Mistake 19 Doesn't work consistently with the customer base The most important thing is to establish close relationships with customers and constantly learn from the information received from them. The entire potential of the company should be directed to meet this basic need -

Maintaining a customer base - registration lists The task of maintaining any customer base is so that no contact is lost. It's great if you have a CRM program in your club (on the Russian market there is a special product for maintaining a client base "Profile" of the company

Psychologists have their own methods of how to position the client. The visitor's chair is a psychological anchor, the specialist's family life is vivid illustrations, the therapist's imperfection is a way to start a frank conversation. It is useful for managers from any field to get acquainted!

- Anna, psychologists probably have special, psychological methods of attracting new clients? Share.

If we are talking about attracting new customers, you must clearly understand what audience your service is intended for. It's just that you, as an excellent specialist, with the desire to give advice to the left and to the right, unfortunately, is not enough. People are well aware of what they need, and they are not ready to pay money for the fact that you will indulge your professional ego, in this case there will be no clients. Here are the main ingredients for efficient work and clients:

Choose for yourself a work site, a segment in which you are effective, as well as your target audience, and write a step-by-step work instruction;

Spend several free promotionswhere you talk about what you are doing;

- How to organize the work of the office so that the client has a pleasant impression: he did not have to wait long for an appointment, fill out paperwork, etc.?

Of course, interaction in the office should be comfortable, and it is desirable that the moment of filling out the papers should be minimal in time. For this, all papers must be written, agreed and printed in advance. There should always be water in the office, the opportunity to drink tea or coffee, milk, something minimal for tea, for example, cookies. I believe that another important secret is the client's chair - this is a special psychological anchor.It is in it that a person must return, so I would pay special attention to this.

The location of the psychologist in relation to the client is also fundamentally important: if you want to act in the position of a coach (trainer) with step-by-step guidance, then you better sit on the right; if you work more with emotions and experiences, then the specialist should sit on the left. I think that the office should contain information about you, your regalia, certificates and diplomas. People don't always ask, but when they get to know your professional competence, it makes clients trust you. Also pay attention to the color scheme of the cabinet, because color affects our perception... Still, I am for light and calm colors.

- How to build a chain and control execution?

The work strategy is as follows:

1) Customer call. Someone calls already with a ready-made solution, someone wants to ask clarifying questions in order to decide whether a specialist is suitable for a person or not. In this regard, I try to always answer calls on my own, the only exception is the time when I work, therefore, I warn you to write SMS, and I will definitely call you back when I am free and tell all the details of our further interaction.

2) Client appointment for a specific time... I try to be flexible and ask questions when a person is preferable and when he really can, and then arrange a meeting in accordance with my schedule. For urgent meetings or especially impatient ones, there is the possibility of a telephone session. The quality does not suffer from this, unfortunately, people find it difficult to decide on this right away, later realizing that it is even more convenient than a personal meeting.

3) Coordination of all documents and a reminder to the client on the eve of the session about the meeting. All living people, and the psychologist may well clarify whether there will be a client tomorrow in order to plan your time more accurately.

4) Session. The process of work itself takes place. Signing documents, paying and registering for the next meeting.

5) In the case of my psychological work, the opportunity to ask clarifying questions or ask something again outside the session. I find that especially with new clients rapport is important, and some minimal help between meetings may well be useful not only to the client, but also to the psychologist, in order to understand how correctly the client follows the recommendations and whether everything is correctly interpreted. In my opinion, responsibility should be shared between the client and the therapist 50-50, since 50 percent of the responsibility is on the client for the implementation of the recommendations, and 50 percent of the responsibility on the psychologist, he should be responsible for the correctness of the recommendations. There are no set rules for everyone, and a flexible therapeutic stance is essential.

- The face of the brand. What are the requirements for hiring the employee that visitors see first?

This is the administrator. Best of all, if he is a decent young man. 60% of women and 40% of men use psychological services in my practical work, therefore the face of the brand must be interesting and charismatic, with an active lifestyle, delicacy and correct speech.

Also, this employee must have the basics of sales, basic computer knowledge, maintain a customer base and, most importantly, answer questions or settle organizational issues.

Psychologists' answers can be roughly divided into several groups.

1. The state of the market for psychotherapy as a service, ways to attract clients, the level of competition.
2. Market quality: assessment of the professionalism of Russian psychologists, the relevance and prospects of various directions and schools of psychotherapy;
3. Clients of the psychotherapist. Who are they and with what problems they come, the dynamics of changing attitudes towards psychologists and psychotherapy.

