Business Development | 10 things to help your business development

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BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

What is “business development”?

There are very few scholarly works that specifically target “business development”. However, it tends to focus on discrete projects, specific modes of growth, and organizational units, activities, and practices that help a business environment. As private practice owners, we need to see ourselves as business developers!

The term business development and the implementer (us!), have changed over the past decades.

What you need to know about business development?

  1. Focus on stats that will measure success within your company to focus on potential growth opportunities
  2. Work on your mixture of marketing, strategy, and development. When things aren’t clicking in getting referrals for your private practice, boost one area.
  3. Create “pipelines” for clients to build trust, such as blogging or podcasting.
  4. How are you creating a customer experience? Ask clients!
  5. Map out what potential clients experience before ever coming to a session.
  6. Figure out your return-on-investment when you do marketing. If you run a $300 ad and get one client at $100 per session and the average client comes 6 times, that means that you made $600 for your $300 investment, for a $300 profit. That means that for every dollar spent, you made $2.
  7. Focus on the niche of your business. Development takes time and focused energy.
  8. Automate to save time in your business. Development of clients and future clients does not have to be in exchange for your time. Use automated email, like Aweber to follow-up with clients and create long-term loyalty.
  9. It takes time and focus.
  10. You need to start thinking like a business developer, not jsut as a private practice owner!

 

counselor headshot

Joseph R. Sanok, MA, LLP, LPC, NCC is amazed how much fun it is to help other people in business and counseling! He helps angry kids, frustrated parents, and distant couples at his private practice in Traverse City, MI at Mental Wellness Counseling. Also, he is the author of Mental Wellness Parenting | A remarkably simple approach to making parenting easier. To link to Joe’s Google+ .

Ask Joe a Question about business development!

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Counseling Private Practice tips Thanks for the great photo Tobias Lindman