A Niche Therapy Practice Can Create Problems!

Niche therapy practiceFive years ago I wrote a post called “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” and right at this moment I am sure there are a ton of therapists out there who wish they had taken my advice.  Everyone in the industry has been continually preaching about building a niche therapy practice and being an expert in one particular area but what they aren’t telling you is if the bottom falls out of your market niche your practice and business is in big trouble. Coronavirus is now showing the weaknesses in this business approach. Everyone should have a plan A and plan B and a plan C!

I am a member of a number of therapy forums and during the last few weeks therapists out there are spotting that their businesses which have been working fine for years are suddenly getting no calls. Some have big expenses and outgoings but with no customers they can’t afford to pay them. Many are wondering how they are going to cover even their room rates.  Another therapist said they had got a job in a bar part time to tide them over. I had to break it to them that it is likely that this job will be useless in the next couple of weeks as the government is probably going to shut them down. This is a serious time for everyone not just therapists.

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Weak Therapy Niches in This Market

A few weeks ago I did a Facebook live with a therapist Steve Norton in the anxiety niche. In the video streams, we talked about what was currently happening with Coronavirus and what people needed to do to try and insulate themselves from the fallout. You can watch the videos here: https://youtu.be/5tjMJsNxWc0 and here https://youtu.be/opNFZv6uOVg: It was obvious to me that anxiety was a great niche therapy practice to be in at the moment because of the turmoil and stress that everyone is experiencing but here are some that are going to suffer over the next few months:

Hypnobirthing – Pregnant women are totally freaking out at the moment at what could happen to their unborn children if they catch the virus. Many are already staying away from hospitals where possible what chance do you have of running these sessions as the virus spreads?

Weight Loss – Summer is typically a time of bikini bodies and holidays. Women especially flock to go on diets to look their best when they are away. This year they are more worried about getting some toilet roll and tins to survive so I expect this niche to suffer in the short term. (Update as lockdowns progressed comfort eating is becoming a big problem so target people who are eating to cheer themselves up).

Fear of Flying Sessions – Flights are getting cancelled every day at the moment. The airline industry is on its knees. Don’t expect a flood of calls about this when normally you would be hearing from nervous flyers all spring and summer.

Exam Hypnosis- With schools about to shut and exams put on hold it is unlikely that anyone will be looking for exam help in the near future.

Children’s Therapy – Parents are particularly worried about their children at the best of times but now that worry is in overdrive. My local town Facebook group is going crazy about the thought of Coronavirus. These people don’t want their children out and about at all never mind heading to see a therapist. My guess is unless they need urgent help these sessions will be deferred until later in the year.

Public Speaking – With firms deciding to increase social distancing and more home working starting the need to speak in public is reducing in the short term. Don’t expect to see a ton of people asking for it at the moment.

These are just some examples of weak niches in the current market and I am sure there are many others. If you are in one of these you need to be urgently thinking about what you can do in the short term to earn money whilst you wait for this to all blow over.

Building a Resilient Therapy Practice

Are you familiar with the term to hedge your bets? As a former trader, this was something that we used to think of daily on the trading floor. It simply means taking two different actions to protect your money. So if one of your trades went bad you knew that the opposing trade would come good. Therapists could learn lots from traders!

Here is the deal you do not absolutely need to go all-in on one niche and one niche only. This is a very bad idea as people are starting to see right now. What you need is to appear the expert in a number of niches. This means potentially having websites in a number of different locations or areas so that you can cover a number of bases. If one area starts to go bad you always have the others to call upon. A niche therapy practice can involve multiple niches!

You also need to have adaptability and you can only do that when you are able to:

  • Set up a therapy website fast that converts clients right now and is adaptable
  • Run pay per click ads such as Adwords or Facebook  that can be adapted in minutes to bring in the customers you need
  • Blog so that you can start to attract more business fast

These things can be learned and I teach them in my online courses. To give you an idea on how this is working for me I am currently building a new website. I blogged about Coronavirus anxiety around a month ago (before most people were really talking about it). That blog is getting me a steady stream of website visitors daily and I have only really started the site in January.  Yes of course you have to know how to blog correctly to do this but once you do you are on a roll. The techniques can be applied to any niche or product.

