Business Success Course For Holistic Therapists

The secrets of creating a successful therapy business.

Are you struggling to attract enough clients? Are you worrying about money? Are you feeling uncertain?

It is a great shame if you are working as a therapist, doing the job you love, and yet finding it difficult to keep the business afloat. This is a very common problem. There’s nothing worse than worrying about how to pay your rent or your insurance, being upset when clients cancel, or even worse, having to give up on your dream and find another job.

The Business Success Course will give you the tools you need to build a thriving, successful, busy therapy practice.  Broken into four weekly modules, this online business training course covers how to change your mind set, how to market your business and how to grow your business.
The course has been created using the experience of several successful therapists.

The Business Success Course will:

• Teach you how to be a successful business person.
• Give you a variety of marketing strategies.
• Allow you to build a thriving practice.
• Stop you worrying about money.
• Allow you to work as a therapist as your main job.
• Give you free time.
• Allow you to manage your work around your other commitments.
• Help you to earn a good income.
• Allow you the satisfaction of helping people.
• Show you how to establish a good reputation.
• Give you the skills to be your own boss

The Business Success Course is £199 down from £300. This includes:

• 4 weekly modules
• Workbook
• MP3s

£300 is already fantastic value for such an in depth course. However, until the end of 2017 you can purchase the entire course for £199.
Although the course is priced in pounds sterling, if you would like to pay using another currency, you can easily do this when you click through to PayPal.

Purchase the Business Success Course

We are so confident that you will love that Business Success Course, that it comes with a 100% money back guarantee. If, once you have completed all four weeks, you’re not satisfied with the course, you can have a no quibble refund.

Purchase the Business Success Course

Make a change today. Don’t continue to struggle financially, watch your business struggle and spend your days worrying about the future.
Purchase your Business Success Course now and change the future of your business.

Please note - there will be a delay between purchasing the course and receiving it. This will usually be approximately 24 hours.

Lessons from Influence - The Psychology of Persuasion

As business owners we need to know almost as much about sales and marketing as we do about our chosen therapy. Generally, therapists are brilliant at helping their clients but sometimes find the sales and marketing side of their business a little trickier.

There are a lot of wonderful resources available to help us with promoting our business. A classic book, highly regarded in entrepreneurial circles, is 'Influence - The Psychology of Persuasion' by Robert Cialdini.

In today's blog post we'll aim to summarise the messages in this book and give you practical advice on how these strategies can be applied specifically to a therapy business.

Lesson 1 - Reciprocation

Potential clients will be more likely to pay for treatment with you if they have first received something from you. As people, we like to feel that things are fair. For example, if someone gives you a present for your birthday, you would feel very uncomfortable if you did not reciprocate the favour when it was theirs. If we receive something, we are more likely to give something back and this also applies in business. To put this into practice, offer something small as a freebie to your potential clients, perhaps a free digital product or free introductory session. The people who take up your freebie offer are far more likely to become proper customers. You can offer this on your website, newsletters and social media pages.

Lesson 2 - Commitment and consistency

A strange quirk in our nature, is that once we have made a statement about who we are or what we believe, we are very reluctant to change that, even if there is considerable evidence that our initial decision was incorrect. This could be because we want to save face, we don't want to appear hypocritical and we don't like uncertainty or conflict within ourselves. A good example of this is someone who makes a public commitment vs someone who only makes it in their own mind. Using weight loss as an example, a person who tells all their friends and colleagues that they are going to lose 3 stone and compete in a 10k run is far more likely to be successful than the person who just tells themselves they will do it. Again, we can use this as part of our marketing strategy. Run a free workshop for potential clients. Anyone who attends that workshop is making a public commitment that they are open minded about your specific type of therapy and the trust you as the therapist. Deliver great content in this workshop and at the end of the event, invite people to work with you in an one on one basis. An event of this type also utilises the rule of reciprocity.

Lesson 3 - Social Proof
When we make decisions we look for evidence that society agrees with our decisions. Would you go to a restaurant if everyone told you it was terrible? The rise of sites such as Tripadvisor show us how much we value social proof. The simple way to use social proof in your business, is to ask previous clients for testimonials. Once you have a collection of positive testimonials from your existing clients, you can quote them on your website, social media pages, newsletters etc.

