Inside a Strategic Direction Call
Strategic Direction Calls are designed to identify the business decision underneath a growth or marketing problem.
Here are four real examples of the questions clients brought
to a Strategic Direction Call, what we uncovered, and how it helped them move forward.
Client details have been generalized to protect confidentiality.
CASE 01: Transitioning from insurance to private pay
The Challenge
A psychologist wanted to transition away from insurance but was concerned about replacing the clients she would lose with enough private-pay business to maintain her income.
REdD Strategy Diagnosis
Before the call, I reviewed her business model, caseload, fees, desired fee, current acquisition channels and online presence.
The initial conflict was already visible: she wanted to build a higher-fee private-pay practice while continuing to focus on a relatively young population. Before increasing visibility, I wanted to understand if the clients she most wanted to serve could afford her private-pay fees and support her practice growth.
What we uncovered
The transition itself was less daunting than it appeared. She was leaving one insurance panel first. Only five clients were affected, and at least two expected to stay with her privately.
She didn't need to replace her insurance caseload.
She needed just three new private-pay clients.
That shifted the problem from generating a large volume of leads to identifying the right private-pay clients.
The conversation then moved to the more important strategic question: Who could realistically pay her desired fee, what problems would make them seek therapy, and what would give them a reason to choose her rather than an insurance-covered alternative?
The direction
Figure out which clients are the best fit for her work, can afford her fee, and have a clear reason to choose her. Then focus her marketing on finding the few new clients she actually needs.
CASE 02: A highly credentialed practice that needed more visibility
The Challenge
A psychologist with advanced training wanted to generate more consistent inquiries and improve her online visibility.
REdD Strategy Diagnosis
Her practice already had many of the assets typically associated with credibility: specialized training, a professional website, directory profiles and some search visibility.
But her public positioning looked much more conventional than the expertise behind it.
That raised a question before we ever spoke:
Would sending more people to the existing message actually solve the problem?
What we uncovered
As we examined her preferred clients and the way she practiced, a more meaningful difference emerged.
Her clients tended to be high-performing professionals who weren't simply looking for support. They wanted to understand what was contributing to the problem, know what they were working toward and have a way to evaluate whether therapy was helping.
Her clinical process already supported that expectation through assessment, a treatment roadmap, active collaboration and evaluation of progress.
More visibility wasn't the first problem. Her expertise wasn't yet giving the right client a clear reason to choose her.
The direction
First, make it clear to prospective clients why her approach to therapy is different and why that difference matters to them. Then use search, referrals, her website and other marketing to get that message in front of more of the right people.
CASE 03: Choosing the right market for a new practice
The Challenge
A physician preparing to launch a private practice was considering two possible directions.
One offered clearer existing demand. The other built on years of specialized expertise but represented a less established outpatient market.
REdD Strategy Diagnosis
The decision had implications far beyond positioning.
The two models could produce different referral ecosystems, patient relationships, pricing, treatment duration, capacity requirements and long-term business opportunities.
The question I brought into the conversation was therefore not simply which niche sounded stronger, but which business model made sense commercially and professionally.
What we uncovered
Initially, the general practice appeared easier to build.
But as we continued talking, he described why he had pursued years of specialized training, the patients he found most clinically meaningful, and the gap he believed existed for a particular patient population was underserved in the existing market.
Eventually the underlying decision became apparent.
He wasn't actually deciding between two practices.
He had already chosen one.
His real uncertainty was whether he could find and acquire enough of the right patients to make that practice commercially viable.
The direction
Treat the specialty as a go-to-market problem: articulate the value of a category the market doesn't yet clearly understand, identify the buyer and referral ecosystem, establish the position, and test demand.
CASE 04: An established practice with no clear growth strategy
The Challenge
An experienced psychologist had strong retention and a history of professional referrals, but new business had slowed and she wanted a more intentional strategy for growing her private-pay practice.
REdD Strategy Diagnosis
Before thinking about marketing channels, I wanted to understand the business she was actually trying to build: desired caseload, fee, revenue, treatment length and the role of lower-paying referral sources.
I was also interested in where her strongest existing referrals were already coming from.
What we uncovered
Her colleagues repeatedly referred certain cases to her.
Not because she had marketed herself around a particular diagnosis or technique, but because they trusted her with people they considered unusually complicated—clients with multiple layers, significant histories and problems that didn't fit neatly into a simple category.
That pattern mattered.
She didn't need to invent what she should become known for.
The evidence was already in her referral history.
From there, the question became how to translate the sophisticated clinical reasons colleagues trusted her into something prospective clients could recognize before ever meeting her.
The direction
Build the market position from demonstrated strength: understand the recurring patterns among best-fit clients, translate that value into buyer language, and strengthen referral and online visibility around it.
Different questions. Different directions.
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One practice needed three clients, not an entirely new lead-generation system.
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One needed a stronger reason to be chosen before investing in visibility.
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One needed to stop debating a business model he had already chosen.
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One already had evidence of what she should become known for but hadn't recognized it as positioning.
The recommendations were different because the businesses were different.
The work was the same: understand the business, identify the decision that matters, and establish the direction before investing in execution.
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