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Hi All,
I was wondering what any of your thoughts were on the nature of marketing in our field. Based on a small sample of professors and past supervisors I’ve worked with, they have generally been of the consensus that psychologists don’t do an adequate job of marketing their services. I believe I’ve seen this sentiment expressed a few times in related threads on here as well. However, I’ve also seen (albeit on a surface level) an attitude from some professionals in the field (again small n) against marketing, and they often seem to make the assumptive leap that marketing one’s services equates to us being no different than, for lack of a better term, a used car salesperson (Nothing against people that sell used cars). It also seems that psychologists (at least one’s that are trained competently) are consistently afraid of stepping outside their area of competence, and that by marketing one’s services, there is a greater potential or capacity for this to take place. Is this possibly why we don’t see commercials for clinical psychologists, neuropsychologists, forensic psychologists, etc…? I know there has been some concern raised about how clinicians (often from professional schools) will have websites glorifying their services. Is that where some of this fear comes from? Ethics boards complaints? (I am by no means justifying these shoddy practices)
I was thinking the other day about how many commercials I see for dentist, orthodontists, physical therapists, etc, and that I would probably be shocked to see one for a clinical psychologist. I also had a hard time deciding what my reaction would be to it (i.e., would I immediately denigrate the professional offering their services as being a hack just “trying to sell something (where does that come from?)” or if I would take it seriously). Anyways, a bit of an open ended question and food for thought. Not surprisingly, the most successful supervisors (at least financially) that I’ve had, have all been able to market and sell their services to a particular client-base. Thoughts?
I was wondering what any of your thoughts were on the nature of marketing in our field. Based on a small sample of professors and past supervisors I’ve worked with, they have generally been of the consensus that psychologists don’t do an adequate job of marketing their services. I believe I’ve seen this sentiment expressed a few times in related threads on here as well. However, I’ve also seen (albeit on a surface level) an attitude from some professionals in the field (again small n) against marketing, and they often seem to make the assumptive leap that marketing one’s services equates to us being no different than, for lack of a better term, a used car salesperson (Nothing against people that sell used cars). It also seems that psychologists (at least one’s that are trained competently) are consistently afraid of stepping outside their area of competence, and that by marketing one’s services, there is a greater potential or capacity for this to take place. Is this possibly why we don’t see commercials for clinical psychologists, neuropsychologists, forensic psychologists, etc…? I know there has been some concern raised about how clinicians (often from professional schools) will have websites glorifying their services. Is that where some of this fear comes from? Ethics boards complaints? (I am by no means justifying these shoddy practices)
I was thinking the other day about how many commercials I see for dentist, orthodontists, physical therapists, etc, and that I would probably be shocked to see one for a clinical psychologist. I also had a hard time deciding what my reaction would be to it (i.e., would I immediately denigrate the professional offering their services as being a hack just “trying to sell something (where does that come from?)” or if I would take it seriously). Anyways, a bit of an open ended question and food for thought. Not surprisingly, the most successful supervisors (at least financially) that I’ve had, have all been able to market and sell their services to a particular client-base. Thoughts?