Lesson 4 - Liking
This lesson is self-explanatory. A therapeutic relationship is a unique one. Potential customers will often feel vulnerable before they come to see you.  Before they will work with you, clients need to like and trust you. Social media is a great way to gain their like and trust. Just be yourself on social media. Engage with your audience. Talk about the things you are passionate about and believe in.

Lesson 5 - Authority
Building on the idea of trust, clients want to feel confident that you can help them with their issue. They want to see you as an expert in your field, an authority figure. There are lots of practical ways you can create this authority as a therapist. Write a book, being a published author (you can self-publish) creates a lot of kudos and presents you as an authority. Do a feature on local TV or radio. Or publish an article in an industry journal.

Lesson 6 - Scarcity
This rule is used in retail all the time,
"Sale ends tomorrow,"
"Only three left in stock."
Sales messages like these motivate customers to make a decision and buy the product. This marketing strategy has been around for a long time because it works. Apply these strategies to your own business. When you run a special offer, have a clear end date for it. Imply that you are very busy (even if you're not) and can only take on a limited number of new clients. This galvanizes people who are thinking about it to make a decision.

These very valuable business skills are described in far more detail in the original book, "Influence - The Power of Persuasion,' by Robert Cialdini.

You can purchase it from Amazon below.

Taking The First Step

A career as an alternative therapist is a dream job. You are your own boss, have the freedom to manage your own time, generally earn a better hourly salary than you do in employment and can do work you genuinely love.
Despite all the benefits of this type of career, many people hold back from taking that first step. For a lot of people it is a career they would like to do "one day."
There are many reasons why people hold back, for instance:

• I am worried about giving up a regular salary
• I don't know where to start
• My friends and family will think it is a stupid idea
• What if I'm no good at it?
• I don't know anything about taxes and marketing
• It all seems too daunting. 

The best advice we can give is to just start. Begin researching how to qualify in your chosen field. Or, if you are already qualified and are delaying setting up the business, just start marketing it. None of us have all the answers at the beginning. You learn as you go along.

You can easily work out aspects, such as keeping accounts and running Facebook adverts, as you progress. Everything does not have to be perfect on day one. There are a huge number of resources to teach you the skills you will need. Many people hold back from their ideal lifestyle because they are waiting for all the stars to be aligned. Well, that perfect time never happens to start now and adapt as your business develops.

Starting your own business feels like a big risk. However, as a therapist your risks are relatively low. You could continue to be employed part time while you build you client base. The overheads for a therapy business are low compared to other businesses such as shops, restaurants or manufacturing. Explore the risks and develop a contingency plan to deal with the, Don't let them hold you back unnecessarily.

As for the opinions of other people, the important thing is that it is your life. Whenever you make a big change in life, some people will be resistant to it. This resistance usually comes from a kind place, they are worried about the risks. There is a saying that it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. Take the first steps and then tell friends and family. Once you have started on the path you will usually find that people are more supportive. Explain to friends and family your reasons for wanting a lifestyle change. Accept that not everyone will understand, but that is OK.

Taking the first step is the most difficult. After that each obstacle you will encounter feels smaller.

You deserve to do work you are passionate about. Make that change in your life today.

How To Overcome Procrastination And Overwhelm

There are many wonderful benefits to running your own business. Unfortunately, there are also a few downsides. As your own boss, you have nobody to motivate you. You have nobody to hold you accountable if you procrastinate. Sometimes it feels overwhelming doing everything yourself.

If you ever find yourself procrastinating or feeling overwhelmed, by everything, you need to do in your business, don't worry, this is very normal.

We all hit these periods of procrastination and overwhelm in our business.

Like everything in life, our energy and passion for our business naturally waxes and wanes. Often, we will feel incredibly motivated for a couple of months, focus everything on our business and then suddenly find our energy disappears. Don't panic when this happens. It's natural. The best thing to do, is to accept that sometimes you need to take a step back and relax a little. If you try to keep going at full speed during these low energy periods, you will simply extend the unproductive period and feel anxious about it. Take time for yourself to relax, spend time with family and friends, go on holiday and you'll come back to your business with renewed vigour.

As well as natural energy fluctuations, a period of procrastination and feeling overwhelmed, could be because your heart is not really in the work you are trying to do. Ask yourself honestly, is this something which lights you up? Do you have passion for the work you are doing? Or are you doing it because you think you should be? If it's the latter, then what else can you be doing? Take your business in a direction which fills you with excitement.

