Chutzpah Marketing For Mental Health Professionals

Chapter 13. Building Professional credibility

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When it comes to marketing your practice, or nonprofit agency, you must be seen as an expert. If you survive in your profession long enough, you will get grand-fathered or grand-mothered in as an expert. But, you may wish to speed the honorary rank of expert along

Philip Copitch, Ph.D.

508 pages. 8.5 x 11 inches.

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Chapter 13. Building professional credibility

         Waiting Room Resume	386
              There is no need to mislead	387
              Differentiate yourself	388
              Developing a Waiting Room Resume.	390
              Basic Resume Form	390
              From basic resume to Waiting Room Resume 	395
              Examples of Waiting Room Resumes 	398
              Want my opinion?	403
         What to do with your Waiting Room Resume 	403
              Gravitas	404
         Authorship	405
              You do not need to be a writer to write.	406
              White paper, booklet or book	407
              The white paper and booklet writing process	410
              From the title, build a simple outline	412
              From the simple outline—add topic points	414
              From Plump outline to paragraphs	415
              Your writing style	418
              Using white space and graphics	418
              White paper or booklet, which is better?	427
              Sell or give away your white paper of booklet?	428
              Dr. Phil, I want to write a book	429
              Getting the word out	430
              Putting your booklet to work for you	431
              Copyright	432
              Want my opinion?	433

Chapter 13. Building Professional credibility

I once had a conversation with an orthodontist. He was complaining about the hassles of owning a $180,000 Ferrari.

“I worry about it constantly,” Dr. Ferrari said. “I worry about it being scratched, dented or stolen.”

“So why do you have it?” I asked.

“I have to,” he snapped back. “My patients expect me to have it. It is how they know I am the best orthodontist in town.”

For Dr. Ferrari, his showy automobile was his way of “teaching” professional credibility. On first contact, Dr. Ferrari may seem somewhat egotistical, but he has a lot of anecdotal evidence backing his belief system.

Let’s say you are going to look at a house. The realtor offers to pick you up and show you some houses she thinks you will be interested in. She arrives on time in a 1972, lime green, Ford Pinto. The back window has been replaced with a plastic bag.

When you spy her, wouldn’t you question her realtor skills? Be honest, we judge people by the way they speak, look and act. Psychology, by definition, is the study of human behavior. We are all psychologists as we attempt to judge the individuals in our world.

When it comes to judging your professional skills your clients have very little to go on. They can check your license, ask around about your character, and look at you and your stuff. How do you dress? Where is your office? What kind of watch do you have on your wrist?

The reality is that the public has very little real information about your skill level. So, what makes one an expert?

According to the American Heritage Dictionary an expert is:

A person with a high degree of skill in or knowledge of a certain subject.

But who gets to define what is enough skill or knowledge? If you have been in practice for five years, are you an expert in your field? In twenty-five years, are you a better expert?

I personally like Mark Twain’s definition of an expert, which I will paraphrase, “An expert is an ordinary fellow from another town.” Will Rogers called an expert, “A man fifty miles from home with a briefcase.”

I understand Twain’s and Rogers’ meaning because I have two teenage sons. According to them, I am no expert when it comes to parenting, teenagers, or homework expectations.

However, a mere sixteen miles from home, in my office, I am an expert. I know this because in my office patients treat me as if I am an expert. I regularly deal with parenting, teenage, and homework issues in my clinical work.

I have also been introduced on television and radio programs as “an expert.” Thus, I must be an expert.

When it comes to the real world, you are an expert if someone says you are an expert and you agree.

Waiting Room Resume

Resumes and curriculum vitae are usually short overviews of one’s professional life, often used in employment or as proof of expert status. The term curriculum vita (CV) is most often used in medical and higher academia employment. It is expected in academia that the curriculum vita list all courses taught, and research conducted; and thusly, it can be quite long. I use the word resume in this text to indicate both resume and curriculum vita.

