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Finding Your Niche In Private Practice

Today we are going to give you some key tips on how to find your niche in private practice.

Do I HAVE to determine a niche in counseling?

No? But you should.

You, like many therapists, are feeling the pressure to find a niche. How do you go about it? Is it going to cause you to be too narrow and then not receive any clients?

Learning to niche in private practice down to a couple themes is going to give you that expert name and help the clients find you.

To start, you probably learned throughout school that narrowing yourself down is going to limit your practice, especially when you are first starting out. In this case, that isn’t true. Even though the idea of turning clients away when you first start out seems like the total opposite of what you want to be doing to grow, it’s not. This is going to help you find the ideal therapy client.

As an example, when someone is talking to their doctor about having a specific mental health issue, who is that doctor going to look for? As a result, if you’re someone who specializes in that issue, you’ll get those referrals.

At the end of the day, you’re the person who makes the final call about who you see and who you don’t.  Just because you have chosen a specific area doesn’t mean this is the only type of client you can see.

Do you know what the biggest pro of having a niche is?

Truly becoming an expert on this subject!

In addition to being an expert, people will value your opinion on the subjects. With this added value you will get to charge the rates that you feel your value is worth.

Furthermore, take some time each day to remind yourself why you have chosen this niche and the reasoning behind it. You may have some personal reasons as to why you are drawn to these themes.

Don’t feel intimidated if you don’t feel like an expert in those themes at the time of choosing them. You can always get more training in the areas by:

  • Attending local workshops
  • Reaching out to others who specialize in your niche.
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The process of how you can find your niche in private practice: 

I am a list maker so I am going to tell you to make lists. If you’re more of a post-it person or whiteboard person, do that. Do whatever works for you here, there is no right or wrong way on how you should be doing this.
Finally, once you have your preferred method of organization:

 

  • Start to brainstorm all the clients you have worked with – think about the ones who you have really connected with. What made you so interested in those clients? 
  • Write down what areas you helped them with -Whether it be anxiety, sexuality, depression, and so on. 
  • Get all of those written down. -If you feel sure that you have every area that has interested you so far written down we can move on. 
  • Organize these into themes – like anxiety and depression would go under moods. 
  • Do this for all of your areas until they fit under one theme or another – This process could take some thinking as some areas could fall under two themes, I like to put those in between the two themes as it helps me with the next step.
  • Lastly, pick out 2-5 of them that you feel most passionate about – it’s a great thing if they have intertwining areas from the previous process. 
Incidentally, having multiple niches that cross over makes sure that you are open enough to receive enough clients but still keeps you narrow enough to call yourself an expert in these themes.
Also, don’t ever think that there are too many people in your area who have your chosen niches. 

 

Keep in mind that the advice and healing those people offer is not going to be the same healing that you offer. They also have the same limitations as you do with the number of clients they can take on. The fear that there will not be room for you, though valid is backed behind false assumptions.

Now that you know what your combo niches are, you have to let the world know your choices! 

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This is the fun part!

As a result, this is going to make marketing your brand a lot more efficient. The biggest part of this is to make sure you put your niches on all of your platforms.

 

Your website (Click here if you need to set one up) and other social media platforms should feature all of the same keywords you wrote down previously. Making sure these words can be linked back to you helps potential clients find you when searching for you on google.

Leave us some comments with your combo niches below and why you choose those, don’t forget to tell us what you all think about these steps and keep us updated along your journey of finding your niche.