Who is The Target Market For Your Therapy Business?

Therapy MarketingHave you ever stopped and taken the time to consider your therapy marketing and who exactly it is supposed to be targeting? My guess it that the majority of therapists have never given it a second thought. Why? Because they construct a generic website that is all things to all people but don’t take the time to really focus in on what their customers really need and want. Here’s a typical example:

Sharon has just completed her therapy training and decides she wants to set up a practice in Townsville. She works with a local web designer and tells them that she would like a website similar to the ones that she has seen her competitors use. She tells that designer that she is looking to get business in Townsville and asks them to construct website pages detailing all the different forms of therapy she does. Sharon knows that she loves working with people suffering from pet bereavement so makes that a feature on her front page. The rest of the website pages have a brief overview of her services and there is a contact page for potential customers to send her an email. Sharon gets the website placed live online and waits for the phone to ring.

Sound familiar? I would say the vast majority of therapists do something very similar to Sharon and never really think about who their customers are and what they want. Instead they construct a website that they have seen a thousand times before or alternatively they choose to focus on a treatment  that really interests them without ever giving a thought to whether their customers actually want or need it. To really target your therapy marketing it is necessary to put in much more thought into who your customer really is.

Defining your Therapy Business Market

1) Location – One of the biggest mistakes I see therapists making is defining a market location that is too small. In Sharon’s case her marketing revolved around Townsville but that really does not make much sense especially if that area does not have a significant population. The reality is that you need to be targeting the towns and villages around your home location as well. This could also mean the county or the region where you are based. I regularly get clients coming to see me from many miles away so it does not make sense to focus on a small area.

2) Age – How old are the clients who are coming to see you? Are your treatments aimed at children, young professionals,the middle aged or even the elderly? Try and work out who is coming to see you and then create a website and marketing plan that appeals to that niche.

3) Gender – Can you define your market even further and differentiate by gender? If you specialise in fertility therapy or Hypnobirthing then creating a website that also appeals to men is slightly pointless as it is the women who are making the buying decisions in these cases.

4) Income – There is no point in offering £200 per hour treatments or an expensive package of treatments if you know that your local area is filled with low income earners. That said if you are in the middle of Central London or New York then yes you can sell top dollar all singing all dancing therapies at premium prices.

5) Interests – You may have a huge interest in pet bereavement therapy like Sharon but is it the most suitable therapy to highlight on your website front page? This issue by the way is not made up. I worked with a Counsellor who was getting hardly any clients and was scratching a living. She had put this treatment as the highlight on her website. It was obvious that not only did nobody care about this treatment but that it was probably putting them off contacting her for other issues. Think about the real problems that people really want to see you about such as couples counselling or anxiety reduction and concentrate on those. If you do offer other treatments that are more “out” there stick them on your inside pages.

6) Best Sellers – I have mentioned before that in order to be a great therapy marketer you need to “Smell What Sells”. Have a look at your competition and the people who are typically coming to see you and you will find that some of your treatments will be ten times more popular than others. These need to form the core of what you offer as that is what is going to make you a living. Creating a niche is great but not when it is so obscure that nobody is paying to come and see you for it.

7) Where are They? – Once you have a better idea of where your target market is based you can start to market to that location. So if you are selling Hypnobirthing you need to target local midwives and doctors surgeries, playgroups and coffee shops. Get together with local Yoga and Pilates teachers to sell your services and so on. There is no point just sticking an advert in the local paper as it isn’t targeted marketing. You need to focus in as closely as you can to your niche and sell them more services.

8) What do You love? – Even though I don’t advocate choosing obscure treatments to focus on there is no harm in choosing to focus on the other areas that you love to work in. If you get a kick out of helping people to stop smoking then really focus in on making that part of your core business. If you hate working in other areas then leave them off your websites. I know that I don’t get excited about working with children so where possible I try and avoid  that kind of work. Others however will love the little ones. Horses for courses as they say.

9) Vocabulary – I saw a great website today from a Life Coach called “yourkickasslife.com”. The title of the website and the content stood out but remember that this kind of website has its limitations. It has been clearly designed to appeal to women and I would say an age demographic of 30 to 50. Having a website using similar language whilst offering treatment for older customers will simply not appeal in the same way. Choose the tone of your words and phrasing carefully to suit the customers you are trying to appeal to.

10) Keywords – Finally make sure that you use keywords in your copy that will help you get found. In other words think about what your customers would type into the search engines and then use those phrases in your website content. There is no point in wasting words talking about non related content as nobody will find you!

Defining an audience for your therapy marketing and targeting those customers can be easier than you think but it does take a little effort. Get it right and you will reap the rewards but get it wrong and you will be lucky to see a customer coming your way. If you need help with your therapy marketing strategy then getting a professional involved is a great way of making a difference to your bottom line. It can make the difference between success at your new chosen career or failure and heading back to your old day job!

 

 

10 Ways to Increase Your Hypnotherapy Business Revenue

hypnotherapy businessBelieve it or not it can be very easy to make a difference to your hypnotherapy business revenue with some simple tweaks to the way in which you work. Here are just ten ideas which can help you to improve your earnings that are actionable today.

