How to Keep Clients Engaged Between Sessions in Private Practice

Camille McDaniel (00:02.702)
Welcome back to another episode. It’s great to have you back. And if you happen to be new, welcome. It’s nice to have you on the journey. So today’s episode is gonna be one where I feel is really important and hopefully one that you get a lot of good insight into how you might be able to take some things and do them in your own practice. But what I’m thinking is, know,

How do we actually keep our clients engaged and connected to us while they’re with us and even when they are away from us? We’ve talked about, you know, before how things are going in society. There’s a lot of hardship going on. People are really stressed. People are down. People are overwhelmed. So for some of us, we may actually see an increase in the number of individuals who are coming into our counseling practices.

And we may feel as though we are reaching the number of people each week that we desire to reach. There is another portion of us that are maybe halfway there, but not exactly as many people as we would like to be helping. And then there are some of us who are finding it difficult to actually reach out and connect with people that we would like to, or the number of people that we would like to help. I also know that summer is around the corner. School is about to let out, not too long here.

in the south and I know for those of my listeners who are up north, then you don’t, you still don’t have very long before the kids are out of school and everybody gets really busy. For some individuals in private practice, the summertime means that there happens to be a dip in the number of people that they see in their counseling office as people take vacations or they do other things for themselves as the weather improves and they start feeling good.

then you might notice that some people do not come to counseling sessions as frequently, depending on who your particular population is that you happen to work with and support and treat in your counseling practice. So for those individuals who happen to see clients who are struggling with some pretty severe mental health and emotional health challenges, you may not actually see as much of a change in

Camille McDaniel (02:24.984)
the number of clients that are coming to you from week to week. For those who may have clients who, we might like say they are under the umbrella of the wounded well, as in, you know, they are struggling with whatever it is that they’re dealing with, but they could actually take a vacation and come back to you and still be okay. Or if they, you know, miss a couple of weeks, it won’t throw them off too severely.

So I hope that this episode, no matter where you are in your practice, gives you ways to think about how you can increase engagement and increase connection so that we actually can sit and continue to find ourselves thriving in our private practices and having those practices be sustainable so that we can do things like take a vacation, you know, we can have some time off for our own.

you know, mental health days and we can do things like save for retirement and you know, all of those other wonderful things that we would love to be able to accomplish as we work for ourselves. You know, I am reminded about a time in my life where I worked retail as a young person. I was a teenager actually. And in my teen years, I worked a lot of retail jobs. So,

I’ve worked everything from like party city. I have worked at the Gap, the Limited, Express, just places that actually aren’t even still standing today. But one of the things that I thought about when I was thinking through this episode, I started thinking about all of my time in retail and something that they used to refer to as linking.

linking products, linking services. I worked at clothing stores and I also worked in like body and you know, guess perfume and creams and all of that. like, you know, body care type of stores as well. And I know that in a lot of the stores, they actually had tracking per hour how many units of a product they were selling and

Camille McDaniel (04:46.914)
how much income the store had generated that particular hour. And they had goals. So if they had not met their unit goals, then they oftentimes would kind of get us a little bit in a huddle or the manager would walk by and just be like, don’t make sure that you’re telling them about this new thing and make sure you’re telling them about that. And don’t forget to link this because we have this new outfit here. We got that new jewelry there, whatever thing that they got, right?

And so essentially the way linking would work is that if you happen to see a customer throughout the store and they had a product in their hand, let’s say they had a shirt in their hand, a nice blouse, if you will, then you strike up conversation to find out, you know, that’s a very nice blouse that you have and where are you going? Is this for like some party, some event, or is this just for every day?

And they would tell you, know, maybe it was for work or maybe they had a party that they were going to on the weekend. And then that would give you more information that would allow you to inform them of some type of additional, like clothing or jewelry or whatever, depending on the store you worked at, right? To link to that nice blouse that they had already in their hand. And so you would say something along the lines of, you know,

We just got in our new trouser that would pair really well with that shirt and look awesome on your complexion because it has this tone in it. That would be a great full outfit to go to this party. You know, and if they were like, I already had like, you know, I already have the pants though. Thank you. And it’s like, all right, well, don’t forget to also check out our jewelry because we have some nice necklaces that would drop perfectly right where that line is coming on that shirt, you know.

