What To Do vs How to Say It

Have you been frantically or even systematically chasing one marketing strategy after another, hoping to find the magic answer to "what works" for getting more clients in your private counseling, coaching or NM practice -- with the only result being holes in your shoes and in your monthly income?

Perhaps it's time to consider that the problem isn't knowing what to do, or even having excellent follow up in doing it. Maybe the problem is knowing how to say it.

I'm finding with my clients that what seems like a direct, specific description to insight oriented counselors and coaches often isn't as concrete and clear as needed for marketing.

Writing for marketing tends to require all of us to learn the language of marketing. It's a hard switch to make. Marketing isn't one of the foreign languages taught in high school -- but it probably should be!

To help learn this foreign language called marketing, I've developed a 9 week curriculum for beginners and advanced "speakers." These videos outline what you will learn and complete by the end of either course.

Courses start in July. Registration at www.TheNoHypeMentor.com/id5.html

The Shy Counselor Client Solution

So many of my clients -- counselors, coaches, even naturopathic doctors -- are basically shy when it comes to self-promotion. Others might be better described as energetically introverted, and many could be said to have been trained into being inhibited when it comes to marketing their private practice.

I can relate.

It's hard to put ourselves in the spotlight intentionally. It's draining to follow the conventional advice that always pushes for high visibility with a persuasive patter of what feels like selling ourselves.

And we have our professional image to consider -- not to mention professional licensure to protect.

Most service businesses owned and operated by single individuals fail because of either not knowing how to market, doing the wrong type of marketing, or doing no marketing at all.

If you're not getting enough clients for your practice to survive, here's what I'd recommend doing THIS WEEK:

1. List all the marketing activities you are doing on a daily basis, or have in place.
2. Review how well they are working for you -- when was the last time you got a client from each effort?
3. Critique your website for client attractability -- what could be changed , removed, or added?
4. Choose ONE marketing activity and create a multi-step promotional campaign for it. Work at that campaign until it starts working for you by itself.

Not sure how to get started on some of these things? See my new website http://www.ShyCounselorClientSolution.com

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?

Set It and Forget It – Bad, Expensive Idea

Last week I was contacted by an out of state “firm” who had trawled Meetup groups for clinicians seeking marketing help and wanted me to recommend their services to “my constituents.”

In checking out their glitzy website, I discovered that their offer included an onsite assessment from “secret” patients (as if my practice were a clothing store or restaurant), a report replete with statistics on demographics, psychographics, and growth goals, and a strategic business plan – all for only $5000.

Further checking showed their minimum recommended level of budgeting for marketing was $5000 a year, and included items such as promotional incentives and gifts to get new clients – common practices in some industries. This firm could apparently accomplish everything for me short of driving new clients to their appointments.

Hmmm. When you’re a one person show, it’s very tempting to want to outsource all the thinking and planning and implementing of business operations and client attraction work. An offer like this appeals to our desire for set it and forget it marketing.

I can remember the time when I too wished I could hire a promoter to get clients lined up at my door. It would have been a great solution to the anxiety and insecurity I felt about having to talk about the benefits of counseling in a way that would convince people they needed it, and that would persuade them that they should hire me.

What this approach to marketing your private practice fails to consider is that tactics that work in retail, or for large impersonal clinics with multiple clinicians and admin staff don’t work for counselors and coaches with a solo practice.

Our distinguishing feature is in the quality of relationship we build and sustain with prospective, current and former clients. That takes constant personal attention. It can’t be wholly outsourced.

No slick advertising or website / brochure produced by an out of state consulting firm can successfully capture your unique personality and healing presence.

Phew – you’ve just saved yourself several thousand dollars.

Coaching questions:
When you feel resistant to marketing your solo practice, what anxieties and insecurities are under that resistance?

What do you need when feeling those anxieties and insecurities?

How can you feel them, and not let them stop you from extending your warmth and humor and genuine personality when connecting with potential clients?

3 Things You Want Your Blog to Do

Do you think of your blog as a staff member of the marketing department of your business? It really is.

Here are three things you want that employee to do for you on a daily basis.


