Hey Private Practice Counselors,

Today, I want to take you on a little bit of the journey that absolutely changed my private practice, and I absolutely think it will change yours as well. I'm talking about automation!

This isn't about a new counseling method; it's something even more crucial to your day to day life – a tool that reshapes how you run your practice.

I'll take you through how embracing automation not only gave me back hours of my time but also made me a more effective clinician and business owner.

WATCH THE FULL AUTOMATION SERIES HERE!

Today in 5 minutes or less, you'll learn:

• OVERVIEW: What is automation for counselors?

• PART 1: How I use automation to communicate with new prospective clients and show my full value

• PART 2: How I follow-up with prospective clients using automation.

• PART 4: How automation helped me automatically schedule, collect payments, and onboard new clients

• PART 3: How to automatically schedule appointments and reduce (and possibly eliminate) no show cancellation appointments

So, what is automation?

It's just the use of software technology to perform tasks with minimal human involvement. For me, I was looking for a way to streamline my processes, get rid of simple errors I'd catch myself making, and most of all reduce how much time I was spending outside of my counseling time.

Another way to put it is... How do we look at the tasks that are mundane and learn how to simplify and automate them so we're not the one pushing the buttons or spending so much time and energy on them. It's about becoming better business owners and better clinicians with the help of inexpensive technology.

There are three key parts to how I really changed my practice. So, I'll break each one into it's own post to fully explain the benefits I'm seeing and the changes I needed to make to get them.

Part 1: How I follow up with prospects interested in my counseling?

That word may sound a little weird to some of you, but they're not clients yet. They're people who are checking us out. And... We're checking them out to see if it's a good fit.

This was difficult for me for a while. I would be with clients, I would show a little bit more attention to current clients and then I would get an email, a text, a call, a voicemail of, Hey, I'm interested, can you get back to me?

Part 2: How do I schedule, collect payment, and onboard new clients (with almost none of my personal time)?

Looking back my old way was all over the place. I would message back and forth with a prospective client until we found a time that worked for them then hoped there would be no shows because I that meant I would be getting paid or be able to schedule someone else in their place in time.

Today, I can say it's so much smoother, professional, and just overall organized for everyone. Once I switched to my automated model, I absolutely have had zero no shows, failed payments to date with none of the back and forth scheduling.

Part 3: How I use automation to book all sessions for a client in a single action"

The old way would be what I would call an opt-in model that led to inconsistency and a high dropout rate. So opt-in is kind of like what we do at the end of session. For example, at the end of the session asking the client when you want to come in next then going back and forth on who's available and when.

Today, I use a method that helps me identify a consistent weekly session time and day before they even become a client. This means that when we begin working together there is no more scheduling at the end of meetings or worrying if I will have the right time that works for them and me.

WATCH THE FULL AUTOMATION SERIES HERE!

Automation revolutionized the way I manage my practice. It transitioned me from feeling overwhelmed and always playing catch-up, to being in control and more present for my clients. This journey has been about more than just efficiency; it's been about becoming a better counselor and business owner.

For my fellow counselors out there, I strongly recommend bringing automation into your practice so you can see similar results.

Let's embrace technology to make our work lives not only easier but also more impactful for our clients.