Things like that would enhance the customer experience in the way of information. Now, true, there are some people who came in and they already know what they wanted. They didn’t really want any extra information, but there were other individuals who came in and they kind of knew what they wanted or they didn’t really know at all. And they appreciated being able to have more information of something that could enhance

Camille McDaniel (07:07.768)
their overall goal, which was to look nice or to, you know, smell good or whatever it was, depending on the store that I happened to be working in. Yeah, a lot of my teenage years was a lot of stores when I kind of listed out, I feel like there’s this one particular mall in the state that I live in. And I feel like I worked several stores within that mall. It was good times. It was good times, long time ago, though. So.

really when you think about what I just shared, it’s like, okay, Camille, that’s a nice story, but how does that actually apply to private practice and mental health? And so the way that we want to start looking at things as we are trying to set ourselves apart, as we are trying to be very memorable in the minds of our clients, when they are with us, and also when they have taken some time away, is we want to look at how we are linking.

the services that we offer. We want to actually even think about, do you even have anything else to offer them outside of your one-on-one services? And it doesn’t have to be that this is additional paid services. We’ll talk about that in a minute because some of the things are going to be paid and some of the things are going to be free, but all of the things are going to link the customer, the client back

to your practice, brand you in their mind as the specialist in this area, provide them support, and allow your name to just continue no matter where your client goes. Because whether your client comes back or whether your client happens to refer you on to somebody else, you have then put a number of things in place to ensure

that they are getting an overall awesome experience that they probably don’t get regularly or can’t remember the last time they’ve gotten if they’ve gone to other therapists’ offices. So what does that look like? I talked to you about what it looks like in retail, but what it looks like in mental health and sometimes even other professions related to mental health. But in mental health, it looks like you’re one-on-one.

Camille McDaniel (09:32.992)
sessions and then when the client happens to not be with you because maybe they only see you every other week, they can then get some journal prompts from you so that they can stay grounded to the work that you all are doing. Or maybe if it is something like a need to relax, they are going to get a guided meditation from you and not just any guided meditation, one specifically tailored to their needs.

and it’s going to be on your platform, like your YouTube channel or your podcast channel. And so again, then you stop referring them out to all these other support systems like, you know, like Calm.com. Everyone, not everyone, but a lot of people are familiar with the website Calm.com or the app. Many of us have referred clients to it or even abide.

which is a faith-based guided meditation app and they are great right but what if you started to create your own so that you’re the one who stays fresh in their mind when they’re thinking about how stressed they are that day and they don’t have an appointment with you that week and they can’t get in to see you because you’re full but they really need some support. Well then they could think about the

service the support systems that you have also provided outside of your one-on-one counseling and that can allow them to go still stay within your business, your flow, your private practice name to get the supports that they need. So what does that look like if we are going to specifically name some things that you want to make sure you’re thinking about or doing?

Well, the first thing it’s going to look like, and I cannot stress this enough, is an email list. It’s going to look like an email list. Now listen, I know that some of you may feel like I don’t need an email list. My clients don’t have any problem reaching me. They don’t have any problem contacting me. I don’t really think that I need that to stay in touch with them. I’m memorable. And you may be right.

Camille McDaniel (11:55.308)
But are you memorable to the person that you haven’t seen in the last six months? Are you memorable to the person that you haven’t seen in the last year? I have shared this before but I will share this time and time and time again. I have been in private practice since 2010. 15 years in private practice and about 12 of those years we have had an email newsletter list, right? We have put it on our intake form.

and they can give permission, they say, yes, I would like to be added to your newsletter in order to stay in touch with you and more information on health and wellness, or they click or they circle, no. Now our forms are currently online now. When I first started my private practice, I had paper forms so people would circle, but now my private practice forms are all online, so they will either click yes or they will click no. And for all the yeses, then put them on the email list.

And I will tell you every single time that I have stopped doing my email list, whether it was because I didn’t feel I needed it because we were so full or because I slacked off because I was so busy, whatever the case may be, whenever I had gone back to sending out a newsletter to the email list, people from, I don’t know, it could be six months ago, it could be a year ago.

people call in for an appointment. I have tried that multiple times over the 12 years that we have had an email listing and I promise you every single time it just re-jogs somebody’s like either memory that they need to care for themselves or they had just lost our information and it was like that was right on time that newsletter there we go let me contact the office. This last time maybe about two weeks ago I sent a newsletter out

our email list sharing some new updates and some additional supports and two people that I hadn’t seen in a while called back to get on my calendar and the other therapists I practiced also had, I think definitely one she may have had two, people who called back to get on her calendar that she had not seen in a while. It does help.