1. Provide useful information and tips to prospective ideal clients

If your blogs are random rambling musings, you are missing the marketing potential of doing a blog. And you're wasting your time in blogging as a marketing tactic. Instead, imagine a specific individual has asked you a question, and let your blog post provide a direct, immediately applicable solution to that question.


2. Develop rapport and likability between you and your niche market

A blog works best when it is a little online slice of your personality. Write like you speak. Be irreverent, if that's you. Exaggerate the absurd, if you do so in person. This is how your breathe your life-force energy into a flat, "impersonal" piece of writing. Being who you are AND speaking to your audience about their problems and easily applied solutions to their problems increases the sense of trustworthiness that blog readers need to become clients.


3. Establish you as a generous, helpful, knowledgeable, solution expert for your target market's problem

Blogs function best when they are endless sources of quick bits of education and help. Few people have time or patience to take courses or read books anymore, but we all need simple answers to our complex problems. As clinicians we know that real healing and lasting change is more complex than this. But the blog is not the clinician -- it's not supposed to provide enduring transformation, just enough help at the hungriest moment to make you the go-to solution expert for your target market niche.


Coaching question ---

To start thinking of your blog as a valued employee in your business's marketing department, what specific job description will it have? What measurable goals will you hold it accountable to achieving for you?

4 More Tip Sheets from The No Hype Mentor

Lots of my clients start out as do-it-yourselfers, but quickly get overwhelmed with how much there is to learn about having an effective web-presence.

To help get to the gold fast, I've developed a number of quick guides and tip sheets. I have four more for you today.

Suggestions for 1st 5 Web Pages
Clear, quick advice on what content your first website needs to have to attract more clients to your practice.

17 Sticky Ideas
Especially for coaches, counselors and naturopathic doctors, these suggestions will help make your website more client attracting, and help to increase conversion rates from visitors to people calling for appointments.

Niche Viability Checklist
Sometimes you have a great idea for a very narrow or specialized niche that you know needs your help. This checklist will help you determine if enough of these folks will want your services in great enough numbers for you to make a living.

Crafting Your Ideal Client Niche
Those of you who are generalist in recovery may like some help in figuring out exactly who your ideal client is. Helps develop the demographic and psychographic details that you need for an effective marketing message.

Request any or all of these 4 No Hype Mentor Tip Sheets ~~ Note: Submitting this form will not trigger an instant download. I'll be sending you the materials you request personally. Sorry for the wait if your daytime is my sleep time.

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Poor Mr Sleaze -- Everybody Hates You

Sleaze is one of those things that's in the eye of the beholder. Often what it looks like is a set of tactics aimed at convincing us we need something that we can well do without, and persuading us to hurry up and get it when we can't really afford it.

In marketing a private healing arts practice, high pressure sales tactics that work in some retail advertising are generally considered sleazy, such as:

• creating false urgency that stimulates the greed factor -- i.e.: the buy now or lose tactic

• purporting a false limited availability -- i.e., the this fee good for the first 5 people today only tactic

• emotional manipulation of Maslow needs -- i.e.: the become more sexy, have money raining on you tactic

• over promised results --i.e., cousin to the above, the you too can become an Olympic star tactic

• celebrity association -- i.e., the trained by Tony Robbins, interviewed by Oprah, worked with Andrew Weil tactic

• bait and switch -- i.e., the freebies that amount to more sales pitch / less info of value tactic

Most clinicians and coaches are opposed to using sleaze to attract clients -- as well you should be. But, on the other hand, there is a psychology to marketing a service practice. Understanding that psychology and using it to your advantage is smart for business, without being sleazy.

Let's start with some reasonable assumptions about our ideal clients (regardless of who those are for you). They have a pain or a problem that is adversely impacting their daily life, they don't like that impact, their attempts to resolve it have failed, it's getting worse or spreading into other areas of life and relationships, and they want are ready to do anything to stop it.

(If your picture of your ideal client doesn't address their pain or problem in this way, it's time to go back to square one.)

These clients don't need to be convinced they have a problem. They are all too aware of it. They don't have to be persuaded to pay for the help that will end the problem. They are already willing and ready to do so.

