The Practice of Therapy

Ryan Schwartz
Okay. Hi, I'm Ryan from mental health match. And today we're going to be talking about how therapists can better connect with potential clients. And based off of what we have learned along the way of helping over half a million people find a therapist.

Gordon Brewer
Well, hello, everyone, and welcome again to the podcast. And I'm really looking forward to you hearing from me, my guest today, Ryan Schwartz. So, Ryan, welcome to the podcast.

Ryan Schwartz
Well, thanks so much. It's a honor to be here, I'm really excited to share some great tips with your listeners.

Gordon Brewer
Yes, that I've really enjoyed getting to know Ryan Ryan is with mental health match, which is just to put in a quick plug is one of our newer sponsors of the podcast. But I think what Ryan, the third thing we're going to really talk about most is just what you've learned, through putting together mental health match how that really what, what people are looking for, when they're searching for, for therapists, and how we can better communicate that to them. But before we get to that, as a start with everyone, why don't you tell folks a little bit about yourself and how you've landed where you've landed?

Ryan Schwartz
That's a great question. You know, I didn't always set out to create a modern therapist directory, it came out of a very personal experience. You know, my, about eight years ago, I suddenly lost my mom. And I found myself in therapy for the first time, I grew up in a family and a society that didn't talk much about therapy or feelings. And so this was my first experience, and it really was transformative for me. But, you know, it took me a long time to be able to find a therapist, right. And I think a lot of people have had these personal experiences. I kept talking to people. And I would say, you know, have you looked for a therapist? Oh, yeah, I did that once. It was really hard. I didn't do it, I gave up. I found it overwhelming. And I realized that there was this disconnect between, you know, clients, and therapists and how they find each other. I think, you know, looking back, building mental health match was also a way for me to honor my mom, who was such a problem solver, and was a way that I made sense of that loss and that grief. And so, you know, he started building, coming from the client side of what do clients need to be able to find a therapist? What is that process like for them? And then as we brought in other clinicians and advisors figuring out like, what can be better about the way clinicians connect with clients. But before I got all into that, I was actually a communications consultant, I worked for social change organizations. And I did a lot of focus groups, a lot of messaging research, where I figured out like, how do you talk about these issues that you care about how, you know, how do you talk about them in a way that will really resonate with other people? And so I brought that background in with me. So how do therapists talk about what they do and their practice in a way that really resonates for clients who might be new to therapy or don't have the same background?

Gordon Brewer
Right, right. Yeah. And that's, you know, as we were chatting before we, we were starting to record, you know, one of the topics that comes up a lot with, with this podcast is just around marketing your practice? And how do you get more referrals and get people coming to you, but also, you know, really qualified referrals that are really a good match for you as a therapist, because one of the things that I think is really important for us doing this work is that we have clients that really energize us in the work that we do with them. In other words, doing stuff that we enjoy, you know, it's not to get too far off on a on a tangent here, but I know for like me, one of the things I've learned early on is that I'm not great at working with kids in therapy. And so for somebody to bring their kid to me is not a good match for me. Yeah, so, yeah. So tell folks just kind of how you've put all of this together. And you know, that what you've learned so far with all of this, because, again, I think this is a brilliant idea of matching therapists, matching clients with therapists.

