Back To The Old School

I was having a very interesting conversation the other day with an NLP trainer. He said he was going back to “old school” marketing methods like flyer drops, mail shots and calling people up, as the internet was too crowded and it is too hard to be heard above the din of everyone else (also, he had some mean things to say about “online marketing techniques”, but I won’t go into that…)

Does he have a point? Is the internet too crowded with everyone else trying to sell you something?

You see, the great thing about the internet if you are setting up your first business is that it is cheap. Very cheap, compared to the traditional costs and it is much easier to find customers (or it should be, more on that in a minute).

However, the fact that the internet has made setting up your own business cheap and easy is a blessing and a curse.

Because it is easy and cheap, you can set up your coaching or therapy practice at a fraction of the cost it would have been 10 or 15 years ago, but because it is so cheap and easy, much more people are doing it, therefore the competition has increased.

The recession hasn’t help, as people, in desperation to make some extra cash (and understandably so) have turned to the internet, lured in by the promise of creating an internets business you can run in your bedroom in as little as 1 hour a week (not possible by the way…).

It is getting more and more complicated to get heard, with ever more subtle and expensive methods cropping up (how successful these are I am not sure). Marketing on the internet and staying ahead of the curve is turning into a full time job. You could easily spend all your time marketing on the internet and leave no time to do the work you are marketing (if you are solely selling products, this isn’t necessarily an issue, but it is dull!).

In light of these changes, I have been thinking about how to incorporate more offline methods into my marketing strategy. I have recently been experimenting with A6 flyer drops around my local area to promote my coaching practice, it is too early yet to report on the success, I will let you know how I get on when I have something to report.

My advice, at the moment is, actually, what it has always been. You cannot rely on one avenue of marketing. The internet is important (you are no one nowadays without a website!), but it shouldn’t be your only means of reaching out to clients. You need to balance your online and offline marketing strategy and test, test, test and test some more to see what works for you.

To get 10 simple and free strategies to help promote your business have a look at the “Professional Practice Builder Handbook“.

So, what do you think? Are you abandoning the internet to return to more traditional marketing methods? Is the internet still working for you as marketing medium? What are you doing that works? Post any thoughts in the comment box below, I look forward to hearing them.

Matt

With the internet becoming more and more saturated with people trying to sell you something, is it worth going back to “old school” marketing methods?

Do Something New In 2010!

I was watching the news on New Years day and, as with every year at this time, they were talking about New Years Resolutions.

One of the guests they had on the show was a “personal development expert” who had written a new book about, yes, you guessed it, getting what you want!

Yes! Another one. Just like all the rest.

I may be sounding sarcastic and cynical at this point. And that is because I am.

I hate to sound blunt, but that is just another self-help book to clutter the shelves in your local bookshop.

I was listening to the guy being interviewed and he had nothing original or new to say he was just regurgitating all the usual self-help clichés and truisms.

Not that what he was saying wasn’t good. It was all useful stuff. It’s just that is was the same stuff that every other self-styled “personal development expert” is saying.

I see it time and time again, people setting themselves up as coaches or therapists or trainers (or “motivational speakers”) and doing, saying and acting the same way as everyone else who are doing exactly the same thing!

You will be very, very lucky to be successful if that is your business strategy. You will throw good money after bad and probably end up out of business in 18 months and there is a good chance you may even take someone else’s business with you when you go bust (by stealing clients from them whilst your were in business).

The self-help field is crowded and competitive and entering into the marketplace without an effective business and marketing strategy is just commercial suicide.

But I am not trying to put you off. Honestly. I am just giving a stark warning. It is still possible to be very successful in this field. You just have to start out with the right strategy.

The starting point of a successful strategy.

If you boil down all my advice to one word, it would be “NICHE”.

You need to specialise, do something unique and original or something no one else is doing. It doesn’t have to be amazing, but it has to be different. Sometimes something as simple as aiming at a specific geographical location, gender or social group can be enough to differentiate you from everyone else. But you need to do define you niche and (this is essential) stick to it.

How do you develp a successful niche??