There will be times when our motivation is lower, our stress is higher but we cannot take a step back. There will be times when it is business critical to get things done.

There are various tools and techniques you can use to overcome procrastination and overwhelm.

Keep a 'To Do' list. This means that all your tasks are recorded and you will not feel overwhelmed by having to remember everything. Regularly review your To Do list and ask yourself the following questions for each item:

• Will this generate an income?
• Do I enjoy it?
• Am I obliged to do this (e.g. legal requirements / tax affairs)

When the answer to all three questions is no, then get rid of the task. 

With the remaining tasks, are there any you can outsource? These days you can outsource almost all business and personal tasks, often for a very low cost. 

Now, you are left with a much more manageable To Do list. Hopefully this exercise of eliminating many of the tasks will enable to feel less overwhelmed. 

Make sure you are finding time everyday for some exercise and meditation. Both are great for minimizing stress and that sensation of overwhelm.  They also help you to be more focused. 

Once you have eliminated many of the tasks from your To Do list, it is time to get laser focused. 

Before you go to bed at night, choose a maximum of three tasks from your To Do list, which are the most important ones to get done the next day.  No more than three or you will start to feel overwhelmed. 

When it comes to the next day, focus on each task one at a time. Do not attempt to multi-task. Choose your first task of the day. Ensure you are working in a good environment. Limit the time you have available to work on this task. This might sound counter-intuitive, but limiting the time you have available increases your productivity.It prevents you from wasting time on Facebook or travel websites (maybe that's just me!). Work on your first task for a set amount of time. Then take a break. Go for a walk to clear your mind, have something to eat or do some exercise.

For example, a typical day when you want to overcome procrastination and overwhelm could look like this.

20 minute meditation session
Task one for 40 minutes
Have some lunch
Task two for 40 minutes
Go for a walk
Task three for 40 minutes.

Work with your own circadian rhythm. If you are a night owl, then do your most creative tasks late in the evening. If you have maximum concentration span of 20 minutes, then perhaps do six 20 minutes sessions rather than the three 40 minute sessions advised above. If you are more focused after eating then plan your most challenging task after lunch. We are all different. Listen to your own body and notice your own energy levels.

We'd love to hear how you overcome procrastination and overwhelm. Please do post in the comments below and share with others what works for you.

This blog post is in response to Natalie’s 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge Day 7

• http://thefreedomplan.rocks/ten

Finding Your Tribe

Have you ever heard the quote,
"You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with."?
This statement usually applies to our financial situation, i.e. we tend to earn the average of the 5 people we spend the most time with. However, it also applies to many other areas of life, such as weight, confidence, ambition, hobbies etc.

So, why is this the case? And why is it useful you know?

We are social animals. We want to fit in. So, we tend to adapt our behaviours and even our thinking patterns to fit in with those around us. We are influenced by the thought patterns, behaviours, beliefs and habits of other people. If you spend a lot of time with other entrepreneurs, who believe that it is possible to be very successful, then you are likely to adopt that same belief. You will talk about success and learn from each other how to achieve it. We also tend to adopt the behaviours of the people we spend time with. So, if you associate with people who take daily action to become more successful, then you are likely to be very motivated to do the same. Associating with people who are more successful than you can also give you better opportunities.
If, on the other hand, you spend time with negative people, the opposite happens. You start to believe the limiting beliefs that you hear from them. You will subconsciously copy the lazy actions and habits which pull you back from success. Start to notice who you associate with and become aware if they bring you up or push you down.

When we take a new step in our life, such as setting up our own therapy business, you can find that people who have known you for a long time can be quite negative about this. This is very common. People can be quite critical of you setting up your own business, particularly if you are giving up a good job to follow your dream. Usually, this behaviour comes from a good place. Your friends and family might be more risk averse than you and they are trying to protect you by discouraging you from taking that step.
Unfortunately, sometimes when other people are negative about your goals, it can be because they are jealous. Perhaps they would love the freedom of being their own boss but have never had the confidence to go for it. It can also be because they are worried that you will change. Many people can be very resistant to any form of change. Of course, we want to be accepted by friends and family. We often don't want to stand out as being different. We hate the though of our friends saying that we have become arrogant. It is really tough to continue striving for your dreams if you are being actively discouraged. The solution to this is to surround yourself with like-minded people. Create a tribe of supporters. Ensure that your five people are people who will encourage you to be a better person.