1) Raise Your Prices – Such a simple thing to do but so many therapists seem to lack confidence in their abilities and what their local market can sustain. In the recession when I started my business I actually raised my prices each year and I found that the demand for my services actually increased. Having cheap session prices sends out a signal to your potential clients that you offer low quality services. Oh and if you live in an affluent area you most certainly should have high prices and never discount. Unbelievably I see many therapists offering bargain basement prices to people in areas with multi million pound houses! If you are one of them stop subsidising your clients Planet Organic habit and raise those hourly rates now.

2) Upsell – Not sure what that means?It means offering a product or service to your client which is more than they originally intended to purchase. So if a client rings you and wants help with sugar addiction and you find that they actually also suffer from anxiety then you can up-sell your services to deal with that problem as well. This will benefit the client as their sugar problem may be fueled by the anxiety. Now instead of seeing your client for one or two sessions you may be seeing them for four to six. Remember this always has to be done ethically so you are not selling your customers services they don’t need.

3) Cross-Sell – If you have other services that you can sell then those can also be offered to your client. For therapists perfect examples of this may be offering your customers audios or apps to assist them in times when they are not in your sessions. Perhaps you have an eBook which has lots of useful tips for a client which they can buy. This advice can be applied to just about any therapist. I know that I recently visited my local Osteopath and I noticed that he sold no products at all in his clinic. Madness! So all his customers who visited him who were told to buy ice packs or surgical tape were heading to the local chemists instead of purchasing these things directly from him. I would have loved the convenience of getting the things I needed then and there especially when I was in pain. The last thing I wanted to do was make another trip somewhere else. Since I pointed out the error of his ways he has gone to a wholesaler and is now starting to sell some of these products. My guess is that he will increase his revenue by 20 to 30% by this simple action.

4) Bundle – I use this tool all the time. Earning more money by bundling products together. A perfect example of this are my hypnosis downloads. I have a number of weight loss audios when sold individually cost around £9.99 each. Now however I have created a full premium weight loss program out of these audios and these retail for £39.99!! You can do the same bundle your sessions or services and watch your profits increase.

5) Get Rid of Bad Customers – 99% of your customers will be great. They will pay on time, be friendly in your sessions and generally cause you no problems at all. Then you will get the one customer who makes your life hell. They are always late for appointments, they continually ask to change their appointment times. They don’t pay on time and want to speak to you on the phone for hours between their sessions. When you make the decision to not deal with these people your life will be so much simpler and it means you are freeing up your time so you can concentrate on other areas of your hypnotherapy business.

6) Take Money up Front – Even better never deal with a bad paying customer ever again and take their session fee up front. I do that with all my customers. Either they pay for individual sessions up front or I take a deposit for multi session products. Never fear this approach. If a customer is reluctant to pay for their sessions up front then you know they are likely to be the very people who wouldn’t turn up for their booked sessions.

7) Invest in the Longer Term – With the profits that you are making in your business you need to invest some of that money into longer term investments. Perhaps some of those profits can be used to creating online training programs, apps, audios or other helpful products that you can sell when you are asleep. This will help you to grow your hypnotherapy business beyond seeing customers and clients one to one.

8) Sell to Multiple People – There are only so many hours in a day which means that if you are seeing one to one clients you will eventually hit a ceiling on your income. Sell to groups of people and you can earn greater revenue if done well. Corporate well-being work is a perfect example of how this kind of work will be much more lucrative than seeing individual clients.

9) Extend Your Market Area – Are you just trying to sell your services to people in your home town? If so think again. People will come and see therapists from miles around so start thinking about advertising your services to your whole county, region or even country!

10) Get Help – Hire a marketing mentor to take your hypnotherapy business to the next level. For a relatively small investment you can transform your business by getting someone to help you transform your business. With the right advice and guidance your business could significantly grow. One of my recent clients has found that her revenue has increased by 30% already and now she has hired two new staff members to help with the workload. My guess is that by the end of year we will have doubled her previous years revenue. Probably the best investment decision she has ever made.

Is Your Hypnotherapy Business Portable?

hypnotherapy businessYou may have noticed that this latest blog post is slightly later than usual. This is because I am planning to move house and having sold in one area I am frantically trying to find somewhere to buy in another part of the country. Moving house of course is only part of the issue because it also means that I will have to move my business as well. Not just  a few miles away but to an entirely different area where I currently have no customers or clients who will have seen me. Am I worried? Well no because I believe that my business model will work in any area that I relocate to. The question is can you say the same for your business?

Even though you have no intention of leaving your current location and moving cross country at this time you never know what will happen to you in the future. I know that I had no plans five years ago to leave London but circumstances change. It therefore makes common sense to consider all possibilities when you set up your business as to what would happen if you had to move premises, town or even to another country.

