What Do You Have to Offer? How Describing Your Ideal Client Might Be Repelling Good Enough Clients

Curt and Katie chat about common therapist marketing missteps, especially overly rigid “ideal client” language on websites and directories. They explore how this well-intentioned copy can turn away the right-fit clients, reduce referrals, and make therapists seem unapproachable. The conversation includes practical strategies for writing more inclusive, client-centered website content that balances specialization with warmth and accessibility.

(Show notes provided in collaboration with Otter.ai and ChatGPT.)

In this podcast episode: How therapists can make their websites more effective and inclusive for clients and referrals

Curt and Katie share personal stories of trying to refer out clients — and how frustrating it is when therapy websites and profiles are overly self-focused, vague, or hard to navigate. They explore nuanced strategies to balance clarity, specialization, and client-centered copywriting in ways that foster trust and accessibility without sacrificing therapist boundaries or identity.

Key Takeaways for Therapists Who Want to Improve Their Website Copy and Online Presence

“It’s the therapy equivalent of a dating profile that talks endlessly about their perfect match but doesn’t say anything about what they offer in a relationship.” – Curt Widhalm, LMFT

• Describing “ideal clients” too rigidly can create barriers for referrals and alienate potential clients
• Marketing language should focus on client experiences and pain points, not therapist preferences
• Instead of listing diagnoses or traits, speak to what therapy feels like with you — including your vibe, approach, and typical client concerns
• Blog posts are a great way to showcase voice, experience, and clinical nuance without rigid labels
• An outdated or inaccurate website may cost you referrals, even if you’re a great therapist
• Website copy should be 80–90% client-focused, with therapist info saved mostly for the About page
• Soft language that gently guides clients toward or away from services helps manage expectations
• It’s essential to remove friction: unclear or missing contact info can stop clients from reaching out

“You want people to prove they want to be your client — but you don’t need them to name their first child after you.” – Katie Vernoy, LMFT

Resources on Therapy Website Copywriting and Private Practice Marketing

We’ve pulled together resources mentioned in this episode and put together some handy-dandy links. Please note that some of the links below may be affiliate links, so if you purchase after clicking below, we may get a little bit of cash in our pockets. We thank you in advance!

Katie Vernoy’s Website
Curt Widhalm’s Group Practice 

Book Mentioned: “Book Yourself Solid” by Michael Port (includes the Red Velvet Rope Policy)

Curt’s blogpost mentioned in the episode: Is It More Than Defiance? A Parent’s Guide to Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) and Family Therapy

Carrie Wiita’s website: www.interpersonalbranding.com

The 50 Minute Hour – consultation with Katie or Curt

Relevant Episodes of MTSG Podcast

• Interpersonal Branding: Therapist Marketing That Aligns With Who You Are: An interview with Carrie Wiita
• The Brand Called You
• What is Working Now in Online Marketing: An interview with Katie Read
• Clinical Marketing, An interview with Katie Read, LMFT
• Topic: Marketing and Branding
• How Much is Too Much? Thoughts on therapists being too branded, niched, and political
• Branding for Your Ideal Client: An interview with Kate Campbell, PhD, LMFT, and Katie Lemieux, LMFT
• Marketing with Empathy: An interview with Kat Love
• Bad Marketing Decisions

Meet the Hosts: Curt Widhalm & Katie Vernoy

Curt Widhalm, LMFT

Curt Widhalm is in private practice in the Los Angeles area. He is the cofounder of the Therapy Reimagined conference, an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University and CSUN, a former Subject Matter Expert for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, former CFO of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, and a loving husband and father. He is 1/2 great person, 1/2 provocateur, and 1/2 geek, in that order. He dabbles in the dark art of making “dad jokes” and usually has a half-empty cup of coffee somewhere nearby. Learn more at: http://www.curtwidhalm.com

Katie Vernoy, LMFT

Katie Vernoy is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, coach, and consultant supporting leaders, visionaries, executives, and helping professionals to create sustainable careers. Katie, with Curt, has developed workshops and a conference, Therapy Reimagined, to support therapists navigating through the modern challenges of this profession. Katie is also a former President of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. In her spare time, Katie is secretly siphoning off Curt’s youthful energy, so that she can take over the world. Learn more at: http://www.katievernoy.com

A Quick Note:

Our opinions are our own. We are only speaking for ourselves – except when we speak for each other, or over each other. We’re working on it.

Our guests are also only speaking for themselves and have their own opinions. We aren’t trying to take their voice, and no one speaks for us either. Mostly because they don’t want to, but hey.

