How to Start a Counseling Business
Business Overview:
Attention counselors: if you’re looking for a way to grow your business or open your own practice, you should learn how to start a counseling business. Similar to a life coach, but with more expertise and licensing, a counselor helps individuals, couples or families through difficult times in their lives. However, most often a counseling education does not include marketing skills which are vital to the success of your business. Your services may be the best in town but without the proper marketing techniques, your business will suffer. When starting a counseling business, you should think about what types of clients you will cater to. There are many different specialties to consider such as depression, anxiety, recovery, marital counseling, etc. You could choose to have your new practice focus on one area or you could hire several counselors to work with you and each of them could focus on a different area. This option allows your practice to target a larger segment of the population in your community. Marketing a counseling business can be tricky because it’s not something most people discuss openly. First you should set up a website explaining what services you offer and include biographies and photos of your counselors. Next, consider signing up for an online counseling directory such as Find-a-Therapist.com. Your most important marketing tool will be word of mouth. Your clients telling others how special your counselors are and how much they were able to help them through a certain situation is the best way to obtain new clients. Business cards are important and you should definitely have your email address on them. It makes clients feel far more comfortable making that first contact via email as opposed to picking up the phone. Starting a counseling practice is a great way to continue helping people and with the right marketing, it can also be a truly lucrative business idea.
A Day in the Life of a Counseling Business Owner:
Your day will begin by checking your schedule to see what appointments you have. You will review any notes from previous sessions in preparation for your meetings. If you have counselors working for you, you will check in with them to see how full their schedules are and guide them in marketing their segments of the business. Throughout the day you will meet with clients. At the end of the day, you will check your calendar for the next day’s appointments, turn your day’s income over to your bookkeeper, and check in with your fellow counselors to see if any special needs arose that you need to attend to.
About Your Customers:
Your clients will be individuals, couples or families in need of excellent counseling services.
What You Need to Start:
- Counseling experience
- Proper licensing (varies by country and state)
- Office space with appropriate décor and furniture
- Counseling staff (if you choose to have one)
- Website
- Computer(s) with finance software
The Good:
- For a trained counselor, opening your own practice is a natural next step.
- Counseling is always in high demand.
- It’s rewarding to help people.
- The majority of your clients will return (and pay) regularly.
- Clients will pay top dollar for excellent counseling services.
The Bad:
- You need to be patient while searching for your counseling staff.
- It can take some time to build up your client list.
Resources:
- American Counseling Association
- American Mental Health Counselors Association
- Bureau of Labor Statistics on Counselors
- Wikipedia on Counseling
About The Author
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