Moving Premises

Unless you work from home or in a very small area with limited choice of rented rooms then it is very likely that you will move premises at least once during your therapy career. I know that I have moved premises a number of times in the areas where I have worked. Mainly because I was always looking for the best premises for myself and my clients. I always recommend that wherever you set up your hypnotherapy business you look at a location where you have a choice of premises. This means that if one place closes or becomes unsuitable you always have other locations where you can move without any disruption to your income. Income stability should be a big consideration when planning your business strategy.

When you choose your business location then I would suggest that you make sure that the set up is such that either you are the only hypnotherapist at that location or you have full control of your phone number and advertising. Why? Well let us say that you decide to work at a natural health clinic in your local town or city. You rent the room space, they field your calls and there is some form of joint advertising. In other words they advertise the clinic so you may get some business that way but the onus is on you to bring in the bulk of the customers.

So you begin to optimise your website for that location, link your Google places account to the same premises and generally get calls flooding in to the receptionist at the clinic. Then they decide to hire out another one of their rooms to another hypnotherapist. Now what happens? Well firstly the receptionist no longer knows who brought in the customer. That means that the new hypnotherapist could potentially be getting business because of your hard work. Always keep control of the phone number that you have on your websites. That way you get the calls and you book the people. If the other therapists are not proactive in their advertising they will have empty slots and you will be the busy one.

Moving Location

A loss of income when you move your therapy location is almost impossible to avoid unless your earn substantial amounts of passive income. However this reduction in income can be minimal if you have a great business model.

Websites – When you understand SEO and website design it can be really easy to replicate a winning formula and simply transfer it to another area. Of course organic rankings take time no matter how great you are but in the short term using pay per click will get you customers in through your door.

Understanding what Sells – If you really understand clients problems, know what they need resolved and provide them information on how you can eradicate their issues then you have a winning formula. It does not matter where you are in the Western world as the problems are always going to be the same. People always want to lose weight, there is always anxiety and confidence is always going to be lacking in some people. Show people how you can resolve these and your bank balance will always be positive.

Online – If you haven’t caught on to the online revolution yet then it is time to dip your toe in the water. Conducting therapy online is a great growth area. It means that not matter where you are based or where your clients are. Providing you have reasonable website access you will be able to do therapy sessions. Even better create an online course which does not even require you to be involved and you can earn money whilst you are asleep.

Passive Income – Never rely totally on income from one to one clients. Try and create income streams in other areas as well. That means that there will always be some money entering into your business. Selling audios, video courses, eBooks never rely on location and can be bought by people all over the world. Oh and don’t forget to collect those emails. Google may change and alter its algorithm but if you have a large database of email addresses of people you can sell to then you will never go hungry.

So if you want a great hypnotherapy business spent some time thinking about the what ifs. Remember change is inevitable at some point so you may as well have contingency plans just in case it happens to you.

 

 

 

 

10 Issues That Impact Your Website Performance

hypnotherapy website designToday’s post is all about the issues that may be impacting your website performance and ultimately how these can push your website down the rankings super fast. Just because you hired a web developer to create your website does not mean that everything about your website is going to be working perfectly. Many web developers do not understand SEO and that means that their design can impact the way your site performs in the search engines. Then when you start adding content to your site it is very simple for you to make simple errors which could see your site being penalised and your hypnotherapy marketing ruined. Here are some simple things for you to consider when building and designing your site.

1) Mobile Usability – If you have not seen my previous blog post on this subject I suggest you read it to find out why having a mobile responsive website is hugely important. Websites that are not mobile friendly are actively penalised in Google. This is because Google wants to give its search engine users a great experience and if they are landing on a site that does not look good on their tablet or phone then they will click elsewhere. It appears that Bing will also be launching a similar penalty very soon. Paying for an upgrade to a mobile responsive website is now absolutely essential if you are serious about hypnotherapy marketing and building a great business.

2) Duplicate Content – This means that you cannot write content for web page and then copy and paste that content to another page and change a couple of words. It also means that you cannot write something on your website and then copy and paste that information somewhere else on the web such as on a guest blog post or article submission site. When Google is faced with two identical sets of information it does not know which version to trust or which should be placed in the search engine rankings first. Ultimately when faced with this dilemma it makes a simple decision to penalise you and place the content down the rankings.

3) Keyword Stuffing – So you want to appear high in the search engine rankings for the keyword hypnotherapy Birmingham. In order to achieve that goal you write those keywords multiple times on your first page and throughout your other web pages. This makes your posts virtually unreadable and is classed as a black hat technique by Google. As a general rule try and make sure that your keyword is used no more than 2-5% in your content.

4) Speed of Your Website – How fast your website loads is now a ranking factor. Nobody has the time or patience to wait ages while an old website slowly loads. You can read about what Google thinks about website speed in their Google blog.To test how well your website is performing then you can try a speed test on your website. Google PageSpeed Insights allows you to enter in the url of your website and analyses how quickly it responds. Once the analysis is complete it will tell you what changes need to be made to your website in order to improve performance.

5) Guest Blogging – Once upon a time you could quite happily write blogs on other peoples websites and place links within them leading back to your website. Writing a significant number of these could boost your rankings significantly but not anymore. Mat Cutts from Google announced that this form of SEO is now considered as spam and that from now on people doing it could expect to be penalised. You have been warned!