1. Most psychologists rated the level of competition in the market for psychological services as high. At the same time, the overwhelming majority (79% of respondents!) Admitted that they lack clients. Some believe that young professionals are more likely to experience a lack of clients than those who already have extensive work experience. According to our estimates (PN), this is not always the case, because often young specialists are better at promoting and attracting customers, while they are ready to spend more effort on work for less money.
Private practitioners have more difficulty finding clients than centers. Commercial centers do not have enough customers, while state-owned centers do not have a shortage of customers. This fact, most likely, is associated with the prices for services in government centers, where consultations are usually free.

Among the respondents, there is also such a point of view that clients come when the psychologist himself is internally ready to accept them into his life.

How do psychologists attract clients? What do they estimate works best?
Psychologists are surprisingly unanimous here. 100% of respondents to the question "Where do you find your clients?" answered "on personal recommendation." The main method of attracting customers (except for personal recommendation) is called the Internet. This is a personal site or other means of Internet promotion.

Other ways were noted:
Belonging to the professional community, participating in radio and television programs, participating in presentations, charity events, as well as conducting master classes in universities.
The respondents also noted the effectiveness of outdoor advertising for psychological centers, advertising in the metro for state psychological services, promotion of services through similar organizations and centers with related activities.

2. We found it interesting to know the opinion of fellow psychologists about themselves. Given the level of competition and disunity in our field of activity, it is not surprising that only 1.75% of psychologists rated the level of professionalism of their colleagues as high. 56% of respondents gave an average score, and 20% gave a confident two for professionalism and quality.
It is difficult for us to assess this result. Does it mean that colleagues mistrust each other or is it really sadly unprofessional approach to psychotherapy in Russia? Is this due to the fact that psychotherapy is very young in Russia and is in its infancy? Or the fact that psychological education has been booming in the past few years and more and more challenges are being launched to release "fast-track" psychologists to the market? In any case, we only welcome interest in psychological education and in psychotherapy in general, and we urge colleagues to be more tolerant of each other.

It is no secret that most of the psychotherapeutic schools and directions that are practiced in our time in Russia are a product of Western society. It seemed important to us to think about what distinguishes the Russian specialist - psychologist from the rest? And you know, everything is the same - the incomprehensible Russian soul. To the question "What strengths of the work of psychologists in Russia can you point out?" we received answers: empathy (in the first place), “Russian mentality”, “our brightness and individuality”, “willingness to help”, disinterestedness (it cannot but surprise, considering that we are talking about professional psychological help! (PN)) , enthusiasm, the value of human relations.
In addition, among the strengths were the readiness to constantly learn, improve skills, develop, openness to new things, the desire for an integrated approach and the presence of professional communities.

A huge number of directions and schools that psychologists use in their work were named. The results (in descending order) are as follows:
1. Gestalt - 30%
2. Analytical approach - 19%
3. Art therapy - 17%
4. Existential - 14%
5. Family systemic therapy - 12%
6. NLP - 12%
7.
A. Psychodrama - 11%
B. Behavioral therapy - 11%
8.
A. Body-oriented - 9%
B. Symboldrama - 9%
9.
A. Transactional analysis - 6%
B. Logotherapy - 6%
C. Ericksonian hypnosis - 6%
10.
A. Humanistic approach - 5%
B. Client-centered approach - 5%
11.
A. Jungian - 3%
B. Cold dynamics - 3%
C. Psychocatalysis - 3%

Also noted were imago and thanatotherapy, fairy tale therapy, sand therapy, Hellinger's constellations, acmeology, positive therapy, Lacanian psychoanalysis and even classical hypnosis.

Most psychologists do not use any one method, but simultaneously practice several directions, an integrated approach, believing that each client has his own method.

Opinions were divided on promising areas. As a rule, each specialist considers his own method to be promising. Someone thinks that the popularity of gestalt therapy is waning, others, on the contrary, that the future belongs to gestalt, since it combines the main directions and allows you to achieve results in a shorter time.
Psychotherapeutic group work, trainings and short-term counseling and (the vast majority) an integrative approach were named as promising areas. Perhaps this is due to the accelerating pace of life, when a person wants everything at once. But this does not mean that clients are not ready to go to therapy for a long time.
In our opinion (PN), it is strange that none of the respondents noted coaching as a promising direction, although many spoke about the popularity of short-term methods of psychotherapy.