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Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide Creative Credits:

Voice Over by DW McCann https://www.facebook.com/McCannDW/

Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano https://groomsymusic.com/

Transcript for this episode of the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide podcast (Autogenerated):

Transcripts do not include advertisements just a reference to the advertising break (as such timing does not account for advertisements).

… 0:00
(Opening Advertisement)

Announcer 0:00
You’re listening to the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide, where therapists live, breathe and practice as human beings. To support you as a whole person and a therapist, here are your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy.

Curt Widhalm 0:13
Welcome back, modern therapists. This is the modern Therapist’s Survival Guide. I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy, and this is the podcast for therapists about the things that go on in our practices, the things that go on in our field, the ways that we relate with the clients that we want. And this is an episode sparked a little bit by a family friend of ours had reached out for some assistance in finding a therapist that wasn’t me. And I was asked with, can you help a family member find a therapist for a particular issue that was going on? And it wasn’t one that I had somebody in my immediate circle, my go to person as far as this is somebody that I know who works really well with this particular client presentation. And so I went on a journey looking through a lot of the local therapists in the area, trying to find people that I thought would work well with this particular person. And what I came across was a number of therapist profiles and therapists websites that were maybe trying to walk a line, something that we’ve heard and maybe even accidentally espoused before, but a lot of profiles and websites that said “my ideal client is” and in this work as a professional, I was trying to imagine, if I was a lay person going through this exact same situation, how this reflects on the particular people writing their website copy. And it left a very sour taste in my mouth, because to me, a lot of the way that these websites come across is Oh, therapy with you is all about you. If I don’t fit into a very particular presentation, then you’re not going to be effective for me. And you know, where we have talked in the past about good good marketing branding strategies should attract your ideal clients and should repel people who maybe aren’t. I just found a particular feeling, maybe even a pet peeve, around seeing this language of “my ideal client is.”

Katie Vernoy 2:27
That’s really interesting, because I oftentimes am asked by clients or people in the community to give referrals, and they’re usually pretty specific. It’s I need a DBT therapist. I need a couples therapists with this particular capacity or competence, and I find that there are times when the websites say my ideal client is, or this is who I work with, or I work best with, or those types of things. And sometimes it feels a little bit like drawing a line in the sand, and it doesn’t mean anything, and it does feel a little bit self centered. And there are times when it feels very, very helpful, because the types of clients I’m trying to place are so specific. They’re in, you know, different marginalized identities, or they have particular issues that are so specific I don’t want someone who’s not laid that out there working with them. Because I want them to potentially stand behind what the work is that they do. And I want to make sure that I’m not just hearing like, oh, this person could do this, and kind of going down a rabbit hole, and their website aligns not at all with what I’m trying to find. And so I think there’s a line to walk here, and I think that there’s some different things with both of us, probably that we can talk through around what actually makes a good website or a good online profile that would be more helpful. But do we want to start with what isn’t helpful? Because I think that that might be, that might be a better place to start, then we can kind of get go to the takeaways. Because it is interesting being, you know, kind of a central person who knows a lot of people, you and I are both that, that person searching for referrals across the country for me, and it sounds like local for you. So besides this, me, me, me, you know my ideal client is and this is who I work best with, and I this is all about me. What are some of the other things that you have identified that either turned you off or you felt like was particularly ineffective?

Curt Widhalm 4:34
I do want to start with: it is a positive to think about who you work best with and what your ideal client is. I don’t hate this as a concept. Where I find it off putting is when you put it on your website, because in our Brand Called You workshop and episodes and everything else that we’ve talked about, it’s very helpful to say, these are the kinds of clients that I would like to work with. And you craft this whole idea about what their day to day lives are, what their pain points are, and you should speak to those points in your copy. But when you say my ideal client is and you put that front and center on your website or your Psychology Today profile, it accidentally screams, this is about me and who I work with, rather than, here’s how I can help you. Because inherently, the works that we do psychotherapy is about the client, and it’s about how we can help foster that. But in that phrasing, it’s I would really love to have clients with great insurance and fascinating problems, and that they don’t have any rejections coming from their insurance company. It’s the therapy equivalent of a dating profile that talks endlessly about their perfect match but doesn’t talk anything about what they offer in a relationship.