So, how do you do this? Fire all your friends and disown your own mother? Maybe not. There are much more subtle ways to do this.

First of all recognise that people have a different opinion to you. They are viewing the world as they see it not as you do. Learn to block out these negative opinions. Secondly, make a conscious effort to spend less time with people who are very critical of your dreams in life. Thirdly, find people who do believe in you.

There are probably already people in your social circle who are living the lifestyle you would like to live. Spend more time with these people. Ask their advice. Find out how they achieved their goals. A therapist peer support group is also a great way to connect with like-minded people. If there isn't one in your local area, you can probably find a group on Facebook.

As children, we learn by copying adults. This is a process called modelling. However, this type of learning does not end with childhood. For example, when you begin a new job, you learn by copying your colleagues. We can use modelling to our advantage. Identify someone who has achieved what you want to achieve. Then observe them. Notice how they speak. How do they use body language? How do they approach different situations? How do they speak and think about challenges? What daily habits do they have? What actions do they take to move towards success? Once your have observed their way of thinking and doing things, you can adopt these patterns into your own behaviour.

If you know your role model personally, then that's great. However, you are not limited to people you know. Perhaps your role model is someone like Richard Branson, Oprah Winfrey or Tim Ferriss. You can still model high profile people. You can do this by reading their autobiographies. You can watch YouTube interviews with them. You really do have so many great resources available to you.


Have a think about what questions you would like to ask your ideal tribe.

For example:
How do they handle criticism?
How do they handle failure?
How do they achieve a work / life balance?
What is the best investment they have ever made in their business?
What would they tell their younger self?
Which limiting beliefs have they had to overcome?
What daily routines do they have to create the right mind set for success?

Surrounding yourself with the right people is essential for success. Start taking action today.


Get the 7 Steps To Create A Successful Therapy Business here. 

Unlocking Your Superpowers

As a therapist, you wear lots of hats. You have the role your clients see, as a therapist. However, you also have to wear your book-keeping hat, your social media marketing hat, your networking hat, your organization hat and so on. With only 24 hours in the day it can be very difficult to know where to place your focus.

Place your focus where your superpowers lie. Yes, for a moment we are putting hats aside and donning a superhero costume, complete with underwear worn on top of clothes! You have superpowers, lots of them, and by focussing your attention on those superpowers, you can build a thriving and fulfilling business.

So, how do you find your superpowers? A good place to start is to identify what you enjoy the most. What lights you up? What do you enjoy doing?  Take some time to write a list of all the things you enjoy in your business and all of the things you enjoy in your day to day life. This will be different for everyone. For example, many people would find coding very dull, but Derek Sivers, the founder of CD Baby, enjoyed coding so much that he kept doing the coding, even when he was running a multi-million dollar business.

As well as writing these lists of what you enjoy, take some time to write down what you are good at. Ask your friends what you are good at. There will be things that you find easy, which you assumed everyone else found easy too. Your friends will identify these superpowers.

For example.
Things I enjoy in business
Meeting clients for the first time
Business networking


Things I enjoy in life
Going out with friends
Going to new places
Travel

Things my friends say I am good at
Confident with new people
Organised with dates
Great at planning events
Make people feel at ease.

Once you have identified your superpowers, you can apply them to your business. If you are someone who has great tech skills and attention to detail, then you can focus your time on studying Google Analytics and tweaking your sales funnels. If your superpower is public speaking and networking, then great, get out there and market your business that way.

One of the wonderful things about taking that leap and starting your own business, is that you discover new superpowers. Often, in the world of employment, only a limited number of tasks are required of us. However, when you start your own business you can suddenly discover that you are good with numbers, a great public speaker or fantastic event organiser. Enjoy the process of your new superpowers shining through.

As well as discovering superpowers, you didn't know you had, your own business is also a great opportunity for growth. It is one of the steepest learning curves you will ever go through. Most skills can be learned and, if you have an interest in them, you will learn them easily. You can add to your superpowers by learning business strategy, online marketing or how to use social media platforms. Here at The Therapists' Business School, we have a range of online and classroom courses to allow you add to your superpower repertoire.