Ryan Schwartz
Well, I think that's exactly right. So, you know, we believe that your relationship with a potential client it starts before they contact you, they're reading about you, they're looking at you online, they're getting ideas, assumptions about who you are. And so it's really important to kind of put, be thoughtful about what you put forward because that actually it shapes whether they become a client and if they do pecan pie, it it actually shapes what that relationship starts off as. And so mental health match is is a system we have a matching process where we ask potential clients a number of questions about them, everything from presenting issues, to cultural needs, their budget, different types of things that they might be interested in modalities. And we ask the same thing of clinicians. And then we have a matching process. So clients can easily see like, okay, these are the conditions to best meet my needs, it makes the process really easy for them. And on the flip side, you know, so much of what we heard, when we were building was, you know, therapists would say, like, I have a Psychology Today profile, and I get these emails. Hi, I'm Bob, I'm looking for a therapist. And they're Mrs. Like, what do I do with that, like, I don't know, if they're a fit for me, I don't know what their needs are. I don't know anything about them, and so on our service, clients can opt into sending their survey information to you. So you get an email that says, Hi, I'm Bob, I'm grieving. And I'm struggling with substance abuse, it's really important to me to have a black Christian therapist, and oh, yeah, this is my budget for private pay. I'm also interested in potentially doing art therapy. So you get a little bit more insight there. And you can go into that conversation with knowledge about who this person is, and not starting from scratch. So you can really build rapport with a potential client before you get too far down the road.

Gordon Brewer
Right, right. Yeah. And I think I think the thing about that, and I've, this is something I've been working with my staff on a little bit is that you you don't want people shopping, shot shopping therapists, what you want is people to find a good match for for them clinically. And, you know, one of the things we have therapists in our practice there, some of them are on insurance panels, and some are not. And so how they pay for doesn't know that matters to the client to some degree, but that shouldn't be how they, how they pick the therapist.

Ryan Schwartz
That's right. And in so many times, people just say, Well, I have this insurance. So therefore, I'm going to go fine. You know, I use the insurance provider directory, which, you know, we studies have been done that somewhere between 40 to 60% of those entries are incorrect. Anyways, they lead to a lot of dead roads. But you know, they might also they, you know, one of the things that we're building right now is an insurance verification check, because a lot of people don't even understand their insurance. So they might have, you know, coinsurance that doesn't kick in until a $5,000 deductible is met. So they don't realize that, hey, maybe going to a private pay sliding scale therapist is actually more in my financial interests, and it opens up the possibility of who you could possibly who you could see. So, you know, a lot of what we do, is that kind of education on the client side to help them understand, what should they be looking for in a therapist? Why is looking for a therapist different than, say, looking for cardiologist or a bone doctor or something where you know, you're really looking for? Didn't say, my insurance? Can I go see them down the street, but helping them understand that the outcomes in therapy rely on that relationship in the rapport that you have with your therapist?

Gordon Brewer
Right, right. Yeah. So what what sort of feedback are you getting from therapists and clients about that mental health match?

Ryan Schwartz
Oh, it's overwhelmingly great. Like we it's that feedback that helps me every day, kind of get through the tough job of building a startup. So you know, therapists say that they're getting really good quality leads for their practice that they've been able to expand their caseload, there was a survey of all the different directories out there, done by an online blog called very well, mine, and they found that 91% of mental health match therapists on mental health match would recommend mental health match to their colleagues. You know, I think a lot of therapists see that we are a values driven company, we tried to do everything we can to support private practice clinicians, while keeping costs really low. So we're really out there to help folks. And I think people see that and on the client side. And we always hear from all these folks who say like, this made things really easy. Like, I didn't think I would be able to go to therapy, I put off looking for a therapist until I heard about your site. And it has just made things so simple. And now I'm connected with somebody I'm very excited to work with.

Gordon Brewer
Yeah, yeah. That's great. That's great. You know, one of the things that people have heard from me on here on the podcasts before and, you know, fortunately, unfortunately or whatever for, for us in this in this whole mental health provider space. Is that with us coming out, hopefully it's safe to say coming out of the COVID pandemic, I think with people's isolation, mental health has been has become less of a stigma, as somebody that is struggling with some sort of mental health issue. And I think they, a lot of us are getting inundated with calls, I know with us, we're our phones ringing off the hook. But the problem is, is that not all those people are a good fit for us. And so having having this way to, to make sure that they are a good fit? It just goes a long way for us being able to provide better care.

