How would you go about Marketing Occupational Therapy?

‘How would contestants on The Apprentice sell OT?’

I am passionate about occupational therapy and have been a therapist for almost 30 years. I work in charities, and non statutory services. In the last couple of weeks I have just developed 10 new placements for occupational therapy students in organisations that don’t have OTs.

The staff who work with children, people with learning disabilities, and long term mental health problems, people who are homeless etc, have said to me, very nicely and with warmth, 

‘ We have people with mental health problems here, do your students know anything about that?’

‘ No one here has any need for rails or any of that kind of stuff, so I am not sure what they could do?’

It would be great to have another pair of hands but we have been doing OT here for, oh, about 10 years…Well, no we have never had an actual OT.’

And so it went on..

All these people are passionate advocates of the people they work with, I explained patiently again and again, what Occupational Therapy is and what we do. I give examples relevant to their clients and they agree in the end to give it a go.

I didn’t come into occupational therapy to be a marketing and sales person and I suspect neither did you, but if we are to secure a place in the future for our profession in the world of commissioning each one of us has to be good at clearly and succinctly marketing Occupational Therapy.

Occupational Therapy has been placed in the ten best jobs and I would agree with them 100%. We all love our jobs despite the little moans and groans we have, but who doesn’t get that feeling when an older relative, new neighbour, friend of the children asks, ‘ What exactly is occupational therapy?’

After a deep breath, do you go for the global definition of the whole profession? Or do you go for your personal perspective, well I work with x and do y?  Do you go for the cop out it’s bit like.. physio/social work/ coaching etc. which it isn’t but you are in a noisy pub, and just on your way to the toilet. Do you explain a whole A-Z of conditions and what we could offer each of them, or say no it’s sounds like it but it’s actually a different job from occupational health. We have all been there.

My answers are often guided by  a) how much time we have, b) if they look genuinely interested in which case I start to explain and then if they start glazing over I cut it short  c) if they have had personal experience, in which nine times out of ten turns out to not be a qualified OT and then I start on another diatribe.

What would we do if we were a team on the apprentice (morals and ethics underpinning us of course). Would we keep the name?  Would we develop a logo that we could all download and use to create a market brand that was recognisable?  What would be the focus of our pitch? What would we sell and how would we sell it? The health ‘market’ is changing under our feet.

We constantly need to be marketing occupational therapy to the general public, to other health care professionals, to the NHS, charities and non statutory organisations. Let’s explain to everyone why we have been ranked in the top 10 jobs. It’s a great introduction to answer to the question, ‘What is OT?’ We can start with a smile and not a sigh.