This Summer Audit Will Change Your Fall [Summer Slump #1] (Episode 009)
Welcome to the first episode of the Slaying the Summer Slump series—a special June edition of Marketing Therapy designed to help you turn this slower season into serious momentum. Summer in private practice can feel like a mixed bag: lighter schedules, quieter inboxes, and that nagging sense of “shouldn’t I be doing something?”
This episode invites you to shift out of panic mode and into intentional action with a simple but powerful audit. You’ll explore the three key areas of your marketing—visibility, consistency, and conversion—to find your biggest opportunity this season. Whether you’re resting on purpose or finally tackling that specialty page, this is your permission slip to start where you are and make your marketing work for you.
Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:
1️⃣ How to tell if your practice is actually visible to the right people—and simple steps to increase visibility fast
2️⃣ Why consistency isn’t about doing everything but about doing something—and how to choose the right marketing habit
3️⃣ The quiet ways conversion might be leaking from your website or consult calls (and how to fix them)
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Hey there. Welcome back to Marketing Therapy, episode nine. Today's episode is exciting because it is the first in a series we are doing the whole month of June called Slaying the Summer Slump. Say that five times Fast. We hosted the slaying the summer slump a few years ago. I believe it was 2023. And it was a hit it was just a series of free trainings really focusing on how to make.
The most of this season, and so we're excited to be bringing it back here on the podcast, but refreshed made current for the market. Things are different than they were in 2023. And this is what I hope to be a really useful resource in the summer of 2025. And in future times when maybe you're experiencing a lull in your practice.
'Cause the truth is summer can feel real weird in private practice. We know that. Your clients are pausing. Others might be traveling, they might be graduating and moving on from therapy. And as a result, your caseload might feel a little or a lot lighter right now. But so often instead of enjoying the break, you're feeling that real low grade anxiety, that constant buzz of, shouldn't I be doing something right now?
So this series is here to really answer that question with a clear and resounding yes you should, but not from a place of pressure or a place of panic, but really from a place of intention. I. Because when you know how to use this time strategically, this classic summer slump, without burning out or spinning your wheels, summer actually becomes one of the most powerful seasons in your business.
So over the next few episodes, we're gonna be diving into what that can look like in practice. We're gonna talk about how to reconnect with what you really want from your practice, how to build referral relationships. Even if networking makes your skin crawl, you're not alone in that. And also why your personal brand is more important than ever when it comes to attracting private pay and premium fee clients.
But today's episode is about one thing, starting where you are right now, looking honestly at what's working, what's not, and where your biggest opportunity is to make progress. One cool thing about this slaying the summer Slump series is at the end of every episode, I'm gonna give you a short and actionable challenge.
Nothing overwhelming. We're not talking hours and hours of work, but something small that you can actually do this week to start building that momentum in your marketing. So definitely stick around for that. Okay, let's dive in. Why is summer the best time to invest in your marketing, and how can you start making the most of it?
Now, we know right now your schedule is lighter. Your inbox is quieter, and you're torn between enjoying the break and signing off, and, going to the pool with your kids or freaking out about it. You are constantly feeling that push and pull. So if you've ever found yourself refreshing your email, watching the calendar.
Wondering when the next slot is gonna be filled. And as a result, wondering if something is wrong with your marketing or your niche or your fees. You are so not alone in that. But remember that a slower season doesn't mean something's broken. We've talked about this before. I will link to the recent podcast episode we did on your Marketing needing to evolve.
But a slower season doesn't mean something's broken. It means you have a window. It means you have margin. That you normally wouldn't. This is a window to breathe. It's margin to regroup, to maybe clean up the pieces of your business that you've been meaning to get to, but haven't had the time, or quite frankly, the energy to tackle until now.
Because here's the thing that I've seen, and this is now my sixth summer supporting clinicians. In the summer slump. The therapists who feel behind in the fall are usually the ones who spent the summer stuck in indecision, spinning, tinkering, tweaking. If you listen to our recent fear-based marketing, maybe doing the whole tweaking Taylor thing, waiting for clarity to strike.
But the ones who feel that confidence and clarity when the new school year hits and when we expect to see kind of that, that September surge, they are the ones who use this time with intention. That doesn't mean hustling nonstop for the next three months. It means absolutely building in time for rest.