Ryan Schwartz
Yeah, absolutely. And I work glad to provide a service where, you know, if you don't know somebody to refer out to, or you don't have a good fit, you know, you can have trust in our service that someone can go to that and easily find some options that work for them. And I think, you know, part of it is like, you've got an established practice, you've got it sounds like a group. So you probably have a website with some SEO, you've got relationships with, like primary care providers and other folks in your community. But how do you build that from scratch? Right? And that's where we really want to help out too. So for the folks who don't have all those things in place? How do they build their first full time caseload? And that's where we're mental health match. It's here to help.

Gordon Brewer
Right, right. So tell folks a little bit how it works on both the client side and the therapist side as far as signing up and getting involved.

Ryan Schwartz
Yeah, well, on the therapist side, you know, you just go to mental health match.com, we have a free trial that we offer, folks, it is, you know, for your listeners, if they use the referral code. It's just practice, just put in practice and the referral code section, they get a 90 day free trial. So and then we asked a lot of questions. We want to know what specialties you What do you know, what do you specialize in? And we're adding the ability to say what you don't see. So they make sure you're weeding out folks that have higher acuity than usually see or other needs. We asked about, you know, cultural background, we asked about your modalities, your fee structures, we and then we have a profile that we have some prompts on. So instead of giving you just a blank box to fill out, we've done a lot of research about what clients really want to hear from potential therapists. And we've asked those in prompts. So we asked things about like, you know, who you were, who you specialize in working with, like, what, how you approach therapy, why you became a therapist, something that kind of gives people a sense of who you are. And then then that all goes out and to our service. We and on the client side, there's a number of questions that we asked them. So are there certain things that you are struggling with? Instead of giving people a bunch of checkboxes, we ask things like, are you worried about a specific disorder that you want to test for? How are you feeling? Are you feeling anxious or sad? We asked about life events help give and then, you know, like I mentioned other types of cultural deeds and other financial factors. And then once they answer that information, they see the therapist who best match those those needs. They can click on the profile, learn a little bit more go to their website, different things like that. Once a client contacts that therapists like all that leaves us we don't we're not we're not a clinic, we don't provide care. We're not asking we don't hire a therapist, it all goes out, you know, to individuals private practice.

Gordon Brewer
Right. Right. That's great. Well, through this process, I know that you mentioned, Ryan, that you've really learned a lot about how we can better present ourselves, particularly in the online space to really resonate and connect with, with potential clients. Do you want to say some more about that?

Ryan Schwartz
Oh, yeah. So you know, we've done a study where we look at, out of the almost 10,000 profiles on our site, where what profiles perform best, and what profiles don't perform. So well. Why is that? Right? So when we look at how many people see somebody as a match, and end up contacting them, versus how many people see the profile, don't end up contacting them. And so we've got some lessons that we've learned from that. And I think before we get into that, I'm gonna put my communications consultant hat on for a second, it's really important to understand the mindset of potential clients. A lot of people come, they're feeling overwhelmed, or alone. And so they're looking for connection, right? They're looking for a sense of hope. They're looking for connection, and they want to see they want to feel reflected, right. That's it. They're looking for a relationship. And, and so it's really important to keep that in mind. More than half of people looking for therapists are doing it on a phone. So they're in a mindset of like, scrolling, not doing in depth reading, and they're looking for that connection with somebody. And so, I think that that's really important to know because you want to use language that's going to connect with somebody in that mindset and but they don't know the same things that you do. They don't know the, the clinical jargon. So like when we look at profiles that don't perform well, they're oftentimes things they say like, oh, you know, I'm a therapist who combines psychodynamic humanistic, and rational, emotive theories and approaches. Well, they don't know what that means. And that's instant, though they don't feel reflected in that, that kind of hurts that connection. So a couple of things that we see that work really well are to use first, what we would call words of connection, these are words like, together, you and I will, like it's establishing that relationship with somebody, like, Hey, I'm here with you. I'm not here for you to shop at, I'm here with you, and I'm going to be with you. So together, we will do these things. And then there's also what we call words of hope. And those are really important, as well. So you know, those are things that what are the outcomes of working with you, so things like achieve, relieve, improve, like these types of words, that that's what clients want to see, right? They're looking for that hope. And so giving them those words that say, like, here's who I am, together, we're going to make these things happen for you. You know, the communication is where we would say, focus 80% of your time on the outcomes, the solutions, and only 20% of the problem. And so often, therapist profiles, we see such a heavy focus on the problem, or use, that you're having trouble getting out of bed, and there's no pivot to the hope part of it. And that just kind of reinforces that negativity for the client, and makes it actually really hard for them to move to a space where they can reach out to you and feel proactive about taking action. And so those are the those are the first two big things that we've learned when we look at different profiles is the profiles that establish a connection by using words like together or you and I, we, our and the profiles that use words that really are like solutions, words that like hopeful words, those are the profiles that absolutely perform the best.