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Passive Income and Your Therapy Practice

Now let’s talk about passive income. How many of you have bothered to create any passive income products for your website? This could make a huge difference to your income. Think about the Hypnobirthing niche which is no doubt suffering or about to crash at any second. Nobody is going to want to come into a hall or practice the techniques but what if you could offer online classes or have built a course on the topic to be sold online. Now you could sell that product worldwide and women who wanted it could be using it right now in the comfort of their own homes.  That product could insulate you from a loss of face to face income and might even surpass your current earnings as you moved from a local to a global business. You have to think bigger sometimes to make money. It isn’t always about a local niche therapy practice.

Creating products and services that can be used online can help grow your business and insulate you from problems like the ones we are currently seeing. If you find that your customers are currently drying up then go all-in on setting some up so when this is all over you will have a better and more stable business.

Finally

Nothing to do with a niche therapy practice but something I felt I had to comment on.

This is the time when professional therapists should be helping people to stay calm. We should be helping the local community and offering our mental health expertise to those who are currently not able to get to see their doctors. Don’t be the therapist that this morning created a Facebook messenger group and included me on it talking about wild conspiracy theories and asking what did I think. I tell you what I thought – that any therapist who is spouting nonsense at a time like this is one that I am immediately unfollowing (which I did). Keep your Facebook and social media pages professional be the voice of reason, not the person looking to create hysteria. Don’t start writing about unproven quackery to cure the illness, don’t sell through scaring people, don’t suggest something you know nothing about. We can get through this but keep your professional hats on.

You Might Also Want to Read:

Insulating Your Therapy Practice From Coronavirus Disruption

Don’t Set up a Therapy Practice Without Reading This

Marketing for Therapists 101 – Passive Income

 

Anxiety Therapy Marketing – Facebook Live Event

It seems apt that I started to write this post on World Mental Health day as I want to talk about working with anxiety clients and how to conduct anxiety therapy marketing to attract this group of clients. The statistics clearly show that mental health issues are on the rise each year and more than ever before there are huge groups of people around the globe who need help from therapy professionals. In the UK the NHS is the first port of call for most of these people but with funding cuts and a reliance on prescribing pills as a solution there are a huge range of anxious people out there whose problems still persist.  As a hypnotherapist I know that it is possible to make a huge difference to these people but in order to do that you firstly need to know how and then how to attract those clients.

For those of you wondering the size of the market here are some of the statistics from just the UK where I am based:

  • Prescriptions for anti-depressants and anxiety medication has risen from 31 million in 2006 to 65 million in 2016.
  • 1 in 4 people will experience a mental health problem each year.
  • Only 1 in 8 people with a mental health problem are receiving treatment.
  • Medication is the number one choice for doctors in the UK.
  • Mental health funding is dropping year on year in real terms.

These clearly show that our current health systems simply cannot keep up with the sheer volume of people who need help. This is why private healthcare is a booming business and one that you need to be part of.

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Marketing for Mental Health Professionals

If any new therapist asked me what could make a difference to their practice I would tell them these three things:

  1. Be great at what you do. Solve problems and your clients will spread the word about your methods.
  2. Whilst you are building traction in start to implement a host of therapy marketing strategies to help you build your income.
  3. Create a passive income stream to insulate your business from seasonality and to increase your earnings.

As a hypnotherapist I know that most hypnotherapy training in the UK is relatively basic. It gives you the bare bones of what you need to do but has very little detail to make sure that you get outstanding results time and time again. This is why there are a ton of CPD courses out there to help us improve our methods and strategies. BUT not all CPD courses are built the same. Some have poor content, are generic and have little new to offer our clients which is why I decided to team up with an anxiety specialist with 20 years experience Steve Norton to deliver a Facebook Live discussing how to get the best possible results for these particular clients.

Do you Have a System? 