As well as running your business day to day, you also have to think about how to grow your business. There are so many directions you can take your business. Do you want to do group therapy? Do you want to hire another therapist? Do you want to create online products? Or sell a book? With so many options and with everyone giving you a different opinion, it can be hard to know which direction to take. Use the same strategy of identifying your superpowers and apply them to business strategy decisions. For example, if you hate working on your own but love mixing with people, then don't write a blog or book. Instead, you could organise wellness events. Sometimes, it can be hard to know what we want. This is very common. A good way to get into the flow state of mind is to do something you enjoy. You will tend to find that when you are in a good state of mind, new business ideas will flow to you. A common distorted belief, which can hold business owners back, is that if something is easy for us we can't charge for it. Remember, just because it is easy for you, doesn't mean it's easy for someone else. Someone else will happily pay you to alleviate whatever problem they are facing.

So, now that you've identified your superpowers and how you can use them in your business, it's time to talk about the rest. All the things you don't like, the tasks in your business which feel like chores. This is where outsourcing comes in. These days you can outsource almost every business task. Outsourcing doesn't mean you have to employ someone. You can outsource as much or as little as you like for a fraction of the cost it would be to employ someone. You can hire someone to do your SEO, write your blogs, do your accounts, even book your travel or do your laundry. A great website for outsourcing is  Upwork (www.upwork.com).

Discovering and then utilising your superpowers is one of the best things you can do for your business. So, take the time to do this today.

Find out the 7 Steps To Creating A Successful Therapy Business

10 Ways To Be A More Successful Business Person

1.       Keep fit and healthy. You will have more energy to work hard and your mind will be clearer. As a therapist you must walk the walk as well as talk the talk.

2.       Model others. Learn from people you admire. Find out how they run their business and what steps they took to get where they are today.

3.       Overcome negative beliefs. We can pick up distorted beliefs about money and success throughout our lives, such as:

a.       To be successful you must sacrifice your relationships

b.      You have to be lucky to become wealthy

c.       You have to treat others badly to make it to the top

d.      You will become arrogant if you are successful

Challenge these beliefs. Read Robert Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad Poor Dad” series for more information on distorted beliefs.

4.       Meditate. A wonderful way to keep focussed and manage stress.

5.       Who you associate with. You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. So, surround yourself with people who support your dream.

6.       Be congruent. Make sure everything you do in your business fits with your own values. You will enjoy your work more and ultimately attract more clients.

7.       Continuously learn. Take CPD course directly related to your field. Learn about business and marketing for therapists from us. Read plenty and listen to podcasts from experts in your field.

8.       Have a clear vision. To stay motivated, have a clearly defined goal for your business. Establish a time frame in which you will achieve your goal. We are visual creatures so create a vision board and place it somewhere you will regularly see it.

9. Don't be afraid to say, "No." If a client makes you feel uncomfortable or asks for an unreasonable discount, it is ok to refuse them, Set your boundaries. 

10. Ask for feedback. This is tough and it is normal to be worried about the responses. However, without feedback you cannot improve your service. 
          

Keeping Positive When Business Is Slow

Running your own holistic therapy practice has many wonderful benefits. More freedom, a better hourly rate, rewarding work. The flip side of this is that running a business can be tough. Your income can fluctuate wildly, sometimes clients do not get the results they were hoping for, and selling your services is hard.

We have all felt disheartened. Perhaps new leads dry up, maybe we have a number of cancellations close together, or perhaps we suddenly find out our office space is being sold to housing developers (this one happened to me!)

As a business owner your emotions are linked to the success of your business. When you are going through a bad time in your business, it is difficult to stay positive. Sometimes you might feel like giving it all up and going back to the job you were doing before.

It is very normal to feel like this occasionally, but do not let it deter you from your dream. Achieving your perfect lifestyle takes time and effort, so be willing to accept some uphill struggles.

It can be reassuring to know that everyone feels overwhelmed from time to time. The good news is that the longer you are in business, the easier it is to weather these storms. With time you get used to managing a fluctuating income. You also learn that the bad times do come to an end and after a few years you can see patterns and know when you will have quiet periods.

It takes time to build a business. We often hear about the overnight successes. However, we hear about these because they are the exception rather than the norm. Also, if you look in details at a lot of these “overnight successes,” the reality is that they have been working very hard, for a long time before the success started.

It can be very useful to join a peer support group, whether that is a group of other therapists or even just other small business owners in your local area. Talk to other people about your concerns. Learn how they overcome the same hurdles you are now facing.

