Most of the People Building practitioners today are working with clients exclusively online. And why wouldn’t they? It’s flexible, cost-effective, and you can wear pyjama bottoms without anyone knowing.
But there’s a side to remote therapy no one tells you about – a side that, if left unconsidered, could compromise your results, rattle your confidence, and even cost you your clients.
The Challenges of Online Therapy Most Practitioners Overlook
Let’s start with what you miss when you’re not in the same room: body language. If a client has a foot twitch that betrays their anxiety levels, you’ll never see it over Zoom. Rapport-building, which usually leans heavily on physiology, now leans almost entirely on tone of voice and the precision of your language. It’s doable, but it requires intentional adjustment.
Then there’s the technical gauntlet. At People Building, we train our practitioners with a full Zoom protocol before they even hit ‘start’ on a call. We cover everything from wired internet connections to sound and video testing, even what to do if the internet drops mid-hypnosis. If your client doesn’t have a backup plan, their transformation could come to a screeching halt.
💡 Clients don’t care how the service is delivered. They care that they get better. The burden of making that happen – technically and therapeutically – falls on you.
The Illusion of Control – and How to Reclaim It
Working from home gives you control over your own space – no surprise fire drills like the one I endured in a serviced office mid-session. But what you can’t control is your client’s environment. Dogs bark. Partners walk into the room. Doorbells ring. And you can ask them to manage these things, but the reality is, your authority doesn’t extend beyond your webcam.
That loss of environmental control is one of the hardest aspects to reconcile when you transition from in-person to online work. It’s one of the subtle, slippery problems that erodes the quality of a session if you’re not equipped to compensate.
A tight schedule is one of online therapy’s greatest perks – but also its biggest trap.
The Myth of Lower Value Online Sessions
Some new practitioners assume clients won’t pay as much for Zoom-based therapy as they would face-to-face. But this is rarely true. Your clients aren’t thinking about your rent, your overheads, or whether your office smells like lavender or last night’s stir-fry. They’re thinking about results.
If you’re delivering outcomes, they’ll pay. They’re not buying your time, your office, or your format – they’re buying your transformation. So if you’re questioning whether to charge less online, stop. You’re delivering the same skilled time and, if anything, managing more unpredictable variables. That’s not worth less – it’s worth more.
Let’s also bust the myth that Zoom sessions are financially inferior. When clients arrive in-person, they’re often 10–30 minutes early, wanting to “just wait quietly.” And while that’s polite, it takes up your space and energy. Online, you start at the top of the hour, end on the hour, and there’s no chatting about their weekend on the doorstep. It’s sharp, efficient and saves you precious time.
How This Shapes Our Coaching Franchise Model
This is why our coaching franchise doesn’t just give you the tools to deliver sessions – we train you to think strategically. We show you how to prepare clients for online delivery, maintain professionalism, and preserve therapeutic power through a screen.
Working from home is a viable, even valuable, part of our coaching franchise model. But only when you treat it with the same rigour as face-to-face work. If you’re going to be visible only from the shoulders up, your preparation, delivery, and technical savvy have to be working at full-body capacity.
So yes, you can wear your slippers. But never, ever let your standards slip.
by Gemma Bailey (with the help of Ai)