Steve and I decided to partner on this project because we have similar thoughts on how to get results with clients and that is by having a system or framework to work within. When you have a systematic approach to dealing with anxiety clients you can make sure that you have covered all bases to get the best results. Steve has created a four session protocol to help anxiety clients together with scripts, strategies, and methods to alleviate their worries and fears. With over twenty years experience helping anxiety clients this is the perfect program to use in your practice and we will be sharing some insights on his results and experience in our Facebook Live event on the 30th October 2019 at 7pm UK Time.

Lead Generation for Therapists?

So how did Steve and I first meet? Well around 18 months ago I helped Steve with his anxiety therapy marketing strategies and in a relatively short space of time we doubled his website visits and income! This is because I also have a marketing system that can be used successfully time and time again to bring in new clients. If a therapist follows this therapy marketing strategy then they are going to make more money, fact!  It therefore made perfect sense for Steve and I to join forces to create a program that not only shows you how to attract clients in the anxiety niche but also how to help them get great positive results as well.

Facebook Live Event 30th October 2019

Want to join Steve and myself to hear more about anxiety therapy marketing and practical steps you can take with your clients? Simply like my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/therapymarketingexpert/ and write a comment to say you are interested and we will send you an invite to the closed session.

Therapy Marketing and Anxiety

Time for a Mid Year Therapy Marketing Review!

Therapy Marketing Mid Year ReviewSo we are just over half way through the year which means that this is the perfect time to take stock and have a good look at what is working and what isn’t in your therapy business. Therapy marketing should never be static. You shouldn’t just put something in place and just forget about it. Instead you need to review the numbers and results of the marketing strategies that you are using and decide what to keep and what to get rid of. So here are just some of the questions that you need to be asking yourself if you are going to get the best out of your business.

Hypnotherapy Customers

As a therapist this is the biggie as without any customers you simply don’t have a business. Yet so few therapists actually sit down and drill into their numbers to make business decisions. To really get a handle on your business ask yourself the following?

How many clients are you currently seeing on average per week vs the number of time slots that you have available? So if for example you have a goal of 20/25 clients per week do you find yourself consistently finding problems attracting that number of people or are you over stretched? If you find that you are always seeing less clients than you need exactly how many new clients do you need to be attracting per week to make your business work for you? If you have too many clients exactly how many people per week?

Asking yourself these questions allows you to think strategically. A business with too few clients clearly has a problem especially if that shortfall is significant. It is a great signal to tell you that your current marketing methods are simply not working and that you need to try something different and quickly. Too many clients start to open you up to possibilities in your business. Perhaps you could do more group work to deal with the numbers. Alternatively, if you are so in demand can you hire an associate or put up your rates. Here you have choices meaning you need to really think about where you want to go next.

Where are Your Therapy Clients coming from?

Hypnotherapy MarketingNow drill down even further. Where exactly are your customers coming from? I know exactly where each of my customers comes from and I keep a spreadsheet where I note down which clients found me from each therapy marketing method I use. You need to understand exactly where your leads are hearing about you because this will tell you exactly what marketing methods are working and which are not. Have your clients found you from your website doing an SEO organic search? Did paid online advertising help? Did any arrive because of social media, referrals from friends, posters in a gym, networking and so on?

When you understand exactly where they are coming from you can now get a handle on the success of the marketing methods you are using and their costs. Always look at your return on investment. If you have a website yet nobody is hearing about you from that website then something is going badly wrong. If you are spending £100 per week on an advert in a local paper and over two months you haven’t had a call then it is time to stop the advert and think of something else.

When I used to work in North London I found that a large number of my competitors would spend one or two evenings a week doing talks around the local area to try and attract new clients. These talks would using take a couple of hours out of their precious evenings and were unpaid. Yes, they would get some new clients in because of their marketing but not enough that they still didn’t need to do more talks the following week and then the next. I however used pay per click advertising to reach targeted prospects. In a really short time, I was full every day and every evening and earning a great income. Yes, it cost money to put out the adverts but they paid for themselves over and over again meaning I never need to slog away just to attract clients and I was being paid a significant amount of money by those clients. This is a perfect example of working smarter and not harder.