Katie Vernoy 6:03
I think that’s fair. I think that is fair. I want to push back a little bit, because if I don’t know any kind of definition of who you work with, I may not continue reading. And some of this gets taken care of with the keyword optimized therapy for adolescence or therapy for individuals struggling with schizophrenia, you know, whatever it is, there’s going to be some phrase somewhere, some, you know, H, you know, H1, heading one title, or whatever it is, where people will find your website, and they need to know who it is you actually work with, especially if it’s a particular type of issue, that is, it requires extra training. And if it’s just I work with you, and you have to do this, and you have to look this way, and you must show up this way in therapy, and you’re doing all these things, I think that can be really off putting. So I agree with you on that part, but I do think that there is some nuance here that we want to make sure to keep in mind, because I don’t want folks to start all of a sudden just having mushy websites that nobody has any idea who they work with.

Curt Widhalm 7:14
Well, we can talk about our niche and our expertise in a way that doesn’t make it completely sounding as if somebody isn’t welcome into our practice at all. And this is where the language and bringing stuff out about us should talk about what is therapy like with you, focusing solely on what your ideal client is doesn’t tell anyone what it’s actually like To be in a room with you. People are seeking connection. They’re looking for what that process is, whether they realize that or not. It’s kind of, I guess the metaphor that I’m kind of thinking about is if a coffee house advertises itself as our ideal client is somebody who appreciates artisanal beans grown in Sub Saharan Africa. Okay, that’s great. Do you also welcome people who like other kinds of coffee? What’s the vibe in this place? If I don’t like those particular kinds of beans, are you going to shame me out of the place? And what we want is we want potential therapy clients who are curious about that experience to get a feeling of what it’s like to work with you. We can talk about the approaches, you know, I do CBT. You can soften some of that language to say I really embrace scientific approaches or evidence based approaches such as CBT. That does indicate a little bit more about who you are, and it’s it is a little bit of soft word play here, but what you’re doing is you’re showing a trust in you and a trust in your process, rather than making this a checklist of client traits that you want to show up onto your couch every Tuesday at two o’clock.

… 9:06
(Advertisement Break)

Katie Vernoy 9:09
What does that look like?

Curt Widhalm 9:12
in coming across some of these websites, and I know this isn’t everybody, and I have to imagine that most of the websites that are out there probably already do this, and maybe this is a gentle call to action to look at how does the language on your materials actually make people feel, and being able to look at it from the critical eye of someone who may not have experience with therapy before. It’s great working with people who are therapy veterans. You don’t have to go into the nitty gritty of everything. If your website is saying, my ideal client is somebody who has failed out with three other long term therapists before they’re looking for kind of exactly the same thing, but slightly different with somebody who’s slightly younger. I think number one, the amount of people who are going to be searching for those keywords is going to be a little bit small to start with. But where I do see this done effectively, is some of the questions, or some of the ways of speaking to the client experience, rather than about the traits of the client themselves. Are you somebody who is going through business decision fatigue at work and you end up bringing your work home at night and you’re having trouble shutting things off? That is a lot better language, in my opinion, because it speaks to the client experience, rather than I work well with business professionals.

Katie Vernoy 10:48
I think the challenge that a lot of folks have is there so much discussion, and has been for many, many years, about who the ideal client is, how you attract them. You have your red velvet ropes. I think that’s one of the I’ll put the books that some of this stuff is from in the show notes over at mtsgpodcast.com. How you repel or, or, you know, filter out the clients who are not right for your practice. And so it’s it’s something where there is benefit to being more specific. I think the language adjustments you’re talking about are very helpful, because if you just name them and you don’t show any understanding of their experience, I don’t know that they’ll believe that you actually work with them. But it is a question of, how specific should we be? Can we be? And maybe that’s a longer episode that we can, you know, kind of come back to around niche-ing and all of those things, but in trying to sort through, how do I do this effectively, attract the appropriate clients, repel the ones that are not appropriate, without turning off good enough clients, without pushing away so many folks that it’s hard to fill a caseload. And this may depend on what your specialization or niche is. It could be based on how well you’re able to keep your caseload full. If you’re finding that you’re you’ve got, you know, this specific, very specific and clear client, and you’ve got 20 of them, and you’re perfectly fine with it, then, you know, obviously, maybe you shouldn’t be listening to this episode. Your marketing is fine. But my concern is that folks who have gotten this hyper niche, hyper focus case load are going to struggle more and more if it’s the worried well who have some life transition problems, because those folks may switch to ChatGPT or other AI therapists. They may do coaching. They might do things, you know, kind of the generalist therapists who maybe are charging a little less or taking their insurance. And so to me, I feel like there’s this, the question I’m trying to get to is, how do we determine how specific and niche we should be, and how do we make sure that we’re presenting that in a way that does do some sorting in and out of folks who are appropriate but doesn’t sort out the good enough clients.