6) Geographic Location of Hosting Account – For those of you who don’t know about hosting there are companies out there who allow your website access to the web by placing your site on their servers for a fee. If you have a web developer they will have signed you up to a hosting account which you generally pay for monthly or yearly. What you may not know is that if your website is a .co.uk and your hosting is in The States you will find that your site is likely to be penalised in the rankings. As a general rule of thumb make sure that your hosting account is based in the country where your website is.

7) Low Quality Pages – So many therapists are guilty of this crime. They place up a web page with a picture and write two sentences about their product and that is it. Your website content needs to be useful and relevant to the people reading it if not Google will penalise you and your competitors will leap ahead of you in the rankings. Get your hypnotherapy marketing right and create quality content for your site instead.

8) Technical Issues – Ever used Google webmaster tools? If not sign up and add your website. It is a great resource and will flag errors appearing in your site. These technical issues may be preventing you from getting a higher ranking in the search engines. Don’t sit in ignorance and these errors will ultimately cost you money.

9) Fancy Web Design – So you hired a web designer to create you an all singing all dancing website. You have a video loading when people login or you have pictures that fade in and out or use flash on your site. Well don’t because the search engines don’t like it. They want a fast responsive website that can be read easily. If you have too much going on it slows down your site and can’t be accessed properly by the Google bots. If it doubt keep your website nice and simple.

10) Optimising Media– It is great sometimes to put images or videos on your website but have they been optimised so that they don’t impact your sites loading time. There is a line to be drawn between putting media on to your site and being penalised because your site takes too long to load.

For more interesting tips and tricks to increase your hypnotherapy marketing success you can buy my hypnotherapy marketing eBook online today. Don’t let marketing ignorance prevent you from building the business and income you deserve.

 

 

 

Your Blog Posts are Rubbish and Nobody Wants to Read Them!

canstockphoto19037812Think that I am joking with this headline? Well I hate to tell you that it is probably true. Over 95% of the blogs that I see on other therapists websites suck big time. By the way those of you that don’t blog are missing a trick and need to undergo some social media training with me fast! Anyway back to the bad bloggers that are out there. Are you writing boring and banal content that nobody is reading ? I have seen so many hypnosis blogs that would send you to sleep and are doing nothing to actually get people interacting and engaging with you. Want to know that you should be doing? Then here are ten things you need to be doing to really connect with people who want to buy your products and services.

Know your Audience – So many bloggers out there sit down and write a post without even thinking about who they want to read it. There is no point in writing a huge blog about the affect bridge technique if nobody outside the hypnotherapy community knows what the hell you are on about. You need to be writing blogs that speak to the people that you can sell your services to. So if Gemma Collins (for readers outside of the UK she is a reality TV star) talks about losing two stone from the hypnotic gastric band then you can write a post capitalising on her media coverage and explaining to your potential customers how you can do the same for them. Get it right and you will get a stream of new customers coming to your door.

Be Unique – Don’t think you can get away with reposting articles that are a total rehash of your web pages. Google hates duplicate content and you can be penalised. Instead write fresh content that is interesting and meaningful.

Use Headlines and Sub Headings – Nobody wants to read a huge long paragraph or block of writing. Break the content up into smaller sections so that visually it is more appealing.

Visuals – Talking about visuals use pictures and even videos to really make the content more interesting. Sign up to a stock image photo site and buy photos to add to your content to illustrate your points. Most of the biggest blog sites in the world use images to really engage their readers.

Don’t be Wordy – Some people are unable to keep it simple. Using complex industry words which you hope are showing off your intelligence are pointless. A good blog should have small sentences, be clear and concise and be aimed at the person you are hoping will buy from you not a Harvard professor.

The Devil is in The Detail – One of the worst crimes that I see hypnotherapists make is writing thin content. In other words writing a page on their website or a blog which is little more than a couple of sentences thrown together. Some of the big bloggers out there write posts with 1,000 to 4,000 words on them. So trying to get away with minimal amount is a waste of time. You may as well not bother to write anything at all.

Consistency – If you are going to start blogging then you need to do it consistently to build a group of followers. There is no point in writing a blog post today and then nothing for three months and so on. Make sure that you set yourself a blogging timetable and stick to it. I generally post on this blog once a week which I believe works for what I am trying to achieve. You can of course post more often if you want it certainly won’t hurt you. Remember that if your blog hasn’t been updated for months or in some cases years customers to your website are noticing this. Who wants to get hypnosis from a therapist who can’t be bothered to do the writing?

SEO – If you are writing a blog post then you need to optimise it so that the search engines can find it. Writing a bunch of meaningless words and hoping they will be found is totally pointless because how the hell with the Google bots find you? Make sure your content uses the keywords that are going to get you found.

Collect Emails – If people come to your websites and blogs then you want to continue building a relationship with them. Collecting their emails is a great way of doing that so you can send them your new content and sell them further services and products. Remember most buyers don’t necessarily want to buy immediately. Many like to lurk in the background considering their next move and an email from you may be enough to spur them into action. Also existing clients who have had successful sessions may need you for something else so if they receive an email from you it will remind them to book. All potential clients for example to this website hypnotherapymarketingexpert.com are invited to join my newsletter for additional tips and help with marketing.

