Help! I have no where to see my client. I need a room, and fast!

This was the dilemma my friend found herself in when first started her practice. She had a willing client, but no therapy room.

Here are a couple of ideas we came up with:

1. Rooms are often available either free or to rent at your local church, community centre or library.
   
2. Other therapists or alternative health providers are often willing to rent space. I worked out of a room in a doctors’ surgery for three years, with the added advantage that they sent me referrals.
3. Serviced offices can often be rented on a daily or hourly basis. Or individual office units within a block can be available. Check with DAFT.ie or other online rental agents.
4. Health food shops, holistic or yoga centres or other small retail businesses sometimes have free space at the back of the shop that they are willing to rent.
5. Use a room in your own or someone else’s home. Elderly people or people living alone may be willing to rent you a room, advertise in local shops or in local papers.
6. Check for local advertisements eg notice boards in supermarkets, shopping centres, credit unions etc. They often carry ads for locally available space to rent. You could also put up an ad there yourself looking for a room.
7. Pick up the phone and ring people, ask if they have a room they’d be willing to rent to you or if not, do they know of one to rent. Ask friends and family to keep you in mind too. The first place I worked in practice I found by ringing and asking a local practitioner if they had any space free.
8. Be open to ideas that are outside the box. For example, you could use a shed or a caravan. People have been known to make their homes out of metal shipping containers, so it’s not too much of a leap to using one as a therapy room!
9. Go virtual, and work over the phone or on skype. Or do what one practitioner I know does, take the therapy room outside, and walk and talk with the client.

This is a time where it pays to focus on a solution in the short term, to buy you time to look for something that’s a better fit long term. So don’t be too picky, get in, get started, and then look around at your leisure.

If I can help you with any aspect of setting up or running your practice please contact here. I offer a free 20 minute consultation.