Equally, at points in my early career, I invested in adverts in Yellow Pages, local directories or magazines. It soon became evident that many of these methods were simply not bringing in the revenue so I never renewed my subscriptions. Never keep on plugging away at something that doesn’t work. Look at the numbers and if they don’t add up then stop wasting your money.

What do your Therapy Business profits look like?

Therapy Marketing ProfitsNow let’s have a look at your income and profit each month. If you have been a therapist for a while you should always look not only at how you are doing currently but how your profits are changing year on year. If you are not seeing an upward trajectory then you may have a problem.

You can also drill down further and find out which type of customer is more lucrative for your business. I will state the obvious. You will earn more money from clients who are enrolled in a program than seeing clients for one-off sessions.  Spending advertising dollars trying to get customers in for nail-biting for example makes no sense. You are likely to see them for one or two sessions and that is it. Attract a customer who would like to enrol on a six-session stress management and mindfulness course is a different matter. Creating packages of products where ethically you can do so makes much more sense for your business and will bring greater returns.

If you have not heard about High Ticket Selling then it is worth noting that it is becoming a bigger thing in marketing circles. Basically, the concept is simple. Increasingly if you want to attract new customers or clients you are likely to need to spend money. If you attract the wrong kind of customers or don’t get enough of them you will never earn a great living and be living hand to mouth. High Ticket Selling is where you spend a significant amount of money on very targeted advertising but you attract customers willing to spend big to get your expertise to solve a problem. In the coaching sector where this concept is increasingly popular, it is not unusual for coaches using this system to charge $3000 upwards for one of their programs. Yes, they will have spent $300 on getting that client but they are still hugely in profit and they only need to attract a handful of clients to be making an exceptional income. Even if you don’t have the confidence yet to do this you can examine your profit per customer and see where you can find ways to increase that margin.

What is your Web and Social Media Presence?

Social Media Marketing for TherapistsIf you don’t have a web presence or an amazing social media following then give up and go home. This is where the majority of new customers are coming from. People are on their mobile phones all day surfing the web or checking on their Facebook pages so you need to go where your customers are.  Some simple questions to ask yourself about your website:

  • How many people per day are visiting your website?
  • What are the popular pages that you are being found for?
  • Where is the position of your website in relation to that of your competitors?

I know exactly what each person who comes to my website does and how long they have been on it for. I know what pages they are looking at and how long for. I know their location and even the device they are using when they find me. Here is an example of just some of the statistics I got from one of the visitors to my website this morning as they browsed for nearly twelve minutes.

 

4
Exit Time:
6 Jul 2017 10:17:36
Visit Length:
11 mins 57 secs
Resolution:
320×534
System:

Chrome for Android/Android

Samsung Galaxy Core Prime 4G
Total Visits:
1
Location:
United Kingdom FlagSturminster Newton, Dorset, United Kingdom
IP Address:
Removed for Privacy Reasons  
Referring URL:
Entry Page:
Exit Page:

I also know the position of my website in Google not just in the location I am marketing in but also for every keyword that I am trying to attract customers for. Do you? This kind of information gives you valuable therapy marketing insights and enables you to take action in areas where you are weak.

Finally

What are your goals for the future of your business? If you just want to see clients then fair enough all you might care about is filling your weekly slots and that is it but for other therapists, business expansion is really important. So that means you need to think about how you could create passive or alternative income streams for your business. As an example teaching your form of therapy to others,  creating online courses for customers, selling audios, or marketing yourself to corporates. Setting out future goals and creating plans to allow for this is important and stop you from being reliant on just one income source.

In addition are there any courses or skills that you need to acquire to help you and your business? I sell marketing solutions but I still go on courses by other marketers to continually improve my knowledge. I also have a few CPD courses that I am eyeing up that will hopefully enable me to up my success rate even more with clients. Whatever you decide to do make sure that your review covers future endeavours rather than just examing your current ones.

Taking a day or so out of your busy therapy business is so important as it can enable you to make significant improvements to the way that you work. Streamlining your business and getting rid of deadwood can help you to reap rewards well into the future leaving you with a robust, viable and very profitable therapy practice.

 

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.