So sometimes making use of this series is resting on purpose, and sometimes it's finally sitting down to write that specialty page that's been staring you down for the last six months. So summer doesn't have to be a slump in every regard. It can actually be a real turning point in your practice.
A few years ago, I worked with a clinician. Her name is Sarah, and she'd been in private practice for about a year. Her was slowly building her caseload, doing really good work, kind of getting a feel for who her ideal client really was and gaining that confidence, both as a clinician and as a business owner.
But marketing still really felt like a mystery to her. She wasn't really sure how her current clients were finding her, where her next one was gonna come from, and then summer hit. Her first summer in private practice, she had several clients pause. Multiple cancellations each week. A couple graduated and her weeks looked a lot emptier.
And Sarah would've had really good reason to panic or to spiral or to believe that she was failing. But what was really cool is Sarah made a decision that summer. She decided, if I'm gonna have fewer client hours this summer, then I'm going to fill those hours with something that matters.
She updated her Psych Today profile. She rewrote some parts of her website that became more clear after having worked with her ideal clients for the last eight to 10 months. She reached out and reconnected to a few colleagues that she'd been meaning to connect with. Finally scheduled some of those Zoom networking chats because they were also slower.
She even carved out a few hours one week to write content for the fall. She had decided she wanted to start a blog, and so she spent some of her summer months writing blog posts and kind of getting a backlog ready so that when things got busier, they would be ready to go.
Now, here's the thing. By August, I wish I could tell you, and then Sarah entered the fall and her entire caseload was full. That's not true. She wasn't completely full. But you know what, she was, she was proud. She wasn't wondering where her time had gone because she had used it. And then as September and October came, she had momentum and that momentum paid off.
She had inquiries. She saw referrals coming in. And she had a lot more confidence coming out of that summer from taking action, even if it was imperfect or scrappy. So that's really what I want for you. Not a perfect summer and probably not a completely full calendar. That's okay. That's allowed to happen.
It doesn't mean something's wrong, but a season where you can look back and know you didn't waste it. That is what I want for you.
There's a misconception though that summer is a bad time to work on your business, that it's too quiet, that no one does want therapy, that no one's looking. But I actually think that that makes summer the best time to invest in your marketing because you're not in survival mode. You're not stretched thin with back to back sessions and a million client needs, right?
You've got that breathing room and it's in that space that I think really good decisions happen. It gives you the room to make those strategic changes, to take care of the things you've been putting off. And remember, clients are still looking. I mean, I met in a confident copy call today and we heard from multiple students who had gotten full fee clients from psych today.
I think networking a primary care physician a couple different ways just this summer. So it's not that they're not looking. And what's interesting is that those who are looking are pretty motivated and pretty ready and looking to make the most of this season for themselves as well. So that really means that your marketing needs to be strong enough to meet that moment.
So, like I said, this. The first episode of our Slaying the Summer Slump series is about helping you start where you are, because we cannot get to where you want to go if we don't understand first where we're beginning. Because one of the biggest reasons therapists don't take action in these slower seasons isn't because they're lazy.
It's because they're uncertain, right? It's that feeling of shouldn't I be doing something you get off a session and you don't have another session for an hour. And then you look back, what happened to that hour? I should have been doing something. It's that feeling. So that's where this exercise, today's audit comes in.
This is a really quick but powerful way to get out of the spin that you find yourself in the uncertainty, the indecision, the paralysis, and into action. I wanna help you identify where your biggest opportunity is for this summer and the actions that will actually make a difference. In those areas. So today we're gonna walk through three key areas of your marketing, visibility, consistency, and conversion.
And I really want you to engage with this. Like maybe that means you pause this episode to be able to think on the prompts that I give you. Maybe you pull out a notebook. This episode was meant to actually be put into action. Okay? So write things down, be honest with yourself.
Really engage. This is what's gonna help you find that next move for your summer. So let's start with the idea of visibility. And the question here is, are the right people even finding you? I sat down with a therapist earlier this week who was wondering if we needed to invest in his website.
We'd met for a discussion to talk about whether or not our done for you services were right for him. And I take these calls really seriously because not every single person needs to invest in done for you copy or done for you design. And so I use those calls not just to quote unquote sell, but actually to understand the state of the practice to determine if I actually think this is the right next step.
So I was talking to this clinician who had poured a lot of effort into his website and had poured a lot of effort into networking and SEO and things like that. And we were able to determine, based on his metrics and what he was seeing in his practice, that he was doing a great job. When it came to visibility, people were finding him.
