As a self-employed professional in the healing arts, you may have already realized that your success in business depends on much more than your graduate or post-grad education. Yes, there are business operations that to be learned and tended, and marketing strategies and techniques that need to be honed.
But even more than these practical application elements of being in business for yourself, what makes the difference between success and failure is your inner dialogue. What you tell yourself about what you do and don't like about the work of getting clients, what you can and can't do in promoting yourself, and what is okay or not okay in helping prospective clients select you as their provider will determine how long you stay in business.
The most valuable personal resource any of us can have is a mindset of success, and the follow-through to put it into action. This starts with not just telling ourselves some specific confidence and trust building statements, but whole-heartedly believing them as well. Statements like:
- I am good enough to specialize in any area of interest I choose to focus on
- I know more than the people who come to see me about how to help them
- My training makes me a specialist in helping resolve issues, find and treat causes, or move others forward
- I can figure out how to market without being manipulative or "cheesy"
- Promoting my services gives people choices and information, and that's a good thing
- The more I appropriately reveal about myself, the more people will like and trust me as a provider
- I can take small risks in building my practice, and enjoy small successes that lead to bigger ones
- If I make a mistake, I know where to get help to recover from it
I recommend developing a mantra or belief chant that will help reinforce the positive mindset that's needed to keep you focused and determined. Taking small risks and moving forward require confidence and trust, and the pay off in terms of business success is enormous.
We're half way through the year ~ how's your marketing plan working? Time to take stock of how well it's serving you.
Marketing is a dynamic process. That is, it's always in motion (or should be). If you aren't adding new ways to reach and interest your potential clients in your services, you won't have a steady flow of income. It's not enough to order business cards, set up a website, post a profile, and wait by the phone.
Every marketing tool -- which is anything a client comes in contact with -- should be evaluated periodically and changed if it's not putting clients on your appointment schedule. Here are some essential taking stock coaching questions for you:
Rethinking Your Business Card
- Does your card have a powerful, catchy, motivating tagline?
- Are you using the backside for brief tips, questions, or a compelling call to action?
- Do the colors coordinate with your website?
- Is your photo or logo displayed?
- Does it have your website or blog url, and your email address?
- Have at least 5 people told you your card is a keeper?
- Can a 10 year old tell you what your business is all about from looking at your card?
- Is it time to redesign your business card?
Redesigning Your Website
- How many sticky elements are on your home page?
- Are you tracking where people come from to get to your site, and how long they stay to read?
- Are graphics supportive or distracting? Do they reinforce your message?
- Are you giving prospects a way to interact with or request content that they are desperate to have?
- Does your content exude your personality, and generate trust?
- Is your contact info on every page?
- Is your photo prominently displayed on at least 2 pages?
- Are you using the same tagline on your website as on your business card?
- Does your content speak directly, simply, and emotionally to prospective clients?
- Is your content 80% about the client's problems and want they want, and only 20% about you?
- Have you written in the 1st person tense?
- Is it time to do a major rewrite of your website?
Ready to kick your business up a notch? The fastest way to do that is to determine which marketing pieces you have in place are stale, inaccurate, and not performing for you, and to rethink, redesign and relaunch them.
And after that? Let's talk. :)
A few days ago I used the word psycho-graphics and was surprised to learn that it was an unfamiliar term among some of my self-employed healing arts colleagues. Whereas demographics outline the objective facts of what age, gender, ethnicity, location, income range, education level, etc, pertain to specific individuals or groups, psycho-graphics are the more subjective factors that pertain to their buying decisions.
In developing an ideal client profile, it's best to know both the demographics and psycho-graphics of your niche market. This knowledge tells you whether a specific group is viable for you as a population to pursue. The psycho-graphics will also suggest how many and what kind of obstacles you may encounter in reaching that niche market.
In crafting your ideal client's identity, it's not enough to know what you can do for them. What you must focus on is what they want and don't want, when are they actively seeking change, and what are they willing and able to pay for. So you aren't done with defining your ideal client until you can provide specific answers to these six questions:
- What are they experiencing that they don't want to experience?
- How does it impact normal daily functioning in job, relationships, and personal satisfaction?
- What motivates them to get help?
- What compels them to be willing to pay for help, and when will that occur?
- Who do they turn to for referrals or recommendations?
- Where do they look for resources and information?
When we know these psycho-graphics, we know where and how to deliver marketing strategies that will connect with our ideal clients at the moment of their readiness to pay for our help.
If we concentrate our marketing efforts on connecting with this moment, the urge to hire us is almost irresistible. Filling a practice then is so much easier, because clients practically beg us for appointments.
Everyone in business intends to be successful. But are you planning how to actually get there?
Plan?? Who me? I hear you groaning.
When I ask clients, what's your current marketing plan, most often the answer I hear is: My plan is to get more clients and make more money.
Uh huh, I say. And exactly what are the structures and action steps that accomplish that?
Well, uh, I hear, I put a profile up on the internet, and I have business cards, and I sent a letter announcing my services to chiropractor's offices but I haven't really gotten much business yet. I guess I just need to do more of that.
Okay, let's stop right here. This is not a plan.
A plan at minimum identifies what you want (goals), what you need to have and do to get it (actions), how you will know it's working (measures), and when you are holding yourself accountable for getting things done (timelines).
A marketing plan is your road map to success. It keeps you focused on the effective and efficient actions that will have the desired payoffs. It helps prevent detours into the land of self-sabotage.
And even prior to thinking through your marketing plan, there are 3 very necessary steps you can take, starting right now.
That's why I introduce my clients -- most of whom are introverts just like you who go into heart pounding, sweaty panic at the idea of promoting themselves at networking events -- to the step by step foundation building and advanced actions that get them on that road to private practice success.
What are the first necessary steps -- before a marketing plan, business cards, profiles, and referral solicitation contacts?
- carve out a minimum of 3+ hours every day for developing your marketing plan, building the structures, taking the actions, and evaluating the results
- start with narrowing your marketing to one ideal client type
- know their psycho-graphics inside and out
If you haven't done these three necessary steps, no amount of planning, or profiles or business cards or letters to others will help you fill your practice on a consistent basis.
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