Creating A Vision For the Future

We spoke in our last blog about the importance of visualising your perfect future. Here at The Therapists' Business School we walk the walk.  So... here's my vision for the future......

I wake up naturally at 6:30am to the sound of birds singing and the sunlight streaming into my room.

I leave my gorgeous husband Ben sleeping soundly and I go out on a walk. I'm in a hot climate and the scenery is beautiful. My walk alternates between sections by the sea and in forests. I can feel the early morning sun on my skin. As I walk, I listen to an interesting and motivational podcast.

On my way home I stop to buy some fresh pastries, delicious fruit and coffee. I take this delicious breakfast home, to my immaculate house, and eat with my husband and two daughters. Everyone is relaxed.

Then my daughters go to school. They are excited to go and I am confident that they are getting a great education.

I then do 20 minutes meditation before showering and getting dressed in beautiful designer clothes.

By now it is 9am, I put on some great music and get involved in my work for three hours. My three hours of work might include seeing one to one hypnotherapy clients, writing, optimizing my sales funnels for The Therapists' Business School or reviewing my investments. I create enough passive to be financially free. I do this work because I am passionate about it and enjoy it so much. After three hours I feel very satisfied with everything I have created. I have received positive feedback from people about the difference my work has made to their lives.

I then go for a work out. Sometimes this is a 5k run, sometimes it is a yoga session and other times it is strength work with a personal trainer. After the work out I feel that post exercise rush and feel as though I can achieve anything. My body looks perfect and I am fit and strong.

The early afternoon is my time. Sometimes I go for a massage or meet a friend for lunch, learn a new language or spend time reading a book, sitting in the sun. I feel calm and joyful. My husband, who enjoys cycling has plenty of time to cycle now that we are financially free.

Then the girls come home from school. They are full of enthusiasm about their day. They have a healthy snack. In the late afternoon we spend quality time with the girls and their friends in our pool. We can hear the sound of all the children laughing and playing really well together. Everyone feels pleasantly tired after this.

In the evening we have friends and extended family over. We eat delicious food from the BBQ and sit outside late into the evening drinking wine. I can taste the expensive wine, which compliments the food perfectly. The friends we have are all kind, funny, fascinating people who encourage us to push for our dreams. The children all play together until it is time for their bed.

After everyone has left I go to bed with Ben and think about how fortunate I am.

This blog post is in response to Natalie’s 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge Day 3

http://thefreedomplan.rocks/ten

What does freedom mean to you?

What does freedom mean to you?
How does your business facilitate your freedom?

Take some time now to really think about these questions.

Freedom will mean something slightly different to each person. For you, freedom might be the ability to choose which hours you work, to give you more time with your children. Freedom might mean being able to work from anywhere. Freedom might mean being able to travel for long periods of time. Freedom might mean not having to answer to a boss. Freedom might mean the opportunity to work exclusively on the things you are passionate about. It could be freedom from debt or freedom from money worries. Have a think about what freedom means to you, as this will be a huge factor in the kind of life you create for yourself.

Personally, freedom means that I wake up in the morning, knowing that everything I have scheduled for each day is something I really want to do. I don't achieve this every day, but I'm moving closer to my definition of freedom. My definition of freedom has changed over the years, as I'm sure yours has. When I was making the decision to quit my investment banking job and start my hypnotherapy practice, I wanted to freedom to do work I was passionate about and to have more time with my children. As the years have passed, freedom to travel has increased in priority for me.

The wonderful thing about being a self-employed therapist is that it creates a lot of freedom in your life. At the same time as creating freedom in your own life, you are also performing extremely valuable work and enabling your clients to lead much happier lives. As therapists, we generally charge quite a high hourly rate. This gives us the freedom to work fewer hours and have freedom from financial concerns. Being our own boss also gives us the freedom to choose the type of work we do, the hours we work and the freedom to make our own decisions. One of the wonderful benefits of systems such as Skype and Zoom is that you can now conduct many types of therapy via the internet. So your clients can be in New York and you can be in the Maldives. (Admittedly, this is trickier for all you massage therapists!)

So what is your definition of freedom? Does your current job or business give you this freedom? And if not, what is stopping you? Getting clear on exactly what freedom means to you is hugely empowering. Visualisation is a very powerful tool. Take the time to really visualise your ideal lifestyle. Imagine all the ways in which you are free in your perfect future, Engage all of your senses. What does freedom look like? Where would you be living? Where would you travel? What would you do with your free time? What work would you do? How would the extra freedom benefit your health and your loved ones? What would you hear in your ideal future? What would you be eating and drinking, if you had complete freedom? And what would you feel and smell?

Enjoy this visualisation exercise. Once you are clear on what freedom means to you, you can take daily action to move you closer to your goal.

As part of our 4 week Business Success Course, we provide a hypnosis MP3 to guide you through this visualisation exercise. Just for readers of this blog we are giving away a free copy. Download yours here.


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

Finding Your Focus - Taking The Plunge

"You're so lucky to have your own business, doing something you love." This is a phrase that successful business owners often hear. However, when you ask people why they don't do the same, a range of answers are given:

I don't have enough money
I don't have any marketable skills
I don't know anything about business
I have the mortgage to pay.

Well here's the truth. Successful business owners haven't been lucky. They aren't more intelligent, born with different skills or from a wealthier background than the average person. The difference is that they have taken the plunge and set up their own business. Taking this step is a huge challenge. If you wait until the stars are perfectly aligned, you will procrastinate indefinitely, which leads to a heartbreaking amount of regret.

