Member Article

Getting More Referrals by Connecting with Your Ideal Client, Part 2

Frances Barry, LMFT

In my previous Voices article, I wrote about reframing the concept of an ideal client from a nebulous “perfect” or “best” client to those you feel most compelled to support.

Your ideal client is who you are meant to help in this world.

Therapists sometimes resist the idea of the ideal client as they believe it may prevent them from:

• Engaging with different populations.
• Working with a range of symptoms.
• Filling their practice.

But having an ideal client isn’t about focusing on one type of client for your entire career.

You can have multiple ideal clients (I have three) and they can change over time.

When I launched my private practice, my clients ranged in age from four to eighty years old with a wide variety of life experiences and symptoms. After a couple of years, I noticed how much more connected I felt to my younger clients. I made the decision to dedicate my practice solely to minors.

Today, I have three ideal clients:

• Elementary school boys with frequent and intense angry outbursts.
• Elementary school girls experiencing high levels of anxiety in multiple settings.
• Children and adolescents who have lost a parent to cancer.

Although my ideal clients fall within the one age group of minors, the ideal clients for one therapist can be from a variety of age groups, such as teens, adults and seniors or a narrow age range, such as young adults. Although age is very often one ideal client descriptor, it may not be the most significant.

Other important characteristics can include:

• Racial, cultural, sexual or gender identities.
• Life experiences such as serving in a combat zone, childhood abuse or a high-conflict divorce.
• Mental health challenges such as panic attacks, depressive episodes or phobias.

My decision to focus my practice on minors was one I drifted towards over a few years. In contrast, I arrived at the descriptions of my current ideal clients with a systematic review of my client files to identify the very specific subpopulations I felt most drawn to at that time.

I know my ideal clients will continue to evolve overtime. One reason is my age. Today, I am more likely to be exhausted after a physically active session than I was a couple of years ago. I am also feeling pulled towards running groups for children and working with couples to better prepare them for parenthood.

Your ideal clients may evolve due to a change in circumstances, environment, maturity, interests or training.

• Experiencing the benefits of EMDR may inspire you to become a certified EMDR practitioner.
• Losing a loved one may lead you to focus more on grief work.
• Having a child may require changing your schedule, resulting in an ideal client change.
• A family member in recovery may draw you into helping clients struggling with addiction.

Your ideal clients today may not be the same as your ideal clients in two years.   

When I made the first step towards working only with minors, it was a difficult decision. I was afraid I wouldn’t find enough clients to pay the bills. I still remember my discomfort at unselecting the age group “adults” on my Psychology Today profile. However, the outcomes of my decision were all positive.

When you know who your ideal client is, your marketing efforts can be more targeted and relevant--I’ll be addressing this, and more--in greater detail in my series of Voices articles on “Connecting with Your Ideal Client.”

Identifying your ideal clients takes time and patience but it is worth the effort. And, by evolving your ideal client by evaluating your caseload and reflecting on your experiences every couple of years, you can maintain a greater sense of satisfaction and purpose in the very important work you do as a therapist.

Frances Barry, LMFT is in private practice in West Los Angeles where she works with Elementary School Children struggling with Anger and Anxiety. She also supports minors who have lost a parent to cancer. As a statistician-turned-therapist, Frances’s data-driven insights and recommendations, empower therapists to optimize their Psychology Today profile one step (or one statistic) at a time. Website: www.francesbarry.net