Gordon Brewer
Right? Yeah, I'm reminded, as you were saying all of that, and this is something that a book recommendation or to for people is the story brand by Donald Miller Miller, if you're familiar with that, but one of the the premise of it is, is that, and this is, this is something that I think is good tip for people, and just looking at their websites and how they communicate with people, your about page shouldn't be about you, but should be about your client. And that what you what you really want to establish is that you're a guide, through this problem that they're facing, and that they become the hero in the end. And that's kind of the basic premise behind the story brand. And that's the kind of the formula for movies and books. And that kind of thing is that you've got this person that's trying to overcome this particular obstacle, and they meet a guide that guides them through that so that they become the hero of the story.

Ryan Schwartz
Yeah, absolutely. I think the guide metaphor is a really good one here. And again, that's like, that's hope that's trust, it's a relationship. And I think, you know, one of the other things that we see when we do these comparisons are that it's really important to have a niche, and to talk about that niche. And so, you know, I think we often see the profiles that don't do well, they say things like, I see clients from age nine to 90, who might be dealing with one of these 70 different things. And when you're looking for a guide, you know, if you're you to take that metaphor further, like if you're out on a trail in the mountains, you and you're looking for a guide, you don't want the guide can say like, Oh, I do it all I'm from the swamps, or the mountains or the hills or the coasts or the flatlands, you want the guide that says I'll get you through the mountain. And so in this way, it's also really important to have that niche, you can change that niche, right like you, you might see a different few different things. You can rotate your profiles, you can have something up for a month, and we'll do something else. So I'll say mental health match this. A couple of things to help folks so one of the things that we do is that we send therapists a monthly daily email, and we say like, these are all of the presenting issues that clients have when they see your profile. These are the clients who contact you. So you know you say you do these 30 things but the clients who are contacting you are the ones who are looking for help with trauma. So you're doing a really good job talking about that niche or the flip side. The majority of clients coming to your page are struggling with it. Eating Disorder or an eating disorder issue. But you are only talking to the trauma folks, if you want to pick up more clients, you might want to refocus your profile on the ED, the disordered eating, folks, because that's us come in there. We're also, this is a couple months out, but in the next couple of months, we'll be releasing a feature so that therapists can have multiple profiles, because we know what the client's needs are, then you can say, Here's my disordered eat profile for disordered eating clients. Here's my profile for trauma clients, my profile for grieving clients, these are my three niches will show the right profile to the right client, so that they can feel that you have expertise in that specific issue. I think it's really important that across all of your marketing, and all of the profiles that you may have, that you focus in on a few key things. Otherwise, people don't get that sense of expertise. And they don't get that sense that you're the one who's going to help them through their particular issue.

Gordon Brewer
Yeah, yeah. So yeah, and I think that's, yeah, again, speaking to the importance of the niche, or niche, however, we want to say that is that if you were to, if you were to think about even for yourself, if you were looking for a doctor and say I had a problem with my knee, I'm not going to just search for a doctor, I'm going to search for an orthopedic doctor, because I know that that's what their specialty is. And I think, with mental health, I think that's the thing to remember is, is that people are looking for help to specific problems, and that's probably how they're doing their search.