And so that led us to think, you know what, maybe we should invest in improving the website because enough people know about him. This isn't true for many of the therapists that I work with. Many of the therapists that I work with launch a website, put out a site today profile, maybe make a couple of networking calls, and then wonder where the clients are.
And when we look at the numbers and we look at what they're doing, it turns out no one really knows they even exist. That is what visibility is about. It's the part so many therapists skip because it feels like it's out of their control. Well, how am I supposed to help people know about me?
Fortunately, visibility is actually one of the more fixable problems in marketing. So here's some questions I want you to ask yourself when it comes to visibility. One, do people know I exist? Just first and foremost, do people know that my practice is out there? Two, am I visible in the places my ideal clients are actually looking?
We've talked before about the fact that if your ideal clients aren't likely to be blog readers or scrolling Instagram, then maybe you don't have to be those things either. Do you have a clear and compelling niche that's actually standing out? We know that the noise around finding a therapist, the options available to your clients are greater than ever.
So are you standing out so that people know you exist? Are you active on directories like Psychology Today and other places, kind of low hanging fruit for clients to learn about you? And have you been visible to colleagues who might refer to you? When we look at the data, and this is, we're actually gonna have an entire episode just on networking.
Networking reign Supreme, word of mouth is absolutely bar none irreplaceable in your marketing. So have you been visible to colleagues, real people who can be referring to you? So many therapists say that they rely on referrals, but referrals only happen if people know what you do, who they should refer to you, why you're the right fit, and trust that you're really good at it.
So even networking is not just this passive activity. You need to make sure that the right people know, not just to refer to you, but who to refer to you how to refer to you. If you haven't connected with a new potential referral source in the past 30 to 60 days, it's probably sign to do that. This is an opportunity.
Visibility isn't just networking though. It's all of the ways that people learn about you. So, SEO is another great one. Does your website show up when someone searches for a therapist in your area? Is it clear when I get to that website what you help with, what you specialize in?
So this idea of visibility are the right people even finding you? Like I said, this is a gap so many therapists have and they don't realize it. They think that because they pressed launch, got their PLC, that the clients automatically come in. But if they don't know that you're out there, then how can they decide you are the right fit for them? So if this is your weak spot, here's a couple actions. Audit your psych Today Profile. Psych today still works. I will die on that hill. Is it going to fill your practice the way that it would've six years ago?
No. Can you absolutely still get right RightFit clients through that directory for very little effort? Yes. But don't just polish the language here. I also want you to audit your Psychology Today profile for your headshot, your video script, the images that you use, your intro to new client statement, the specialties that you've chosen, the zip codes may be that you're targeting.
All of these things influence psychology today and your ability to be visible. Our psychology, today's Success Pack is an amazing resource. It's $27 less than the cost of one month of psych today. So grab that if you need it. But jump in there and look at your profile as a whole, not just the words, but every part that makes up that experience.
The next thing I want you to consider is getting visible to referral sources. Like I mentioned, if you haven't connected with someone new in the last 30 to 60 days, that's an opportunity. So consider making a list of five local or niche adjacent clinicians, so people that could refer to you. If you see moms connect with child therapists, if you see men connect with couples therapists, and reach out to them, whether that's with a quick intro email, an invite to connect on a Zoom call, an invite to a local coffee shop. Just some comments back and forth on a Facebook thread, something, get visible to a few new referral sources. Next up, consider Googling yourself if you haven't recently.
Are you showing up? When people are looking for therapists in your city, SEO is a very large discipline and it's not something that you're necessarily going to transform overnight, but you can absolutely be taking some action this summer to improve your search rankings and your likelihood of showing up in front of people looking for your services on Google at the very moment that they need you.
One other thing I want you to consider, if you see clients in person, listen up. If you haven't yet claimed or updated your free Google Business profile, you need to do that right now today. Head over there. It's going to improve not just your local visibility in general, but your ability to rank organically on Google.
Add photos services, a great description. Contact info, be as thorough there as you possibly can. If you are an in-person practice and you don't have a Google business profile, you are leaving visibility on the table. So those are some things I want you to consider if visibility is your weak spot. Next up, consistency.
That's part two of this audit. Are you showing up regularly enough to stay top of mind? It is one thing to reach out to a referral resource once it is another, to stay in contact and to cultivate relationship with those people. This one might sting a little bit, but be honest. Have you been ghosting your own marketing?
