You do not need a finished practice to start marketing it. You need a name, a clear sentence about who you help, and the willingness to say it out loud before everything feels ready. Waiting until you are "ready" is the single most common thing that delays momentum for new OT entrepreneurs.
The Year I Spent Getting Ready
Before AskSAMIE, I ran AccessAble Living. I spent a full year getting everything in place before I told anyone it existed. The website, the branding, the process, all of it had to be perfect first. Only after that year was done did I start advertising.
Unbeknownst to me, it actually took another full year after that to build momentum. Every referral source, every client, every bit of trust had to be built from zero, because nobody had heard of me yet. Two years in, and I was only as far along as the marketing itself allowed me to be.
That is the trap. We think readiness comes before visibility. It is actually the other way around. Visibility is part of how you get ready.
What I Did Differently With AskSAMIE
As soon as I realized I was definitely going to start building AskSAMIE, I immediately began talking about it.
Not when the website was polished (I had no website at all, mind you),
not when every process was documented (we had no procedures or customers!),
but as soon as I knew what I was building and why.
I posted about the problem I was solving. I said yes to interviews, panels, and pitch competitions before the product felt finished to me.
A year later, when AskSAMIE actually was ready, we had a waitlist. We started with momentum instead of starting from zero. The difference was not the product (you’re an OTP, so I’m sure your solution is great!) It was that people had already been hearing about it for a year.
Your clinical training rewards thoroughness, as it should, so you do not put something out until it meets a standard. That instinct serves your clinical work. It works against you in growing a business, where the cost of waiting is not a lower-quality outcome, it is lack of business!
Earned Media Is a Real Marketing Channel, Not a Bonus
One of the clearest examples of what early visibility buys you is Startland News naming AskSAMIE one of its Kansas City Startups to Watch in 2023. That happened because I had already been showing up, pitching, and talking about the problem before AskSAMIE was fully built out.
Let me lay out the timeline so this is clear. I had the idea for AskSAMIE solidified in May 2022 and got my LLC filed by the end of that month. I started sharing, pitching and building in June and by November-ish had been selected by Startland News out of the blue. We didn’t launch our first iteration of the AskSAMIE website until April 2023! They saw the value in the problem we were solving and the vision to get there and thought that was something to pay attention to even though the actual solution didn’t fully exist.
For any of us: you do not need The New York Times to talk about your business (although it would be welcomed, right?!). A feature from a local business journal, a community newsletter, a podcast interview, or an industry publication all count. Almost every one of those outlets publishes online now, and almost every one will link back to your website or your AskSAMIE Pro profile if you don’t have a website yet when they write about you.
Those hyperlinks are not just nice to have. Search engines and AI search tools use them to decide who is credible and worth surfacing when someone searches for help for a problem you solve. A handful of legitimate outlets linking to you tells Google, and increasingly tells AI search, that you are a real, findable provider. That is earned media doing SEO and AEO work for you, on top of the credibility it already gives you with referral sources and clients.
What Starting Early Actually Looks Like
- A one-sentence description of the problem you solve, for whom and how. Get it down so you can say it the same way every time. Here’s a simple template that can help you fill in the blanks.
- A public profile online where people can find you easily. Do that for free by building your AskSAMIE Profile.
- A willingness to say yes to a local interview, a guest post, or a community talk before you feel fully ready
- Consistency over months, and then a single big push right before launch. Then everyone is primed and ready for you.
The founders and clinicians who look like overnight successes almost never are. They spent a year or more creating connections, showing up and building relationships before anyone actually noticed. The advicacy came first. The momentum followed.
Your Next Step
If you are an OTP thinking about private practice, do not wait for the version of yourself that has everything figured out. Create your AskSAMIE Pro profile now so you start showing up in searches for OTs in your area while you are still building everything else. Your AskSAMIE Pro profile also shows you your own stats: views, search appearances, and booking clicks, so you know whether you are actually getting seen instead of guessing.
I waited a year with my first business and spent a second year making up for it. And this is why I’m here. So you don’t have to make my mistakes. So get going!
Join AskSAMIE Pro and create your free profile today.