Now is the time to make things happen.

In fact, some say that a recession is the best time to start a business. For one, prices are lower for advertising, printing and services. But at the end of the day, to be successful in any business, it is rarely the result of luck alone, but from a commitment to goals and taking action. So is your dream to be seeing more clients on a regular basis, going full time, or just making life more balanced?

How do you “make things happen”? Well one way to start is to just start, just start doing something! You’ve learned how to do your therapy, but now you need to step up and take what you do seriously.

Just as you need to make marketing a priority, you need to set aside some money to pay for the plans you want to do. You also want to be earning enough for the lifestyle you want to have. So if you are planning to do some “marketing”, then you need to have set some money aside from income you are generating from your business.

I know you have already invested a lot in your training to become a practitioner, and you are a fantastic practitioner. Most of us have probably only ever worked as an employee. So the transition to being self-employed can be quite confusing. It is very different being the owner of your own business. And the truth is that throughout holistic health and alternative medicine, more than 80% of practitioners work part time with their therapy, supported by their full-time job.

But those practitioners, who do invest time and resources, are regularly setting aside time and money to work on their businesses. Now I know that you do place an importance on this, because you’re receiving this newsletter! But I’m passionate about helping you and inspiring you with the business skills you need.

How much you decide to invest in your business is completely up to you and will depend on your own personal circumstances. But as a guideline, everything you do spend should generate income for you. So for every €1, £1 or $1 you spend on advertising, you should be at least covering your costs and aiming to make a profit.

But how do you know if you are making an income or profit form your marketing spend? Well tracking what you spend and where your clients come from is essential. One way of knowing how a new client came to hear of you is to tell them to ask for a particular free report, or free info guide in your advert or article.

For example, you could say at the end of your article “For more information, please ask for my “Free Guide to…”. Then, when the calls start coming in, and you are being asked for this guide, you know which advert they are responding to. Then, you simply track how many of them become clients of yours, and over time, you’ll see how much income you generated from that one advert. This also helps you to track which adverts are more successful, which magazines/newspapers were the best ones to place your advert in, and where in the future you might place another advert.

Let’s say if you know that for every €50 you spend on an advert, you get €100 back in treatment fees, wouldn’t it make sense to spend a bit more? Possibly. And tracking is essential for you to know this information.

At the end of the day, Mistake #7 is all about spending to accumulate! If you’re not prepared to spend money on your business, to invest in the business of generating and retaining clients, then you’re not really in business.

ACTION STEP

As usual there are a few action steps I would like you to take to get the most out of this newsletter and build your business! Remember, now is the time to make things happen. This week’s action step is to decide what you are going to do to generate contacts for your database of potential clients. Are you going to place an advert, give a talk, or write an article? Think about what can you do, how much are you prepared to spend, and how are you going to track your results. This will lay the foundation for what you can put aside each month to make this aim of yours, to see more clients, a reality. I know it can be scary stepping up and making this happen, but nothing happens until we move. So I encourage you to start making it happen!

If you have any comments or questions, I would LOVE to hear your feedback! So do let me know how you get on.

A mistake often made by therapists and coaches is thinking that you always need more new clients. In my 11 Mistakes, I talk about this common mistake and the need to change the way you look at getting clients. If you think that by focusing on getting a steady stream of new clients then success will be easy, then you are missing out by ignoring a whole group of people who already love what you do. Eventually, you may even burn yourself out. There is definitely an easier way.

Before I go into that, I want you to think about the actual costs you are currently paying to get clients at the moment. By that I mean, the price you are currently paying to place an advert in your local press or other things you do to promote your practice. Let’s take the example of an advert – and that it costs €50 for an advert in your local paper. Imagine you attracted five new clients from that one advert. That would mean you paid €10 to acquire each new client. This is a good figure to get to know – both for tracking how effective an advert is but also when it comes to budgeting your marketing spend.

Now if those five new clients come for two, three or even six visits, that’s wonderful. But if you stop there, then the whole cycle has to start again. You have to place another advert, get some new clients; they come for a few visits, and so on and so on. Too many practitioners are living client to client. Sound familiar?