So, what do these clients need to hear from our marketing? They need:

• to feel that you see and understand their pain -- show that by talking about it
• to feel warmth and caring from you -- don't say you're warm and caring, demonstrate that by your language
• to feel a connection with you -- talking to them about them creates this
• to start to trust you -- talking about what in your own life gives you empathy with them shows this
• to believe there is hope for change -- provide reassurance that you will do your best to help

Is Mr Sleaze involved in any of that? I don't think so.

2 Ways Therapist Training Sabotages Your Marketing

I have a lot of psychotherapists for coaching clients, and I'm seeing an interesting pattern of learned self-sabotage in how counselors tend to approach marketing. It's ironic that we gain a deep knowledge of mental disorders in graduate school, but nothing about the psychology of what motivates people to seek help.

Most therapists are trained to resist providing answers when clients ask for advice. Unfortunately, that carries over into how therapists try to market, and it doesn't work for getting clients.

When people are in emotional distress, they want to stop feeling bad, sad, mad, out of control, incapable, scared, or hopeless. Our marketing needs to acknowledge how they feel and provide a belief that there is a solution that will help them end, overcome, lighten, or otherwise change their felt distress.

This is what motivates them to seek help. This is what our marketing must say.

Secondly, almost all therapists are schooled to keep their personal lives separate and secret from clients. Sometimes that's wise, if you work with dangerously unstable populations. But most of the time that non-disclosure rule prevents the essential know you / like you / trust you factor in marketing that brings people to you door.

Recitation of credentials is not the same as self-disclosure. Especially when given in the impersonal and pseudo-professional 3rd person style of talking about ourselves as if we were someone else, our credentials can come across as cold and distancing. A listing of degrees, awards, and continuing education with trainers no client has heard of is more intimidating than connecting.

Instead, self-disclosure for marketing tells the story of why you are interested in working with a particular type of client with a specific type of problem. It presents you as having your own life touched in some way by something similar. It creates rapport and trust.

Feeling rapport and trust motivates prospective clients to select YOU out of the five dozen other therapists in your zip code.

20 Thoughts to Juggle in Naming Your Business

Selecting a good business name is always a challenge. There are lots of considerations to keep in mind.

• What will the name mean to people who are seeking the type of services you are offering?

• Will the name have a degree of energetic resonance for these people, such that it conveys exactly what they are seeking and they recognize that the first moment they see the name?

• Is the name a clear descriptor for your service, conveying what your business actually does or is?

• Will it create conversation or confusion?

• Is it inspiring for you as well as for your clients?

• Is it short enough and powerful enough to be memorable, and easy for others to spell correctly?

• Does the name evoke a visual image and felt-emotional connection?

• Is there an inherent positive connotation to the name?

• How many ways can it be misunderstood or misspelled in a Google search?

• How much time and effort are you prepared to put into promoting / explaining your business name?

• How much competition is there for a similar name?

• Does the name convey expertise in a niche market?

• Will clients be able to spell and pronounce it when referring you to others?

• In an international marketplace (if your clients will come from across the world), can your business name possibly be a bad word or have inappropriate or detrimental associations in another language?

• Does the name suggest any particular color or color combination and will that match or clash with your branding scheme?(fascinating article on color meanings here: http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/color/a/symbolism.htm)

• Is your favorite name, or one very close to it, already registered with the appropriate business licensing authority?

• Does the name convey a serious business, or is it suggestive of an amateur hobbyist?

• Did you test several names with people likely to be in your ideal client target market?

• Did you test several names with 8-10 year olds and could they tell you what your business does?

• Can you fall in love with your business name, and wear it proudly on a sticky networking badge?

Well, you get my drift. Lots to think about.

I personally like names that hold some special meaning to the business owner, that have some special "zing" to them, while also being memorable and descriptive of the actual work being sold.

Ultimately the marketplace will tell all of us whether we've got a great magnetic business name, or one that gets us lost, forgotten, or is off-putting.