Camille McDaniel (14:15.926)
Now you will have to make sure to stay on top of checking the analytics. I would strongly advise that you do not put all of these emails on a regular like list for Google or Yahoo. Get an actual like email listing regular like content management or email management company. That would be like your mailchimp.

you’re a webber, you know, you have a lot of different things to choose from, your constant contact, you have there, there are a lot out there. And you can then put it on an actual platform that will allow you to do a number of things, such as let people unsubscribe when they really have, you know, had enough and they’re like, you know, this has been wonderful, I no longer want to receive any updates. You can also check to see how people this is where the analytics come in.

how many people are actually opening their emails from you and how often are you noticing a dip in the number of people that are opening. So it’s the open rate, right? Now what I noticed in my private practice with the individuals that were receiving emails was when I sent them emails monthly, they actually opened up their emails just great for maybe a couple of months in a row.

and then maybe after four months I started to notice that it started to dip. I did take into account the time of year that it was when I noticed the dip and instead what I said is let’s play around with it and skipped a month. So instead of them getting that monthly newsletter, I skipped it and made it two months before they got a newsletter and the email open rate shot back up. So sometimes you have to play around with it because especially today people are

inundated with so many emails, spam and necessary that they may not even be getting to your newsletter as quickly. So by the time they get to it, maybe they already have like several newsletters that they have to catch up on and it’s just too much. So you’ll just need to see what do your clients respond to. Now that is going to be one way to keep your client engaged and connected.

Camille McDaniel (16:40.322)
to your overall private practice. And the way that you are going to then link even further is that maybe you are going to develop some additional support like a online journal or you might have a online wellness program or you might get a podcast or you may have a YouTube channel. Like I’m listing all of these different things and let me share with you how I link.

and how I use some of these things. So I shared with you that we have a newsletter. Now in that newsletter, what we did was then keep people connected to our private practice, but also connected them to a new service of support. Well, that’s the online wellness program that we developed called The Woman Everyone Leans On. And then it’s like reclaiming your time and your health and…

and something else, I have to look at the full title and remember it but that was and is an online wellness program that has been associated with a need that I noticed was popping up in my private practice over some time, like over a year and and got around to developing a wellness program that includes both audio segments as well as journal prompts that take people through

identifying what some of the major components are of them not being able to have healthy boundaries or of them feeling stuck and feeling like they have to say yes in order to be validated or to be helpful and how to come out of that really negative cycle that is weighing them down and overwhelming them and they have journal prompts that will then facilitate additional thought and additional

resources to go forward and putting things into practice in their everyday lives. That was listed in the newsletter. Clients not only then got a newsletter with other updates and for some people they called us to schedule an appointment just because of that, but then some actually decided to move forward with the online wellness program. And then from that I had, for example, a client that I was seeing every couple of weeks.

Camille McDaniel (18:58.528)
And sometimes every three weeks, but that person decided they needed that wellness program, started to go through the wellness program, finished the wellness program, and then said, Camille, I need to see you weekly. I need to increase the number of times that I’m seeing you because I really need to go through these journal prompts and I need for you to help me to expand on some of these and put these into action even more. So again, that’s another step toward not only linking

in supports that you offer and this one being a paid support but also then increasing the amount of support individually that a client might need. Now you may have a wellness program that actually has a component in it where someone is going to meet with you so that you can kind of process and when you develop these programs you can always edit and improve them over time. You don’t have to feel like just because

you created it, you can’t do anything with it, but just keep it the same. So I’m also going to tweak it and offer that if they wanted to be able to process some of the wellness prompts or journal prompts that are included in this wellness program, then to call our office so that we can schedule time to do just that. Another thing that I have done in order to…

bring people back to our practice, keeping our practice in the forefront of their mind, giving them support systems that they need when they’re not meeting with me individually, is I have developed some faith-based guided meditations. They are aligned with a lot of things that I hear my clients struggling with in their sessions with me, and I then developed certain faith-based guided meditations to go right along with it that they can practice.

when we are not together. I just sent an email to about five clients maybe just a week ago because I put this, I actually repurposed a an old YouTube channel. It is now called Everyday Hope and Healing which is kind of a play off of my practice name because my practice name is Healing Psychotherapy Practices of Georgia and so Everyday Hope and Healing is a YouTube channel

Camille McDaniel (21:14.648)
that has inspirational songs on it. It also has faith-based guided meditations on it. And it also has some informative reels, if you will, or like presentations on different things that people may struggle with. So what I did was for a couple of clients who the struggle for relaxation was so real and not feeling guilty about actually taking time to relax, so.

much of a struggle in that area. So I developed a faith-based guided meditation and I believe that one is called restoration so that people don’t feel guilty and that they can start being walked through resting in their body from the top of their head to the very soles of their feet. And I sent in a very short email to say, hey, you know,

thinking about what we were talking about in session and how you are trying to practice relaxation and letting go of guilt, why don’t you try this faith-based guided meditation as a way of starting your practice in that area. All the best, see you in the next session. That’s it. I actually got feedback off of that where someone was so grateful for it because they really were struggling and trying to…

develop ways that they could start to allow their mind and allow their body to truly, truly relax outside of our time together. Because when they have sessions with me, then they can find themselves throughout the session really allowing themselves to just relax, allow themselves to just focus on themselves and focus on the issues that are presenting that they need to work through. But when they get back into their everyday life,

they were having a hard time keeping that time protected where they just focused on the relaxation that their mind and body desperately needed. So I sent that out for people to then practice. And what is that? That is another support and that’s a free support, another support that has our practice name linked to it because in the description of the YouTube channel,