Curt Widhalm 13:31
Part of what you’re talking about here, I think, is becoming too fenced in, too too rigid of an ideal client statement.

Katie Vernoy 13:39
Yeah.

Curt Widhalm 13:40
And as you’re saying, deterring the individuals who are just to the edge of things. And before we started recording, we were looking at Katie’s website. We were also looking at my group practice website. But the example that I’m going to use is for Katie’s website.

Katie Vernoy 13:58
Sure.

Curt Widhalm 13:55
You should go to it. Katievernoy.com, its got lots of things. It is something that I think that you do pretty well. You speak to clients pain points. You speak to the kinds of clients that you are very, very knowledgeable about. And having known you over the years and in ways that continue to impress me, I know that once you get to talking to you, even upon a consultation, you can expand well beyond what’s on the website, even in just a matter of a few questions, and you can speak to the clients that you want extremely, extremely well. Also, knowing you, I know that you work with people beyond the people that are listed on your website, and you have a wide variety of experiences that I would trust a lot of clients to refer to you. And part of that’s your vibe, and part of that’s I appreciate you as a person. I want to see your practice succeed. But you walk this line very, very wonderfully. That’s not I work well with business professionals, or I work very well with managers, because your language does leave some things open to the adjacent kinds of clients, the clients who might have anxiety and a little bit of career or business stuff that kind of seems to be holding them back. You’re not talking just to C suite executives. You’re talking to people who are looking to expand themselves professionally. And part of softening that language is not getting into such a “these are the people that I work with,” or ‘these are the people that I thrive in working with” that make it all of the egotistical stuff that we complained about everybody, because we’re therapists and we complain about everybody. But in dealing with the pain points that you’re talking about, you’re creating some overlap into here’s some adjacent things. I have a blog out on our website now that is talking about working with children who have oppositional defiant disorder in the way that we end up approaching it. And in talking about this, it’s a family systems dynamic that I actually personally enjoy. But more importantly, I have a lot of things that I’ve been successful with families when their kids seem like they would win the gold medal Olympics if there was an event for arguing. Now, does that apply only to kids with Oppositional Defiant Disorder? No, because lots of parents have kids who argue and argue. I’m not going to make this about a specific diagnosis. I’m going to make it about a process and about a way that I can help families identify what that process is and to be able to help them make appropriate adjustment. So what I’m suggesting here is what you’re doing, what I’m doing, not that we are the best examples of this out there, but what we’re talking about is here is an array of slightly similar presentations that might show up with a little bit of difference here. It might be anxiety, it might be arguing. It might be something other than ODD that comes into my practice. But there’s a lot of similarities, enough that’s also, hey, here’s ways that we can lift that velvet rope and let you in through too.

Katie Vernoy 17:26
So it’s making sure that the parents that have a diagnosed Oppositional Defiant Disorder kid know we’re here. We’re open for it, and the folks who are saying, My kid is arguing so much and I’m so overwhelmed, and I don’t know what’s going on here, and I don’t want it to escalate to something worse. Recognize that this is an issue that you work with. And so you’re talking about softening language, but you’re also really talking about focusing less on labels and more on experience.

Curt Widhalm 17:57
Yes, it’s highlighting that approach and style, and what I was referring to earlier about what is therapy like with you. If I throw into a blog humorous thing about there being an Olympic event about arguing with your parents, you know that you’re going to get a little bit of humor with me in sessions. And that is absolutely true, and that’s part of an overall branding strategy. And if you haven’t listened to our episode of Carrie Wiita, do and go and check out the stuff that she’s doing, because I think she speaks to this stuff a lot more in depth than we’re going to here. But talking about that approach to what it’s like to work with you, what you can offer, how you can see those pain points, how you can see how to help people, and to be able to convey that brings your website or brings your profile copy more to this is what it’s like to work with me, and this is how I can help you, and that helps to manage some of the expectations in a very gentle way, and it doesn’t do it in a way that is off putting and self centered about yourself.

