Choose Good Clients

When we take on new clients, we like to think that we can help this person with whatever problems or goals they have, but it is difficult to know in advance if we will be able to help that person.

This can be particularly difficult for new practitioners who are trying to get more clients because you may be enthusiastic (and desperate) for new clients, and not have a lot of experience in assessing whether they are the right kind of clients for you.

Even if you are an experienced practitioner, you may get it wrong (as I sometimes do) and take on clients who are not a good fit for you.

What is a ‘good’ client?

From my perspective, a ‘good’ client is someone you can work well with, who has a problem that is a good fit for your previous experience and your current skill set.

Are you the right person for them?

A fundamental requirement for this work is that you can establish a good working relationship characterised by rapport and good will. Therapy or coaching is team work, and both members of the team have to play well together.

If you take a strong dislike, for whatever reason, to the person when you meet, things are probably not going to go well.

If the person is triggering for you in some way, it will make sessions difficult.

For example, if you have had experience of abuse, neglect or trauma that is similar to that of the client which you have not yet processed, their issues could trigger strong, unhelpful reactions in you.

If they strongly remind you of someone who was not good for you in your life, then that could also be triggering, or at least distort the quality of your relationship.

In general, it is better if only one of you is distressed or triggered in a session, and it shouldn’t be the practitioner!

Do you have enough experience?

Some issues are more challenging than others, so it is worth considering how much experience you have had dealing with the issues that your client is bringing.

If you are a new practitioner, without any specialist prior experience, you probably don’t have the skill set to deal with issues such as complex trauma or child abuse.

This is not a criticism of you as a practitioner, the tapping techniques can be very effective when working with these issues, but how you use these tools and manage your sessions can only be learned over time.

Do you have the right skill set?

Some issues need specialist training that you won’t get on a tapping practitioner training.

For example:

Working with children requires knowledge of child development (children are not just small adults), an understanding of the legal frameworks and restrictions around working with children, etc. (These are some of the reasons I don’t work with children or young people.)
Eating disorders, especially anorexia, which can be a life-threatening disorder, requires specialist training.

If you come from a therapeutic background as a counsellor, therapist, psychologist etc., you have an advantage over newly qualified practitioners who are new to this work. You can lean on the skills, training and experience you have already had. If you don’t have that background, you may need to take additional trainings or learn on the job.

In some jurisdictions, there will be people you cannot work with legally if you don’t have the right qualifications and experience. Here in the UK, I can work with people with trauma or complex trauma, however, in the US doing that kind of work without being a licensed mental health professional could get you into trouble.

If you haven’t already, check out what is and isn’t allowed in your jurisdiction.

In summary, a ‘good’ client is someone you feel you get on with, that has the kinds of issues you can work with, with a reasonable probability of success and a low probability of failure.

What you and your client want is for them to get the result they want.

If they do, you and the client will feel good, and they will say good things about you. That kind of word of mouth recommendation will be good for your business.

If they don’t, you will feel bad and so will the client, and they may say bad things about you and what you do. That kind of word of mouth can be quite poisonous.

How to find out if a potential client is a good fit

So how can you know for sure if you and your potential client will be a good fit?

Unfortunately, you can’t!

However, you can do some things that increase your chances of working with clients you are good for and who are good for you.

Here’s what I suggest to give yourself the best chance of success:

1. Have a good intake process

A solid intake process can boost your chances of success and save you from a lot of unnecessary suffering. One of the principal purposes of an intake process is to filter out clients who are a bad fit for you, so you don’t get into difficulties in the first place.

If you haven’t got an intake process yet, you might like to go back to my video that you got when you signed up for my newsletter, which gives you a detailed description of my process. Or you can investigate other intake processes that are available.

2. Make it clear the kinds of issues that you don’t want to work with.

Make a list of the kinds of people and issues you definitely don’t want to work with and publish on your website. No one can work with everyone.

For example, I don’t work with:

children or young people
couples
addictions
weight loss
physical issues

This is because I am not drawn to those issues and I don’t have the relevant skills and experience to deal with them. It’s much better that I don’t start to work with people with these issues because it won’t end well for either of us.

It’s usually much easier for most people to work out who they don’t want to work with rather than who they do. So take advantage of that by working out who you don’t want to work with, then publish it on your website in plain view of potential clients. Make it easy for the wrong kind of clients to leave you alone, and find someone more suitable for their needs.

If you have a clear idea of who your ideal client is, publishing that on your website as well, will help point clients who are a good fit for you towards you.

3. Look for red flags during your intake process

I would strongly recommend offering a free conversation with potential clients before your first session. During this conversation, listen out carefully for potential warning signs of difficulty ahead.

Some red flags include:

they have had early life experiences of neglect or trauma.
they have had serious traumatic experiences
if they tell you that they’ve tried many therapies without result, and you are their last chance, be very, very cautious about accepting them.

In your information form ask them:

if they are, or have been, under the care of a psychiatrist or some other mental health professional.
about their medication, if they are on powerful anti-depressants, anti-anxiety or other psychotropic medication that can be a clue that there is a lot of hidden distress that may need to be dealt with.
to tell you what other approaches they have used to address their issues. If they have tried many approaches, that is a sign that what they are dealing with is difficult to change.

These disclosures may not disqualify you from working with these clients, but it is worth considering how well equipped you are to deal with what they are bringing to you.

Remember, it is much better to find out about this before you start work with clients, than when you are well into sessions.

You can check out my information form here

4. Run your first session as a test drive

If you take a potential client on board, frame your first session as a ’test drive’ to see if you can work well together.

Describing a session in this way makes it easier for both of you to relax into the work because you have permission to bail out at the end of the session if things don’t work out.

5. Learn from your experience.

As someone once said: “good judgement is the result of experience, which is itself the result of bad judgement”.

As you develop your practice and work with more clients, you will get better at tuning into clients who are a good fit vs clients who are a bad fit for you.

Of course this raises a problem, if you shouldn’t work with issues you have had no experience with, how can you get the experience you need to work with more people to get better judgement.

There are two ways of doing this:

Accidentally: many clients will bring up issues that they did not mention during the intake process. These issues often arise spontaneously as a result of the tapping. This will give you many opportunities to develop your skills, whether you feel prepared or not.
Deliberately: you can choose to work on issues that are on the edge of your current abilities, stretching your ability in ways that are not too challenging for you, whilst being supported in regular mentoring sessions.

What do you do with potential clients that are not a good fit?

If your client is not a good fit, the best thing you can do (if you can) is to refer them to someone else who is better suited to work with them.

Important: make sure that your (potential) client understands that the problem is because of your lack of skill or experience in their particular issue, not that there is something wrong with them (they may already feel that way). Offer to help them find someone who is better suited to help them.

Let your potential client know that you will look for someone who might be better suited to help them and that you will get back to them as soon as you can.

If you already know someone who might be a better fit, ask that practitioner if they have capacity and if they have pass on their contact details to your potential client.

If you don’t know such a practitioner, then you could:

contact your mentor / supervisor for their ideas
talk with fellow trainees / tapping colleagues about anyone they could recommend
check out possible potential practitioners on your organisation’s website such as eftinternational.org or intentiontapping.com to look for more experienced practitioners who might be a better fit for that person.

Then get back to your potential client and let them know what you have found.

Be kind to yourself

If you are new to this kind of work be patient, your experience will grow and your ability to sense who is good for you and who you are good for will grow as well.

Don’t expect to get it right every time, I don’t, and treat your mistakes as learning experiences rather than personal failings.