Is the Internet Oversaturated with Clinicans and Coaches?

Close to 100 years ago one of the "fathers" of modern advertising taught that it generally took a man 20 exposures to an ad to buy the product [apparently they didn't let women out of the house then, or we couldn't read, or it was illegal for us to carry money and transact a purchase, or something, but that's a different topic :D].

As television caught on 60 years ago and marketing psychology got more sophisticated, the conventional wisdom of the time pared the 20 exposures down to at least 7. But that was when tv only had 2 or 3 channels, you had to actually get up and walk across the room to change the channel -- imagine! -- and it wasn't on 24/7.

Now an electronic marketing message has to compete with all the other electronic media that nearly everyone is plugged into these days, sometimes more than one at a time. Plus, lots of people are pushing virtually the same services without making their unique distinctions crystal clear and without connecting to the emotional suffering of potential clients in any authentic, relationship building way.

Years ago I learned some cool things about developing and giving a signature talk as a way for people to get to know you, like you, and trust you, and thereby want to work with you or refer to you. As an introvert but experienced teacher, I found doing signature talks comfortably like teaching and much more preferable than going to braincell-sucking networking breakfasts (not that those don't work for some, they just never worked for me).

My take on the latest marketing fad about getting out of our caves and into the community is that people are craving live experiences again because we've all gotten overly isolated in our little ipod/iphone/inetbook, rss, tweetme then retweetme worlds. They want to experience our personality, energy, humor, empathy, compassion, knowledge and expertise BEFORE they commit to working with us, and being in the spotlight of a speaking event might be a place where you too can shine and then close the sale.

AND, it's also still quite possible to let your personality, energy, humor, empathy, compassion, knowledge and expertise shine through your website and other writing -- yes, even still on the internet and without having to close the sale -- because the world is not oversaturated with YOUs.

If you aren't one of the millions for whom public speaking is only slightly less objectionably scary than getting buried alive in an ant hill after a honey bath, it can be an alternative way to leverage your time and effort in reaching many people at once rather than schlepping to doctors' offices one at a time with baskets of muffins.

Bottom line, in my view, is that the smart thing to do is to make use of whatever marketing strategies fit your personality and comfort zone the best.

Step 3 for Getting More Clients

Here's the simple secret:

To get more clients, narrow your sights.

I know that sounds crazy. I know it defies "logic."

I know it works.

By narrow your sights I mean focus on a specifically defined ideal client type. "People who need your help" is not a specific client type. Neither is "women with anxiety," or "children and adolescents," or "men with substance abuse issues," although each of those is a toenail closer to a useful definition.

A mistake I hear counselors, coaches and NDs make all the time is in equating the idea of the ideal client with the majority of people who already happen to show up in your practice. I always ask new clients, who is your ideal client, and they always tell me, "well, I see a lot of .....", or they say, "right now, I'm mostly getting people who...."

No. People who happen to show up when your marketing message is vague and disconnected from specific problems and their impact in daily life are not usually our ideal clients. Any warm body is not the ideal client, folks. Any paying customer is not the goal to shoot for if you want your business to thrive.

So how do you know who your ideal client is? Well, who do you want it to be? You get to decide.

Determining your ideal client is like painting a picture, or better, like writing a screenplay with characters who:

• have the problems you are passionately interested in working with
• make you feel competent and great at what you do
• make your heart sing when they achieve a breakthrough
• leave you more energized at the end of day seeing 8 of them back to back

Stop and think about this right now: What kind of client with what type of problem would be ideal for you to work with?

And don't sabotage yourself here by thinking that you'll get bored with just one type, or that you have too many interests to pick just one, or that you really don't know. Let me assure you that marketing to a specifically and narrowly defined ideal client niche will NOT prevent others from asking for an appointment. That's another counter-intuitive but absolutely true phenomenon in client attraction marketing. So don't give that another thought.

Deciding what kind of client with what type of problem is your ideal helps you know where to spend your marketing dollars. Their demographic features -- who are they and their problems -- help you correctly identify where they can be found. When you know where they can be found, you know what kind of marketing you'll need to do to reach them.

Deciding how their problem impacts their daily life, and what they want instead tells you what they need to hear from you in order to be motivated to spend money on your services. These psychographic features -- how they feel about their problem, and what motivates them to change -- help you correctly hone your marketing message. When you have an emotionally compelling marketing message it's like laying a trail of bread crumbs to your phone number or email.