Building a Hypnotherapy Practice – You Have to Speculate to Accumulate

build a hypnotherapy practiceSo how exactly do you run your hypnotherapy business? If you are a self employed therapist I bet you do the following.  Get clients in through your door and charge them a fee per session. Out of that session fee you will pay your costs such as room hire, tax. phone bills and other miscellaneous expenses. The money you have left over is what you consider to be your wage. Once every couple of years you may pay a bit extra money to upgrade your website and that about sums it up. At no point have you thought about how you are going to get your business to grow in the future and how you are going to make that happen.

When you are building a hypnotherapy practice you can either:

1) Plod on doing the same thing year after year. Get in perhaps a greater number of clients or charge extra but ultimately have a ceiling on the amount that you can earn.

or

2) Speculate to accumulate. In other words reinvest some of those earning in your business to grow it into something much bigger than one to one therapy.

My hypnotherapy eBook talks about tips and strategies to get you to a six figure income. I know for many hypnotherapists this seems like “pie in the sky” talk yet this figure is very achievable for most therapists with the right business skills. The problem that I see in not only our industry but with therapists in general is that most have not got a clue what they need to do in order to even get a few customers in through their doors never mind to take their business to the six figure level.

Building a Hypnotherapy Business

Instead of thinking about your business on a customer by customer basis you need to think in the long term. How am I going to build a business that will earn me great money in years to come? How can I get money in through my doors in an automated way so that that I can be earning money whilst I am asleep? Frankly you need to bust through the ceiling that you have created for yourself. Working one to one with clients is great when you are starting out but you need to take your business a step further.

Think about it if you were a shareholder in a company you would want to see that company growing year on year. They need to be earning more money and giving you a great dividend. The business world understands this because their investors will sell their shares if they find that the company they decided to invest in is standing still.

I see many therapists as companies who are stagnating. They have great potential but then they have no idea of where to go next. They carry on doing the same old stuff year after year and their income stalls. Well I can tell you I didn’t start my own business to earn a boring old basic income. I took the risk of leaving a well paid job so that I could not only be my own boss but so that I could demonstrate how I could build a great business myself. I see myself as an entrepreneur and not as someone who is earning just enough to stay afloat.

Reinvesting in your Business

Building a hypnotherapy practice and creating a business that is next level means you need to reinvest. That means that some of that money you are earning has to be spent on other ventures that will bring you more money in the long term. It means reinvesting in your skills. If you don’t know how to build a greater income then you need to learn from somebody else. Investing in marketing advice and mentoring could mean the difference between surviving and thriving. Oh and you need to invest in better websites, equipment, automated software and so on. Now you don’t obviously have to do all of this at once but I believe that a percentage of your income needs to be set aside for you to do this.

I know that ever since I started by business I have used part of my “salary” to create new avenues of income. Once I built those products I began to sell them to others and that extra money is now steadily adding additional income into my monthly account without me even thinking about it. That means that as well as earning income from my clients I am earning from other sources as well. Now there is no ceiling to what I can earn. You can do the same with the right help.

If you need help building a hypnotherapy practice then how about getting some assistance? I work with all kinds of therapists and small business owners with my marketing and mentoring sessions. I believe that the  cost of my business coaching will almost be immediately offset by the extra customers you will get into your business. Remember it only takes one client paying for a number of sessions to pay for my marketing sessions for six months and I personally guarantee that you will be getting in many more than that providing you follow my advice. Give me a call today on 020 8351 2744 and see how you can change the income potential for your business.

 

 

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.

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.

 

Are you a Hypnotherapy Marketing Dinosaur?

hypnotherapy marketing don't be a dinosaurWhether you have been a therapist for years or are just starting out there is one thing you do not need to be and that is a hypnotherapy marketing dinosaur. In other words a person who is using old techniques and strategies to get clients in through the door that simply are not working anymore. What used to work ten years ago may not longer be applicable now. In fact with the pace that new technology and the internet is moving at now practices that used to work a year ago are already becoming obsolete. Time and time again I see therapists who are wasting money on marketing campaigns that will never work effectively and if this is you then you need to stop!