There are 3 simple steps to getting a successful niche:

1. Gather Ideas
Firstly, brainstorm things you are interested in or know a lot about (there is no point developing a niche you hate just because it is a niche, you will end up not enjoying what you are doing and there is nothing worse that being self employed doing something you can’t stand!).

Now see which of those ideas yo can turn into a viable business. The best way to think about it is what problems are not being fulfilled in that niche?

2. Research
Then research, research, research (you get a set of research questionares as a bonuses with the “Professional Practice Builder Handbook“), is there anyone else doing it? Is there a real and tangible need for it (you could have the best niche in the world, but if no one needs or wants it, you will fail. I have seen this many, many times…).

3. Set Up and Test
Once you have done your research set up what you think will be the most successful niche for you, you don’t just blindly stumble in. You set up the niche and continue to test. Is it as good a niche as you thought? Do you need to tweet and alter your approach?

Was there more than one niche you thought would be successful. Set up both and test, see which one is best and drop the other one.

You get the idea?

Learn a step by step approach on how to do this and much, much more in the “Professional Practice Builder Handbook”. Click here for more details.

Matt

PS, I apologise for not posting as regularly as I would have liked towards the end of 2009, a few things ran away with me. My New Years Resolution is to start posting at least once a week, to get my head round twitter and get some more  web classes recorded (I can’t believe the first – and so far only – one was way back in March last year!).

NOW is the Best Time!

I am not saying that in some fancy personal development language that now is the best time to start just because it is now (although that is true), but I really believe NOW is the best time to set up a therapy or coaching practice or training business.

Yes, I know  it is all doom and gloom on the news about business going bust left right and centre, I am not saying now is EASIEST time to start, but upheaval creates opportunities as much as threats and right now there are lots of opportunities. The recent reports of us starting to emerge (I say “us” as in a global sense, Britain is still lagging behind somewhat) from recession and the global economy is looking to recover in 2010.It ie worth getting a jump on the recovery and position yourself to take full advantage of the recovery by acting now…

There is still work out there and I know a lot of coaches and trainers who are doing very well (some, better than ever!). The people who are being successful are not doing what everyone else is doing. That won’t work any more; you have to be a bit cunning and a bit daring.

The self-help field has grown bloated and stagnant, riding the waves of the boom years. Back then any idiot (and there were – and still are – a lot of idiots) could set up a therapy or coaching practice and get a decent level of success. But now the game has changed and it is a very different playing field. The self-help field is overcrowded and I expect a massive cull in the next 18 months. NOW is the time to get in and take the opportunity to sneak into the gaps this shake up is creating.

Let me give a quick example:

McKenna Breen, once the worlds largest NLP training company began in the last recession in the early 90’s, but they recognised exactly what I have just told you: Change and upheaval creates opportunities as well as threats, they saw that they could shake up the NLP training market and create massive success for themselves.

To be successful now you have to different, creative and challenge the status quo.  Remember the old rules no longer apply, you can no longer enter the market place and expect to set up a generic therapy or coaching practice, you need to do something very different.

Don’t look at what everyone else is doing and just copy them (how many websites have you seen with almost identical content? All spouting the same old “success” or “inspirational” rhetoric), it is easy to think when you are starting out that everyone out there is really successful and when you are not sure what you are doing it is comforting to follow the crowd with the “It must be working for them…” attitude.

That may have worked back then, but now you have to be different to everyone else Study the field you want to enter. What is it like? How many companies are there? What is missing? What can you do that is different? What can you do better?

Fortune favours the brave and all that.

Matt

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Cooperation NOT Competition: How to use Joint Ventures for Your Advantage

Another NLP trainer, Max Watts from Kanousei, rang me up out of the blue the other day. Max had someone interested in doing her NLP Practitioner and Master Practitioner training, but they could not do Max’s Practitioner dates, so she was wondering they could book on my Practitioner training instead.

Now, if you can get round all the scope ambiguity in that introductory paragraph, it is a very nice example of the idea of co-operation rather than competition. It was surprisingly open minded of someone to offer up a potential client or customer to someone else rather than try and keep them to themselves.