… 19:06
(Advertisement Break)

Katie Vernoy 19:09
So I want to shift and then expand the point you just made. Because I think there’s the other extreme where there’s folks that talk about working with every single person under the sun. There’s way too broad, and answer referral requests in Facebook groups with this is a new area, I don’t have anything about this on my website, or whatever it is. I work with these folks. You go to their website and it’s like you absolutely do not work with these folks. What are you talking about? And so for me, I would truly recommend an audit of your website, because things shift, specialties shift, and finding ways to update and be more accurate with the types of issues, the types of concerns, potentially the diagnoses that you work with, so that if someone’s trying to refer to you, they can actually refer. Or that being said, SEO says, you know, a service page for each primary area of specialty so that you can SEO optimize for those words. And having a bazillion service pages, especially if you’re a solo practitioner, is, to me, a red flag, because I don’t know what you actually specialize in. So I think there is a balance. And I really like what you were talking about with the blog post, because if you do have a blog integrated into your therapy website, that is an opportunity to show what it’s like to work with you. Especially, I think, for group practices, but even for individuals who have a few different areas of specialty that you don’t know exactly how they line up, but they still line up. I think for me, yeah, I work with folks on career and executives and helping professionals those kinds of things, and I find I have a lot of fun working with what I call adulting clients, because there’s similar issues. It’s about decision making, and what do I want to be when I grow up? So that’s what I’m trying to say about the blog post, if I have a 20 something is similar to an executive, and I am able to talk through how those decision making processes are, and the folks who hit a professional wall as an executive, and all of a sudden they’re like, I feel like I’m 20 something again. I can talk about those similar processes of what do I want to be when I grow up? What do I want to how do I make decisions on my career? And so it can be a way to expand and have a point at which there is, here is my blog post that aligns with this referral request, without having to go into great depth and say, I work with this and this and this and this, and basically I work with everybody. And so I think blog posts give you a sense of what it’s like to work with you, because there’s practical tips, there’s your voice like you were talking about. There’s a lot of things there. And I think it’s an easier way to update your website without having to kind of go through and change everything. But I still would recommend an audit to make sure that your website is actually accurate to what you’re working with, so that when people are looking they know and it’s not this antiquated website that has nothing to do with what you’re actually doing right now. Because that, to me, is not helpful.

Curt Widhalm 22:18
And if you want help with an audit, Katie and I offer a 50 minute hour consultation, and you can find out more information about that over at mtsgpodcast.com

Katie Vernoy 22:30
And it’s called a 50 minute hour right? I think that’s where, that’s where it sits. It’s on the consultation tab.

Curt Widhalm 22:37
What I also bring up that I don’t know what the right percentages are. I’m only a podcaster and therapist masquerading as a branding consultant here, so I’m making up numbers here, but somewhere around 80, 90% of your website copy should be about the client, not about yourself. And some of this highlighted portion of things is better served in that 10 or so percent in your about you page. That’s where people can really be able to tie some of these things together. But I know, for me, on one of my websites that people often cite that that was the tipping point as far as bringing it to working with you, but the rest of a successful website should be about the reader and about who they fit with. I do want to talk about the appropriate client repelling, I don’t know the right word off of this, because we have talked about a good website should attract the right fit clients, and it should repel those who are not quite right fit. And it would even encourage some sort of gentle language around that, for those folks out there who work primarily with adults, you shouldn’t say, I don’t work with kids. What you should say is, while I primarily work with adults, I’m happy to refer out children under the age of 12 to trusted colleagues. And speaking to even if everything else resonates, you are still setting some right kind of language and expectations about here’s who you do help, and it still is about clients, but it’s done in a way that makes it to where you still have something to offer even those who don’t right fit with you. Because one of the things that I’m recognizing here is when your language is off putting it can be off putting about you entirely as a person and anything that you have to offer, even if the people who are coming across the website has a best friend who would be a perfect fit for you. If you’re coming across as too rigid or too selfish, your reputation might just be: you are not an approachable person at all.

Katie Vernoy 25:04
In the way you’re talking about it, there’s clearly an element of frustration.

Curt Widhalm 25:11
Yep.