Call to Action – Written your blog? Then what do you want to happen next? So many therapy bloggers simply don’t get the point of blogging. You need to monetise what you have written so that people buy your sessions, products and services. There is no point churning blog after blog if nobody is going to do anything with it. You need to tell your readership what they need to be doing next to improve their lives. If you are placing a call to action in your posts then you may as well not have bothered. Don’t miss this trick and leave money on the table!

If you would like help with your hypnotherapy marketing then I offer an hypnosis marketing eBook, website review as well as mentoring to take your business from surviving to thriving. Simply contact me via the form on the website and we can arrange a time to discuss what you need to build your booming business.

What are you doing this Bank Holiday?

Hypnotherapy marketing planSorry for the UK centric post today but this weekend we get a bank holiday. A wonderful three day weekend instead of the usual two days. Now I know for the rest of the population who are not self employed this is generally a chance to kick back, relax and enjoy time with friends and family. But what about those of us who are self employed? How does the bank holiday impact you, your income and your hypnotherapy marketing?

Well in terms of income a bank holiday isn’t always a positive especially for a self employed therapist who isn’t earning a great income. Suddenly they find themselves losing a day where they would normally earn an income. This will be especially noticeable at times such as Easter or Christmas when they may be faced with up to two weeks of little or no business. When your earnings can be haphazard at the best of times this can be enough to make you run back to your day job. The skill with good hypnotherapy marketing is to:

  • Have enough income the rest of the year to cover these lean periods.
  • Earning a passive income so it means that you are always earning money.
  • Advertising yourself so that you actually work on the holiday and earn more income.
  • Always having a full practice so that a bank holiday is a mere blip on your radar.

So what does a bank holiday mean to you?

Saving Income

While it is tempting to consider money in through the door as instantly yours it is important that you begin to save some of that income not only for tax but to cover you for weeks where you might not be earning quite so much. Christmas which I mentioned earlier is generally a time of year when certainly the UK shuts up shop for almost two weeks. If you are not earning income during that period suddenly the festivities are not going to be quite so much fun especially when you are having to pay out for presents and expensive food and drink.

Learning to manage your income is a crucial step in building your hypnotherapy practice. Understanding that business ebbs and flows is important for any business. When you plan for these fluctuations in income then you don’t get any nasty surprises.

Earning a Passive Income

Learning how to create an income even when you are not seeing clients is the real key to success. Creating products which can be bought by anyone in the world at any time of the day and night means that you can create extra income whilst you are sleeping. In reality creating this form of income should be started almost as soon as you begin your new profession. Creating products takes time which means that the sooner you start the more you have earning you pennies here there and everywhere. Making this a part of your hypnotherapy marketing plan is crucial if you want to really start earning a great income. This means that it really does not matter if your clients ebb and flow. You will always be earning additional money to cover any short falls. Do it well and this could become even bigger than the income you get from clients.

Working the Holidays

Now here is an idea. Why not actually market yourself as a therapist you actually works those bank holidays and unsocial hours. Many people now lead extremely busy lives which means that getting to see a therapist can be very difficult when they don’t finish work until 7 or 8pm in the evening. I personally choose not to work at this time although I do get asked. Provide a service at these unusual times and then charge significantly more. Don’t make the mistake that I see many people making which is charging exactly the same as they would for a day time appointment. Evenings, weekends, bank holidays are all unsocial hours which means premium prices. People pay for convenience so use that to your advantage.

Always Being in Demand

When you learn to really create great hypnotherapy marketing strategies you should find that the bank holidays hold no fear for you whatsoever. At the beginning of my career I would take clients at all times of the day and on any day where they would see me. Now I am so busy that I use the bank holidays to either rest or work on my business. When you really learn to market yourself well you may even find that you turn some clients away because you simply don’t have time to see everyone. Or alternatively you pick and choose the cases that you want to work with.

What am I doing this Bank Holiday?

So if I am so busy I am going to tell you stories of how this weekend I am lying by a pool somewhere sipping on cocktails and counting my money? Well actually no. I am actually going to spend a good proportion of my weekend working on other aspects of my business. I love marketing and creating products so that helps but I also know that sitting on my laurels is not going to make things happen. Money does not mysteriously float into your bank account. The law of attraction principle can make people lazy. Thinking about having money does not make it happen. Taking an action towards earning money does.

So on that point have a great Bank Holiday. Find time to enjoy yourself but also think about what you are going to do to drive your business forward. Hypnotherapy marketing does not stop at weekends and entrepreneurs are always working on their business. Remember that principle and you will get the income you deserve.

 

How Much Time Do You Spend On Your Hypnosis Marketing?