3 Reasons to Be a Go-To Guy or Gal

A go-to person is someone who is knowledgeable, resource-full, generous of spirit, and enjoys being helpful without coming across as constantly pushing their own services and products with high pressure sales tactics. It may be a natural personality characteristic, but it's also a great marketing strategy.


Reason #1: It draws more ideal prospects to your door.

Prospective clients -- people who fit our ideal client profile but may not yet be ready to seek our services -- do like to window shop. It's human nature. And everyone likes to get something for nothing, or find a bargain. People naturally seek additional information from former sources, and tend to hire providers with whom they have already created a kind of psychological bond. When we establish ourselves as knowledgeable, generous sources of helpful information is creates rapport and loyalty between you and the prospect.


Reason #2: It keeps the energetic attraction magnet working for you.

There's a metaphysical principle that what you put out comes back to you three fold -- another way to state one of the laws of attraction. Being helpful and generous with your time and information, we invite to us people who will surprise us with referrals and opportunities to take our work into realms we may not have thought of. Becoming known as the go-to person in our area of expertise is like fueling up the lighthouse beacon -- energy flows brightly from us, and unexpected rewards know where to find us.


Reason#3: It deepens your credibility, and others' trust in you.

Giving away some degree of help and information puts our priority on being of service. It furthers the know you, like, you, trust you factor that makes people feel it's safe to trust us with their secrets, fears, and vulnerabilities. In sales terms, it's a try-before-you-buy offer or test drive to determine fit, function, worth of our paid professional services. In other words, it's good business because it helps establish the credibility of our services.


Coaching question:
What area of your professional interests will you become the go-to person for?

Fear, Flow, and Focus

Are your client attraction efforts propelled by fear? How many of these fears can you relate to:

• Fear of not being visible enough to prospective clients?
• Fear of being too visible and drawing people who are wrong for your practice?
• Fear of not doing enough marketing, so you do a little of everything?
• Fear of not doing the right marketing, so you feel paralyzed or overwhelmed?
• Fear of losing traction, so you get caught up in frantically searching for more ways to promote your business?
• Fear of marketing taking over your life, so resistance comes up and prevents doing any at all?
• Fear of looking or sounding unprofessional, silly, stupid, or sleazy?

Having to combat such fears makes it all the more difficult to produce an effective, compelling, client attracting marketing message. A confident mindset with a good amount of belief in yourself is absolutely essential to the success of any self-promotion strategy.

I highly recommend having some strong techniques for feeling the fear and promoting your business anyway. That should include confident self-talk, an accountability partner, and a step by step system to persistently follow.

Many of us by nature or training value being in a "flow" state of mind, where we've heard that high creativity exists. There's nothing wrong with that when we need to generate new ideas or produce a specific product. How that often plays out for marketing a private practice, though, can look like this:

• dabbling at many marketing actions, mastering and following through on few
• interacting with your business as if it were a hobby
• scattering your energies with disconnected approaches to spreading the word about your services
• starting the business day waiting for inspiration, energy, or motivation to strike
• flitting from one strategy to the next without giving each enough time to produce results
• constantly reinventing the wheel, or being terminally "unique" in promoting your practice
  

Approaching marketing with this kind of scatteredness is exhausting and expensive for us, and confusing for potential clients. Worse, it sends a subtle message that we don't quite know what we're doing if we aren't consistent with how we market to prospective clients.

I recommend making the best use of the flow state when needing to brainstorm, when wanting to immerse yourself in a creative process, and in visualizing success everyday.

If I could make just one point about client attraction it would be that FOCUS is the big secret. What focus looks like is:

• making the health of your business a priority on your schedule everyday
  
• a well defined understanding of your ideal client
• an emotionally compelling marketing message
  
• a limited number of effective ways to fill your pipeline, get referrals, present yourself and get hired
  
• a small set of easy, fun, productive action steps taken every day
  

Focus includes defining, detailing, planning, following through, evaluating, and adjusting. It often sounds like a lot of work, but getting systematic about it makes it very easy, efficient, and really produces client attraction results.

I recommend setting aside time everyday to tend your business in a focused way with clear, measurable action steps that lead to achievable goals.

