How Do You Build Trust in Your Private Practice?

The number one job in marketing is to BUILD TRUST in your private practice.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a medical clinic, therapist, law firm, financial advisor, or sell hotdogs out of a food truck.

I can’t stress this enough. Trust is the basis for which your entire business is built. Without it, you simply cannot survive. 

You Are Facing a Crisis of Trust

Think about it…we’re experiencing a crisis of trust in the United States right now, and maybe worldwide. 

According to a 2024 Gallup poll, public trust in nearly all measured professions has declined in recent years.

While nursing remains the most highly trusted profession, it, too, has declined by 11 points since 2020.

People increasingly start from a position of skepticism when viewing almost everything, including your business.

This is bad for business. If people don’t trust you, they won’t hire you. 

You no longer have to just keep from damaging trust. You have to actively EARN trust.

Our number one job when working with your practice is to find ways to build trust between you and your ideal clients. 

Let’s take a look at a few of the many ways we can help you build trust and grow your business.

Testimonials Help You Build Trust

This one is obvious. No one believes what you have to say about your business. You can yell about how amazing you are until you are blue in the face, but no one will believe you.

However, when your current and past clients or patients talk about how amazing (and trustworthy) you are, people listen.

This is why having recent and relevant customer testimonials on your website, social media, and Google Business page is essential.

When people read the positive words of other people who seem similar to them, they’re more likely to trust that you can do what you say you can do.

Never miss an opportunity to get a new testimonial from a client. 

As soon as you deliver something of value to your client, ask for a testimonial. Send them a link via text or with a QR code in your office that makes it easy for them to leave a testimonial on Google (primary) or via text (secondary).

I know this feels icky at times, but having a lot of great reviews is very important.

I advise you make Google reviews the primary goal because the more reviews you stack up on Google, the more likely you will show up in the Map 3-pack for local searches, and the more likely people are to click that call or website button.

Next, cream the crop of those reviews and use them for social media content, add them to your website, put them on brochures and flyers, etc. 

Use your current and former clients to build trust with your future clients in every way possible.

Preempt Questions to Build Trust in Your Practice

What questions do your clients or patients ask regularly? What are the questions you can predict will come up throughout the process of working with any given client or patient? 

Why wait until they’re sitting in front of you to answer those questions?

Create content on your website and social media that answers those questions BEFORE they become your client. 

Doing this will help in a few ways.

1. It saves you time when meeting with clients because they are no longer asking the same questions over and over.
2. It shows your clients you are deeply attuned to their needs and intentionally educating them on how you help them overcome their problems. 
3. It shows you have authority in your field by having a deep database of educational content on your website and social media that is relevant and helpful to your clients.

Nothing is more powerful in getting new clients than making it look like you can read their minds.

Let’s be honest; you probably can read their minds. After doing what you do for so long, you’ve seen everything and answered every question. You just haven’t done it publicly yet.

Write blogs, create videos, and post on social media. This isn’t an overnight answer to your marketing problems but a long-term effort like investing with compound interest.

The book “They Ask, You Answer” by Marcus Sheridan is a great resources on building trust through content.

Build a Local Presence to Build Trust in Your Private Practice

This might seem a bit old school, but we’re here for it. 

For many of our clients, your client base is local to you. They live within driving distance of your office. You meet them in your office, at local coffee shops, and other locations in the community.

One powerful way to build trust is by being present in your community.

• Sponsor local sports leagues
• Donate to local food banks and shelters
• Serve with local nonprofits
• Join local nonprofit boards
• Shop at your local farmers’ markets
• Contribute to local news articles within your expertise

There are many different ways you can begin to build a local presence in your community. This does two things.

1. It increases your visibility within your community so people remember you more often.
2. People trust businesses that care more about their community than they do turning a profit. 

If you show up consistently to help with the needs of your neighbors and support good causes, people will increase their trust in you as a professional as well.

Again, this is a long-term effort, not an overnight solution. It’s well worth it.

Create Transparency to Grow Trust in Your Practice

If there is one thing that will kill your reputation faster than anything else, it’s when people can smell you hiding something.

