[00:00:00] Hi, and welcome back. And if it's your first time here, it's great to have you on board. How are you today? I'm fine. This is a Sunday. I'm sat here and the sun is blazing down on me. So I might take the dog out for a minute. not for a minute in a minute. Hope you're having a good day. Yeah. So what am I going to talk about today?

[00:00:18] Well, last week I had a little rant about directory entries and how often on a directory entry, they just don't seem to help, you know, potential clients, and it makes it hard for people to make the best choice of therapist. And I think it's quite an important list and I've had quite, quite a lot of feedback from it.

[00:00:36] So if you haven't heard it, hop on over to episode 154 and take a little listen. And today is kind of similar when it's not such a, you know, it's not so much of a rant, but it is more of a reminder about something that we should all be doing really, but sometimes, you know, we don't do it as well as we maybe could do so.

[00:01:00] Question for you, do you have a system that you follow when you receive an email inquiry from somebody that you can't work with for some reason? So it might be that you're at capacity or they're issues outside of your competency, or it could be something else. If so, I'd love you to contact me and tell you what you say.

[00:01:21] And if not, well, look, I think probably most people don't have a system and therefore it can feel like quite a time consuming situation contacting everyone. And I can't think of any counselor that would receive an email and think, Oh, I can't work with them. And then just ignore it and just leave it. You know, nobody does that yet. I hear very often people saying that they've been ghosted by a counselor. So today I want to look at this a little bit deeper so that you can make the process.

[00:01:54] Easier for you professional and more helpful for your clients, because the chances are it's something that actually isn't your fault. And by thinking about this in advance, it means that you're going to make the process easier, more effective and better for the client. Okay. So let's take a look at what I'm talking about.

[00:02:16] Now the problem is... Genuine emails sometimes end up in spam and as far as I'm aware, and please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not really aware of a way around this, you know, it just is something that happens.

[00:02:30] So the, the email service think that they're doing us a favor because there are, I think there are just. Thousands and thousands of spam messages that keep getting sent out and they do their best to, you know, to hold them off, which is fine. I just dread to think what it'd be like if we didn't have some help in that respect, but it's infuriating.

[00:02:50] If, if you send somebody an email and they don't get it, or if you don't get an inquiry, so therefore you can potentially be missing out on a client. So yeah, check your emails twice a day, check all of your folders, like on Google, check for all the different folders and just have a little look to see if there's anything there now, if for you, if your lifestyle is that you don't have the opportunity to check your emails very regularly. So it might be that you have a full time job and you're out at work all day. And you know, it's just not something that you can just keep checking on your emails and like fire off emails at will.

[00:03:30] That's okay. You know, that's. That's just the way that it is. So what I recommend is that you make sure that you have an out of office on your emails. Now, it's usually a pretty simple thing to do. And I would say, if you're not quite sure how to do it, use good old Google to do a check for how to do it with your email service provider, because they're all a little bit different, but to my knowledge.

[00:03:53] It's pretty simple. You can put an email out of office on, and that way that you can tell the potential client when they can expect to call and then obviously keep it to that. So give yourself enough flexibility. So don't make it that, you know, you give yourself an hour, you know, you don't say you can expect to call from me within.

[00:04:14] Two hours or something like that, make it reasonable. Don't put pressure on yourself, but let them know when they can expect that you're going to get back to them and obviously keep to that. Now you might've received an inquiry and for whatever reason, you don't want to work with them. So it might be that you're at capacity or they're outside of your competency, or it might be just something that you don't really like working with.

[00:04:39] That's absolutely fine. You should only really take on the clients that you want to work with. But I think still, even if you sort of think, Oh, I don't want to work with them, I would always really, I would always just send them an email back, you know, acknowledge their inquiry, say, thank you very much for reaching out to me.

[00:04:58] I'm sorry to hear that you're struggling. And then you can say to them, either the, unfortunately I'm at capacity at the moment, or I'm not in a position to work with you at the moment. Or something, and then give them some ideas for where they might be able to get some help or refer them to somebody else that, you know, and that you trust, and you know, that person's going to be there for them.

