Finding Your Niche as a Private Practice Clinician
As a therapist the concept of having, defining, or finding a niche may seem like a foreign concept. We all know, they didn’t teach us marketing in Grad School; Which is why many of us were unprepared for a pandemic or a sudden shift to online therapy. But, I’m here to assure you, the concept of “niching down” is not foreign at all. And as daunting as it may seem, it can be quite simple to define. Here is how you find your niche as a private practice clinician.
What is a Niche?
There seems to be a common confusion between niche and speciality. So, right off the bat, let’s define niche. A niche is all about your target client. It is the common pain point or problem that you regularly solve for your target clients. For instance, I’m a business coach for therapists, and I help therapists develop marketing concepts and strategies so they can level up their private practices and generate more streams of income. My niche speaks to the pain point of many therapists who are attempting to develop striving private practices. So, my niche is not the “business coach for therapist” part but actually “teacher of marketing concepts and strategies that help therapists develop creative revenue streams” part. <— I know that’s a mouthful, but, when you are clear and specific about your niche, your audience tends to tune in.
What is Speciality?
A speciality is a break down of a particular field. It’s like a style or a specific kind of work that you perform. Specializing in the therapy field can come from having an advanced education or additional certifications. Imagine for a moment, doctors. They have many kinds of specialists from OBGYN’s to Pediatricians. Though they specialize they are still considered doctors and have the same foundation of education as other doctors. It would be the same as therapist. So, while you may be licensed as an MFT, and only see couples, you are still considered a mental health professional. Your discipline is a speciality in this instance, not a niche.
Many times people think they are describing their niche, but actually they are describing a speciality.
Does a therapist need to define their Niche or Specialty?
As therapist we learned the field in a very broad way. Even for MFT’s they learn about people and families across they lifespan. It’s the same for social workers, counselors, and psychologist, we all learn about our discipline through the scope of general practice. That gives therapists the ability to provide general care and solve a lot of problems.
Defining your niche and speciality is important for branding and marketing. This is about the business side of therapy. Every strong business starts with solving a problem. In the mental health arena there are many times where you may recognize practices that need to be revolutionized, updated, or shed light on. Defining your niche makes developing your business easier.
It may feel a bit uncomfortable to pick one particular problem to focus on. This is why many people struggle with defining their niche. However, even if you were a general practitioner, you should still have a niche if you are going to run a business for the reasons stated above. It also helps clinicians who are private pay, gain more clients. This is because having a niche helps you to position yourself as an expert or guru in one particular area.
Having a niche reduces burnout
When you do what you love your job becomes easier. When you are constantly worried about what may happen, or frustrated after a session, it is time to consider what may be driving that burnout. A lot of times it is because something is not vibing right with you. Niching down, helps you remain excited and focused.
Define your therapist niche, speciality, or both
Some therapist will arrive at their speciality before they arrive at their niche. Sometimes therapist will settle on a very broad niche or an incomplete niche. Here are some ideas of specialities and incomplete niches.
You have a deep interest in trauma and have taken certifications to treat trauma
Trauma is a problem area but it very broad
You treat mainly couples and have extended certifications in this area
Couple work is a speciality
You’re a sex therapist
Sex therapy is a speciality
You work really well with anxiety disorders
Anxiety disorders are a problem area, but very broad
To define your Niche start with these questions:
What problem do you help solve?
Who has the problem that you help solve?
This is a really simple way to think about narrowing down a niche. Again, I recognize that you may solve a lot of problems and feel compelled to have multiple niches. To start focus on the problems that you solve the most. Or the biggest problems that are most impactful to your clients.
Area, topics, theories, models you know like the back of your hand
Once you’ve answered the first two questions, you may already have your niche. However, if you are struggling with the above questions think about this, if you were approached to do a 30 minute Ted Talk, with no time to prepare, what topic would it be on? What theories and models do you know so well, that you can tie them into your Ted Talk?
This is were those special certifications come into play. Maybe your are a trauma therapist, who is well versed in CBT. You can likely think of a portion of that therapeutic model that you use regularly and then apply it to a regular problem that you solve. That would look like this:
“I use CBT to help women who are experiencing abandonment trauma, overcome their maladaptive responses so they could have healthy relationships.”
Notice in this scenario trauma is defined. Your niche is meant to be very specific to draw in the right client for you. The the speciality of trauma can be very broad. There are therapist who specialize in perinatal trauma while others focus on racial trauma. These are forms of trauma and can overlap in many ways, however, they are still different topics.
What topics do you excel at?
Again these are the topics that not only do you know like the back of your hand, but, you feel confident about the therapy you provide whenever you are working on this area with a client. These are the sessions where you pat yourself on the back when the client leaves. Going beyond speciality, these are the topics that you know well. Imagine you’re a child therapist and your parents always praise you for your creative discipline strategies; And every time this subject comes up, your clients leave empowered and you notice a shift in your sessions. This can be an indication of what you solve. That would look like this:
“I help parents implement simple and effective discipline strategies that foster both healthy development and strong relationships with their children”
Who are your favorite clients to work with?
Now, some say you shouldn’t play favorites with your clients, and I agree; But, you are going to have clients that you vibe well with and the more you are working in your niche, the more clients you have that feel like a good fit. So for a moment, I want you to think about the clients that you work really well with and answer these following questions.
What do they look like?
What do they have going on in their lives? (career, ect)
What were the issues they were trying to work through?
What are their short term goals, what are their long term goals?
If you could package or bottle your one potion that your particular clients would want, what would it be?
We all have a special spin that we put on our work. Even the provider who offers evidenced based interventions implements some of their personality into their work with their client. What is the one thing that you do, that solves the problem almost every time. Maybe you’ve made a specific product, or you’ve added on to a technique. Whatever it is, that can be used to solve a problem. Think about what problem you are solving with that unique spin. Think think about the clients who would without a doubt by that potion.
There you have it
Many times, people ask this question about how to find their niche. It can feel like a daunting task because often times no one provides the direct answer on how to define their niche. Remember to stick to the basics. Answer the questions focusing on the problems you solve and who you solve them for. If you are wanting to know more about therapist marketing sign up with your email below, to catch when I send out information on my masterclasses and materials related to the topic.
