Sage & Savvy

The Practice Room

Practice the part right after a session ends: saying what comes next. In here you get to do it on a virtual client who pushes back.

Why this room exists

Here's what usually happens. The work goes well, the client says thank you, and they leave with no clear idea whether to come back next week or next year. So they come back next year. If at all.

Saying “here's what I recommend, and here's when I want to see you” takes about nine seconds. A lot of good practitioners have never said it out loud, not once.

And the gap costs both of you. Say a session runs $120. The client who books six weeks gets the six weeks; you get $600 you didn't have to go find a stranger for. Do that four times and you've stopped starting from scratch every Monday.

Nine seconds. Worth rehearsing until wanting the best for someone sounds like it.

1Pick a client & your modality
2Say your piece, turn by turn
3Get scored, and told what to fix
The science behind it

None of this is invented. Each of the five things you're scored on comes from published research. Tap a number to read the source.

Empathy & safety
A person who feels judged stops thinking straight.1 Nobody decides anything while they're bracing. What settles someone is knowing their standing is safe, the situation is clear, and the choice is still theirs.2
Clinical leadership
“You could come back sometime” gets nodded at. “I want to see you Thursday” gets written down. Same information, different weight.2
The strategic pause
Stop talking once you've made the recommendation. The silence hands them the decision, and people keep the decisions they made themselves.2
Reframing objections
Argue with the objection and they dig in.1 Say their own words back to them and they keep talking.3 That's usually where the real hesitation shows up.
Outcome focus
One visit rarely holds. Repetition is what makes a new routine stick,4 and booking the exact time now is what gets people back through the door.5 Agree on one specific thing to watch for; it beats “see how it goes.”6 A booked time is easier to keep than an open decision is to make.7

Choose your client

Each one hesitates for a different reason. Try them all.

🧑
Client
context
Step 1
Building rapport
Trusted Advisor

References & the research behind this room
  1. Arnsten, A. F. T. (2009). Stress signalling pathways that impair prefrontal cortex structure and function. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10, 410–422. doi.org/10.1038/nrn2648
  2. Rock, D. (2008). SCARF: A brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others. NeuroLeadership Journal, 1. davidrock.net
  3. Rizzolatti, G., & Craighero, L. (2004). The mirror-neuron system. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 27, 169–192. doi.org/10.1146/annurev.neuro.27.070203.144230
  4. Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998–1009. doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.674
  5. Gollwitzer, P. M. (1999). Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans. American Psychologist, 54(7), 493–503. doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.54.7.493
  6. Harkin, B., Webb, T. L., Chang, B. P. I., Prestwich, A., Conner, M., Kellar, I., Benn, Y., & Sheeran, P. (2016). Does monitoring goal progress promote goal attainment? A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 142(2), 198–229. doi.org/10.1037/bul0000025
  7. Chapman, G. B., Li, M., Leventhal, H., & Leventhal, E. A. (2016). Default clinic appointments promote influenza vaccination uptake without a displacement effect. Behavioral Science & Policy, 2(2), 41–50. doi.org/10.1177/237946151600200205

These references support the general principles behind the methodology — how people respond to safety, language, and commitment. They are not endorsements of any specific script, and none of the wording here is clinical advice.

Three things worth saying plainly. Stay inside your scope. Interpreting someone else’s test results, naming a diagnosis, or telling a client what a physician missed is outside the scope of most unlicensed practice, wherever you are — validate the person without commenting on their labs. Describe, don’t interpret. Say what you observed, in the present tense; let the client supply the meaning. Language about what a body has been “carrying” or “holding” from the past is a claim about someone’s history that body work isn’t positioned to make. If you offer a free cancellation, make it genuinely easy. One message, no reason asked, no fee. If that isn’t something you can do — because you take deposits, or hold a cancellation policy — say “just let me know the day before” instead. An easy out that turns out to be hard is worse than never offering one. Always practice within your profession’s scope and ethical guidelines.