Hypnosis marketingHow many hours a week do you actually spend attracting new clients in to your business? One hour a week, five or ten? I know that there are a considerable number of therapists out there who do a very small amount each week and I can tell you that it is not going to be enough to get you the business that you deserve. A networking session and an hour or so writing a blog or handing out some leaflets now and again will be lucky to get you anywhere. Hypnosis marketing actually needs consistent daily work especially in your start up days to get you regular clients calling you for appointments.

So lets say that you have just qualified as a hypnotherapist and you are lucky to see a client a day in the initial stages. This means that you have a significant amount of time during the day which you have left hanging around doing nothing. That means that you have eight to ten hours to fill working on your hypnosis marketing. Now to some people that might sound excessive but frankly this career is now your full time job. It means that you need to spend at least as much time on it as you would have in your old profession if not far more because now you are not automatically going to get a wage at the end of each month.

Think about the average entrepreneur and how they work on their businesses in the early days. Many of these people will be up working at 7am in the morning and finishing late into the night. They will have sacrificed their social lives to get their business up and running and earning them great money. Now think of what the average hypnotherapist does when they finish their courses. They might get a website up and running and attend a few small networking gatherings but in many cases I do not see the same drive in our profession as I do in many others.

Now of course if you don’t need to earn money then it really does not matter. You can frankly sit in bed all morning, drink coffee with your friends and go to the gym. But if you actually have to earn a living from this profession then you had better start to get fired up about marketing and getting cash flowing in to your business or you may as well go back to the day job.

Building a Hypnotherapy Business Takes Time

In order to build a great business you need to be working on your marketing tasks daily. If you don’t understand what marketing you need to do then you need to get some business and coaching advice and fast. You need that knowledge because otherwise you will end up banging your head against a brick wall and getting nowhere.

At my marketing classes for hypnotherapists I make it clear that the information that I give them is just their starting point. One blog is not enough, writing one advert is insufficient. You need to be constantly producing new material, updating websites, blogs, profiles. press releases to get found. I can guarantee you that even after I explain this to my students there will always be someone a week or two later who had selective hearing and comes back to and says they have done it all and the phone is not ringing.

I can tell you now that there is never a point when you have finished all the marketing that you can do. At this moment in time I have a list of about thirty tasks that I need to accomplish on my latest round of marketing. As I progress down this list I will find that there are more and more elements which will be added to it making it a never ending project. I have never sat down for one moment and thought that’s it I have done enough!

Earn More Money You are a Business!

You see I am at the point now where I am busy just about every day. I can see up to eight clients a day on some days and frankly that is pushing me right to the limits. Now for some people they will be satisfied with this but I most certainly am not. You see if I continued like this there would be a ceiling on my earnings. I can’t fit any more clients in to each day which means that the only way I could make more money would be charging them more or seeing people in groups.

Ok so lets say I charge more or see groups there would still be a ceiling on my income. That is the last thing that any business owner should not be aiming for. Year on year your business should be growing and that means that you have to think of new innovative ways to push your income levels higher. How about selling real and virtual products for example. Creating passive income streams to bring you in money whilst you are asleep. Or perhaps hiring associates or affiliates to sell your products.

You see hypnosis marketing never ends. There is never a point where you have done enough and there is never a point where you should have run out of ideas. If you feel that you are stuck and have no idea how to get those initial clients or how to take your business to a level where you earn additional income then you are a prime candidate for my marketing and mentoring sessions. Over a period of six months to a year I work with you to build great foundations for your business so that once you have a great base level of income you can start to take things to another level. Yes you will have to work hard but the rewards are potentially unlimited when you really commit to running a business instead of thinking as a vocational career choice.

Testing Testing – Is Your Hypnosis Marketing Up to Scratch?

Hypnosis Marketing - Website TestingWhen was the last time you had a look at your website? Not a quick glance but a long hard look at what elements are working well and what elements need some changes. We often need to take a step back to really take in an overview of our creations or if possible get somebody else to look at our websites with fresh eyes. Why? Because when your website isn’t working well this is the first thing that your clients will pick up on and it could send them running to someone else. Your website is often the first way that people learn about you and if yours is not up to scratch you are to blame for negative hypnosis marketing.

So what are the things that we need to look out for in our websites? Here are just a few elements that it is worth your while checking:

1) Spelling – If I were to log in to a website and see that there was awful grammar and dreadful spelling it would send me running for the hills. This is such a simple thing to rectify. Run your pages through a spellchecker. Pay someone to proof read your content. Get it right first time.

2) Broken Links – How many of you have links to internal and external pages that simply are not working? Take the time to go through each of your links to make sure that everything is up to scratch. If they lead to nowhere get them fixed.

3) Contact Me – Regularly test your contact form on your site. I lost a few days worth of clients not long ago because my server was full. If I had sent out a test email to myself I would have picked it up straight away.

4) Products – If you sell products are your customers able to buy them? On more than one occasion I have lost sales because of problems with my downloads. You can easily make some test purchases to make sure that everything is working ok.

5) Responsiveness – How responsive is your website? In other words if I were to look at your website on a tablet, phone or computer would it look the same or would elements in the website be missing, squashed or out of alignment? When you are doing your hypnosis marketing you need to step into the shoes of your customers. If they are seeing a mess of a website because they are using a different system to you then it needs to be fixed. If you website is not mobile responsive expect to be penalised in the search engines.