The self-help field is cluttered with a lot of people all doing similar things. Some better than others. If you go into setting up your therapy or coaching thinking about competition you could struggle to make yourself heard in all the noise out there, even if you have a fantastic and original niche.

It is much better to look around at the other people in the field you want to enter and consider how you could create co-operative relationships with these people.

It could be about creating a formal partnership with someone, or about creating a working relationship where you pass work to and from each other and team up where required. They could be doing the same thing as you or something that is similar and complimentary.

For example, I have often do work, pass work to and receive work from a network of people I have worked with, experienced and therefore trust.

These include (but are not limited too):

• Hazel Bagley, NLP Therapist and Coach, specialising in addictive behaviour and anxiety www.hazelbagley.com
• Cain Leathem GB Fitness, one of Britains leading Exercise and Nutrition Consultants www.gbfitness.co.uk
• Mark Peters, Balanced Approach www.balancedapproach.co.uk

So, whilst doing your research and developing your therapy or coaching business see who is out there that you could team up, maybe they are doing the same as you want to where you can share clients (and costs), or maybe they are in a similar and complimentary field where you can recommend and exchange clients.

Matt

Don’t Spend Too Long Studying The Competition…

This week’s blog is a recommendation based on a confession…

I have spent far too long, in the past, looking at what other people are doing in the same field as me and compare how I am doing with them. Often I couldn’t help but get the impression that they were doing so much better than me (whether it is true or if it is just my perception is irrelevant) and it really gave me a kick in the confidence.

You see, the worst thing you can do if you are running your own therapy or coaching practice is compare yourself to the “competition” and find yourself wanting.

It is import, of course, to do your SWOT analysis (see last weeks blog post) and it is important to keep an eye on the current market conditions, which includes what everyone else is up to.

But, you should not spend too much time doing it. Once you have done your SWOT analysis and decided on your niche, you need to just get on with your own thing.

It is even more important to avoid comparing yourself to the competition when you are just starting out. You will most probably find yourself wanting compared to the more established companies.

When I started out setting up my NLP business I could have looked at the established players in the field at the time and easily given up, but I stuck to my niche, to my idea and kept going.

When I first wrote the “Professional Practice Builder Handbook“, I did research to see if anyone else was doing what I was doing. Of course I came across people who were doing similar things (some books, some training courses), and some of those people were very well established and had very good reputations, but I stuck my guns and still maintain that what I am doing here is different to those people, and what I have to offer is an important addition to the market. If I didn’t I would have given up by now!

This is why, in the “Professional Practice Builder Handbook“, I talk about your own definition of success.

It is important to develop and own a definition of success that is relevant to you. If your definition of success (where you want to be, or what you want to achieve) is “I want to the next Anthony Robbins”, think again, that is not personal enough, you are comparing yourself to something outside and that will not work. You need to define it personal terms, such as “I want to be seeing 20-30 clients a week, earning approximately £1500 net profit a week. I want to have written a best selling book on my niche and be considered the ‘go to person’ by the media and customers”.

Do you notice the difference? One compares where you are to the outside world, the other defines what you actually want.  You are much more likely to achieve that latter as it is almost 100% in your control.

Make sense?

Matt

Why You Need to be a SWOT

(This is a re-print from an the April 2009 newsletter)

What is SWOT and why do you need it?

In the “Professional Practice Builder Handbook” I talk about the essential steps you need to start up your own business and the one thing I stress is research, research, research! You need to know your capabilities and skills, your environment, you competition and your “product”. Good quality, thorough research will save you 1000’s of wasted money and 1000’s of wasted frustrating hours and will be your key to success. A lot of people rush through this step, convinced they know what they are doing and just ash to try and make money, this soon descends into fire fighting to sort messes out you should have done in your set up and may lead to a very quick failure…

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

It involves specifying the objective of your business, identifying the internal and external factors that are favourable and unfavourable to achieving that objective.

SWOT is actually the 2nd step to take once you have developed your niche (or your potential niches).

If a SWOT analysis does not start with defining a desired end state or objective, it runs the risk of being useless.

Internal Factors:

Strengths: attributes of the business that are helpful to achieving the objective.