The biggest initial challenge after you have taken that step is creating enough income to live on. This is scary, and the reason why most people procrastinate so much in the first place. But guess what, when we are pushed out of our comfort zone we grow and learn. Needing to create an income from your new business is a hell of a motivator! You will push yourself to learn more about business and marketing. You will overcome a fear of public speaking and talk about your business at networking events. You'll develop your business and your own skills. And guess what, you'll feel amazing, confident and proud of yourself for it.

There will be tough times. No business owner will tell you it has all been plain sailing. When times get tough, you need to keep focussing on your big why. What are you passionate about? What does your perfect job mean to you? What does your perfect day look like? And how does owning your own business contribute to this? What extra security will your ideal business give you and your family? What new excitement and freedom will it give you? Have a clear vision of how you want your life to be. A good idea is to create a vision board or your dream lifestyle.

The vision board shows you the best case scenario. Looks pretty sexy doesn't it? Yet, sometimes, despite knowing how much better life will be, people still stay in jobs that bore them to tears. Why? It's the fear of it all going wrong. A huge challenge for all business owners is overcoming the fear of failure.

A great way to overcome this fear is to explore the worst case scenario. Think about this realistically and you'll see it is not that scary. If, and it is a big if, your new business does not work out, the chances are that everything will still be ok. As therapists, our start up costs are relatively low, so you are unlikely to need a large loan. The worst case scenario is that your savings seriously dwindle and you get into some debt to cover your living costs. While this is not ideal, it is manageable. You can more than likely go back to your old job (or a similar one), if necessary, providing you didn't bellow out a string of expletives to your boss on your last day. We don't recommend doing that! So, financially, if things don't go to plan, you will still manage. Then there are the social fears. We are scared of being judged negatively. We worry that if we try something as audacious as setting up our own business and it doesn't work out, we will have lots of people saying,
"I told you so."
In reality most people will admire you for having the guts to try and who cares about the people who are nasty. They have never had the courage to step outside of their comfort zone.

So, the realistic worst case scenario is that you end up in the same position you were in anyway but with a new repertoire of skills. In contrast, the best case scenario is wonderful. Taking the plunge is a big challenge but keep focusing on your vision, go for it and enjoy the journey.

As part of our 4 week Business Success Course, we provide a hypnosis MP3 to guide you through this visualisation exercise. Just for readers of this blog we are giving away a free copy. Download yours here.


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

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 3

In our previous emails in this series, we have explained the first steps, to setting up an effective marketing funnel, for your therapy business. If you haven't read the previous emails you can do so here for level 1 and here for level 2.

So, once we have our email list, what next? How do we convert these email leads into customers?
The answer is an effective email campaign.

The most important rule is that your emails must add value to your potential customers. They must not be spammy!!

Please read that last sentence again. This is so important. Customers need to like and trust you before they will pay you, so your emails must build this relationship.

So how can you add value to your customers lives? What problems do they have that you can help with? You know your clients better than anyone, so you know what problems they face and how you can help them.

Some examples of good, useful content are:

• Free hypnosis MP3s
• A video on yoga techniques to get rid of a big belly
• Recipes to help people build more muscle
• A written post on how to manage difficulties in relationships.

Take your time to create useful, high quality content. Once this is done, you can use it on your website or social media as well as in your emails.

Your potential customers will become irritated if your emails are full of sales pitches. Therefore, for the first three emails send a content rich, useful email. Give away freebies. Build the relationship with your audience. Of course your can have a small amount of information about how people can get in touch but the primary function of these first three emails is to build trust.

We recommend sending the first three emails about five days apart. You will be able to schedule this by using a system such as MailChimp, AWeber or InfusionSoft.

As we have described previously, A/B testing is essential at all stages of the marketing funnel.

So test frequently. Compare elements such as:

• The time the email is sent
• The subject line
• Which freebie is most popular
• Which images get most interaction

One of the wonderful things about the email systems mentioned above is that they provide a goldmine of information about how your audience are responding to your emails.

Once all three of these emails have been sent it is time for your 12 Step Sales Letter. 

We will summarise the 12 steps of the 12 step sales letter here. However, for more nitty gritty information, as well as examples, look up '12 step sales letter' on Google. The beauty of this format is that it overcomes any resistance potential clients may have to getting in touch.

The 12 steps to include in your 4th email are as follows:

1. Get their attention
2. Identify the problem
3. Show the potential benefits to your audience
4. Provide a solution to the problem
5. Present yourself as an authority
6. Provide social proof, e.g. testimonials
7. Make your offer
8. Inject scarcity
9. Give a guarantee
10. Call to action
11. Give a warning
12. Close with a P.S. reminder

And that is your full marketing funnel. Once it is set up it will run itself. With each cycle you can review which parts are performing the best and tweak the system as appropriate.

The Ultimate Marketing Masterclass

The Ultimate Marketing Masterclass

A 1 day course designed specifically for therapists, to enable you to effectively market and grow your business. Held in central London, the day is split into two parts. The first covers Google AdWords and the second half teaches Public Speaking and Networking.  

You will learn

- How to market your business online, through Google AdWords, from one of the leading industry experts.

- How to effectively market your business through public speaking, networking and radio.

- How to overcome a fear of public speaking

Date - 26th November 2016

Price - £130
Location - Premier Meetings, London County Hall, 3J-3K Belvedere Road, London, SE1 7PB



About The Trainers

Google AdWords - Ben Swatridge
Ben is a Google AdWords expert, having worked in the field for over 10 years and run the company PPC-Active since 2010. Ben also lectures in online marketing at Bournemouth University and has managed the AdWords campaigns of several high profile therapists.

Public Speaking and Networking - Cat Swatridge
Cat is an experienced hypnotherapist, trainer and professional speaker, having featured on multiple radio shows, seminars and colleges. She has provided public speaking and networking training to many institutions, including JPMorgan and the Anglo-European College of Therapeutic Hypnosis.