Yesterday, Naomi Dunford of IttyBiz.com, posted a lovely blurb about the necessity of developing a niche for your business. She even said the smaller the niche the better.
Her post makes me feel good. I’m not the only oddball promoting specialty niche as the key to a successful business.
But that is the key….a business has a niche, a hobby is something you do because you like it and making money doing it is a nice bonus.
Lots of therapists fall into the “hobby” category. They want to do what THEY want and get frustrated that people don’t want to pay them for it.
The thing is, clients will pay you for what they want and perceive they need. Successful businesses seek out a problem to solve and get paid to offer a solution or to minimize a pain.
It’s not about you. You could go to school for 20 years and have 19 fancy letters after your name, but at the end of the day no one cares unless you are clearly offering a solution to their problem.
Now back to niche.
I”m going to be straight up honest here. I see a number of “marketing for therapists gurus” out there you can have cake and eat it. They sling around market-y crap like, “You don’t need a niche, just follow your passions. You don’t have to specialize, use the law of attraction to guide your practice growth.”
Gag. These people are telling you what you want to hear, not the reality of building a solid practice. I won’t manipulate you into buying my stuff by placating you and lulling you into a sense that you don’t need to take your skills and business seriously.
You are either building a business or you’re not. If you don’t want to go through the efforts of specializing, offering top notch service and marketing it, don’t even bother going through the motions. Building a business is not complicated, but it requires work and compromise and meeting well defined needs.
As a profession, we need to get over ourselves and our desire to impress people with our education, credentials and “mindfulness” and kick it into gear and build some amazing businesses that help real people with real problems.
YOUR Niche
I can see from the comments here on my blog, many of you are stuck in the process of defining a niche. This can be difficult when you are not accustomed to think of your practice as a business.
A few niche tips
- If you think your niche is too broad it probably is.
- Any specialty that includes the phrase “men, women, children, couples….” is not a niche AT ALL. This is my biggest pet peeve. You need to know this now. Anyone who has the phrase, “men, women, children and couples” in their marketing materials needs to make some changes.
As Naomi says,
“If you pick a niche, you lose some customers. If you don’t pick a niche, you lose ALL customers”.
- Focusing on 2 (or more) distinct diagnoses automatically makes you a generalist. For example, working with women on issues of stress and people in recovery from substance abuse is not a niche. Working with women in recovery is a niche.
- The main goal of establishing a niche is to be so clear about who you work with , that those particular people will come to your website and immediately say, “YES! This person works with people like me and I want to work with her!” Anything less than that and people get confused and rarely bother to call to make an appointment.
True Story
Yesterday, I got an email from a family in India. They want me to work with their son on issues of executive dysfunction. They read my website which is search engine optimized for the term “executive functioning.” Small niche, international clients…..sometimes this stuff even surprises ME!
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Susan is a licensed psychologist, business consultant and marketer for health care professionals who want to diversify their income streams and utilize online tools to provide services and market their practices. She teaches providers how to leverage social media to educate about health care while growing profitable practices.
Another great post, Susan! In the almost 12 years I have been working with therapists helping them to build their practices, choosing and defining a niche is one of their most common struggles. And wow, do they struggle!
I love what Naomi says above, “If you pick a niche, you lose some customers. If you don’t pick a niche, you lose ALL customers”.
While this statement is so true (with a few exceptions), I have found that this is a difficult concept for therapist’s to get their minds around. I think they need to be explicitly shown examples of how others have benefited. Your example of the family that contacted you from India is great in this regard.
Another example is how therapists can benefit from the opportunity to get publicity.
I often receive emails from clients and past clients telling me that they have received yet another television, radio, newspaper or other media interview all because they were seen as “experts” on topics such as parenting teens who are out of their parent’s control, the traumatic effects of natural disasters, how to succeed in marriage, etc.
No media person wants to interview a generalist for a story that they are doing on a specific topic. And it doesn’t take much to figure out that getting publicity through the media exposes you to a potentially huge audience creating a flood of traffic to your website, often-times generating immediate clients.
If you are still struggling with defining our niche, don’t give up. Stick with it, get help if you need it, and once you decide, commit to it. Know that you you must keep marketing it until you are seen as the go-to-person in that niche. You will then have all the clients you want.
Thanks, Juliet….I know this is a hard concept and I feel a lot of marketing pros gloss over it because it can be a place where many people (not just therapists) get stuck. I was lucky to have niched by default before I started my own practice. I feel we often overanalyze and think about it our terms, using words and concepts we learn in grad school, rather than focus on how a potential client would search for or ask for such support. We’ll keep working on it here at BizSavvyTherapist! Appreciate you stopping by.
Yes, an important point you make about therapists over analyzing and using to many clinical terms. There is also the problem of confusing one’s technique with a niche. Yes, lots of work to do in this area. Glad to see you writing about this!
Susan, love what you wrote about being found by that couple in India! Just curious, do you have your site set up to accept payment via paypal? And did you provide more of a coaching services type of agreement?
On a side note, because of my niche (also executive dysnfunction and Aspergers), I received the nicest e-mail from a parent thanking me over and over for the articles about Aspergers that helped them figure out what their 9 year old child was dealing with. Then they self diagnosed the husband! (Of course, I always tell them to get formally tested).
No, they did not sign up to become clients. But they will tell others about me I am sure
And down the line, that’s what matters.
I LOVE the story of the son in India. I was going to follow that up with something banal like “Google rocks”. (It is 1:30 in the morning, after all.) But then I thought, no. Being ready for Google is what really rocks. Google just sees what’s there.
Well done, my dear. (And thanks for the mention!)
@ Stephen Aren’t those emails wonderful? It helps to reinforce that sharing what we know is powerful, helpful and builds our businesses. And, who knows, those people may become clients down the line. They certainly will have wonderful things to say about you to friends and family. Word of mouth is the most powerful form of marketing. So glad to see you are generating buzz!!
I use a shopping cart, not Paypal. But, yes, people do pay me via credit card online for coaching. Paperwork emphasizes a coaching relationship, and clearly states that our work is not psychotherapy.
@Naomi Thanks for stopping by! I feel like the Wizard of Oz sometimes. Flip a switch here, toggle a lever there and voila! traffic (and helping people and building business). Being ready for Google is definitely rockin’