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What's up guys! I remember when I first started in private practice the initial phone call with a potential client completely freaked me out! How long should the phone call be? What sorts of questions am I supposed to ask? How do I figure out if we're a good fit? How do I show my true colors so they really see who I am and know whether we're going to be a good match together? Do these questions sound familiar to you? Well if so, you're in good company. In today's video we're going to go over some of my top tips for going about the initial phone screening with a potential client in private practice. Welcome to private practice skills. I'm Dr. Marie Fang, psychologist in private practice. I post videos offering tools I learned the hard way about starting and growing private practice so that you don't have to. Now I'm not the first therapist to broach this subject on the internet. You can do a Google search of "first phone call private practice" and you'll find all kinds of advice on how to do that initial call. But one thing that I've noticed is most therapists who talk about it out there tend to simply present the way they do it and they don't necessarily build it in a way that's going to fit you. In reality, as I check in with colleagues about how they do the initial phone call we all have our own way of doing it that fits best for us. Some people prefer a shorter, more structured phone call whereas others like a little bit longer, looser format. To me it seems most important that you feel the freedom to develop a screening process that fits for you and your brand. Here are some tips to help you get started in your phone screening process. First: Identify how much time you're willing to spend on a call. Are you more interested in having shorter phone calls and scheduling as many initial appointments as possible or would you prefer spending a little bit more time over the phone to make sure that those who come in for that first appointment are more likely to stick around? From my experience, shorter phone calls around 10 minutes or so make it more likely for a potential client to schedule that initial session but then no-show rates are high and then even if they come for the first time they may be less likely to schedule a follow-up session. Second: Identify non-negotiable traits of your ideal client. Who is your target market? If you have a potential client calling in who's outside of your niche, it's helpful to be able to identify that quickly so that you don't waste your time on all these phone calls with people who aren't going to be in your ideal target market anyway. So make a list of some of the items that are necessary in order for someone to be a potential client and that way you can rule out people who won't be a good fit and you can refer them out to someone who's going to be much more helpful to them. Third: Identify your therapeutic style. Though this initial phone contact is not therapy, it is important that the way that you approach the client is really similar to how you would if you are meeting face-to-face. This helps them get a sense of what it's going to be like to meet with you in person. Put differently, this is a type of brand consistency. So who you are in-person should be consistent with who you are over the phone, on your website, in email, etc. You want to make sure you are consistent across your brand, and who you are is your brand as a therapist. If your therapeutic style is to use a more structured CBT approach in session, then it may be a good fit to use a more structured approach over the phone. By being consistent in this way, if a potential client feels comfortable with you over the phone they're much more likely to feel comfortable with you in person and then hopefully schedule more follow-up sessions after the first appointment. Fourth: Do a brief assessment. In addition to checking potential for harm to self or others, it's important to consider what your niche is and to have a checklist of symptoms at the ready to make sure your potential client might be a good fit for you. It's helpful to have a few pointed questions that you can ask to quickly identify whether someone might fit within your niche or not. Fifth: Circle back to logistics. It's our duty to inform clients about our rate at our earliest convenience and definitely before the initial session, so be sure to go over any questions this client may have about your fees, schedules, whether you take insurance, etc., before you end the phone call. If a potential client has a pressing question about logistics at the beginning of the phone call, be sure to start by answering those first. It's not worth going through the rest of the screening process only to find that you're not on this potential client's insurance panel. So save yourself some time as well as help your potential client out by answering their questions quickly as they come up. Lastly: Decide on follow-up. Personally I use email to send a confirmation to just go over all the details we talked about over the phone including what time we're scheduled to meet, what initial paperwork they need to fill out, where my office is located, and what to expect when they arrive. This is really helpful to both confirm that this appointment is actually happening, but also make it more likely for that potential client to show up for their first appointment. No-shows are super common so anything we can do to help mitigate that could be helpful. However you approach a call with an initial client, be sure to pick a strategy that allows you to lead with confidence. You can experiment with different strategies and fine-tune your initial phone screening until you find something that is a good fit for you. Hopefully these tips help you get started so that your first calls don't have to feel completely directionless. Until next time, from one therapist to another: I wish you well...simple Google search - Googoo? Googoo. Googoo search. [jumble]