That smell stinks, and they won’t tolerate it.

To avoid looking like you’re hiding something and increase trust from potential clients, you need to create as much transparency as possible.

Here are two ways to create transparency to build trust in your private practice.

1. Layout your process in a way that is simple and clear

If the process of working with you is already relatively simple, this might simply look like adding a three-step process plan to your website and other marketing collateral.

If your process is complicated, create a simple three-step process that serves as a “flyover” of your process. Then, give them a detailed overview elsewhere on your website for those who want it.

Prospects want to know what it’s like to work with you before they hire you. They want to know the process is doable and not scary. 

Give each of the three steps a headline or name, then a one-sentence description. Nothing fancy. Just simple, memorable, and clear. Go into detail later if needed.

2. Put your pricing on your website

While some of your pricing might vary, there’s a good chance you have a lot of services with set pricing. Maybe that’s the price of an initial visit, a legal retainer, or specific services you provide. 

Anything with a fixed price should be listed on your website on a pricing page. This goes a long way to showing you have nothing to hide. You’re not trying to lure anyone in only to price-slap them after they’re hooked. 

If you have services using a value-based pricing model, explain how you calculate your pricing. Give a clear range of what those costs could be, and explain some of the variables that go into determining what the final price will be. 

You don’t need to give a price written on a stone tablet, but you should provide prospects with a good idea of what to expect.

Oh, and when they do get the final price, it shouldn’t be a surprise. If your price doesn’t match what you laid out on your website, bye-bye trust!

3. Name and claim your weaknesses

This one feels a little controversial, but what are you not good at? Are there any services people in your industry typically handle that you do not? Maybe your wait times are excessively long? Do other practices in your area make promises or claims you refuse to make (some of you will be prohibited from this behavior anyway due to ethical requirements in your industry)? 

Go ahead and name those. Maybe drop them in an FAQ or a blog post.

Seriously, if you’re willing to tell prospects that you aren’t perfect right out of the gate, they’re more likely to believe you when you tell them what you are good at.

Create Video Content to Build Trust In Your Private Practice

This is probably the most cringe-inducing suggestion for building trust in your private practice.

If you’re like me, you HATE being on camera. Seriously, it’s the worst. Ick.

However, it’s the quickest way to build trust with other human beings.

As human beings, we’re drawn to faces and voices. The more frequently we see a face and hear a voice, the more familiar they become and the more trust we lend to it.

Pair that face and voice with helpful content that continually makes my life better or gives me something to think about, trust begins to multiply. 

The good news is that you don’t need expensive equipment to begin posting video content online. All you need is a phone with a decent camera and something helpful to share.

Two tips for creating video content without buying new equipment

1. Ensure your lighting is good and your face is framed in the top 3rd of the viewing screen. Just find a well-lit room or step outside.
2. Ensure your voice is clear and easily heard. Don’t be too far from your phone, and don’t record anywhere that has excessive background noise. 

Those are the minimum barriers to entry when recording video content for your private practice. The more you do it, the more comfortable you will become.

I speak from experience here. I am heeding my own advice and working on building a database of video content on our YouTube and Instagram feeds. Being a photographer and trained audio engineer, I did have good equipment on hand, but please don’t let this be a barrier to you posting video content.

Let people see and hear you! 

Build Trust in Ways that Compound Over Time

Like I said earlier, building trust isn’t a quick fix for your dwindling bank account. You might need to utilize other more aggressive and immediate tactics to bring in new business if you’re in a financial crunch.

However, doing the things I’ve listed above consistently over time will work like investing in an account with compound interest. It will continue to build on itself. Things you created or published years earlier will continue to produce fruit for your business.

Not to mention, you can reuse and repurpose content quite frequently. So, the more you have to draw from, the quicker you can create great content for social media, presentations, and more.

Get out there and build trust! It’s the foundation for everything else you do. You can’t be successful in 2025 without creating a trustworthy brand, personally and professionally. 

If you want some help, Schedule a Free Consultation with me anytime!