3. The most controversial part of our research is the questions about the psychotherapist's clients. Here, considerations of the confidentiality of our profession immediately come to mind, and a certain bashfulness inherent in our psychologists in relation to their profession as a service market, where there is always a client and there is a certain target audience for each of the services. Perhaps to someone the information given in this section will seem as useless as the average temperature of patients in the ward, but we nevertheless decided to find out who is the most frequent client of a psychotherapist, what worries him in the opinion of psychologists?

So, a typical client of a psychotherapist looks like this:

Women from 25-28 to 40-45 years old, with higher education, as a rule, are middle-level managers in the first place in terms of the number of requests. Active, often themselves interested in psychology itself, many are single or divorced;

And in last place are children and adolescents - from 3 to 20 years old.

Among the main problemswith whom our contemporaries turn to a psychologist, the problem of relationships is leading, in second place are fears, anxiety and various phobias. Further in decreasing order - the problems of finding oneself and self-determination, self-realization, psychosomatics, depression, self-doubt, various types of addiction, midlife crisis, stress, chronic fatigue, conflict, aggressiveness and auto-aggression.

There is a certain number of requests regarding the establishment of long-term relationships in homosexual couples, the problem of gender identification.
In children, this is a lack of friends, disciplinary problems, difficulties in adapting in kindergarten and school, childhood fears, separation problems in adolescents.
If we talk about the dynamics of symptoms and conflicts, psychologists noted that recently there has been an increase in the number of depressive disorders and phobic neuroses, as well as neuroses associated with the concept of success and narcissistic dissatisfaction. Many psychologists say that it is more and more difficult for a modern person to feel, about blocking the sensory sphere in their clients. Parents more and more often do not know how to limit their children and simply cope with them, place great emphasis on the child's intellectual development, completely forgetting about the world of his feelings. Children are increasingly experiencing hyperactivity, neuropsychiatric disorders, knowledge overload, various activities, sections, as well as sexual abuse.

At the same time, many assess the degree of readiness of our population to seek psychological help as rather low. Psychologists note that there is no understanding among the population that it is necessary to pay for a conversation. That is, many still have a very vague idea of \u200b\u200bpsychotherapy as a profession. Many psychologists believe that the willingness to seek help is higher in large cities. But the experience and statistics of Psinavigator testifies to the opposite. In our option "Leave a request for the selection of a specialist", much more requests come from the periphery than from the capital cities.

Among the reasons for the reluctance of the population to go to psychologists were noted: for most people in the head a psychologist is still "equal" to a psychiatrist, and if a person turns to a psychologist, then this causes him to feel his own inferiority. The corresponding attitude can often be seen in others. Men are more wary of psychologists than women. But along with this, they have both interest and curiosity. More confidence in a psychologist arises if doctors, teachers, social workers recommend to consult a psychologist. Educated people with a high level of reflection are more willing to go to a psychologist. Interestingly, some people consider psychologists to be people with unresolved problems of their own. Also noteworthy is the fact that until now people often go to a psychologist with expectations of healing help and hope for a miraculous healing.

At the end of our research, we asked colleagues to express their wishes and comments on the topic of the survey. They are very interesting and we did not find it possible to shorten them to fit into the format of this article. So read them

In today's market, which is oversaturated with psychological services, it is becoming increasingly difficult for counseling psychologists and trainers to promote their services. People are not recruited for trainings, clients in consulting are situational and chaotic.

If you experience a shortage of clients for a long time, it is terribly demotivating and, sooner or later, you will quit your favorite pastime, or you will be interrupted from time to time. It even becomes insulting. You have really valuable knowledge and experience, you are ready to help people, but people, somehow, do not really need your help. What is the problem?

There are some basic mistakes that almost 90% of all counseling psychologists and trainers make, due to which there are few clients. And this article tells about the main mistakes and ways to solve them. Marketing will help us with this!

1. Wide positioning

When a psychologist says that he is just a consultant psychologist or a presenter of personal growth trainings, this is incomprehensible to a potential client, especially if he is in psychology - "not in the teeth." Perhaps your friends and colleagues know what you are doing.

But those you just met will definitely not understand you right away if you have such a position, because they are “not in the subject”. But help is often needed by “mere mortals”, who, at the most, they read about psychology are Carnegie or something else from popular literature.

So how do you solve this wide positioning problem? Just! You need to specialize. In order for your services to be used, you must be a narrow specialist in a specific topic for a specific target audience.

For example, there are time management trainings. If you just claim to be doing time management training, that is very broad. It is best when you specialize in some specific types of people: time management for executives, for housewives, for doctors, and so on.