Katie Vernoy 25:11
And as someone who has pretty soft language in my website and all of the different profiles that I put out there, I want to just caution that, because I get really random inquiries, and I feel a responsibility to respond, even if it’s to say, let me help you find the right person. And I think that if you don’t have some clarity on there, you are going to get wrong fit clients that you have to refer out. And so if you say, you know, I work with adults, and I’m happy to refer clients under the age of 12 to trusted colleagues, hopefully you’re not getting a ton of folks who are not getting response back from kids therapists who are saying, I need these referrals now. You have, you know, an executive assistant, you have a group practice, so there’s potential to spread that that work out, but there’s times when somehow my name gets floated somewhere, I get all of these people contacting me, wanting referrals, and because I feel responsible, I spend 15 to 30 minutes doing some of this stuff, trying to find the right people for someone I’ve never met. Now, I do believe that that provides goodwill. I am fine with doing it in a lot of situations, but I think there can be a refinement that needs to happen. Now, do you say I don’t work with kids? Maybe not. But if everything about your website is clearly about adults or about teenagers 13 and up, I think that there is a certain amount of repelling that you’re doing or sorting that you’re doing,. But being so approachable can be very challenging because it’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of work to continue to follow up with these folks. I got somebody that had an issue that had nothing to do with anything, and said, I found your profile, and I need help with this completely unrelated issue. And I just, I had to say, I’m sorry, I can’t help you. And that’s hard. It’s hard for folks, especially folks who are wanting to fill their caseload, they might take less, less appropriate client referrals if they if they don’t have enough of a of a differentiation. So I just want, I want folks to look at the nuance of how do you repel without being repulsive?

Curt Widhalm 27:41
My response to this is, this is probably a lot more of an ongoing process than any one of us wants to admit. Because this is going to change for a number of factors. It might be the point in your career. It might be burnout working with certain populations. It might be a life event that changes your availability, that you end up needing to gradually change. And as much as we would love for these things to be, set it and forget it type approaches, this is something that we do have to come back to and do more work around and refine as we find that we run into particular issues. This is a 30 ish minute free podcast that is not going to speak to every single particular edge case that’s out there, and that’s part of where I encourage people to embrace that as part of this process. That you’re going to run into specific things for yourself that may warrant refining, or it may just be somebody was lucky enough to actually get to spend a few minutes with Katie Vernoy, and it wasn’t a great match, and it’s not something that Katie needs to completely go out and rewrite her profiles, because sometimes that just happens.

Katie Vernoy 29:01
Of course, of course. So before we finish up, I want to talk about one more thing that I think is especially harmful on websites, so that people can take this into consideration as well. These are things that I think are also not good for getting clients.

Curt Widhalm 29:20
Of course, that is non secure websites that have lots of viruses.

Katie Vernoy 29:26
That’s for sure. My concern is having too much friction in reaching you. And there are so many different ways. And I’m sure we’ve had an episode, and if not, we’ll do one. But if it’s hard to figure out how to contact you. If there’s not multiple different ways to contact you or a very solid way to contact you, it is almost impossible to refer to you. And so there’s some folks whose websites aren’t working for some reason or another. There are lack of like, what is is there a phone number for folks who want to call? Is there an email address for folks want to email? Is there a contact form? Is there a way to sign up for an initial consult? I think you don’t have to have all the ways. You don’t have to be 100% accessible. But if it’s really challenging to figure out how to schedule with you or how to get a hold of you, you’re losing clients and you’re losing referrals because I’m not going to spend 15 minutes trying to search through, okay, well, that’s a contact form. I don’t know if I want to send a contact form to my client, but I could send a calendar or, Oh, this is the email, or whatever it is, it becomes practically impossible. And especially folks who maybe were totally full, didn’t really need to worry about it, but caseloads are dipping a little bit. Make sure it’s easy to get a hold of you and make sure that there’s not so many different instructions that clients aren’t going to follow through with them. You know, fill out this form and then go to this page and then sign up for this and we’ll get back to you, and we don’t get back to you for several days. And so the clients like moved on. Yes, there have been times, I’m sure, when all of us had wait lists or had so many calls coming in that we needed to put some barriers in place. And if you were still there, keep those barriers up. If you are not there, but you’re still really protecting your time. I would reconsider that, because if people have to jump through hoops and there’s somebody else doing what you do, or they can put in some prompts and ask ChatGPT, they’re not going to go through the they’re not going to go the extra mile. And you want them to prove they want to be your client, but you don’t need them to prove that you know they’re gonna name their first child after you.

Curt Widhalm 31:44
So we’re really hoping that if you’re still listening at this point in the episode, you’re rethinking what your online presence is, how you might be coming across to others, making sure that you’re genuinely inviting people, and that you’re effective in reaching the people that you truly can impact their lives. We would love to hear your thoughts on this episode. You can let us know, follow us on our social media, communicate with us there, shoot us an email. You can find all of that in our show notes over at mtsgpodcast.com Join our Facebook group, the Modern Therapist Group, and until next time, I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy,

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Announcer 32:23
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