Everyone wants to earn more money (even counselors), and if you are part of a counseling / therapy private practice, you can show that you really care about your job (and compensation) by marketing yourself.
To become a high paid agency employee and make more money as a counselor, a counselor needs to bring more to the table. Counselors become more valuable to agencies when they:
1. Get the word out about their services instead of asking the agency to market their services for them.
Buy some inexpensive business cards from a place like Vista Print – hand 2 out at a time. Just make sure that you are marketing the agency and yourself; you do not want to break the non-compete you have with your company, but there is nothing wrong with endorsing yourself while endorsing the counseling agency at the same time.
2. Speak publicly, and mention the agency.
If you don’t know where to speak, just contact a local organization – a school, college, college club, church, organization, etc… Organizations and clubs would be very interested in what you have to say. You are the expert, just make sure you tailor the speech to the organization.
3. Speak with reporters to get quoted in print, or on the news (especially if they use the agency’s name).
This may seem a lot harder than it is, but just reach out to reporters via Twitter or E-mail (you can find their emails listed on the news website) and tell them that if they ever need an expert psychological opinion, to give you a call. They will.
4. Publish, tweet, and build an online or offline audience.
Start blogging, get a Twitter account, make your Facebook page completely professional, and write for different counseling organizations such as Thriveworks or the ACA.
5. Build a reputation that brings in more clients.
This is especially true if their reputation also brings in clients for other providers at the agency!
6. Offer specialized services.
This is valuable to the extent that their presence allows the practice to accept clients they would otherwise need to refer (e.g., children, foreign language speaking, autism). Continue your education and training – make sure that you are abreast with the lastest technology, information, and CPT codes.
7. Self manage, or request less administrative support from the agency.
8. Provide supervision or help to other providers at the agency.
9. Are credentialed with various insurance companies (note: some agencies now require clinicians to be on insurance panels to even apply for a position).
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I am interested in blogging for your website. Please email me on how I can do this for you.
Thank you,
Robbin,
I just emailed you about blogging. If you Robbin, or anyone else has any more questions, you can email me – marketing[@]thriveworks[dot]com //
We will make sure that every article you write links back to your website, credits you as an author – with a bio at the end of every article, and we will additionally promote your practice and your articles to our readership, and on the web at large.
You can write on ANY topic concerning self-improvement, counseling, or healthcare. If you want to write a series of articles on a topic, that is excellent!
-Eli
Marketing at Thriveworks