Ryan Schwartz
Absolutely right there, then, you know, a lot of times they might not name it, they might not know it, right? It might be too under the surface. But it's important to be able to speak to at least what people might be feeling and your expertise on on that. So and we learned, there's, there's two other things that I think is important to bring up. So we've actually learned that there's some nuance in the way that you should use the word view. In your marketing. Oftentimes, we see profiles that don't perform well are using the word you in a way that can make clients very defensive. So are you addicted to sex? Do you rely heavily on alcohol, these things can actually put somebody in a really defensive state of mind, or trigger a lot of negative self talk and, and thinking in the moment, which takes them out of up, kind of proactive mindset of looking for help, and it kind of shuts them down. And so, you know, just like I think in the therapy room, you wouldn't go after and say put somebody on the defensive or accused them of things, you wouldn't do that in your profile, too. And so what we find is that the profiles that that do use the word you a lot, the ones that do well talk about it in terms of this solution. So and then they talk about the problem part of things in a third person. So for example, you know, I work really well with clients who feel addicted to sex, or want to, you know, change the way they react to life's challenges. And together, you and I are going to work to help you gain control of your cravings, those types of that type of language where it's like, you are helping establish your expertise when you talk about a problem, but it's in a third person, so you're not making the person defensive. And then you're bringing them in and showing them the hope and what's possible by working with you. And that's the way to use the word view.

Gordon Brewer
Yes, yes. And that that resonates for me, and that, you know, part of part of what I do is I do supervision with folks. And there's a there's a form of therapy, called Narrative Therapy. I'm sure you've heard of it. But kind of the premise of kind of what makes that work well for people is that the problem is the problem, not the person is the problem. And so that's the thing that I think that we, you know, it's a part of that some of the techniques with that is to personify the problem, rather than point to the person is being the problem.

Ryan Schwartz
That's exactly right. Exactly. You know, and I think that there's a lot of parallels there.

Gordon Brewer
Yeah, yeah. So that's really great. Yeah.

Ryan Schwartz
And then the fifth thing that we've learned along the way we've got to talk about this in terms of marketing, we've got to talk about your photo. The headshot photo is really important. Remember, people are looking for a connection. So they're looking at the photo, even though that has no resemblance on someone's clinical abilities. It is really important to clients. And when we, when we do tests where we sit down with people looking for therapists, and we just kind of like watch what they're doing. Their first thing they're looking at is the photo. And they will actually move on with from profiles without even reading what's there, or websites without reading with they're based off the photo. And I think it's unfortunate, I think is a detriment to folks. But also think that's human behavior. And that you got to work with that. So what we said when we study photos, when we realized this was okay, what photos do really well, what photos don't do? Well, we have a free guide that's out there. If you go to it's like a bitly, Link B. So bi t.li/therapist photos, that will take you to our free guide on photos. But I want to tell you, like the most important thing about it is that you should be making eye contact. In the photo, when somebody looks at your photo, they should see your eyes. So so often, we see people looking away, we see distractions, so that there's something real sparkly or glary in the background so that they people are looking they're not to the eyes, or people are, you know, we see photos that look like they can be used on dating sites, or photos that don't represent the niche as well. So they say I work with, you know, business professionals, but then the the tire that's been worn doesn't match with that right, or, you know, and so I think it's really important to kind of match those things up. But then just look at the camera, make sure you're making warm, connected eye contact. That is the number one thing we found about photos, like the photos that have that eye contact with the first thing you do see when you look at the photos, you look right into therapists eyes, those are the photos that perform really well. Those are the folks that get a lot of clients. If you're wearing glasses, make sure that the glare is not in the glasses preventing somebody from seeing their eyes.