I was once buttered up over lunch by a friend, who happened to be a Social Security attorney, to look over a Social Security case that troubled him. Pete was concerned that there was a mental health component that was not being addressed. As we walked back to his office, he became agitated with one particular medical doctor who he thought did shoddy work. As we entered his office, I suggested I start with that doctor’s report, which he then produced and plopped on the desk in front of me.
“Pete, this report must be fifty pages,” I said as I picked it up. “It’s 48 pages!” I announced as I looked at the last page.

“Read it over and tell me what you think.” Pete offered.

A few minutes later I got to the end of the report—page 3. Pages 4 though page 48 were the doctor’s resume.

The first page was the usual stuff, where he went to school and where he worked. On page 6 the heading read: Interests Relevant to Expertise. Page 6 to page 48 were lines of very small type. They read like:

Reviewed book, Tactile Dysfunction of the Elderly. 04/16/02
Consult, 18 year old male, fracture of L3. 04/17/02
Conference attendee: Atypical Neurology. 04/18-04/20/09

Pages and pages of stuff this doctor had done. Nothing that made him stand out as a medical marvel, but lots of basic stuff.

“Pete, I don’t get it, this report is boiler plate, and what’s with the huge resume?” I asked.

“That’s my problem,” he said. “A lot of these types of cases get decided by the weight of the conflicting evidence. This report is bloated—but judges tend to see him as the best of the experts because he has done so much. His report is really only three hundred words concerning my client.”

The reason I tell you this story is to help you realize it is very hard to define what an expert is. You often get to define yourself as an expert, if you have experience and education.

There is no need to mislead

All the ethical considerations discussed in Chapter 2: Advertising Ethics For Mental Health Professionals, are very important when you are developing your Waiting Room Resume. If you are not happy with the facts of your training and clinical skills, get more training and experience.

Kathy Gurchiek, associate editor, writes in HR News,

Nearly half of more than 3,100 hiring managers report they’ve caught a job candidate lying on his or her resume, according to a CareerBuilder.com survey.
From claims of membership in an international high-IQ society to being part of the Kennedy family, some of the fabrications are memorable for the applicants’ pure displays of chutzpah.

But getting caught lying on one’s resume doesn’t bode well for candidates—57 percent of hiring managers said they automatically dismissed an applicant who did so. A little more than one-third (36 percent) still considered the candidate but did not hire the person, and 6 percent hired the person regardless of the resume lie.

Those are among the findings of a nationwide online survey conducted in May and June 2008 with 3,169 hiring managers and HR professionals and 8,785 full-time U.S. workers.

Embellishing responsibilities was the most common lie discovered, but others included lies about the person’s skill set, dates of employment, academic degree, previous employers and job title.

If you perceive gaps in your skill set, get those gaps filled. As a professional you must hold yourself to a higher standard.

Differentiate yourself

I am starting from the assumption that every licensed therapist has a degree, experience, and a desire to do a good job. The problem is that the consumer of your services does not know much about what that means to them. Your potential client is looking for someone to solve a problem for them. But often, they are not even clear what that problem is.

I have had the following conversations with potential clients on the phone. Each conversation was concerning my qualifications as a therapist, but not if I was a qualified therapist.

Phone call #1:

Dr Phil: Dr. Copitch, may I help you?
Caller: Are you a Christian counselor?
Dr Phil: I’m a marriage and family therapist, may I help you?
Click!

Phone call #2:

Dr Phil: Dr. Copitch, may I help you?
Caller: Can I get an appointment today at 2 O’clock?
Dr Phil: I do not have any openings today, what is the problem you are having?
Click!

Phone call #3:

Dr Phil: Dr. Copitch, may I help you?
Caller: Are you gay?
Dr Phil: No, but I do work with many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered individuals and families.
Click!

These types of questions, while very important to the callers, may not be answered with the typical resume. To be an expert you need to differentiate, distinguish, and separate yourself from the other professionals in your area.

Many therapists are uncomfortable with the idea of specialization, but it is imperative that you stand out in some way from the others in your field to get noticed.

A Waiting Room Resume will help you stand out and give a tangible way for others to refer to you as an expert. Not only can you put the data of your education and experiences on a Waiting Room Resume, but you can put your personality, your individuality, your professional uniqueness in your Waiting Room Resume.