Now if you do the figures for every client you gain through every flyer, advert, or brochure, you’ll get to know how much each client costs you from your marketing “budget”. Some will cost you €10 but others may cost you a lot more or even a lot less. But are there ways to get clients essentially “for free”? Well yes. There’s the popular word of mouth, networking (ok you do spend your time), but there is also an often untapped source sitting on your doorstep.

We do need a steady stream of clients, but they don’t always have to be new. You see, it is often the clients who have been to us before that we effectively ignore once they’ve been “cured”! They are our clients who’ve been and gone. They’ve been happy, fixed, cured, loved what we do, but haven’t been to us for a while. But this next sentence is worth committing to memory. Remember this – it is the repeat business from loyal customers that make up the foundation of every successful business. They are also more likely to buy from you again, because they know, trust, and like you!

Let’s look at the usual cycle in another way. Imagine for a minute that once you had a client who was happy with your treatment, and then every four to six months they came back to you for further sessions. Wouldn’t that mean that you wouldn’t need to always be searching for new clients each month? If they returned to you say in six month’s time, then you can see that although you initially had to invest €10, if that client returned for further treatment, it would be much “cheaper” than having to invest in more advertising etc.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that once you were able to help your client with the initial complaint that they will no longer need you or the therapy you offer. How many times have you thought about having a massage, or a treatment of some sort? But you’ve lost the brochure to your favourite practitioner, or haven’t the time to look for their number?

But to keep these happy clients coming back to you, you need to find a way to keep in touch with those clients regularly, easily and with minimum effort and minimum cost. You also want to be able to deliver MORE value to them, even though they aren’t actually coming to see you (at the moment). But you do want them to think of YOU in the future when they are looking for a massage, or a treatment of some sort. Think about what value you can deliver, and just like this week’s quote above, how can you make them feel special, important, and remembered. I’ll cover some easy ways to achieve this in the coming weeks.

ACTION STEP

I want you to think of an offer that you could send to your list of clients you haven’t seen for a while. Think of what you can offer them at this time of year. Can you offer them something different to your usual treatment?

Promote your offer on your website, in your clinic, via email to your list. To make your offer more responsive, remember to have a deadline, a limited number of places and make sure you man your phone to take all your appointments!

Let me know how you get on.

Do you ever have time to market your practice?

We all start our journey as holistic therapists with the best of intentions. We are amazed at the wonderful results our therapy gets and the thought of helping so many people gets us motivated to train.

While it is uncommon for many of us to make millions, it is very possible to make a comfortable living from doing what we love. In fact, it is essential that more complementary therapists do make a living from it, and that alternative health is taken more seriously. You see, if we’re all just perceived as “dabbling” in it, or our families and friends see it as our “hobby”, then you can see how that can affect our long-term aims.

So, deep at the root of mistake #5 is that if we don’t get into the “business side” of things, then we’ll stay safe in the area of it being just a hobby. In order for you to have a busy clinic, and be taken seriously, then we need to make marketing our business a priority. And by priority, that means it is at the top of our list of things to do. It isn’t what’s left only to be considered “quickly” when things are quiet.

Let me give you an example:

Hairdressers. I go to a certain salon any time I want a hair cut, and I go to another salon if I want a “Wash and Blow dry (translation US: a blow out). I’m sure you girls out there can understand the multitude of reasons that that may be the case. Now the second salon has never taken any details from me, nothing even as basic as my telephone number. I call to make an appointment, I ask if they want my number, and they say no. Now, for so many reasons, this is wrong. What if I’m late or they have a disaster and need to contact me? But for many business reasons, this is a bad sign. What if they suddenly have a month or two of low bookings, and decide to offer their regular clients a special promotion? They have no way of contacting me or anyone else, except perhaps the option of placing an expensive advert in the local press, which I may, or may not see.

Now if they had my email, my postal address, and/or my telephone number, they could have up to three different choices when it came to contacting me. A quick text, a promotional email, or various different ways through the post/mail. Some very inexpensive options.