[00:05:21] So it could go something like this. So you could say something like. dear, dear Jane, Jane, thank you for reaching out and I've written this down. Can you tell, thank you for reaching out and sharing your current situation with me. I appreciate you reaching out to me. Unfortunately, I'm unable to take on new clients at the time.

[00:05:43] However, I highly recommend. And you can put somebody's details there who specializes in, or has lots of experience working with whatever their particular issue is, and they might be a great fit for your needs. Additionally, and then I would put some details of a helpline. So it might be the calm, you know, C A L M, Campaign for Living Miserably, which is for men, or you could put Samaritans or any other organization that has a helpline.

[00:06:11] So you can say additionally. Here are some details of a helpline that could provide you some immediate support and guidance during this time. So that means that if they're really having a bad time, they, you know, you're telling them that this is a place where you can go and then he can finish with. I truly hope that you find the right therapist who resonates with your journey, wishing you strength and clarity moving forward and then sign off.

[00:06:36] Now, obviously. It's most important that you put something that sounds like you, you know, so this is something I'm not even sure I'd say this. This is quite a, this is quite a posh sort of way of putting it. I probably put it a little bit more, casually than that, but that's just the way that I am, but just play about with it a little bit.

[00:06:56] You know, you, and then what you can do, you can have it there. You can have it, you know, a little draft you can keep somewhere. And when you get an inquiry for some, from someone and either you're too busy or it doesn't fit within your, you know, what you want to work with, then you can just paste this over.

[00:07:13] tweak it to sort of fit the current person that you're applying to and send it out. So although that might seem like a lot of work, if you do that, like I say, if you just keep a draft of it, and then when you get one of these, one of these, emails, you can just copy it over. It's not really going to take you any time.

[00:07:33] And you know, that way that the way that you've answered them is going to be. It's going to be good. It's going to be something, something that somebody receiving that is not going to feel rejected. They're not going to feel bad. and it's, it, yeah, it's just a good way of doing it. Because if you think of it from the point of view of the person that's looking for a therapist, you know, the person receiving such a thoughtful response is really going to appreciate it.

[00:07:59] They might even go on to recommend you to a friend in the future. So, that's all I really wanted to say. It's really important that we have a good think about these sorts of things. Okay. So, inspiration without action is merely entertainment, which as you know, if you've listened to me before. I really love that.

[00:08:20] I think that's a great little line. So inspiration without action is merely entertainment. So you could just listen to this and it could be entertainment, or you could take this week's action step and this week's action step is to review your process by examining the process in advance, you'll get a system in place.

[00:08:41] And you'll make it so that it's really easy to carry this out. So therefore, when somebody contacts you and you can't work with them or, you know, or you can't answer them for a while, they won't feel as though you've just not got back to them. They'll feel, they'll feel kind of respected by you. And if they receive a response from you that says, I'm sorry, I can't work with you, but here's somebody who I recommend.

[00:09:08] And here's a helpline, then that's going to not be. That's not going to feel like a rejection, like I say, because that can feel horrible, can't it? So that's it today. It's just a short one, but that just came up. Like I say, I was talking to someone and I just thought, well, this is maybe something I can just talk about on the podcast because the problem, it just.

[00:09:30] Really hacks me off when emails just go to your spam folder for like no apparent reason. So please, please, please, please, please, please remember to go and check your spam folder every single day, because it would be awful if you missed a client because they've gone to spam. So that's it. Thank you for listening to the Grow Your Private Practice Show. Now if you are looking for additional resources that are gonna help you to grow your private practice, be sure to go and check out my website. I've got a variety of free resources available that you can download and use today. So you can just go over to, Jane Travis.

[00:10:06] So it's Jane without a y. It's jane travis.co.uk/start here and you can have a look at what's available for you there. And as a special added bonus, I'll add you to my email list, which means I'll send you helpful tips and strategies to grow your practice. You'll get something every week and I promise not to spam you.

[00:10:26] And if you don't want them, you can unsubscribe at any time. You know, I'm here, I'm here to help. You're not him dear. So, you know, that's what I'm trying to do. So what are you waiting for? Go and visit jaintravis. co. uk now and let's take your private practice to the next level together. So until this time next week, have a good week.

[00:10:45] Bye. Bye.