Tech Solutions For Holistic Therapists

Modern technology can make everyone's life easier and the same goes for us therapists. Here are a few of the most useful apps and systems for holistic therapists.

We are going to assume you already have the basics such as a website and email address.

1) Google Calendar. This is such an easy to use system with the additional advantage that it will automatically sync between your pc and your phone. You can access it from any device. You can also share the calendar with others, for example your receptionist. It also automatically populates with diary dates from your emails, which is really handy.

2) iZettle. This is a system for accepting credit card payments. It used to be really tricky for small businesses to accept card payments. We needed specialist machinery, a landline and the costs were high. iZettle connects via Bluetooth to your mobile phone. You don't even need to be connected to WiFi. Using the iZettle app you select the amount you want to charge, the phone connects with the small card reader, (which is available from iZettle for a small cost). Your customer uses the card reader, the funds get automatically transferred to your account and that's it. Wonderfully simple.

3) MailChimp. This is an email marketing platform, which is free for smaller accounts. The free account will likely serve you for several years as you grow your business. Use MailChimp to easily create beautiful newsletters, promoting your business, which can be sent to thousands of subscribers all at once. Give away freebies and useful information in your newsletters to increase reader engagement. MailChimp also produces very useful reports which can tell you information such as which people read your emails the most and which links are most popular.

4) Leadpages.net. This is a lead capture platform. What does this mean? It means that you can create ads (on Facebook for example) giving away a freebie (such as an ebook). Prospective customers sign up to the freebie. Leadpages.net automatically sends them the freebie and also adds their contact details to your existing email list. It integrates well with MailChimp. For more information about how to use Leadpages and MailChimp to create a marketing funnel, download our Business Success Course.

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.

Creating Digital Products

One of the disadvantages of being a therapist, is that we tend to exchange time for money. In general, the business model for therapists, is that we get paid a specific amount of money, for a set amount of time with a single client. E.g. £50 for a half hour physiotherapy session.

While this model allows us to really get to know our clients, it means we cannot scale our businesses. We get limited by the numbers of hours we can physically work. This business model also causes issues when we want to go on holiday. If we are not physically there, we do not earn any money.

So, how can we create a passive stream of income, which is not limited by time or having to be physically present?

A great solution is to create digital products. A digital product can make you money while you sleep. Sounds fantastic doesn't it?

Creating a digital product is surprisingly easy. Have a think about what products would work for your business. If you are a hypnotherapist or meditation instructor, then an audio products would be brilliant. If you are a yoga teacher you could create a video. If you are a nutritionist, you could create an e-book.

Take the time to make your digital product perfect. Edit your product to remove any small irritations, such as bad sound quality on a video.

Due to the increasing popularity of digital products there are lots of available platforms to use. Infusionsoft is a great system to use. Ecwid and Shopify are also very user friendly. These systems allow you to display your products, process the payments and send them to your buyers.

Once you have created your product, you can offer it to your existing customers. People who already know, like and trust you, will be more comfortable buying from you. You can also sell your digital products using Facebook advertising and Google AdWords (Pay Per Click) ads.

Another advantage of creating a digital product, particularly a book, is that it creates a lot of kudos. It demonstrates that you are an expert in your field. This benefits all the areas of your business.

Have you ever created a digital product for your business? If so, what has worked well for you? And what  obstacles have you had to overcome with creating digital products? Please do comment below.

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.

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.

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.

Creating A Marketing Funnel - Level 1

In our most recent blog, we explained the concept of an effective marketing funnel. If you have not yet read the most recent blog, you can do so here.
A marketing funnel enables you to identify your ideal clients, engage in a conversation with them, to build up a relationship. Once a relationship based on trust has been built, a good proportion of these people will become clients.
Creating a marketing funnel is a very effective form of marketing but is a lot of work initially. Therefore, we are breaking down the steps across several posts. In this one we will cover identifying your ideal customer, creating your freebie (or hook) and creating a landing page.
The first step is to identify your ideal client. Look through your previous clients and find out who your typical client is.

• Where do they live?

• What presenting issue do they come to see you about?

• What age are your typical clients?

• Do you tend to see predominantly men or women or is it equal?

• What are their hobbies and interests? 

• Do they have children?
   

Once you have pinpointed these details about your ideal client, you can target your marketing specifically for them.

The next step is to create a freebie, which is relevant to your therapy. This is something, you can easily distribute online and is a big enough incentive for the potential client to take the time to fill in a form. Some examples could be:

• A free diet plan if you are a personal trainer

• A hypnosis MP3 if you are a hypnotherapist

• A video of exercises for back strength if you are a physiotherapist 

• An e-book or article

 When the funnel is set up, you will target adverts to your ideal client, offering them the freebie. Both Google AdWords and Facebook advertising work well for this. However, we recommend starting with Facebook advertising as it is more user friendly, easier to target and easier to control spending, when you are starting out. We’ll go through creating the advert in more detail in the next module.
 
The idea is that a Facebook ad will appear targeted to your ideal customers. They will see the advert, want the freebie and click on the ad. This will them bring them through to a landing page. The landing page is the page which will collect their email address and distribute the freebie to them. There are many landing page services available but the one we usually use is Leadpages.net.
 
Here is a typical landing page. As you can see, the landing page gives some information about your business, reminds the potential client of the freebie and has a button for them to click.

Once the button is clicked they are brought through to a form.


When selecting which template to use, select an Opt In Template. This style of template contains the functionality to capture email addresses.

Research shows that the fewer fields there are on the form, the more likely potential clients are to fill it out. Therefore limit the fields to only ‘First Name’ and ‘Email Address.’

Leadpages can be integrated with email systems such as Mailchimp and Aweber, so that any new signups are automatically added to a list. Alternatively you can set up your landing page to send you an email when a new prospect signs up for your freebie.
 
Another great feature of a landing page is that you can set it up to automatically send an email to the new client containing the freebie. It’s important to do this. People will expect to receive their freebie immediately. If they don’t, you risk destroying any trust. So, if it’s a recipe, video or MP3, you can send this immediately by email when the potential new client signs up on the landing page.

We’ve gone through creating your landing page, characterizing your ideal client and designing your freebie. Once you have these three steps completed, you are ready to create and run adverts. In the next installment we’ll go through the advert creation and testing.