So can you see how this could apply to your clinic business? Are you giving your marketing the importance it deserves, by having a system in place for recording the contact details of all those who enquire about your service and those who actually become clients? On your website, have you an offer that people could sign up for in exchange for their name and email? If you only think of marketing, advertising or some sort of promoting when your clinic goes quiet, then this is a signal that you’re not making marketing a priority. Marketing should be an on-going priority. You cannot afford NOT to think about marketing.

ACTION STEP

Every time you write your “To Do” list, make sure you’ve got a “marketing action” on the list. When you watch “Dragons Den” or “Hells Kitchen” with Gordon Ramsey ranting and raving, see how it can translate to your holistic practice. All businesses are not different. All businesses need clients / customers so keep an eye out and see what you can learn from others.

Now sometimes when I write my “To Do” list, I kinda know, deep down, that it is really a “Hope To Do” List. I mean every time I re-write it, there are things that keep getting carried over which I still haven’t done! But a better use of your time would be to block off an appointment time for each item. Turn off the email, twitter, facebook, and cell/mobile phone and set appointments to focus on your business. Focus on the most important thing you must do, as marketing is this week’s topic, set a time, and get that item done.

So till next time, have a great week.

I know you’d love to build a business purely by word of mouth. People speaking well of you and others flocking to your door.

Would that mean you wouldn’t feel uncomfortable, pushy, or “salesy”, and it would be easy for your business to keep on growing and growing, right?

Maybe it’s an underlying fear of rejection, or being worried about what the other person is thinking of you that holds you back from enjoying a successful business?

No one likes to hear the hard sell and I’m not suggesting you leave your values behind, but don’t hide your talents either!

Rarely do holistic schools teach their students the reality of building their clinic. Oh, word of mouth is the best, you’ll hear! But if it’s so successful, then why is it that so many therapists are struggling? Now, of course, you do get great results with clients and you do get referrals. When a client personally recommends you to a friend, then they are much more likely to become a client too, based purely on what their friend has said about you. For that reason, word of mouth and referrals are to be encouraged. And in a later article, we’ll discuss the strategies to help make this more consistent.

But today’s article is more about concentrating on different ways of getting clients, rather than relying on only the one way.

You see, it makes sense to have 20 different ways, each generating one client, than only one way generating 20 clients. If you have 20 ways, and one or two dry up, you’ve still got plenty more ways still working away for you.

So I’ve come up with a varied list of 50. Now I’m not going to share with you ALL those ways but I will give you a few to start you off. I’d love to hear of some you to come up with, and maybe we could get my list up to 100!!

• writing articles for your local newspaper
• Health Tips for a magazine
• Build a simple website (nothing too fancy)
• Give away something free (not a sample treatment)
• Get to know other practitioners and see what they can do for your clients (and vice versa).

At the end of the day, in a bad economy, you cannot wait for clients to come to you. It may have worked in the past, for many years even for you, but today you need to do something different.

ACTION STEP

Brainstorm five new ways in which you can find one new client in the next two weeks.

A good way to start, if you haven’t done this before, is to have a look at where your current clients come from. Not sure? OK, then from now on when you get a call, it’s a good idea to ask, “how did you hear about me?”. And write it down; a. because you can thank the person who referred you, and b. so that you can start to see which is a consistent source of clients for you.

Brainstorming is a great way to come up with new ideas. Whether you brainstorm by yourself or with someone else (turn off ALL distractions) and don’t judge any ideas (like, “that won’t work because”). Just write them down. Deal with objections afterwards. Give yourself 10 minutes on a timer! Go on, get started.

And as Robert Louis Stevenson said, “Everyone who got where he is, had to begin where he was”. I think that’s great! There as a great Irish saying. Ask someone for directions, and they’ll say, Oh, I wouldn’t start from here!! Well I recommend that you do start from here, right now. Don’t be hard on yourself; just let those creative ideas flow!

I look forward to seeing your ideas – email me at info@clientattractingsecrets.com or post them in the comment box below.

Till next time, have a great week .

The quote “You can’t stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.” Winnie the Pooh, I think is fab.

As holistic practitioners, deep down, we’re often too scared of appearing pushy, that we stay in our corner and deprive others of the gifts of our services (quite literally).