Our mind set is so important to the success of our businesses. A good way to boost mind set is to take time every day to focus on the positives. Remind yourself of the great result one of your clients has recently achieved, re-read that lovely testimonial and celebrate the new leads you have obtained recently. Focussing on the positive helps to shift your mind set to a more confident one. As you appear more confident, new clients will naturally be drawn to you.

Our mind set is the most important factor to business success. The first week of our Business Success Course, focusses exclusively on mind set. For more information click here.

Creating A Marketing Funnel - Level 2

A marketing funnel is the most valuable marketing strategy your business can have. Although it is time consuming to set up, once done, it will run itself and generate lots of new leads. In our previous post, on creating a marketing funnel, we discussed landing pages, email capture, hooks and identifying your ideal client. If you have not yet read the first email you can do so here.

Assuming you have now identified your ideal clients and have your landing page ready to go, let's move on. It's important to get these stages done first, so, if necessary, go back to the previous post.

Your next step is to set up your ads. You can do these on a variety of platforms. However, for today, we will focus on Facebook.

The first step is to open up the Facebook page which is specific to your business. If you don't have that, please set up a business Facebook page before anything else. It really is important to be prominent on social media.

On Facebook start by creating a normal post.


First of all choose an image, which correctly represents the freebie you are giving away. Make sure the image is clear and the correct size. If there are people in the image, then aim to make them the same age and gender as your ideal clients.

Now for the copy. The text on the ad (or copy) needs to be snappy and appealing. Through a lot of testing, we have found the best format for copy is to state three problems that really resonate with the client, and express these as questions, then to offer your freebie and finish with a call to action.

For example:
Do you dread big social occasions?
Do you get nervous when meeting new people?
Do you worry about what other people think of you?
Then download your free hypnosis for confidence MP3 here.

The reason for asking three questions is to create something called a "Yes Set." Once someone has answered yes three times they are likely to also agree to the call to action.

The word "here" should contain a link which will bring the potential client through to your landing page, where they can enter their details and automatically receive the freebie.

Now to target your advert. In the previous blog post we talked about identifying the characteristics of your ideal client. Now we put this into practice.

Once you have created your advert, it is time to boost it. Boosting it means that you pay and the advert will be shown to people who fit your target demographic but do not necessarily like your page.

Click on boost at the bottom of the post and you will be brought through to this screen.


You are given a few options in which to boost the post. We recommend targeting to a specific audience.

Now target to the specific ideal customer you identified. Target based on age, location, gender and interests. For example, you might know that most of your clients are women between the ages of 50 and 70, living in the local area who enjoy travel, specifically cruises, and reading. Facebook is wonderful because you can be so specific.

Now it is time to set a budget. We recommend starting small so you can test what does and does not work.


Getting the advert right takes a lot of trial and error. A/B testing is very important in all areas of your marketing and luckily Facebook makes A/B testing very simple. A/B testing is when you test 2 posts against each other. You change just one thing about the post, for example the image or the copy, and run it at the same time as the first post you created.

At the end of the campaign, Facebook will tell you which post had more interaction. The best post will have the lowest cost per click. You can view this is Ads Manager.

By constantly performing A/B testing you can create the most effective advert.

Now you've learned how to create your advert, you can just relax and wait for new email addresses to come in.

In the next Marketing Funnel email we'll talk about how to convert those email addresses into clients.

Are You An Artist Or An Entrepreneur?

What was your dream, when you started your therapy business?

• Was it to do work you love?
• Was it to engage with people on a one to one basis.
• Was it to make a dramatic and positive change in people's lives?
• Was it to have the freedom and flexibility of being your own boss?

These great, highly motivating reasons, are some of the most common for setting up therapy businesses. Unfortunately, many  talented therapists don't live their dream, because they cannot make enough money to pay the bills.  

This pathway from dream to Artist back to employee is very typical.
What do we mean by Artist?

Well, many therapists fall into the Artist category. We have a craft we are passionate about. We care deeply about our work. We feel personally responsible for our client's satisfaction. It is these traits that make therapists wonderful at what they do.
In contrast to an Artist, the Manager is someone who likes systems and structures. They like fixed ways of doing things and can identify the most efficient ways of performing a task. They also tend to be great communicators and people managers. The Manager is brilliant at managing a department in a corporate environment and is often the type of person that Artists (such as therapists) would want to employ to manage the day to day running of their business.
The third type of person is The Entrepreneur. The Entrepreneur can be defined as a successful business person, who understand the needs of the client. The Entrepreneur also understands the resistance of potential clients to buying. They know how to speak to clients through their marketing, to overcome this resistance.