Why Does Promoting Your Business Feel Sleezy?

Look at me, I'm great, I'm so educated, I have tons of tools, I can do this for you, I can do that -- me, me, me. That's the idea that many coaches and counselors have about what marketing is.

Or -- YOU can be sexier, thinner, more confident, happier, make more money than Ever before, just one hour a week is all it takes and all your troubles will be gone, hurry hurry don't delay, this offer expires today, this chance won't come again, if you want the life you've already dreamed of, act now. Ugh, can you feel the slime rolling down your arms just reading that?

No wonder it feels sleezy to promote yourself and your solo practice.

Leaving aside the comforting fact that neither of those two approaches to late night guru fitness systems and ginzu knife promotions work for professionals in the healing and optimal performance arts, the deeper issue is that they touch us where we are raw -- in our self esteem, belief in our abilities to do our work well, or our lack of ease with feeling in the spotlight.

I want to pass along to you one of the most valuable things that was ever said to me when I was voicing the feeling of being not as good as the next therapist:

• Your clients chose you because they intuitively knew that you were the best helper for them, and it's an insult to them to not have the same belief in yourself that they do. They are trusting you, and you must return their trust by trusting yourself.
  

If you struggle with feeling not good enough -- whether it's an underlying personality pattern or a misplaced acknowledgment of being new in practice -- it is vital to the health of your business that you work on believing in and trusting your abilities.

When you believe in your abilities you won't need to put yourself in the forefront of your marketing message. When you deeply trust yourself to provide the help that your clients seek, you'll focus your marketing message on them, not on yourself.

If you already believe in and trust yourself, it can become easy and comfortable to promote your business without feeling like it's sleezy because you can approach it from the sense of being in service to your clients and their goals.

Isn't that the core of why we wanted to be a counselor, coach or ND in the first place?

4 Secrets to Compelling Online Profiles

As some of you know, I spend a fair amount of time helping counselors construct compelling practice profiles for online locator services. There are a few secret ingredients that I use to establish rapport with the reader, sharpen the marketing message of the provider, and strengthen the conversion rate (turning searchers into clients).

Secret #1 -- Speak directly to your ideal client about them, not about you

When you've decided who you're ideal client is, you get their attention among your competition in locator search results by asking them a direct question about the specific problem they have right at that moment of being online searching for help. This keeps people reading your profile.

Secret #2 -- Name 3 unpleasant ways their problem disrupts their life

It won't be a surprise, they already know. You need to show that You know in order to begin to establish rapport. Hint: name problems you want to work with, that are fun and easy for you. (see below)

Secret #3 -- End every paragraph with a statement that you can or want to help.

Example: Life sucks? Feel angry enough to explode? Can't sleep? I'd like to help.

If daily arguments are wearing you down, if your irritability is growing and your family is telling you to shape up, it may be time to talk with someone who'll be on your side about the underlying pain in your heart and learn to let it go. I'll be that someone for you.

Secret #4 -- Use a powerful 3 paragraph structure

Paragraph 1: connect with specifics about the client
Paragraph 2: deepen rapport by staying client centered
Paragraph 3: give your marketing claim or hook, and a call to action

Possible marketing claim per #3 example: Learning productive ways to argue and communicate sets the stage for a happy marriage. Isn't that your greater goal? It's a personal strength to get help when you want to change what isn't working. I'm here to help.

Possible call to action: Let's start now. Call today.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Once a great compelling profile is constructed, you can use it in multiple ways and places. If writing isn't your forte, if you're struggling for days over getting it right, maybe I can help. :)

Ezine, Blog, or Social Media? Wrong Question

For non-writers, all this talk of having a website, then doing an ezine, and writing a blog, and sending bursts of info out on social media can feel overwhelming and confusing.

Anyone out there feeling that? Yep, thought so.

The question is not which one should you do, but why and when will you want to do one or more of these forms of writing.

From my perspective as a web-presence marketing mentor-coach, I always say that a website is your home-base. It anchors all the rest of your marketing. This is the most important more or less permanent piece of writing you'll have to do.