In my recording of the “11 mistakes that practitioners make…and how you can avoid them”, mistake #3 was not appearing professional. I talked about the little details that can affect the perception of your business. So what details are we talking about?

You know that first impressions count. So have you thought about looking at your business from the eyes of that first impression? When a client calls you, sees your website, sees you in fact, what are the first impression signals that you’re sending out?

Your phone and your phone message.

As I mentioned in the 11 Mistakes CD, when a prospective or current client calls you, what do you say as you answer the phone? If you’re not available, have you got at least a message for them to leave their details? All these help you to at least sound like you are in business, telling the caller your name, that sort of thing. But what else could your message say? Could it direct callers to your website? Tell them that you’ll call them back by a certain time? What could it say that would confirm to the caller that they’ve reached the right place? Now there are certain things to consider if you are using your home number as your clinic number. Mobile/cell phones are so commonplace now that it is rare for someone to be put off by that.

Your email.

I highly recommend that if you have a website, that you use the email addresses that comes with that website. What does this email address say to you: siobhan@gmail.com, compared to siobhan@ClientAttractingSecrets.com. Doesn’t it communicate that I’m in business? (By the way, the gmail address won’t get me). Why advertise gmail, yahoo, or eircom, when you have the opportunity to advertise your own website, your own business?

So what else can you do to tell people you are in business?

Well, your business card can be professionally designed. I know that it can be tempting to go the free route – there are a few websites that offer this (which sounds great but what is their motive?) They do this because on the back of the card it is printed that you got these cards for free at www.______.com … promoting their website. This is not a good message about you and your business. I have used these websites, but spend to design cards. I recommend that you do spend a little with these websites – they offer a great service and good quality.

How about a uniform, or at least looking the part? Some therapies, spas or clinics insist that you wear a particular uniform, but if you’re not bound by that, you can pretty much decide. I like to wear a suit, or something smart. After a day in the clinic, it means I can change out of my “clinic clothes” and leave that energy behind. That’s why showering too is a good idea. But I digress.

At the end of the day, you want to have a consistent message throughout all your promotional materials. Look at everything, and does anything let you down or need tweeking? Look at your website, your email, your business card, brochure, your phone, your clinic room, your image. If you don’t take yourself and your business seriously, then who will? Remember, it’s downright hard to make a second first impression!

ACTION STEP

This week’s action step is to record a compelling message on your phone , so that the callers who don’t reach you get a good first impression of you. They know that you’ll respond, they’ll know where to get more information from your website, or something! Don’t leave clients hanging. It’s much better that they know you can’t get back to them for 5 hours than wondering if you’re ignoring them! Being professional where it counts, IS what counts.

Next time I’m going to look at mistake #4 which is “thinking word of mouth is the only way to get clients”. It may be our favourite way, but if it was the best, we’d all be busy. But with so many practitioners struggling, I’m going to share with you more creative ways.

So till next time , have a great week.

The quote “if you wait to do everything until you’re sure it is right, you’ll probably never do much of anything” is a trap we can all fall into. Waiting until the brochure you’re designing looks perfect, waiting until you’ve lost a few pounds to get the photos done, waiting to get your logo done till you find the right designer. We all have things we keep putting off. I want you to think of what you don’t do because it isn’t quite right yet? Both in business and your personal life.

In my recording of the “11 mistakes that practitioners make … and how you can avoid them”, mistake #2 was thinking that you have to look all “professional” when you open your clinic. Yes it’s very nice to have a posh looking logo, your letterhead, and business cards done. But these can take time, and don’t always add a huge amount to your business.

Young companies or new businesses often try to look bigger than they are. So maybe you’re planning to have a clinic name, a logo, have thousands of brochures printed, and a lovely (and probably expensive) website done for you? Sound familiar. Now Iâ’m not saying those are a waste of time. But do you remember from my recording – people don’t do business with a brand, or a company. People do business with people? This is so true for complementary therapists. In a way, you could think of your therapy as the brand, and you are the person that clients want to connect with. So the more you can present yourself as a person, with the human touch, the more business you are going to attract.