Weaknesses: attributes of the business that are harmful to achieving the objective. Things you need to work on, learn, etc.

As the ancient Greeks say “Know thyself”! You need to be honest about your strength and weakness, since your business, at the moment is essential you. It takes a lot of honesty and self-awareness to see things as they are, not worse or better. It is always worth running these by someone you know and trust who is disconnected from you and your business.

External Factors:

Opportunities: external conditions that are helpful to achieving your success. The obvious example of this is discovering a massive potential untapped market, it could be developing or discovering contacts, potential joint ventures etc

Threats: external conditions which could do damage to the business’s performance. Examples are your direct competition, even bigger things like the economic climate!

Identification of SWOT’s is essential, because subsequent steps in the process of planning and developing your business success comes down to knowing these for factors. It will help you identify which one of your potential niches will be the most successful.

However the real power of SWOT is to generate strategies that mitigate threats and weakness and build on your strengths and opportunities.

• You can do this by asking each of the following four questions, many times:
• How can I use and capitalise on each strength?
• How can I improve each weakness?
• How can I exploit and benefit from each opportunity?
• How can I mitigate each threat?

Finally once you have done that you can use SWOT for matching and converting.

• Matching is used to find competitive advantages by matching the strengths to opportunities.
• Converting is to apply conversion strategies to convert threats or weaknesses into strengths or opportunities.
• An example of conversion strategy is to find new markets.
• If the threats or weaknesses cannot be converted you must minimise or avoid them.

I hope you find that useful. It may seem a bit of hard work, but a good SWOT analysis will save you time and money in the long run.

Matt

The Economic Cycle: How Much Attention Should You Pay To the Bigger “Picture”.

All the news of late is that we seem to be coming to the end of the current recession, consumer confidence is on the rise, the stock market is in the middle of a record breaking run, house prices are going up again…

So, as a coach or therapist, how much attention should you pay to these sort of things?

Well, there are 2 opposing arguments to this:

One says that if you have done your research, and have your niche and your marketing set up, you don’t need to worry about the economic cycle, in fact, if you pay too much attention to the “big picture” you may well get distracted and take your eye of your business. Especially in a downturn, when all the news is doom and gloom, it is easy to get in to the “well, of course I am not going to do well in this climate”.

As a friend and martial arts teacher said to me the other day, “Recession? What recession? I don’t waste my time paying attention to that sort of thing!”. And his classes are thriving.

The other argument goes that you should pay attention to the economic cycle as this can inform your business, help you develop and design your niche and prepare for the inevitable downturn (there is a reason it is called an economic “cycle”).

The answer, really is up to you, but I would suggest this: Some of your business will come from economically aligned custom. Those of you that are involved in corporate work will know how quickly a training budget can be axed! If you are involved in one of those vulnerable sectors you need to be paying attention to the economic cycle so you can make the best of the good times and prepare for the bad. However, if your niche is something that would most probably be in demand, no matter the economic climate, smoking cessation for example, then looking at the “bigger picture” will probably just distract yourself (and in the worst case fall into the thinking trap of “it is not my fault my business is failing it is the economy”, that just won’t help anyone!).

What I would suggest is that you do not need to be an economist to run your own therapy or coaching practice, but it is useful to keep at least one eye on the state of the current economy. How much is up to you!

Matt

Welcome to the new Practice Builder Blog!

Hello and welcome my new blog site. After 5 years (give or take) over at blogspot (mattcaulfield.blogspot.com) I have set up this stand alone wordpress site where I will once again (I know it has been a bit quiet over the last few months) be posting regular thoughts, experiments, hints and musing on how you can set up, grow or rescue your own therapy or coaching business. I aim to write regular weekly entry covering different areas of running and promoting your therapy or coaching practice. It may be more or less often depending on what I am up to or what I have to say!

If you haven’t already, I urge you to check out my ebook “The Professional Practice Builders Handbook” as it has the sum total of my 9 years and £30,000 ($80,000) experience on setting up my own NLP therapy, coaching and training business.

If you have any questions or comments please either contact me or leave a comment on any post here.

I look forward to speaking to you more soon.

Matt