I know it can be hard when you are juggling back-to-back sessions and just life business ownership, but marketing is like a relationship. It's like a garden. It needs tending, it needs reconnection, and most therapists for lots of different reasons, are often wildly inconsistent with it. A few things to ask yourself on this.
One, do you have any regular marketing habit? Is there anything you're doing on a regular basis? If not, maybe even adding one thing there could really start to move the needle. Two, are you staying in contact with networking sources or are you just expecting that if you talk to them once, that's sufficient.
Remember, this is a relationship. If you post or share content, whether that's on social media or blogging or podcasting, whatever that might be, sending emails, are you doing that regularly or sporadically?
And then another thing here, just practically, are you blocking time to work on your practice? Or are you just hoping you'll magically find that time? It'll just arrive. You have to be intentional there because if you don't make space for your marketing, it will always fall to the bottom of your to-do list.
I've made the joke to Confident Coffee students before that. I would rather clean my base boards than do certain parts of my marketing. It's okay if you feel the same way. But it's not okay. If you want to get results and continue cleaning your base boards, okay? You have got to make space and be intentional about this or else you'll just sit there with very clean baseboards wondering where all of your referrals are, right?
If this is your weak spot, I want you to choose one day in time per week to focus on marketing, okay? I want you to actually put it into your calendar the way you would a client session. And you don't move it. This is time dedicated to your marketing and to growing your practice. It's a non-negotiable. 30 minutes is enough.
An hour would be great. Whatever you can muster, put it in there and be intentional. Then pick one marketing action to repeat weekly, especially if you don't right now have any regular marketing habits. We don't need to, bite off more than we can chew. Start with one. Pick one marketing action that you're going to repeat weekly.
Maybe that's reaching out to someone, maybe that's posting something, sending an email, updating a page of your website, anything that builds traction.
And then finally, I love to use the metaphor that success leaves clues. If your clients are often finding you in one particular way, whether that's from one particular referral source or via one particular blog post or wanting one particular thing, lean into that. Let that direct where some more of your consistent efforts come from.
Success leaves clues, so go study where success has left those clues in your practice. The point here isn't to do everything every week, right? Like I said, we're not biting off more than we can chew. But it is meant, especially in these summer months, to build a rhythm into the way that you show up to your practice and to your marketing to help you stay present, to keep showing up to treat marketing, like the relationship that it is, like the garden that needs tending.
So that's the second part. Consistency. And then finally the third part, conversion. When people find you. Are they actually saying yes? When people find you, are they actually saying yes? Let's say someone does land on your website. They do click into your Psych Today profile. A colleague does pass along your name.
Then what do they arrive there and feel seen? Do they arrive there and have this sense that this therapist really gets me? This might be a good fit. Do they have a sense that they know how to and want to get in touch with you? Because if not, that's where the leak happens and all the effort you poured into the first two parts of this audit, visibility and consistency flows right on out.
I've referenced before the metaphor of pouring water into a leaky bucket. If you can't convert the people that are learning about you, then marketing is going to be a very, very frustrating relationship. Here's what I want you to ask yourself here. Does your website speak to your ideal client's real world experience?
Is it meeting them at their point of need? Is your niche obvious and emotionally resonant with your right fit clients, not just clinically accurate?
We talked about this back in episode two, the disconnect that's costing you clients. Is your niche obvious and emotionally resident, not just clinically accurate? Is your contact process ridiculously simple? And is there anything you could do to make it even simpler? Do you feel confident when you get on a consult call?
Because that's the final step of conversion. It's one thing for them to reach out to you. It's another for them to become a paying client. So are you showing up to those with confidence?
You would be surprised how many clients drop off simply because they're confused. They don't quite know what to do, they don't quite connect with you, or they just had a better consult experience or website experience with someone else. That's where. We have opportunity for improving conversion. So here's a couple actions to take.
If you feel like conversion is your weak spot, I want you to ask two to three non therapist friends to review your website. So send it out to folks who are not therapists, people that you trust will give you honest feedback. Can they immediately tell who you help and how to reach you? Then walk through your own site.
Is the contact process clear? Is the form simple and easy to fill out? Are you actually making people want to reach out or are you putting up unintentional barriers that prevent them from doing so?