As therapists we need to be both The Entrepreneur and The Artist. The Entrepreneur gets clients in the door, the
Artist treats them.
Often therapists focus all of their energy on developing their Artist skills. They will often invest all of their personal development budget for the year on gaining further qualifications in their field of therapy.
How much have you spent this year on developing your therapy skills? And how much have you spent on developing your skills as an Entrepreneur?
As therapy business owners we must develop both skills.
We must attract new clients to be able to use and develop our therapy skills. As we attract more clients and treat more people, our therapy, or artist skills will  improve with practice.

So we can see that we need be both the Artist and Entrepreneur to have a thriving practice and truly live the dream. We also need the skills of the Manager but we can outsource a great deal of those tasks.

So, how can we do this? How can we build up our entrepreneur muscle? Michael Gerber's book, The E-Myth, covers this topic in great detail. It is a fantastic business book for any business owner.


Here at The Therapists' Business School, we can also help you to grow and develop your business skills. Our 4 week Business Success Course teaches you how to achieve a business mind set and how to market your business successfully.

As therapists, we are always encouraging our clients to invest in themselves. It is so important to also invest in yourself. 

The Power Of Goals

There is a multitude of reasons why you chose to set up your own therapy business. It could be because you want more free time, a higher income, or work you genuinely feel passionate about. Whatever the reason, a universal truth is that the business has to be profitable. If it's not, then, unfortunately, there is a limit to how long you can keep working as a therapist.


A well run therapy business has the potential to provide you with a very good level of income. Most therapists receive a good hourly rate. What would a higher income provide for you?
Perhaps the freedom to quit your day job and work full time as a therapist.
Perhaps financial security that would remove a lot of your day to day worries.
Maybe the ability to travel or have a beautiful home.


The reasons why you want a successful therapy business are unique to you. However, one fantastic way of increasing your chances of success is to use goal setting and visualisation.

Goal setting is a very effective, simple technique. First of all, buy yourself something to write your goals in. This could be a pretty little notebook or even just an app on your phone. Write down your goal for your business. Make it as specific as you can. Include precise measurements and time frames.
For example, instead of writing,
“I want to be rich,” write “I will earn £70,000 by the end of 2016.”
Or, instead of writing,
“I want to see more clients," write "I will be seeing 25 clients per week by the end of July."

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Are Limiting Beliefs Holding Back Your Business Success?

Do you ever find that although you are committed to building your business, staying focussed and doing all the right things, that somehow your business still isn't growing?
Or perhaps as soon as things start to pick up, you shy away? Or even self-sabotage by not chasing up leads or not doing as much networking as you used to?
Does this sound familiar?

This is very common and is often caused by underlying limiting beliefs.

In our society we have a lot of conflicting views about success and money. Most people would like to have more money so that they can have more freedom, travel, do more of what they love and look after their friends and family. However, although people would like more money, there are also many common distorted beliefs that having more money is a bad thing.


For example, that in order to have a lot of money you must sacrifice your family life. Another common distorted belief about money is that rich people are greedy or bad. People sometimes believe that in order to make money you must take advantage of people or be dishonest. Or that having more money will change them or change the way their friends treat them. With all these negative beliefs about money it is no wonder that we sometimes self-sabotage.

So where do these beliefs come from?

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The Importance Of A Great Mentor

Working as a therapist can be a lonely job. Generally therapists are self-employed working on your own, with minimal contact with your peers. This can be tough. So, who can you go to for guidance? From Mr Miyagi to Yoda, all the greats have a mentor!

We learn from observing and copying others, a strategy called modelling. A mentor is a great person to model yourself on. Generally, a mentor is someone who has been there and done it before you. You can learn from your mentor's successes and mistakes and shave many years of painful learning off your own journey. A mentor is someone you can bounce ideas off and who will call you out if you're not putting the effort in or letting negativity stop you from doing what you want. A mentor is your most valuable asset. So, how to do you find this elusive mentor? To read the full article, sign up to our newsletter here.