of growing your business and helping people.
Now I'll give you another example, I talked to a counselor probably a month or two months ago, and I'm doing this research for my blog in terms of what are the best strategies, for example, for counselors that they found to be working the best for growing their business. And this one person he said, "I grew my practice just from referrals. And I started doing that two or three decades ago and I just opened up the phone book," back in the day it was a physical object, "and I started making calls - 10 calls a day to other counselors, psychiatrists, etcetera, family doctors. And I still am receiving phone calls till this day," right? So he did it three decades ago, it completely built his private practice without a website or without anything else.
Now imagine the power of marketing offline and marketing online, right? Let's say this psychiatrist will send a client my way, they will give my phone number or my email address or my website to them, this potential client would probably Google me anyway and then the online marketing kicks in, they will see the Google reviews, they will see the website, the good marketing text, there will be a good follow-up process - all the important stages of decision-making of a potential client that we teach in the 6 figure practice program, which is, by the way, my way of creating the most affordable and most efficient business training for counselors and culture. So if you want you can check it out in the6figurepractice.com. If you feel you're not growing fast enough or it just takes too much effort and headache let's simplify this thing and fill your practice fast and help you help others as soon as possible.
If you want a bit more details I can send you the details in a written form, just message or comment below with the word details, I'll send those details your way and you can simply schedule a call with us and we can plan a installment plan together that you might want to apply with our help or without, either way it's a win-win.
I hope this has been helpful. Please comment below if it has been, or if you have any questions simply message me, I'll be happy to help. Take care.