That is, you specialize in a specific topic and its target audience. The same goes for counseling psychologists. You, for example, deal with parent-child relationships and only work with mothers who have typical problems with teenage children.

When you state in this way, the client recognizes you as an expert on their problem. And who doesn't trust experts? After all, when you have a specific problem that you cannot solve on your own, you naturally look for a specialist on this very problem. And here, the client's brain works in the same way, so it turns to you.

2. Student complex

The fact is that most psychologists love to learn and are eternal students. Learning is good and wonderful, but from the point of view of attracting clients it is almost useless thing, and even money-intensive.

Many people think that if they study, they will be able to engage in training and counseling. And this training can take months or even years.

So, for your clients it doesn't matter at all what certificates and papers you have. A person asks you for a solution to a problem. If you really understand the topic, and understanding the topic is not that difficult, if you have studied, it is very easy to declare yourself as an expert in a particular topic (even if you are in the process of learning).

You may not have a certificate, but your potential customers don't care! Believe it or not, they don't give a damn about it 99% of the time. They need to solve the problem. And if you can really help solve the problem, you don't need paperwork for that.

The main conclusion! Your education and the number of clients in your practice do not have a direct correlation. They are not interconnected at all! You can argue on this topic, but it is. And as long as you firmly believe that you still need to learn some more and then clients will appear, this is one of the most destructive delusions for your practice.

4. Fear of sales

The next mistake is that most psychologists are afraid to sell their services. They think their services should be sold. It is not right. Customers won't come by themselves and offer you money. In order to earn decent money in the profession of a psychologist-consultant or trainer, you need to sell your services.

If you have already established yourself, have written several books, you have publications, articles, then customers will believe you (or rather, not even you, but your brand) and break into your doors. But, if you are not already a brand, then your services will not sell themselves. Therefore, you need to sell.

To do this, you need to learn at least the simplest selling mechanisms. The simplest selling mechanism that you can use immediately after reading this article is the three-step mechanism.

Your specific proposal for solving specific problems for a specific target audience

Call to action (make an order or call you right now).

Most people live with many problems that need to be solved within themselves, but they postpone their solution until later. Remember yourself. When do you go to the dentist? In most cases, when the tooth already hurts. But you could have come earlier and prevented this situation. The tooth will not start to hurt for no reason. And the client needs to be reminded of this. As you know, prevention is always cheaper than cure.

Selling mechanism Is a mechanism that reminds a person that he has a problem, it needs to be solved, and your proposal will really help solve it. And all this needs to be done now, otherwise tomorrow the tooth will fall out and there will be nothing to chew. And indeed it is. If you look deeper - a sale is, first of all, an exchange of values \u200b\u200bbetween you and your client, which results in money. And as you know - money is ENERGY!

5. Selling one. You are selling one consultation or one training.

The fact is that if you are a consultant, it is impossible to solve a client's problem in one session, no matter how cool you are. At least a month is needed, at best, two or three, and sometimes more.

Therefore, when a psychologist offers one consultation, the client pays money for it and, often, does not come again. Even if you agreed on a long-term job (say, for a month), and there are a million reasons for this - there is no mood, the pipe burst, lost the phone, called to work, natural resistance to the change process, in the end ... you can list for a long time.

Therefore, if you are a counselor psychologist, develop a program that solves the client's problem. Offer the client this program, suggest a solution to his problem according to the program. The program is perceived much better by the client than an incomprehensible one-time consultation. And it's much easier to sell than just a consultation.

For trainers. Perhaps you did a training, two days, three days or a week, and the client left you. But it is impossible to solve the client's problem even in one training, for this, as a rule, a complex of trainings is needed. To do this, come up with a line of trainings, at least three or four, where you will develop your client, help him cope with the situation in a comprehensive manner.

You must understand perfectly well that the problem is not immediately resolved and may have deep roots. Give people support if you are truly interested in making the lives of the people you work with truly improve.

If you want to truly help your clients, you are required to sell programs (minimum 4-8 sessions) in counseling and a line of training if you are a coach. Otherwise, you are just doing a hack (so, then a person turned up, came to you for a one-time consultation or training, you got money from him, but in reality, did not help). Sorry. Call yourself a psychologist, be responsible for it. And then, recently, hack-work on the market is simply immeasurable. Even certified. Let's provide really high-quality services and take responsibility for the fact that you once made the decision to help people, heal their souls and hearts.

Conclusion: Specialize in specific problems of specific people, sell them programs and complex solutions that solve their problems.