The purpose of your website is to tell your potential clients what they are waiting to hear in order for them to know you are the right provider for them.

Blogs seem to work better these days than ezines for getting people interested in you and your services, and getting a little taste of what it would be like to work with you. So when you are starting out and needing to generate enough clients to fill your practice, a blog is a good addition to a website.

Ezines seem to work best to keep in touch with current and former clients, generating repeat business, providing targeted help on topics your clients have expressed an interest in, and reminding people you haven't seen for a while that you are still in business. This is a different purpose than a blog, so the writing should be different as well.

Social media work best to spark interest in something specific in the moment. They can be good for sending the curious and the prospective client to your blog or website for more extensive information, or to make an appointment. But for solopreneurs in the healing arts, they don't really directly generate a lot of new clients.

So, website, ezine, blog, and social media -- which will you work on today?

Are You Time Rich and Cash Stingy? Perfect!

For some reason -- whether it's because of hefty student loan repayments, poverty consciousness, self-sabotaging distaste for marketing, fear of doing the wrong thing and wasting money, etc -- counselors are notoriously risk averse when it comes to investing in their business.

I've noticed that many life coaches and some NDs are similarly reluctant to spend money to make money.

So here's the good news: it's possible to spend very little to get maximum impact. Here are my top 5 recommendations:

1. Get a do-it-yourself website -- it's THE best time and money saving strategy you can take.
Costs: from about $8-$16 annually for your own domain name, and from about $5-$30 per month for hosting
(online website builder programs are usually free with a hosting package)

2. Start a blog -- it's THE best fresh connection to your client niche you can continually & easily produce.
Costs: Nothing if using sites like Blogger or WordPress

3. Host tele-groups / workshops --it's so much easier than you think to reach many people at once.
Costs: Nothing if you have an unlimited long distance phone plan.

4. Do signature talks -- it's THE better, more comfortable way to do personal networking.
Costs: ranges from nothing if you are invited into a group or find a free location, up to $300+ to pay for a room.

5. Build your mailing list with free give-aways -- it's THE best way to get email addresses.
Costs: Nothing but your time.

Something here sound do-able to you? Not sure where to start? Check out the tips on my website.

Essentials of Your Marketing Message

One reason marketing is so overwhelming for solopreneurs just starting out in business is that not only do we need to know WHAT to do and HOW to do it, we also have to know what to SAY and how to say it.

What you say is your message.

You message needs to be crystal clear on 5 main points:

• who you're talking to (your ideal client)
• who you're not talking to (the prospects you intend to screen out)
• the experience they have that they don't want (their pain or problem)
  
• the outcome they want that they are willing to pay you to get (their need, goal, desire)
  
• your claim regarding what you can help them get (benefits and value of hiring you)

This may sound like a lot to think about. Ironically, sometimes the best way to crystalize all this is by thinking of your tagline, or one breath introduction.

A trick I learned years ago when I was a journalist writing headlines is useful here -- you don't have to say everything in detail. Readers naturally fill in the blanks. Less can be much better than more.

For example, look at the tagline for this blog: Getting More Clients to Your Door with Grace and Ease for Solopreneurs in the Healing Arts. It tells my ideal client -- solopreneurs in the healing arts -- and by specifying that it implies who I intend to screen out -- retail businesses with employees, executive coaches, etc. It suggests the problem -- you need more clients -- which also is your outcome goal and desire -- actually getting more clients. Finally it makes the claim that I provide easy solutions that will feel and be graceful to implement.

How you relay your message is key.

There's an old adage in the retail business that the 3 most important factors of success are location, location, location. For professionals like coaches and counselors, and even the solo-practice ND, who market primarily on the internet, the 3 most important factors of marketing success are emotion, connection, and delivery.

The most important lesson from this post is: describe, don't explain.

Describe your client. Describe what they want. Describe the problems they have in getting it. Describe how that impacts their life. Describe what they want instead.

Describe using emotional words. Name the pain. Actually say: you're feeling this (it implies: and I know it). Why? Because that begins to create an emotional bond. It begins to feel to them like they are connected to you. Feeling connected naturally leads to calling for appointments.

