Private Clients: The First Key to Business Success as a Coach or Therapist

This will be the shortest of the posts on the “four keys” to success as a therapist or coach because it is the one I speak about on the most regular of basis. So, in this article I am just going to run through a very simple checklist of everything you want to be doing to get private clients.

As I said in a previous entry (read it here), you need to do two things to be successful:
1) Define your niche.
2) Dominate your niche, so you are the first (and preferably only) person people think of when they are looking for someone in that niche.

1. Decide on a Niche

It doesn’t need to be totally original, but it needs to be something specific that sets you apart from the rest of the coaches and therapists out there. Think of a niche as a “need”, what need in people can you fulfil?

2. Define what you do in 90 seconds or less

If you cannot explain your niche enough to get the person so interested they ask for more information in 90 seconds or less (preferably less), you niche is not defined enough.

3. Shrink that 90-second sales pitch to one sentence, this is your strapline

It should be striking and memorable and explain a bit about what you do.
I like Joe Vitale’s “I can make you famous in 90 seconds or less – GUARANTEED!”

4. Get your marketing “literature” sorted

I put “literature” in inverted comments as I also include websites in this category.

Firstly, get yourself a website. It doesn’t need to be fancy (in fact I would recommend simplicity), but needs to explain what you do and how people can book you. Don’t worry with any fancy nonsense like video yet.

Then get yourself some well-designed business cards (not rubbish free ones!). Your business card is still your number 1 marketing tool.

Recently I have been advocating more “old school” methods such as A6 flyers.

5. Develop a presence and reputation

a) Online

Social networking is brilliant for this. Get yourself a blog, a twitter account, a facebook account, a linked in account, etc and start putting relevant, interesting and informative content on there (using social networking to overtly sell is a big “no, no” and won’t do you any favours, although people appreciate you are running a business, so asking for clients, etc, whilst giving  good quality content is OK).

Also, add yourself to as many free directory sites as possible, like DMOZ, Gumtree, Googlemaps, Selfgrowth.com and any other relevant directories for what you do, and work on your Search Engine Rank (suggestions on this will be in a future entry).

b) Offline

Deliver your leaflets (or get them delivered), they are no use in the box in your office!

Give out your business card to everyone you meet, go to (free) networking events (your local chamber of commerce will have details).

Get yourself in the media. Write a press release (it has to be interesting, newsworthy and relevant, don’t just send out a release telling everyone about who you are, that is just selling and will get binned) and send it to local TV, radio and newspapers. National media may be a good ego boost, but local media is what will get you clients.

It is deceptively simple (in principle) to become successful in this key area, but it does take a lot of hard work, perseverance and consistency. The secret to being successful in this key (and in all the other areas) is to develop an effective niche. Once you have that everything else will drop into place.

Matt

PS If you liked this post, please bookmark it on Digg, Stumbled Upon, Twitter, etc. I would really appreciate it

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!).

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

Surviving the Recession

Well, there is really no denying it now, we are in the midst of a recession. And, although indicators suggest we maybe on the way out, it is going to last some time…

I still maintain NOW is in fact the best time to start a coaching or therapy business, with change comes opportunity as well as threat, and lets not forget ‘McKenna Breen’ the worlds largest NLP training company (at the time) was founded in the last recession of the early 90’s.

But this post is not about how to start a business. I appreciate that quite a few readers of this blog and “The Professional Practice Builders Handbook” are already running their own private practices (some, no doubt, more successfully than others!) and are, very sensibly keeping an eye out for hints and tips to help them tweak and improve their business, strategies to test, etc.

So, if you have been up and running for some time and have started to find the recession biting, what do you do?

Ironically, you need to 2 things that seem contradictory:

1) Cut back to your core business
2) Diversify and find additional streams of income.

But how can you do both?! Surely cutting back to your core business means you cannot diversify.

Not at all.

In times like this you have to define, build and maintain your “brand”, it is your brand that will get you customers in a downturn.

You have most probably been accepting any work that has come you way, and that is totally understandable, but an ad hoc, organic and random approach like this will not do you any favours. You need to go back to the basics and redefine what you do, what niche you are in and what need you fulfil. See where most of your work has been coming from and what people really need right now and how you can fulfil that need.

This recession is actually an ideal time to take stock and refocus. Once you have refocused on your core niche and customer base you can start to make an educated cost cutting programme. You will see what costs are creating a return and what are just disappearing into a black hole! As well as see what you need to increase your spend on. Remember it is all about budgeting and your business plan (you have got one? If not, do one! “The Professional Practice Builder Handbook” shows you how to do a very simple but effect business plan) dreary as that may seem.

So, once you have refocused and redefined what you do and got your “brand” aligned with the most common need that you can fulfil right now, how do you diversify?

Well, there are 3 ways:

1) Separate Your Niches

Maybe you have identified 2 or more niches that are going well for you or you think will go well (remember, don’t guess; research, research, research) you need to treat each niche as a separate business (unless they are obviously fit together), remember “small is the new big”! Go as far as setting up a separate website and getting separate promotional material (I do).

2) Add to the current Niche

How else can you fulfil the need of your niche? Can you create CD’s? DVD’s? Online courses? Ebooks? Do workshops? How else can you use your niche to generate income? Products are ideal, because, as soon as you have made them all the time and cost are gone and they tick over becoming a simple passive stream of income (see below). Be creative!

I will talk more about products at a later stage.

3) Develop “Passive” income streams

Such as products (see above) affiliate marketing (advertising other peoples products that fit with yours for a commission) etc. I will talk about this much more in a future post.

And as a bonus here are three things you shouldn’t do!

1) Throw money at advertising and hope for the best

Don’t be suckered by cold callers offering your great rates  – they are only doing that because they are struggling too!

2) Cut costs

Never, ever, ever get into that price cutting strategy, I will explain why in a later post!

3) Give up!

You do this because you love it! Stick with it, it will all work out. Persistence is more powerful than anything in this game…

Matt