MFM#34 How your logo and colours help fill your caseload

When asked to describe a brand, people typically respond with “it’s your logo and colours”. And yes, the logo and colours are an important visual component of a brand, but a brand is so much more.

Your brand is the expectations someone has about you. What a prospective client expects when they visit your Instagram page, books an initial free consult, opens your email, returns for their second therapy session.

These expectations are created from all their experiences and interactions with you and your Practice. They help prospective clients decide whether to book an initial free consult with you, what to expect from it, and from ongoing sessions.

Expectations include things like:

From reading their website, they specialise in working with my specific issues, so in my initial consult, I expect they'll truly understand what's going on for me.

From watching their Instagram videos, it sounds like they work with people just like me, so in my initial consult, I expect not to be judged and accepted for who I am.

They were very calming and reassuring in my initial free consult, so I now know what to expect from a regular therapy session.

Positive expectations build trust. And trust builds confidence that you're the right therapist for them.

So, how does your brand's visual identity fit in?

Even though branding is about much more than your visual identity, your logo, colours, fonts, and images still play an important role.

Firstly, because humans respond to visuals on an emotional level. Warm tones might evoke safety or care. Soft blues and greens often signal calm and trust. Gentle, earthy hues might remind someone of groundedness or nature. Colours and imagery create feelings. And feelings are everything when someone's deciding whether you're the right therapist for them.

Secondly, a key part of successful brand management is recognition. The easier it is for clients to notice you, the more likely they'll engage with you and consume your content. If every time you create a reel or design a graphic on Instagram, it has a similar look and style, it's going to make it much easier for a prospective client to notice it in their feed and stop scrolling: "Here's another video from that therapist, I always find her content inspiring."

The more content a prospective client consumes from you, the more expectations they'll create, the more familiar you'll feel with them, the more connected they'll feel to you, and the more they start to trust that when they're ready to take the next step, you're the best therapist to help them.

To grow your caseload, trust is everything. To build that trust, we need to provide your ideal clients with ongoing opportunities to connect with you and get to know you.

What if you're hating your logo and colours

Some therapists I work with feel that their logo is old and average and are considering whether to change it.

Firstly, remember no one is going to analyse and think about your logo as much as you do.

Secondly, most of the time, a complete change of logo and colours does more harm than good. If your Practice is fairly established, a complete change of logo and visual identity is going to remove all the familiarity and recognition you've built up, and you'll start from scratch.

Thirdly, your logo doesn't matter as much as you think it does. People aren't forming trust with your logo—they're forming trust with you. Over time, your logo simply becomes a symbol that reminds them of their experience with you: your voice, your sessions, your support.

Think about a brand like Apple. Their logo has absolutely nothing to do with apple the fruit. It's not the image that matters—it's the expectations built around it. When people see the Apple logo, they think of innovation, iPhones, or potentially the negative experiences they've had with Apple products, not about Granny Smiths.

If you really hate your logo and colours and feel they don't accurately reflect you and your Practice, my advice is to evolve them but not change them completely. Update your logo and slightly change the colour palette, but make sure that at a glance, your logo and designs will still be recognisable as you.