Delivery is about style. Be yourself in writing your message. Speak with the warmest, most authentic and empathetic aspects of your personality. Don't explain that you are warm and caring. BE warm in caring in your delivery.

There ya go -- the quick Friday lesson in the essentials of your marketing message. Work on that this weekend, and let me know what you come up with, eh?

Do You Soak in Self-Fulfilling Messages?

Remember when mother used to say: watch what you say? She was wrong.

It's much more powerful to watch what you think.

Most of us bombard ourselves with conscious and/or unconscious mental messages everyday that guide our beliefs about what's possible. Then we take the actions that live up to those beliefs.

This is true in every area of life, and it's no less true with regard to being in business for yourself. What are the messages you give yourself about what it will take to succeed?

Here's a list of some of the more destructive self-fulfilling messages that have lead to a lot of counselors and coaches I know going out of business this year:

• I don't have time to market
• I can't narrow down my interests to one ideal client group
• I don't want to limit myself
  
• It doesn't feel professional
• I don't want to have to sell myself to get clients
  
• I can't possibly spend money on marketing when I don't have clients
• It's not my style to set goals and track progress
• I'm not comfortable being an aggressive networker

You may have these messages in your head, or others that are keeping you unfocused, scared, unproductive, and stuck. If you aren't working on changing these mental mantras, they will drive you out of business.

What can you do?

Get very clear about what your destructive self-fulfilling messages are. Make a list.

Then choose the one that has the most power for you, the one you're most afraid to change, and imagine what could be different in your business if it magically shifted. Do you like what you imagine?

If so, tackle this as a professional and personal improvement project. Determine what actions are needed to overcome this message -- what risks need to be taken, what resources need to be acquired, what timeline will you set for changing this false belief, and who will help you be accountable for making it happen?

Which of These 5 Fears Keep Your Practice from Success?

I hear a lot of counselors, coaches, and NDs voice a reluctance to engage in certain proven marketing strategies. When pressed, the reasons for not taking marketing risks come down to these 5 basic fears:

• fear of being too visible
  
• fear of sounding too ego-centric
  
• fear of getting more business than can be handled
  
• fear of looking sleazy
  
• fear of rejection (failure)

Which one stops you?

Fear of Being Too Visible

This one is most often voiced by women in solitary offices who work with high-risk populations where personal safety can be an issue. It's understandable to have a need to be cautious. Creative marketing can accomplish that while still attracting clients you can safely serve.

Fear of Sounding Too Ego-Centric

While it's good to not let an inflated sense of self rule our public persona, I more often hear this from clients who haven't fully claimed their own power, and may be suffering a bit of low self-esteem. Think of it this way - if you don't project confidence in yourself, why should potential clients have confidence that you can help them?

Fear of Getting More Business Than Can Be Handled

Hidden in this fear is self-doubt about your competence, along with an anticipatory sense of overwhelm. There are reasonable solutions to this particular "problem" of success -- hire a partner or an assistant, or refer out to colleagues who aren't as busy. You're in charge. You can actually turn down clients and the sky won't fall.

Fear of Looking Sleazy

Short of promising a free pony to the 10th caller in the next 5 minutes, or meeting clients in a Bedazzled semi-see through half t-shirt and hot pants with 6 inch spiked heels, you don't really have to worry about looking sleazy. In fact, I sometimes ask fearful clients to hold this as their anti-standard. You aren't sinking that low, you're doing fine.

Fear of Rejection

This is the opposite of the field of dreams syndrome -- what if you build it, and no one comes? Well, the key here is to not take it as a personal rejection, but rather an important piece of business feedback that you need to do something else, something more, something different. Let the disappointment of not getting instantly fabulous results teach and guide your next set of efforts.

Marketing is a game of trial and error. The only real risk to fear is the choice to do nothing, and to not pay attention to the response you get.

