Practice Building Tools & Tips
To thrive in today’s world it is essential to promote yourself and your practice. Promotion and professionalism are not mutually exclusive and utilizing the following advice developed in part by the Practice Building Today Committee can help you gain more referrals and clients.
Professional Networking
- Keep in regular contact with all your referral sources.
- Use Listservs to maintain your visibility with your peers, share relevant professional information, and weigh in on discussions. Many professional organizations provide their members with a Listserv, for example, APsA maintains several, including the Members, Psychotherapist and Referrals lists, and the American Psychological Association offers a practice list. Find and participate in lists of like-minded professionals with whom you would like to share information.
- Network within psychoanalytic circles and increase the number of people you know within your institute and nearby institutes by attending meetings, joining study groups and committees of interest; writing papers for journals and giving presentations.
- Print business cards and have them with you at all times. Include your website address on them.
- Attend practice building workshops held at the APsA National Meetings.
Professional Marketing
- Create a Website: In today’s online world, having a website is vital. Information on how to create a website on your own is easily available online or by using a professional website development companies such as TherapySites.com/APSAA.
- Work with the Media: Contact journalists that work on topics of interest to you and your practice to offer your expertise. Journalists are always looking for experts to interview. You can also write a letter-to-the-editor or an op-ed and submit it to your local paper. Be sure to identify yourself as a psychoanalyst. For more tips on letter/op-ed writing, click here.
- Blogging is a great way to get your name out there and express the topics and issues that are important to you and relevant to your practice. You can write for the APsA Blog, contribute to existing blogs such as those on PsychologyToday.com, PsychCentral.com, Huffington Post, NY Times Couch etc. or start your own blog. Click here for more information about blogging.
- Use Social Media: Create a LinkedIn profile and Twitter profile and start joining the online conversations about psychoanalysis. On LinkedIn you can join professional groups such as the American Psychoanalytic Association group, the APA Division 39-Psychoanalysis group or the Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Neuropsychoanalysis group. Click here for information and tips on how to use X (formerly Twitter), provided by the IPA.
- Advertising: Consider advertising in trade journals, newsletters and alumni magazines that target potential referral populations. For example, an analyst specializing in divorce may want to target trade publications written for divorce attorneys. Consider online advertising as another medium to reach potential patients. When advertising it is best to target your local community whether in print or online.
- Network outside psychoanalytic circles by increasing your visibility within your community. Offer to speak on subjects of interest at schools, book clubs, houses of worship, gyms, health-clubs, etc. Conduct workshops or write for local papers on topics with popular appeal, such as how to reinvent oneself after a divorce or the psychology of attracting opportunities. Always be ready to describe what you do in plain language to people outside the profession.
