Coaching and therapy clients arrive by word of mouth: a past client mentions your name, someone hears you on a podcast, an HR manager shortlists you for a leadership programme. Your card has to explain in one line who you work with, then end in a booked discovery call.
Few coaches are hired from a search result. A past client mentions your name to a colleague who is stuck, someone hears you on a podcast, or an HR manager asked to find an executive coach for a new director asks around. Each time your card is passed on by a third party, so it has to work without you in the room: say in one line who you coach and on what, and make the discovery call the obvious next step.
For a therapist or counsellor the route is more careful: a GP, a school counsellor, or a coach who has recognised that a client’s problem is clinical passes on your details. Before that person emails a therapist they want three things settled: whether you work with their kind of issue, whether you see clients online or in a room and where, and whether you have space. A card carrying your specialism, session format and current availability answers all three.
Referral partners are the quiet engine of a coaching or therapy practice: coaches send clients to therapists when the work turns clinical, therapists send clients to coaches when it turns to careers, physiotherapists cross-refer with health coaches. Each of those practitioners needs your niche and availability in seconds, and to trust that the coach or therapist they are recommending still has space. Share your card link with every practitioner you refer to, so a referral is a tap rather than a search through old emails.
Corporate coaching has a different reader: the HR or learning manager compiling a shortlist of executive coaches, who needs your practice name, credential and niche in a form they can forward to the sponsor and the coachee. A link the HR manager can drop into a supplier form travels better than a photo of a paper card.
Your one-to-one slots fill and you open a waiting list, then a client finishes and you have space again. You launch a group programme with a cohort start date, move from a rented therapy room to online-only, complete a new credential, or switch scheduling tools so the discovery-call link you gave out at a workshop stops working.
Each of those details is sitting somewhere you cannot easily fix: the closing slide attendees photographed at your talk, show notes a podcast host published a year ago, the leaflet you left at a GP surgery, your email signature under every session confirmation. Because the QR code and link open the live card, the referrer who saved your details six months ago still reaches the current booking link and today’s availability line.
Therapy and counselling are regulated in many places and coaching mostly is not, which is why the wording on a coach’s or therapist’s card matters. Titles such as psychologist, psychotherapist or licensed counsellor are protected in many jurisdictions, so check your state or professional body’s rule before you use one. Some boards also expect a licence or registration number on marketing material, and a card carrying your name and therapy services should be treated as marketing.
Coaches have the opposite problem: with no licensing body, the credential letters and the body that issued them do the reassuring, so name both rather than writing “certified”, and keep outcome promises off a coach’s card, since accrediting bodies’ codes generally require accurate claims about what coaching delivers. If a supervisor points out a title you should not be using, correct the card once and every QR code on your slides and intake forms follows.
A one-line statement of who you coach and on what, your discovery-call or booking link, session format and city, your credential letters and the body that issued them, your current availability, and a practice email and business number. Lead with the niche; a referrer passes a coach's card on from that line alone.
That depends on the board you are registered with and where you practise. Some state boards expect a licence or registration number and the exact protected title on marketing material, and a card carrying your therapy services should be treated as marketing, so check your board's rule and add both in the form it specifies.
Yes, add the link from whichever scheduling tool you use and the person a past client just referred can choose a discovery-call slot from the card without emailing to arrange one. If you change scheduling tools, update the discovery-call link once and every QR code on your slides and show notes opens the new one.
Yes, put only the routes you want therapy clients to use: a practice email, a business number and your booking link. Clients in distress will call whatever number they have, so the card is where you set that boundary.
Yes, and it saves a referrer choosing between two cards. Keep the niche line about the one-to-one work, add the group programme as a second link labelled with its cohort start date, and remove it when the cohort is full; the QR code on your workshop slide never changes.
Free forever, no credit card, and your link never changes.