So where to start. Well there are plenty of old fashioned mediums that people are still using which are a waste of time. Many directories for example are well past their sell by dates. How many people now search for a hypnotherapist in one of the paper directories now? Most searches are now conducted online so if you don’t have a great profile on the internet then you are doomed from the start.

Or how about therapists who are still getting hundreds of flyers delivered door to door? There is only one place where these items go and that is straight into the bin. What about those of you who advertise in local newspapers. Are you really getting enough customers to pay for your ad that is stuck on page 20 where nobody looks? The reason many therapists are still using these mediums for their hypnotherapy marketing is because in many cases they really don’t know what else to try. They have not updated their marketing skills and because of that they keep on flogging a dead horse in the vain hope that they will still get the same benefits as many years ago.

Hypnotherapy Websites

Now lets think of your websites. How many of us create a website to advertise our businesses and then never do anything to keep it fresh and exciting? A static website which does nothing at all is useless in the eyes of many search engines. They want to see new content regularly  otherwise you will never head up the search engine rankings. An old website may also do nothing for your customers especially if it looks basic in comparison with the latest offerings that are in the market. Generally you should be looking at updating your current site once every couple of years to really keep up with the latest trends. Get a website review to tell you where to start.

Skype Hypnotherapy

How many of you are now offering Skype or online sessions to your customers? If you are not then why not? Yes I have heard all the comments about many therapists preferring one to one sessions with their clients and I understand that but what do your customers want? I can tell you that your customers who are under forty are much more willing to use online forms of communication with many preferring it. Do you really want to alienate a big percentage of potential customers?

New Skills

Now lets look at how many of you have learned hypnotherapy marketing skills in the past year. I know that as part of your CPD’s you will always be updating your hypnosis knowledge but what learning new ways to get customers in through your door. How many of you really know how to use social media effectively? What about building a simple website? Creating an email campaign? Selling apps? Writing Ebooks? Blogging effectively? I could go on and on. You should never stop learning new skills especially ones that are going to make you more money. I help many small businesses learn new ways of marketing and I can tell you the pay back can be huge.

Hypnotherapy Marketing Business Plans

If you have never mapped out a plan on how to improve your business then it is never too late to start. Take time and out work out exactly what you need to achieve. How many customers do you need or how much money to you have to earn to achieve a great standard of living? How far apart is your current reality from those numbers? Now what are you going to put in place to make this happen? Where is your one month, six months, yearly plan? If you have never done this before then I can help. I mentor small businesses and make the vision a reality. Your hypnotherapy marketing does not need to be a chore when you have someone who supports you by your side. Don’t be a dinosaur or stick your head in the sand while the world moves on without you. Get the business you deserve by making improvements to the way that you market today.

Marketing a Hypnotherapy Practice Without Mentioning your Guru!

https://www.hypnotherapymarketingexpert.comI am always fascinated by other peoples websites and how they use them to sell their products and services and drive customers to their sites. I especially interested in their home pages as that sets the tone for the rest of their website. Now I seek out these websites because I want to see what my competition is doing. If I see them doing something innovative or interesting then I may follow their lead on my own sites. I love to learn from others. What I usually come across however is people making a fundamental mistake of marketing and that is not putting themselves in their customers shoes. Today I will share that mistake with you and show you how marketing a hypnotherapy practice can be done without mentioning your guru!

So what is this mistake? Wasting valuable front page website space writing paragraphs on who they trained with and the lofty institutes which gave them their qualifications. More often that not there will be links to their training schools or gurus and even pictures of them on their front page. Now whilst that is great advertising for your mentors and trainers it is absolutely useless for you.

Firstly marketing a hypnotherapy practice by referring to a person only known in the hypnosis world is totally pointless. In the UK there are really one two hypnotists that anyone knows and they are Paul McKenna and Derren Brown. Everyone else is totally meaningless to your clients and they couldn’t care less. Unless you have trained with someone who is a celebrity therapist really don’t bother wasting your time. Instead spend your time writing about what really counts and that is who you are, where you are and how you can help your clients feel better.

