I am nine months-plus into owning and running my private practice. From my first night in grad school through successive various agency work, it was my goal to work for myself as a sole practitioner. I opened my official doors on August 1, 2016 and want to share with you so far what I’ve learned.

There have been successes and set backs, and pretty much everything in between. I’m going to write about all of them here. I want to teach others who are considering hanging their own shingle over a shop certain things to do, and absolutely what not to do based on my own humble (and eye-opening) experience.

There’s a huge misconception in the mental health field about opening up your own business. The misconception is this: that people will care. I mean….don’t flatter yourself. You might be great at what you do. You might be marginally good-looking and charming. But you are 100%, absolutely, completely, unequivocally wrong that anyone will care. Trust me, I was one of those people with the same misperception before I started.

No one, I repeat, no one cares about your business.

Yeah, I said it.

Why does no one care? Because. Because there are other people out there that have the exact same thing, offer the exact same service or the exact same product. They’ve done it longer than you. They know more about it than you. Even if they don’t do it better than you, no one cares about that, either.

But you care. Of course you do, otherwise you wouldn’t have taken the leap of faith and done it.

So how do you make other people care? Here are five things I did to make my private practice turn a reasonable profit in nine short months, and to make people care about (and utilize) my business:

• Find Your Niche – In San Antonio, counselors are everywhere. In my zip code alone, there are 40+ counselors within a 10-mile radius. So why choose me? Because I meet people in their homes. Because I provide “Walk & Talk” sessions, where I meet people at work, parks, trails, etc. Because I have dual licenses in Counseling and Substance Abuse. None of those other 40+ people do what I do. And that’s not an accident on my part.

• Hustle – I am a constant marketer. I tell people what I do all the time and am shameless about self-promotion. In the hours I am not seeing client, I am busy marketing. I launched this website (with help). I had marketing materials and business cards made that I hand out on the regular. I’ll write more in-depth about my marketing practices – and the hustle – in future posts.

• LinkedIn Yoself – LinkedIn has been invaluable for me in reaching out to the local mental health community (and beyond) to let people know I am available. I engage with local businesses and agencies as well as individuals about my practice.

• Meet Up – My goal this year is to have one meeting per week with an agency, individual or company that could utilize my services (and that I can refer clients to if needed). This has proved invaluable during the hours that I don’t see clients. If I have a blank day (and believe me, there are some of those), I reach out and set up a meeting or tour of a facility. I’ve had three of those “meetings” so far this week. I’m aiming for 52 meetings (minimum) in 2017.

• Social Media-ize – Build a social media presence for your counseling practice. It doesn’t take a ton of time or energy, just some effort and advance planning. You can find me on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook as @jenniferseelpc. I am on Linkedin as well (see #3). I have a blog on my website (duh, obviously, you are reading). All of these help build my presence and spread my message, as well as connect with a vast audience and potential future clients.

I care about my business. I care about it a lot. I know you care about your counseling practice, too. So start making others care about it. Good luck to you, and check back here for more Private Practice Chronicles.