4 Good Customer Service Tips to Protect Professional Reputation

When you're in business for yourself -- and especially when your knowledge and training are your primary "product" -- your professional reputation is an extremely valuable asset. Many things go into building an excellent professional reputation including:

• abiding by professional ethics
• observing high personal integrity
• holding good boundaries
• providing service commensurate with the fee
  
• promptly resolving consumer complaints

With more customer review websites coming online, such as Yelp where anyone can post about you, and Angie's List that does include health care providers, it's a good idea to take some time to think about your customer service policies and practices.

To my mind, there are 4 practices counselors, coaches, and all doctors can follow that will help protect your professional reputation.

1. Listen without Defensiveness

When a client has a complaint, no matter how small, listen with openness to their point of view. Try to hear it as valuable business information rather than a personal attack or judgment about you.

Receiving their perspective without getting defensive -- even in the face of their anger or upset -- will go a long way toward regaining their respect and willingness to listen to you.

2. Tell Me What You Wanted and What You Got Instead

People sometimes aren't very direct or specific in how they articulate what their complaint is. Help them sort it out by asking what did you want and what do you feel you got instead. These simple questions tend to help people feel heard and taken seriously. Often, this is all they really want.

And knowing what they wanted and didn't get from you is excellent feedback that helps you examine your service practices and make useful changes that can improve your business.

3. Make good

Always offer to make up for the mistake, misunderstanding, or unintentional mistreatment in some way. In retail businesses, customers get replacement items. In advertising, the error in your ad is corrected and re-run at no extra cost.

As counselors, coaches or NDs, we can't give back time or take back words, but we can give a make good session at no charge. If you have products -- such as CDs, books, or a dispensary -- you can offer a free product in addition, as a good faith gesture.

4. Give More than Expected

Even in customer service, an ounce of prevention is worth the proverbial pound of cure. You can build up such excellent good will with your clients by always providing more than is expected that they feel no urge to complain.

And when the occasional curmudgeon lights into you, you can still safeguard your professional reputation by going out of your way to take extra good care of them. Thank them for their complaint, let them know you value their feedback, demonstrate that you have made reasonable changes when you can, and follow up with a how am I doing now feedback card or email.

You can turn complainers into allies and good referral sources if you give their perspectives a fair hearing.

For more on this topic, read Diane Stein's Don't Be an Ostrich!

4 Tips for Managing Marketing Overwhelm

One of the most frequent things I hear from counselors, coaches and naturopathic doctors is how overwhelmed they feel with the sheer volume of marketing tasks they perceive it takes to build a successful practice.

And it's true -- there's a lot to do in the beginning and most of us were never trained for exactly how to do it. We quickly end up feeling like we're operating in the dark.

Here's the advice I give my clients:

1. Start with only the strategies that fit your personality.
That is, if you're an extrovert, capitalize on your outgoing networking skills.
If you're an introvert, develop a dynamic web-presence.

2. Get your basics in place as soon as possible so they can run on autopilot.
That is, do first all the things that need to be done just once (get your website up, list on locator directories, get give-aways loaded into an autoresponder feature or email link to you, design and order business cards, develop a brochure or promotional flier, etc).

3. Set aside dedicated time every day to keep yourself moving forward until all the basics are in place.
Optimal is 3-4 hours every day. Realistic for those with families, or another job, may be 3-4 hours a week.
Schedule it as an appointment with your business, as if your business were a client.
Perhaps put this on your schedule as an appointment with someone named Business Self.
Enlist others to help you keep this time commitment, because it's vital.

4. During your Business Self appointments tame overwhelm by:

• having a plan to guide your efforts each week
  
• being clear about your daily task goals
• getting instruction or examples to calm the uncertainty
  
• doing the easiest tasks first
• recognizing your signs of creeping overwhelm
• taking short breaks -- get away from your desk
• avoiding second guessing yourself
• letting go of perfectionism
  
• asking a knowledgeable friend or colleague to give you feedback
• working with a coach to avoid reinventing the wheel
  
• postponing the marketing tasks that require repetition* until the basics are done
• taking a week off once your basics are in place

*Examples of tasks that require repetition:

• blogging
• social media
• attending networking groups
• approaching referral sources and following up

Becoming systematic is the key building a successful private practice, and that includes having a method or system for your marketing as well.

You can do this.