Step 3 -- identify your ideal client -- is the step on which all the rest of your marketing will pivot. There's nothing more essential than this.

Coaching questions:

1. What types of problems are easy for you to help clients resolve?
2. What kind of suffering is rewarding for you to help end?
3. What kind of people do you naturally align or resonate with?
4. How old are they, in what occupational category, with what level of education and income?
5. What do these people who suffer from those problems desperately want?
6. What will they be willing to pay anything -- out of pocket -- to have?
7. What do you know without doubt you can help them achieve?

Step 2 in Becoming a Client Magnet

Following on from the last post, the marketing question to ask today is this:
What makes you unique among your peers who do the very same work?

And let me encourage you to try to answer this from your prospective clients' point of view. Think about their decision making process. What's the intangible something that you have and others don't that will cause clients to select you for their counselor, coach or ND?

Hint: this isn't necessarily about your training, and usually it won't be about your clinical affect or coaching presence. We're all warm and supportive, each of us creates safety and an atmosphere of enthusiastic hope. Those aren't unique selling points in our business.

What is it in your own history and set of personal interests that give you your passion for wanting to do your work in the world?

Maybe you specialize in working with women with postpartum depression because you know what that's like, because your own life has been touched by it in some way -- be it in yourself, your sister, a friend, etc. This gives you empathy and insight that no one who has never had PPD can fully comprehend.

Perhaps the dream of your youth was to be a professional dancer -- until you blew out your knee or injured your back, and your entire self-concept was suddenly, traumatically altered. As a healer now you bring a depth of personal understanding into every encounter with clients whose life dreams have been shattered in a similar way.

Knowing that you have had your own challenges and have overcome them -- of that you have a personal connection to someone with such challenges -- is a compelling factor in the selection process when prospective clients are searching for a provider.

Clients expect us to have been trained and tested. They assume we follow the standards of practice for our particular field. Most aren't knowledgeable enough to know the difference between techniques or schools or approaches to our work. We don't need to over emphasize these factors in our marketing. What starts building rapport and trust is a glimpse into who we are as individuals.


Coaching questions:
What type of experience in your own life sets you apart? How much of that are you comfortable with disclosing in your marketing?

What qualities of personality contribute to your uniqueness, compared to your peers? Are you more direct than the norm, do you listen more, ask more powerful questions, go out of your way for clients more, etc? What unique personality features will stand out to prospective clients comparing you with your peers?

Step 1 to Effective Client Attraction

Friends and colleagues, it's time to get back to basics with a pop quiz. What's THE number one most important step to attracting more clients to your healing arts practice?

Aw, c'mon, take a guess. Do a website? Network like crazy? Build a referral system with allied providers? Get on insurance panels?

Useful as all of those strategies are, they are not THE essential first step. So what is?, I hear you ask.

Time.

That's right, time. As in, carving out time -- daily -- for taking strategic action steps, and then giving those actions time to work.

Something so simple seems to be enormously difficult to accomplish. And I'll confess right now that I don't always manage it either, what with actually working with clients, creating new resources (my "artistic" passion), keeping up with bookkeeping and other non-marketing business demands, and striving for balance in the rest of my life.

But I can testify to the fact that when I work an action plan daily, I get more new clients, or returning clients, than when I goof off in my marketing discipline.

I have clients with success stories who are living proof that daily discipline in working an action plan does pay off, and faster than expected.

So why is this a habit that is so hard to adopt? Three reasons come to mind:

1. the thought of daily marketing feels overwhelming
2. we aren't really sure what to do or how to do it
3. we give ourselves legitimate excuses (but those just sabotage our business)
   

I'll let you in on the secrets to getting beyond these reasons and getting into the daily action plan habit. Ready?

• Take on one project at a time
• Make the action steps small and easy
• Track your accountability on paper (or in Excel)
• Use an accountability partner (colleague, friend, coach) to keep you focused
• Get just-in-time help for only one immediate project or one action step at a time
• Set your action plan work time into your business schedule as an appointment with Success
  
• Identify your time wasters and energy vampires, and eliminate them
• Sacrifice a little leisure, social or volunteer time for a month & devote it to your business
  

Coaching questions:

What are your personal time wasters and energy vampires? What will you do today to eliminate them from your attention for the next 30 days?

Look at a project or marketing strategy you know you should be tending to. How can you break it into small, easy action steps?

What specific time block each day will you commit to making your business a success?