The Go-To, How-To Guide For Counseling Wise Writers
Whether you’re new to the Counseling Wise team or a CW seasoned writer, questions about best practices often come up. This how-to guide is intended to be a comprehensive tool to help you do everything from log time to keep interviews with therapists on track.
The Marketing Message Writing Process:
Preparation:
- Carefully review all course materials provided to you, particularly “How to Write a Strong Therapy Marketing Message for Your Private Practice.” Take good notes and save the document in a place that’s easy to access – this will be your writing bible until you get the hang of how to structure the messages.
- A project manger will contact you with an assignment for a therapist. You should be provided with a brief overview of the therapist’s specialty or specialties and project needs. You will be given their name and contact information and a window to contact them within. Most initial correspondence between you and the therapist (scheduling your interview) will be via email, although there is the occasional therapist that prefers phone communication.
- Send the therapist an email introducing yourself and an invitation to schedule a call. It is also helpful to give them your availability and let them chose the time. Note that many of our clients reside in different time zones. Make sure you know where your client lives before offering times. For instance, if I’m working with a client on the east coast, I put my availability into EST. Also ask for the best number to reach him or her on during the time they select to talk.
- When the therapist responds, reply with a confirmation email of time and attach the questionnaire that you will be working off of for your interview. (Questionnaires can be found online in the Smart Therapists Websites Program.) It can be helpful to say something like:
“I’ve attached the questionnaire that we’ll be working off of during our call. You may want to take a few minutes to review it before our interview as it will give you an idea of how the call will be structured. Take notes beforehand if you find it useful to, but please note that is not necessary. The questionnaire is a tool to get you talking about the clients you want attract and how you can help them. It’s my job to record all your great thoughts and info and craft them into your marketing message.”
- Visit the client’s website (if one exists) to familiarize yourself with their practice before your call.
The Interview:
- The interview should take no longer than an hour. Occasionally interviews will take longer, but trying to keep the therapist on track – even if it means gently interrupting – will make the most efficient use of time and money. (Note: Many therapists like to talk A LOT about their specific modalities and training. Potential clients have no idea what things such as EMR or brainspotting are, and including these modalities in a message can scare clients off. Let the therapist know this before too much time is wasted in your interview.)
- It can be helpful to give new clients a quick overview of the process before diving into the questionnaire. Let him or her know that the questionnaire is designed to help you get the information you need to really understand the clients they want to attract, the services they provide, who they are and how they can help. Also, this is a good time to determine who the audience will be for the message so the therapist can speak directly to that person’s experience. For instance, if you are writing a message about children and ADHD, have the therapist talk about the experience of the parent because the parent is the one who will be reading the message. You’ll need to ask about the parent’s worries, concerns and observations. In messages like these, it’s also helpful to get a list of symptoms from the therapist to incorporate into the message. For instance, using the example of an ADHD child, ask the therapist what kinds of behaviors the parents are seeing or what they’re hearing from their child’s teachers. It may be something like: he can’t sit still; she cannot complete a task on time; getting out the door everyday is a struggle. Nuggets like these are great to include in a message.
- Follow the questions on the questionnaire as appropriate. As you get used to the interview process, you may be able to skip or add questions, but it’s a good rule to stick to the questions in the beginning. Make sure that you understand the following before completing your call: The pain/problem of the potential client; How common the problem is; How effective therapy is and why; What makes the therapist unique in relationship to the problem or how can their training, experience or expertise help?; What is the hope? Is it possible to feel better and why/how?; The three most common concerns or questions that potential clients may express as a resistance to therapy and how the therapist would address these questions or concerns. Again, see your course material with questions.
- The interview process is slightly different for group practices. Use the group practice questionnaire. Essentially, the main difference is that you will likely not need to collect personal and professional information about the therapist that you are interviewing. For large practices, it is also helpful to create a spreadsheet that contains all messages that need to be written and all the therapists who will be helping with the interviews.
Writing the Message:
- Take the time to go through Becky’s course material and follow her outline and structure. It’s thorough. I’ll attach a copy of a final message to the bottom of this doc for review.
- Try to keep word count between 700-900 words, although going up to 1200 is acceptable.
- Review the following lists before completing your message. Sticking to these guidelines will help you create a more effective and succinct message:
Online Readability:
- Are you using short sentences?
- Do you have short paragraphs?
- Do you have subheads breaking up the content/ideas?
- Make sure you don’t have too many questions strung together. It wears people out. Rather, interweave sentences that begin with “Perhaps you…” or “Maybe you’re…” into paragraphs that contain questions.
