Putting the effort in to grow your practice is essential to providing the care pregnant and postpartum clients truly need and deserve. Today, I share three areas I focus on to grow my own clinical practice.

Sharing What You Know

I’m confident that the techniques taught in my courses are highly effective, and I’m eager for practitioners to learn and apply them with their clients. For those who own their own practice, I’m excited for you to have the opportunity to serve as many clients as you desire. It’s not just about knowing good stuff, it’s about having the people to share it with. The joy comes from making effective changes in your clients’ lives. Let’s explore how you can reach more clients and bring them into your clinic, armed with the unique knowledge from my courses.

Connecting With Referral Sources

If you specialize in pregnancy and postpartum care, you’re in a promising position to be able to grow your practice. You have a wealth of referral sources that you can develop a relationship with, so they can direct clients to you. Your task is to ensure they are aware of your unique approach, especially if you’ve taken my courses. You possess valuable knowledge that can lead to great results with your clients. Let’s get the word out so you can serve more moms and be the leader in your area for pregnant and postpartum support.

Doulas

Let’s discuss all the different providers who could be your referral source and help you grow your practice. Let’s start with doulas! They are the army on the front line that often know what their clients really need for support and care and can often be a great source for referrals. Educate the doulas in your area and inform them about helping their pregnant clients have smoother, and potentially, easier births.

They need to know what you can do. Let them know your skills such as your ability to release any restrictions inhibiting the baby’s position in the pregnant client’s belly, so the baby can enter the pelvic space more evenly. Also, let them know how you can help them prepare their clients to push effectively, and that you practice what pushing feels like in different positions, so the doula and their client will have more tools when birthing. Doulas have been my strongest referral source to date.

Midwives

Midwives are my second strongest referral source to grown my practice at the Center for Birth Healing. Again, with great education, midwives can understand how we can best support their clients’ births and, ideally, make their jobs easier. They don’t want to spend days at birth, so we are positioned to help support a smoother, and hopefully, shorter birth.

Lactation Consultants, Sleep Experts, and More

Don’t forget lactation consultants, sleep experts and pre and postnatal yoga instructors; all of these professionals work with our ideal client and need to know about your work. Through education and connection, you can get the word out about what you do and bring vital support to pregnant and postpartum clients who need your services.

Educating Moms

To grow your practice, you need as many referral options as possible. Birthing professionals are a great start, and I also recommend educating and teaching moms directly. By letting moms know how you can best support their labor and healing afterwards, you are not only letting them know that you are there as an additional resource, but you are also giving them an opportunity to better prepare for pregnancy and postpartum. We only know what we know, and I find that giving moms more information about their bodies and what happens in pregnancy and birth, helps them feel more empowered during the process.

Giving free talks in your local area is a great way to connect with moms and expand the mission to create better birth outcomes. Go directly to groups where moms meet and/or set up talks and promote them so moms come to you. The second one is a bit harder and requires more work if you don’t already have a list of moms to reach out to, but so does reaching out to the moms groups and getting invited to talk. The benefits of these efforts, though, can often result in great word-of-mouth and connection with other moms and other groups.

Creating Your Offer

Once I’m in front of a group of moms, I like to give them really good information that helps them to know I can help them with their problems. I also like to make an offer to my groups to get moms to decide right on the spot to say yes to themselves and commit to coming to see us. I have found this to be the best way to get them in. If you give them time to go home and “think about it” rarely do they convert to being a client later on.

By no means am I saying you need to do a hard sale, but I get feedback from a lot of clients that it was really hard for them to not feel guilty about spending money, time, etc. on their own care when they have a new baby to focus on. There is a stigma around maternal care that we need to eradicate in this country as healthy moms often mean healthy babies and healthy family systems. When moms say yes to themselves early on, this can create better long term health and reduce impacts from issues experienced during pregnancy and birth – whether these are physical or emotional. I feel like if I get a client to say yes right away, then I am potentially helping them avoid issues like prolapse, pain with intercourse, incontinence, and depression. When they say yes, they get to feeling good in their bodies, again, faster which is a win-win for baby and mom; hence, my offer and ask after a talk.

Whatever you do to grow your practice and see more clients requires effort on your part. It is, likely, not the reason you became a pelvic health practitioner, but you can’t just open up a clinic and wish for clients to walk in your door. Being a part of the birthing community and letting others know about you and better yet, come see you so they experience your work first hand, is the best way to get referrals to your practice. Just know that education and sales is a critical part of helping get clients the prenatal and postpartum care they need.

About the Author: Lynn Schulte is a Pelvic Health Therapist and the founder of the Institute for Birth Healing, a pelvic health continuing education organization that specializes in prenatal and postpartum care. For more information, go to https://instituteforbirthhealing.com