6) Simplicity – As the saying goes “keep it simple stupid”! Are you actually getting your message across to your customers or have you written content that is too wordy, complex or unintelligible for your readers? Does your website have flashing images or annoying music when you log in? If it does then it is time to drop it. Have you put a god awful video of yourself on the front page which looks shabby and unprofessional? If you can’t read like a newsreader and don’t look professional and engaging then leave the video out. It will only have your customers running for the hills.

7) Long Load Times – How quickly does your website appear when somebody clicks on it. Generally the faster the better. Google penalises sites that do not load quickly.

All of these issues are easy and simple to fix and will make a big difference to your hypnosis marketing. Remember websites should be reviewed and updated regularly with fresh content. Google loves new material placed on your website and so do your customers as well. Take the time today to review your site and think about what you can do to make it more user friendly for your clients. If you are not confident doing it yourself I conduct website review sessions with my clients. Not only will I look at some of the elements above I will tell you how to write more successful copy that converts browsers into buyers.

 

 

Hypnotherapy Marketing – What Should You Charge?

THypnotherapy feesoday I participated in a fascinating debate on a LinkedIn group where a person had posted a question on exactly how much a hypnotherapist should charge. What followed were a series of posts on the amount people charged clients, what was too much and what was too little. What really got me interested however was that a number of people wrote that they saw themselves as healers first and then hypnotherapists and therefore they never expected to earn much from the profession. Wow I thought this is a problem. How can we be expected for people to take us seriously when we can’t even see ourselves as offering a service that is worth real money. This is a perfect example of negative hypnotherapy marketing.

I was very clear with the group. I do not or have never seen myself as a healer. In fact for those of you writing websites please never post that word on your pages. What does the image of a healer conjure up to you in this day and age? My guess is some new age hippy type who believes that they can make someone well without there being any scientific evidence to demonstrate their abilities. Healers are seen as quacks and also people who could potentially prey on the vulnerable in exchange for dubious services. Alternatively healers are seen as people who have some god given gift to help others. In particular they go around offering to help others for little or no money. Frankly neither of these descriptions comes even close to what I do.

In my hypnotherapy marketing I am very clear. I am a professional therapist who is a member of a serious professional body and who has got significant training and expertise in the area in which I work. I run a very serious business and because of that I deserve to be paid accordingly. My charges may vary depending on the area where you come to see me or the program which you are on but ultimately do not expect cheap. Why am I not cheap? Because I need to pay my bills and live a good lifestyle.  Think like a healer or a person who does not deserve to earn very much and that is exactly what will happen.

Your earnings as a hypnotherapist need to be sufficient for you to pay the bills. That means your income at the very least needs to keep you solvent. Personally I prefer my income to do more than just pay my outgoings each month. I like to go on nice holidays and eat in nice restaurants and I work hard to make sure that I earn enough so I can enjoy the finer things in life. Not every therapist however has the business savvy to make sure that they can do the same.

Get Your Priorities Right

As well as working with therapists I have helped plenty of small business owners over the years. One individual springs to mind who ran play classes for small children. Generally her business model was that she would hire out a school or a church hall and a number of times a week parents could bring their children to the classes for a couple of hours. It would allow the parents to know that the children were being looked after for a couple of hours whilst they got on with other chores. Meanwhile the children would have a great time playing with their friends and enjoying the activities provided for them.

Such a simple business model yet the person concerned was living hand to mouth. In fact when I met her she could not afford to put on the heating in her flat. Why? Because instead of charging the parents for a terms worth of classes she would only charge them if they turned up. This therefore created the problem that she never knew how much money she would be earning each week. If the parents fancied doing something else she would have the hall and overheads to pay for and no money to pay for it. In order to create a stable income for her it was really simple, charge the parents per term. She would have a guaranteed income and then she would not need to worry about her basic income.

Now What About You?

Why do I tell this story? Because I know that plenty of therapists out there do the same thing. They have a room which they need to pay for either in a set time slot or on an ad-hoc basis. They book their client in for a session and the client does not bother to show up. Not only have you then lost the time for the session but you have also paid for room hire, travel costs and lost the travel time to and from the clinic. You have lost money by trying to help people. Now if you had taken a deposit or the payment up front it would be a very different story. I rarely get no shows now because people have paid their hard earned cash upfront.

Or what about the therapists who book their clients on a program and charge session by session. They hand their clients booklets, audios and information packs in the first session and never see their clients again. They have taken all your valuable information and resources and walked out the door with and you will never get paid the full cost of the service.

Have you ever given discounts? Felt sorry for a client and worried that they would not have access to therapy if you didn’t lower your price. Then you found out that this client was living in a large house, paid for Sky TV every month and eating in the best restaurants in town. You have reduced your income because your client has decided they want to prioritise their spending in areas other than their health.