- Are you writing at a 9th grade level (no big words)? Run your copy through the readability engine at http://www.readability-score.com/ Your Flesch-Kincaid will ideally score in the 60s. If you get a low score, don’t be discouraged, it just means that you’re smarter than the average bear. The Harvard Law Review gets a 30. But, this is web copy, which needs to be more digestible.
Marketing Impact
- Talk directly TO the reader
- Follow the flow. In this order, your message should address: Problem; Solution (Not WHAT, but that there is one); Explanation (normalize the issues); Objections; Uniqueness; Call to Action.
Marketing Killers
- Make sure that you do not go too much into what a therapist will do in the office. It scares people off.
- Make sure that you do not go too much into technical modalities. No one will follow.
- When done, send completed draft to Jane Klein. Jane will edit and determine best SEO. Jane will email you a PDF with edits. Make the changes and email the message to the therapist. The therapist then has the ability to request further edits.
Your email can say something like:
“You message is attached. Please review it carefully and let me know if you’d like to see any changes. Feel free to edit within the document with a word edit tool, send me an email with requested changes or schedule a brief call to talk through the message together. Whatever is easiest for you works for me.”
- Make the requested edits. Rename the document with FINAL at the end and send it to the project manager and cc Jane Klein. Send a separate email to the client letting him or her know that their message is site ready.
- If clients want multiple messages, schedule your next interview.
Logging Time in LGED
- Sign in using your user name and password.
- Locate the vertical navigation bar on the left. The third icon down is a pencil and a ruler that look like an X. This is the project tab. Select.
- A drop down menu of all CW projects will appear. Find the project you need to log time for and place your cursor over it. Another drop down menu will appear. Scroll down to time and expenses and select.
- Select the Log Time tab in the top right.
- A Log Time box will appear.
- Enter the hours worked
- Select writing in the drop down menu beside the hours worked tab (Note: unless instructed otherwise, you will always log time as writing.)
- Enter a summery of your work. For example: Children’s ADHD interview.
- Date will be the date of the day.
- Do not make changes to the billable tab.
- (Note: It is helpful for you to keep a separate log of your work. Having this back-up document can be very helpful in the event that time is accidentally logged under the wrong client. It can also be handy to use for your invoices.)
- If completed correctly, your time log time page should look something like this before submitting:
Sample Message:
(This was written for a group practice for children with ADHD.)
Is It Impossible For You Child To Sit Still And Focus?
Are you frustrated with your child or by ongoing reports from teachers saying that your child is not doing what he or she is being asked to do? Does your child have difficulties paying attention, seem unable to sit still, struggle with follow-through, or need a lot of motor stimulation and movement? Perhaps these behavioral issues – which you may have excused as part of a developmental stage in the past – are starting to affect your child’s ability to function normally at home and in school. Are you perpetually exhausted and feel like you sound like a broken record from the all reminders you need to give your child? Maybe you’re wondering if you’re doing something wrong as a parent. Do you wish that you had a workable strategy to help your child focus and stay on task?
Determining if your child truly has attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and, if so, figuring out how to help them manage their symptoms can be a challenging and frustrating experience. You may be struggling to understand why you child behaves and learns differently or why he or she can’t seem to complete simple tasks. It’s not that your child is less intelligent than other children, which is a common misconception of people with ADHD. There are no studies that link the two. Rather, for children with ADHD, the executive functioning of the brain – the organization center – is not operating optimally. If you child has ADHD – which BPS can help determine – there is a biological reason for you child’s struggles.
You And Your Child Are Not Alone
In every classroom there are children who struggle a little more than others. For some, the root cause of their difficulties is ADHD, which is biologically based and no one’s fault. The best thing that you can do for your child – and yourself – is to seek a comprehensive evaluation. It’s important that you rule out other possibilities, such as other learning disabilities, anxiety or depression, which can have similar symptoms. If your child truly does have ADHD, there are many tools and strategies that can help him or her cope effectively. With help, he or she can develop skills to be more focused and complete routine tasks.
The BPS Staff Can Help
First, getting that true diagnosis can provide an immediate sense of relief. As a parent, you’ll finally know and understand what’s going on with your child. For more information on comprehensive evaluations for ADHD and other learning issues, contact Dr. Jan Hittelman, BPS Director. In addition to being a licensed psychologist, Dr. Hittelman is an experienced school psychologist and has evaluated hundreds of children over his career.
Second, therapy can be extremely effective in helping children with ADHD and their families. Your BPS therapist will assess your child’s behaviors and symptoms and suggest behavioral modification strategies that your child can use at home and in school to help them cope. And, you’ll get help creating an external structure for your child – which is critical for children with ADHD. Specific structures can help him or her develop better systems to organize, stay focused and retrieve memory.