Camille McDaniel (23:26.946)
I describe what this channel is supposed to be about and what people can expect from the channel. And then I also talk about how there might be additional information that they’ll receive on wellness programs that we offer, like the woman everyone leans on. And then what did I do? Put a link to the woman that everyone leans on so that if you go to YouTube, I now link my YouTube.

to my wellness program, which brings you back to my website, which keeps me in the forefront of your mind. You can do this with a journal or maybe you have worksheets for people to stay grounded and working on the things that you all have been talking about. You know, it doesn’t have to be a YouTube channel, but it could be. It also can be a podcast. And how is that podcast going to be delivered?

through your newsletter. So you’re going to then make that podcast informative. It does not have to be a very long podcast. There are some podcasts that are really short, like 10 minutes. Matter of fact, I was toying with the idea, still toying with it, have to see like, does it make sense? Is it really necessary with the other supports that I have? But toying with the idea of a podcast for my counseling practice. But guess what? For you, if you don’t…

have any other supports that keep them engaged and linked to you outside of the one-on-one counseling sessions, then maybe you want to develop a podcast as well that can be informative, that can be uplifting, you know, that can help them when they really do still need support and they’re not meeting with you. Hey, there’s a lot of other things that they can…

you know entertain themselves with and there are a lot of podcasts out there and there are a lot of YouTube channels out there. I just had a client talk about how they were turning to YouTube channel so that they can kind of just allow themselves to just relax and unwind. Well now I know that’s another client that I need to share our everyday hope and healing YouTube channel with because there are ways for them to relax and unwind right on that particular channel as well and just another way to support

Camille McDaniel (25:34.222)
the client to just brand yourself in their mind and to stay connected with them whether they are with you in session or whether they are outside of the session. They can then have also a very curated experience with you and your practice that maybe they’ve not had in any other practice they’ve tried. Or if you are the first practice that they’ve tried then you are setting the bar high.

And they will remember that just like we remember experiences that we have when we go out and about to get services or to get any other items that we might need in our day to day life. I want you to consider how you are going to stay connected. I don’t want you to get overwhelmed. Some of these things are very easy to create. And

I can share with you how I created them in another episode. Just let me know if you’re interested because it does involve AI and I know that artificial intelligence is a very sensitive topic for many people because they don’t understand it, they don’t trust it. Even though it actually has been around for a long time, you might feel like, that’s gonna be robotic, I don’t like it. But you know what? I would encourage you to see what I have been able to create for my clients.

and my practice to stay connected and to stay engaged and to start to be in the forefront on their mind whether they are here with me getting counseling or whether they haven’t seen me in a while, they get a newsletter and decide to come back or whether we are in between sessions and they really need a way to relax. I’m going to link all of that if you happen to be listening by Spotify or Apple.

I am going to link that below in the notes. And if you happen to be looking at me from YouTube, then I’m going to do that as well. And I’ll also put it on the Christ in Private Practice podcast, because you can look at it before you make any judgments about AI. I know that AI can be used for some wild things, but we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about helping our clients heal. We are talking about faith integration.

Camille McDaniel (27:48.962)
That’s another reason why I decided that I wanted to actually rebrand that YouTube channel and then start putting on some of the things that I felt good about as it related to faith-based guided meditations and educational informational videos, as well as some songs that were uplifting and spoke to the heart of things that people were struggling with because I could then make sure to do kind of like quality assurance. I can make sure that it, you know, it aligns.

with what I was comfortable with sending people to. And so, like I said, I will go ahead and I will link those things below so that you can actually see what I have completed and you can then consider what you’re going to do for your clients and how you are going to keep them connected to your practice. This is so doable. And again, in this day and time, we have to look at how we are going to actually step out.

How are you gonna set yourself apart? How are you gonna stay memorable? How are you going to allow your practice to be sustainable and something that lets you then build? Take vacation, take sick leave, invest in retirement and all the other many things that you would like your business to do for you in addition to allowing you to serve people. So I’m excited about it. Leave me a comment.

Tell me what it is that you wanna see or if you wanna hear how I did it after you look below and kinda take a look at what I’ve done. Until next time, I hope you have a wonderful week. God bless.

CPP Ep. 34 How to Keep Clients Engaged Between Sessions in Private Practice