Earn The Income You Deserve

Unless you are one of the few very business savvy therapists in this industry you need to up your prices today. Whatever you are charging is probably too little and if you are a woman this is almost definitely the case. Read my blog on hypnotherapists and gender pay differentials. In this same LinkedIn group there were many people saying that they had hardly upped their charges in years. There is a fear in the industry that we will push our clients away if we charge too much. Yet year on year I have consistently increased my prices and each year my income has risen substantially. I should point out that I started my business during the worst recession out there and still made money.

People will always pay for quality and successful results. Look at your website, the rooms you use with your clients and your advertising. Do they scream success at you? If not then up your game because you will never clients paying more unless they believe they are getting value for their hard earned money. Do not believe as many hypnotherapists do that the profession is lowly paid and therefore you will never become rich from your business. That simply is not true. I see plumbers, builders, electricians all making money from their careers and they are self employed as well. The difference is that they run their businesses to make money whilst most therapists don’t.

Believe it or not you can have your cake and eat it. With my hypnotherapy marketing courses and business mentoring I can help you to have a vocation that you love and to earn great money from it as well. Learn how to market like a pro and watch your income soar.

 

Build Your Hypnotherapy Practice on a Shoestring- The Best Things in Life Are Free!

Hypnotherapy Marketing ExpertWhilst in some areas you have to speculate to accumulate I believe that when it comes to Hypnotherapy Marketing some of the best ways of getting clients cost absolutely nothing. Now I know that this is of huge importance for many therapists especially those who are starting out because they simply don’t have the money to throw around on large marketing campaigns. I like my students to keep their hands in their pockets where possible as throwing money at something does not actually mean that you are going to get a return.

I know that many therapists simply believe that this isn’t true but some of my best financial returns have cost me very little. For example how many of you have spent hundreds if not over a thousand pounds/dollars on a website created by a developer? My guess is that most therapists believe they are not capable of getting something up on line so they pay someone to do it for them. Well the news is that in 2015 you don’t need any huge web development knowledge to get a website up and running. In fact with many of the online website creators you could get a very basic website up and ready online within an hour. Even better many of these websites will cost you less than a couple of cups of coffee. You simply need to buy a domain name and you are good to go.

Now I can hear many of you thinking that surely it must be difficult to get something up online but the reality is that with the internet anything is possible if you apply yourself. For example this website that you are looking at this blog on was created by me on the WordPress platform. This admittedly took me longer than an hour but I have built plenty of other websites on other platforms which consist of drag and drop templates. All you have to do is add the copy and suddenly you have a website that looks sleek and polished for peanuts. You can also change the elements in the website within minutes so if you want to add a new page or change wording on a page it can be done instantly. Those of you with developer websites know that getting someone else to do these things for you will cost you $$$$$!

Don’t know where to start even when you see a simple web design template? Simple, head on over to YouTube there are plenty of people online showing you exactly how to construct a website on just about every platform you can think of. Many of these are step by step guides which means that you can do a little at a time and build your confidence. When you build your own website on a platform such as WordPress it has other advantages. You are now in control of every aspect of the site and that means that if you want it to have additional features you can add them for no cost. Most WordPress plugins cost you nothing at all. It also means that you don’t have to turn to a developer every time you need to make a little change. Getting to grips with the basics is really important and can save you thousands over your career. If you want a little extra help then I offer advice on what elements a website needs to have in order to be a success.

Save Money on Your Hypnosis Marketing

Creating your own website is just the start of setting up your business on a shoestring budget. In fact you can get your business of the ground for virtually nothing. For example a great way to get clients is through networking. I have never spent a penny on conventional networking groups in fact most of my contacts I met online. I show people in my classes how Social Media can increase your business without you ever meeting the person who is referring people to you.

I save money on my hypnotherapy marketing by not leafleting, not paying for directories or listings on local websites. If a salesperson rings me on the phone they are ignored because I simply do not need their services. I don’t advertise on gym videos, on doctors cards, in local magazines or papers. In fact I am cheap and you can be as well. The only thing I do spend money on is improving my marketing skills whether that is online courses or books to improve my profits and revenue or on paid online advertising in only a few key areas. This is the complete opposite of what I used to do. When I started out I threw money at all kinds of possible advertising schemes and I can tell you that almost none of them worked.

So Why Pay for Me?

People may ask why then should I pay for your business advise if you are telling me that the best things are free? Well firstly my job is to save you money in the long term. My six monthly marketing and mentoring sessions cost the same as one extra client. I can guarantee you that if you follow my marketing and mentoring advice you will make that money back ten times over in those first six months providing you follow my advice.

Secondly I have years of knowledge in business development and I run a successful hypnotherapy company which has tried all these techniques and tips so that you don’t have to. Not only do I see private clients I also:

  • Sell online programs and audios
  • Work with large corporate clients to improve client well being
  • Offer training programs for therapists
  • Sell eBooks
  • Work regularly with the media including companies such as the BBC and the UK Press.

In just a few short years I have gone from nothing to a thriving business and you can as well. For more details about my Hypnotherapy Marketing and Mentoring programs or even my eBooks simply send me an email or give me a call and let me tell you how I can transform your business for the price of one client.