Remember you need to put yourself in your customers shoes and give them what they want. They have no interest in who you trained with just whether you are going to solve their problem. I should add that therapists that write wordy, flowery, incomprehensible and meaningless home pages are equally at fault. Using phrases that nobody understands isn’t really going to help you get the sale. As the saying goes “Keep it simple stupid”!

Secondly every time you put a link on your website you are giving publicity to someone else and that is worth something. Really think about whether you feel that the person you are mentioning deserves this free publicity.  Also consider whether by mentioning this training institute or trainer you are giving your potential client the opportunity to leave your site and look at theirs. This means that they will potentially be given access to a database of other practitioners whose websites might look better than yours and you lose the business. When it takes time and effort to get traffic to your website letting your customers look elsewhere is foolhardy to say the least.

When you are marketing a hypnotherapy practice you need to do everything you can to keep that person looking at your site and then contacting you for an appointment and that means keeping your bounce rate low. If you have never heard this term it is used to describe people coming across your website and only quickly viewing one page and then moving on elsewhere. By having links to other organisations on your front page you are giving people an opportunity to head elsewhere immediately. You need to try and keep those visitors on your site for as long as possible and be giving them valuable information not just one the front page but on your other pages as well. The more they hang around the more they are getting to know and trust you which means more sales.

Marketing a hypnotherapy practice on a website is relatively simple when you know how but many people throw a website together without ever giving any real thought to the words and information they are using. The fact is that every single sentence, paragraph and link you place on your site needs to considered carefully. When you understand how to structure a website then it will attract more business. Make fundamental errors and you have lost your customers from the start. Want a website review to help you convert searchers into buyers? Contact me for more details on how to turn your site into a client magnet instead of a dud.

Marketing Hypnosis – Who are You Targeting?

marketing hypnosisSo you are a therapist and you are marketing hypnosis. How exactly do you go about finding people to come to your clinic? Well I will tell you what the average therapist does. They sign up to Yell and a few other directories, distribute leaflets around their area and make a generic website with the minimum number of pages to try and entice clients to call and book. The problem is they are trying to be all things to all people and are scattering their marketing efforts far and wide without ever considering who their target market really is.

Marketing hypnosis through leaflets for example must be one of the greatest examples of futility when they are distributed around your local neighbourhood. You can send out thousands of them but in 99.9% of cases they will never be looked at and thrown in the bin. Why? Because most of the people you are sending the leaflets out to have no interest in seeing a hypnotherapist. It is a classic case of non targeted marketing and it does not work! In order to attract clients you need to work smarter. A generic leaflet won’t cut it but a targeted leaflet handed to the right people might. For example a leaflet about weight loss hypnosis handed out to people before they enter a Weight Watchers class might be nearer the mark. Leaflets about past life regression handed to people attending a mind, body and spirit event could get a greater response and so on.

The same thoughts apply to your website marketing. Is your website trying to be all things to all people. Would it be better if your website targeted a specific group of people so that you are now perceived as an expert in that area rather than the scatter gun approach? I know that if I want help with something I look for someone who is considered an expert in that area. So if I had a problem with stress I would look for someone who specialised in helping with that issue. If I had a choice between a website that dealt purely with that problem and another which mentioned everything under the sun then I would be more likely to pick the one that targeted me.

You see when it comes to marketing hypnosis people want to feel that you know them and you can help them with their exact problem. When they come across your site they want you to have explained exactly why they are feeling the way that they are and how you can fix that issue. Preferably they would also love to see testimonials from people who have experienced exactly the same problem as they have and how they have been helped to overcome the it quickly and easily. A potential client reading this thinks that you know and understand them and will be happy to ring you because you seem like the go to person in that area. A generalist website, leaflet, directory entry or business card simply doesn’t speak to them in the same way.

Whenever you think of marketing hypnosis you have to consider who am I targeting? When you know who you are aiming your services at then you can write copy that speaks to them and them alone. It really is a very simple marketing tactic but one that so many people get wrong. Then when you have the targeted copy consider carefully how you are going to get that to your target audience. Match you audience with the treatments that they are looking for and bingo you get your sale. Think about adjusting your hypnotherapy marketing strategy today to encompass this tactic and watch your conversions increase.