Great counsellor. Empty calendar? You’re not alone, and it isn’t because you’re not good enough.

Many skilled career counsellors finish their training ready to help, then wait months for clients who never come. They aren’t short of counselling ability. What’s missing is the business side: knowing who needs them, how families find them, how to talk about fees without feeling like a salesperson, and how to build a practice that lasts.

This founder’s playbook connects professional ethics with the everyday work of running a career counselling practice. It is written for independent counsellors and small practices, including those starting on a limited budget.

Inside, you’ll learn to:

Think like a founder, with a one-page practice plan, a start-up budget and a realistic runway
Choose a niche, position yourself and build credibility before your first client
Design your services and set a fee you can state plainly, without apology
Run awareness talks, workshops and webinars that families actually attend
Plan a marketing mix across organic and paid, offline and online
Turn enquiries into consultations, and handle hesitation and follow-up without pressure
Build referral partnerships, and work with schools, colleges, tuition and coaching centres, NGOs, CSR programmes and employers
Set up the systems, records and money habits a practice needs, and find what’s going wrong when it isn’t working
Grow beyond yourself through group programmes, associates and new income

Counselling, not selling. Before you use any marketing message or sales technique, the OPEN Test asks four questions. Is it Openly said? Would the client give Permission if they knew? Do they keep an Equal choice? Are their Needs served? The book shows where common business-training tactics mislead or pressure clients, and offers honest alternatives. Two of its other tools guide the rest of the work: the Ethical Client Journey for individual clients and the Partnership Path for working with organisations.

Built for practice, not just reading:

50 worksheets, each ending with one action for the coming week
Fictional founder case studies that show what goes wrong, as well as what works
A Practice Health Check to find where to focus next
A 90-day action plan to get started
A Claims Ledger that separates research-supported advice from popular myths

This is Book 4 of The Practising Career Counsellor series and can be read on its own. For the counselling conversations themselves, see Book 2, You’re Talking. But Are You Counselling? This book offers practical orientation, not legal, tax or financial advice.

Get known. Get chosen. Grow without selling out.