Gordon Brewer
Yeah, yeah, I think that's I had heard or read somewhere. And I don't know if there's any truth to this or not that. Thinking about profile pictures, profile pictures that where they have their pet with him or a pet in the photo. seem to do really well. Oh, interesting. Yeah, I don't. Yeah. And I can't remember exactly where I heard that. But yeah. So I mean, if you're if you're a pet person, maybe that's something that experiment with Yeah.

Ryan Schwartz
Yeah. I mean, I think it humanizes you a little bit, right? Like, you're not just an anonymous face anymore. You're like a person who's got a dog or a cat or whatever, guinea pig? I don't know. But you know, I think a lot of folks have pets. And so they feel reflected back at that. When they look at that.

Gordon Brewer
Yeah, you want to use definitely want to be approachable in your, or seem approachable in your, in your photo, for sure.

Ryan Schwartz
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So yeah, those are the five things that we've learned will make the biggest difference in your marketing, it's a photo with Queer Eye contact, it's using words of hope, so that you're focused more on the solutions part than the problems part is using words of connection where you're establishing a relationship, together, the hours the wheeze. It's about making sure you have a clearly defined niche or niche. And it's about it's about being careful when you use the word view, so that you are using it so that people see themselves reflected in what is possible, and not putting people on the defensive. And I can tell you those, those five tips, if you enact that, they will be night and day. You can do it across all of you, you know, put it on your website, go through, look at those things. Make sure that you're staying away from the jargon words. So I have when I was doing communications work, you know, it's hard once you learn some, there's something called the curse of knowledge. Once you know something, it's really hard to remember what it's like to not know that thing. Especially after you've gone out years of schooling. It's really hard to remember like, what was it like when you had no knowledge of what a therapeutic approach is right? And so I always had my aunt Cindy test, I have my aunt Cindy, she works in retail, she doesn't work in therapy, she never worked in anything that I worked on. And before I wrote anything I would send it before I put anything out, I would send it to her, I would say like, where do I lose your hair? And she could look at it and say like, what is where Algerian Virginia and approach are like what is you in a segment? Right? So go find your aunt Cindy, because the majority of people looking for therapists have no idea what these approaches mean.

Gordon Brewer
Right. Right. Yeah. It's yeah. And I think the other thing I would add to that, Ryan is that, you know, for those of us that have been in practice for a while the particularly in our various niches is that we know how to describe what that person is like, and particularly what their internal world is. And so being able to to kind of bring that up in the copy about, you know, this is, I imagine this is what it's like for you. And this is how I can help you with that.

Ryan Schwartz
Exactly, exactly. Or even better be like, I specialize in working with clients who are feeling this, and you're actually naming something that they might have that name for themselves. And so they look at that, and there's just an instant like, it instantly resonates. Yeah, absolutely.

Gordon Brewer
Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Awesome. So Well, Ryan, I want to be respectful of your time. And this has been a great conversation. And I think a lot for people to think about. And, yeah, definitely they need to check out mental health match, but how can folks get in touch with you if they want to find out more and maybe start a conversation?

Ryan Schwartz
Yeah, absolutely. You can email me at info at mental health match.com. Also, we are on all of the social media services. So find us on you know, especially Instagram, you can find me on LinkedIn, Ryan Schwartz with mental health match. And we're doing some cool things out there that I think your folks will be interested to please do, you know, stay in touch with us. And again, if you're interested in getting a profile up and getting some new clients through us, you could try us out for free for 90 days, just go to mental health match.com. And then when you sign up, use the referral code practice.

Gordon Brewer
Yes. And we'll have all the links to that in the show notes and the show summary and you can find it easily. And well, Ryan, thanks for. Thanks for being on the podcast and your folks. You're going to hear more from mental health match, and you can find out more at mental health match.com. And Like Ryan said, be sure and use the coupon code or the promo code. Practice. Very simple. So Take care, folks. Thanks, Ryan.

Ryan Schwartz
Thank you. It's pleasure.