Next, consider practicing consult calls with a colleague, especially when it comes to how you talk about your work, how you respond when someone says, I'll think about it. It when you state your fees, practice those things. Don't just expect them to roll off the tongue if you've never done it before.
And finally, revisit your copy. Revisit the words that you're using. Are you using real life examples, emotionally clear language, or is it just caught in that clinical jargon that's a total turnoff to your RightFit clients?
This is often the part that feels the most uncomfortable for therapists. So if I've suggested these next steps to you and you feel a little icky you're not alone in that. But this can also be a really, really powerful place to grow and improve your marketing.
Because it's here that we start to create those. I read your website and I know you're the therapist for me. I heard about you and I can tell that you're exactly who I've been looking for. Your directory jumped off the page at me. It's where we start creating those experiences. So there you have it.
Visibility, consistency, conversion. I threw a lot at you here in this episode, and I'm going to include in the show notes a link to just an easy Google doc that includes. Each of these questions and action steps to consider for each of these areas. This is what I want you to do first as we look ahead to the summer, as we consider the fact that your calendar might be a little bit quieter and there might be a little bit more margin.
I want you to know what to do with that time because you completed this audit and because you identified which opportunities exist for you, and then started plotting what your next steps can be. Maybe one has already jumped out at you and you know where you need to focus. Maybe it hasn't yet, and you need to work through these questions, but this is a moment to actually start taking action and to plot your next steps through this summer so that you're not spinning in that indecision and you're not looking back at the hour between sessions and wondering where it went.
You can be so much more intentional, so much more effective with this time, and ultimately leave this summer so much more proud and with so much more momentum in your marketing. Remember, clarity doesn't come from thinking harder about things. It comes from doing.
So before we move into the final challenge for this episode, here's what I want you to do. Go back through the three categories, visibility, consistency, conversion, and ask yourself honestly, which of these feels the weakest right now? Where might you be leaking the most potential? And what might have been sitting on your mental to-do list for way too long?
Remember, you're not writing a whole business plan here. You're just spotting the gap, the most immediate opportunity. So once you know which of these categories is your focus, you'll be able to take the next step. If visibility is the gap, then your next step might be reaching out to referral sources or starting to get creative about getting traffic to your website so people know that you exist.
If consistency is where you're falling short, then your next move might be blocking time and sticking to that small, repeatable action each week. If it's conversion, that's really your weakness right now, then your move is likely updating copy, simplifying your contact process, practicing consults.
Remember, you don't need to tackle all three right now. Just commit right now to one.
Because when you know what to focus on, you can stop spinning and start actually getting some real traction here. So that's where we land today, this first episode of our Slaying the Summer Slump series. You do not need to fix everything this summer. You do not need a flawless plan or a 10 point strategy, but you do need to start where you are.
You do need to identify what needs to happen so you can stop spinning. Before we wrap up, here's your weekly challenge. Something small that you can do right now to really start shifting your energy and your momentum forward. Complete the audit, so take 10 to 15 minutes. Use the Google Doc linked in the show notes to reflect really honestly on these three areas, visibility, consistency, conversion, and identify the one that needs the most attention.
Then block time on your calendar. Even if consistency wasn't your weak point, I want you for the next month at least, to choose a day and time to work on your marketing. Treat it like a client session, protect it, show up for it, take it seriously, because that small pocket of time can genuinely be the moment that you start changing things.
Next week we're gonna zoom in even further. We're gonna talk about how to reconnect with your authentic clinician and how to get really clear on what you actually want your practice to look like so that your marketing can reflect it. But for now, I want you to take a breath. Be proud that you're showing up, that you're here, that you're thinking, that you're noticing, and then let this be the month, the season when things finally start to click and you start taking action.
You've got this, and I'll see you next week.
Resources & Links Mentioned:
PsychToday Success Pack: walkerstrategyco.com/ptsp
Done-for-you services: walkerstrategyco.com/services
Confident Copy: walkerstrategyco.com/cc
The Walker Strategy Co website: walkerstrategyco.com
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About Marketing Therapy
Marketing Therapy is the podcast where therapists learn how to market their private practices without burnout, self-doubt, or sleazy tactics. Hosted by Anna Walker—marketing coach, strategist, and founder of Walker Strategy Co—each episode brings you clear, grounded advice to help you attract the right-fit, full-fee clients and grow a practice you feel proud of.
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