I recommend that you trade under you own name, put your story into your brochure, on your website, so that you’ll connect with others – More of You. You are the business, it is YOU that clients want to connect with. And more and more I think this is true. We’re tired of the ivy towers, globalisation and the disconnect of modern life. We want to connect with people and develop a more meaningful experience for ourselves and our clients. So don’t hide. Be yourself.

Why waste time waiting for everything to be right. Don’t think that you have to have everything in place before you can be a “proper” practitioner. Everything you do to promote your business (such as your marketing materials like business card, brochures, website), these are all works in progress because you change, your goals change. And because they will never be perfect. I got some advice recently to aim for 70% perfect. 70% perfect and DONE, beats waiting around till everything is right.

ACTION STEP

So your action step today is to make a list of all the things that you think are preventing you from moving on with your business? Now even if they are legitimate reasons, still write them down. Don’t ignore them either. Sometimes writing things down can get them out of our heads for a while. I have found that most people allow distractions and fear to stop them. Sure we all do it. We have great ideas that will do very well for our clinics, but we just don’t get around to it for some reason or another. Please TAKE ACTION TODAY. Look at the list and decide, are they just distractions? Remember go for 70% perfection! (Takes the pressure off a little, eh?)

Next time I’m going to look at mistake #3 which is not appearing professional – first impressions and all that. Seems a bit odd after saying, avoid looking professional. But there are a few things we can do that are worthwhile for us to be taken seriously.

Please comment on this article below.

I love the quote by John Norley – “All things are difficult before they are easy“. I believe this is often the case when it comes to the whole subject of how to get more clients. I certainly found it confusing a few years ago when it came to the whole marketing thing.

When you begin to learn your therapy, the art of getting it to the stage of being “easy to do” can take a while, and at times, can be darn right difficult. And the skill of getting it right when it comes to your business can be difficult too. I mean, when we started on the road to be a holistic or complementary therapist, our motivation was more to help others with our therapy and being able to get people out of pain.

What we didn’t pay heed to was that we’d be running a business. We probably did have a vision of helping lots of people, with the wonderful skills we’ve perfected, the study we’ve put in. Payback is that clients will flock to us? Right? Many practitioners often want to build their client base by “word of mouth” and is often the most relied upon way.

But if it works so well, why are so many practitioners struggling?

In my “11 mistakes practitioners make when promoting their practice, and how you can avoid them”, I talked about a few common things that we’ve all done when it comes to attracting clients. Each week, I’m going to go in deeper into each of the mistakes and see how each impacts on your holistic practice.

The first mistake was

I love this quote:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

By Marianne Williamson, author of “A Return to Love”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all you had to do was open the doors to your clinic, and business would grow because so many people were hearing of what you do, simply by word of mouth? A client get a great result and they spread the word! Then you could get on with your life’s passion of helping others with their health, and do amazing healing to transform people.

But if word of mouth is so great why are so many practitioners still working part time? Why are they struggling to build a practice, seeing just a handful of clients a week, and worse still giving up after a few years full of frustration and disappointment.

You love what you do, and you know it works. So why are the very people we want to help so hard to convince, so sceptical?

In our holistic therapy we talk about the body always striving for balance. Well you have to strike a balance in your holistic business, between 1) setting our “attraction” intention – you know, when you’re ready, clients show up – and 2) being a little proactive in our marketing.  It’s important to remember that clients are sceptical because it’s new to them, and you need to take time to build up their trust.

I’m here to show you the simple, effective and “non-pushy” ways to get your message out in your local area, and show you how to help the very people who need what you do, make the decision to come to your clinic.

A great way to build up trust and demonstrate your expertise is to do regular mailings to your clients and those who’ve requested more information but not become clients yet. So when I say regular, it can be just 6 times a year, or 4 times a year – a newsletter or flyer mailing.  Or even an invitation to a talk, or some information evening at your clinic.

Building up trust takes time, but is definitely worth the investment, because when word of mouth gains momentum and you’re enjoying treating lots of people, it is a low cost and easier way – recommendations are more likely to become clients simply because of that recommendation!