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. 

The 5 Most Common Business Mistakes of New Therapists

Running your own therapy practice is a wonderfully rewarding job, for many reasons. However, it is tough, really tough to get it off the ground. At The Therapists' Business School we work with a range of therapists, and we notice the recurring business mistakes when they are starting their own business.

Mistake 1 - Investing in the wrong sort of learning
I'm going to assume that if you have your own therapy practice you have a qualification which is recognised by your industry specific professional body and the CNHC. This is vital. Assuming this, you are already very capable of treating clients. So, how do you continue your education?  Time and time again we see perfectly capable therapists, who invest an excessive amount of time and money into more courses directly to do with their therapy type. This is great to increase the level of service you offer and is necessary to adhere to CPD requirements, however, if you are not seeing any clients, it is a wasted effort. Consider if that time and expense could be used to learn about business development. Bear in mind that potential clients, in general, recognise the job title and not the specific qualifications. You might be ten times as qualified as a similar therapist in the same area. However, if she has fantastic marketing, she will be the one seeing the clients. In the first few years, invest your time and money into learning about business, specifically marketing. Then, you can build a successful business and your therapy skills will naturally improve, through experience. Once you have a thriving practice you will have the freedom to further develop your skills.

Mistake 2 - Not spending any money on advertising
Word of mouth marketing is fantastic. However, you require a big enough pool of former clients to enable word of mouth marketing to generate a significant flow of new clients. While we do have to watch our expenses, some forms of paid advertising are necessary to generate that initial group of clients. The beauty of digital marketing such as Facebook and Google AdWords is that you can test various marketing strategies without committing large sums of money. You can set small budgets and test a few strategies against each other to establish the best one. We go through how to do this in more detail in our Business Success Course. Be honest with yourself about how much you have spent on training in the last year, including hotels, meals and transport. The chances are that the same amount would have been sufficient for your marketing budget for the year.

Mistake 3 - Lowering prices too much
There is a sweet spot when it comes to pricing your services. This differs dramatically between areas and therapy types, as well as between different therapists. Many therapists lower their prices (sometimes very dramatically) when they go through a quiet spell. It's a common mistake to think that lower prices will equal more customers. However, this is rarely the case. There are always quiet and busy spells, often coinciding with times such as the school holidays. Lowering your prices during these times will most likely result in getting the same number of new enquiries you would have done anyway but without the same income. Keep your prices steady through the quiet spells. Things will improve again.

Mistake 4 - Looking unprofessional
Whether we like it or not, first impressions count. Nowadays, potential clients will look at your website for a few seconds before deciding whether to leave the site or find out more. So, we have just a few seconds to make that vital first impression. Make sure that your website is user friendly and has no spelling errors. We once saw a hypnotherapy website with hypnotherapy spelled incorrectly in large letters at the top of each page! The same applies to photos. Make sure that the photo looks professional. Don't crop your partner out of a holiday snap and use that as your professional work photo! Yes, this is another website faux pas we have seen more than once at The Therapists' Business School. Perhaps ask a friend to read through your website and give their opinion. Of course, looking professional also applies to face to face meetings. Dress well for your therapy sessions. Be on time and make sure your treatment room is clean.

Mistake 5 - Lacking in Confidence
Starting a therapy practice is very daunting and it is very normal to feel a lack of confidence. Unfortunately, if this is too obvious, clients will also lack confidence in your ability to help them. Building confidence takes time, but there are strategies you can use. Make sure you have a support network of other therapists around you. Peer support groups are fantastic. Take the time to reflect on all the clients who have made a good improvement. Congratulate yourself often. Notice the language you use with your clients. Speak in a confident way about the therapy to instil confidence in them.

Building your own therapy practice is a very steep learning curve. Hopefully being aware of these common mistakes will increase the speed at which you build a thriving practice.

Our Story - The Therapists' Business School

The Therapists' Business School was created less than a year ago.  We recognized that, time and time again, very talented therapists, were having to give up their dream career, because they could not make the business work. As therapists we need to be business people as well as therapists and this is often the difficult part. It was heart-breaking to see so many great therapists have to return to employment and stop the career they love.
We realized that a lot of therapists lacked business and marketing skills. Often we, as therapists, have not worked in industries which required these skills, so have never developed them. To suddenly have to master these skills in your own business, with no support, is really tough!

We want more people to benefit from holistic therapy and therefore we want more therapists to be successful, to share their skills and help more people. We also want to see therapists who have been brave enough to take the risk of setting up their own business, to be able to live their dream.

We decided to set up this company to help other therapists, like you.

We are fortunate enough to have a team consisting of very successful therapists, who have been there and done it and have an in-depth knowledge of business and marketing, as well as experts in specific marketing fields such as social media and Google marketing.

Our vision is to provide a collection of resources, including courses, to enable holistic therapists to grow their business, be successful and ultimately live their dream.

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.