If these tactics are not leading to noticeable improvements, your therapist may suggest having your child meet with a psychiatrist to determine if medication may be helpful. It’s important to understand that your child’s difficulties may not be due to his or her not wanting to participate in or complete tasks. If something is biologically wrong, the executive functioning of the brain may not be operating correctly, making it extremely challenging for your child to organize, focus, and/or remember things. If medication is prescribed, your child may experience dramatic improvements in their ability to function normally. Medication in combination with therapy has been shown to yield the best results.
Your therapist can also help your child work through the self-esteem, academic, social and family issues that living with ADHD symptoms can create. Your therapist can help you develop strategies to teach your child to how to reshape how he or she learns and interacts in the world. ADHD is pervasive – meaning it’s ongoing – and you and your child may need new strategies to adapt as he or she continues to grow and develop. Addressing your child’s ADHD now and getting support, tools, and guidance from a qualified BPS therapist can get you well prepared for the future. Rather than expecting and accepting struggle as the norm, you and your child can move into his or her future feeling prepared and positive.
But you still may have questions or concerns…
I’m worried that an ADHD diagnosis will mean medication and that my child will need to be on meds for the rest of his or her life.
The fear of your child being diagnosed with ADHD and being put on medication for the long-term is an understandable and very common fear. But, sometimes the diagnosis and understanding that something is biologically unbalanced can provide relief. At least you’ll know what’s going on with your child and understand why all your previous attempts at helping him or her feel and function more normally have failed.
There is a lot that can be done to help your child that does not include medication, such as behavior modification strategies. If medication is needed, however, your child’s psychiatrist will be able to help you find the right medication and dosage. Many children with ADHD have experienced dramatic, positive results from medication.
I think that my child could really benefit from therapy and other outside resources, but I’m concerned about costs.
This is your child’s life and wellbeing. Addressing your child’s ADHD issues now may prevent a host of problems from occurring as he or she enters new developmental stages, such as adolescence. Investing in their mental and emotional health and ability to function now can lead to immediate improvements. It can also keep symptoms from getting worse and interfering with all aspects of their development – including academic – as they get older.
Many people come to BPS having worked with other therapists who were not trained to work specifically with children’s ADHD issues or who they or their child couldn’t relate with – which is a waste of time and money. At BPS, we’ll conduct an initial assessment and match you with a therapist who is trained and experienced to treat ADHD issues and whose personality is a good match for you and your child. Once you find that good match, making a commitment to your child, yourself and your family may be one of the most valuable investments there is. Imagine everyone in your home feeling and functioning better now and in the long-term on a regular basis and ask yourself what that’s worth.
If money still is an issue, you can talk with your BPS therapist to see if they work on a sliding scale. They may also be able to help you find other lower cost resources in the community.
I think that my child has ADHD, but I’m afraid of a diagnosis and the stigma that the label carries. I don’t want my child to be viewed as different.
First, it’s so important that you understand your child and his or her uniqueness. An expert can help you determine if your suspicion is correct – if your child’s behaviors fall outside of the range of normal and if he or she could really benefit from outside, expert help or medication. It’s not the label, but the needs of your child that is the big issue here. And, if you don’t focus on the label, then your child will be less likely to do so.
Also, there are countless other children who have ADHD and have benefited from outside help. It’s a commonly understood diagnosis, and that “label” may help your child qualify for extra resources in school. With help and medication, if it’s prescribed, children with ADHD can function better now and throughout their entire lives.
We encourage you to schedule an initial assessment with Dr. Jan Hittelman. Jan will work with you to determine what your child’s specific issues are, if additional psychological testing is warranted, and ensure a good match between you, your child and a BPS therapist in terms of personality, style and expertise.
You can also check out our free, online therapist directory, which will match you and your child with a therapist who has expertise working with children and ADHD issues.
BPS therapist Debbie Mayer, LCSW helped create the content for this page. Debbie is a licensed clinical social worker who has been working with children of all ages and their families on ADHD issues since 2002. Debbie also has experience working with children who have diagnoses that qualify them for special school services.
Becky DeGrossa is discussing. 
Juan Villegas is discussing. 
Meagan Vitek is discussing. 
Becky DeGrossa 4:48 pm on January 3, 2014 Permalink | Log in to Reply
In order to add a PC to the STWP customer member’s area, you need to not only add them as a user on Counselingwise but also go into Wishlist Member and add them to the Smart Program level