the No Hype Mentor Blog

Does Your Ezine Cut to the Meat, or the Chase?

noreply@blogger.com (Coach Deah) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 17:26:00 +0000

I used to be a cut to the chase type of person. You know the sort who wants info products to get to the point, and not waste my time with personal notes and frilly graphics and random other people's opinions (usually called testimonials...LOL).

I get way too many ezines, and all that overly friendly relationship building stuff doesn't really get me feeling all warm and fuzzy about the sender.

This morning, after getting yet another formulaic ezine I realized that either I'm a terribly unusual consumer, a hard sell (both may be quite true), or I've already been sold and trying to sell me again is having a boomerang effect -- it's actually pushing me away.

The chase makes me run the opposite way. The excessive exhuberance comes off as a little desperate.

So for all my colleagues out there who are falling into the habit of formatting your ezines this way:

personal note
picture of family or some past event
testimonial that promotes your latest program
promotion about something you're selling
finally!! the meaty tips that keep readers on the list
another promotion
another promotion for someone your list has never heard of
another promotion for a joint venture partner
no kidding, another promotion for another JV partner
and yet a 2nd or 3rd promotion for what you're selling

may I suggest that you think about cutting to the meat of your message instead of leading with so much chase. Quality over quantity, ya know?

4 Things You Absolutely MUST Spend the Money For

noreply@blogger.com (Coach Deah) — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 16:27:00 +0000

Just starting out in private practice, or moving from agency work to be out on your own? Haven't had to market for clients before and don't know where to start?

There are 4 tools and services you need to function as a business owner who relies on attracting clients for one-on-one counseling, coaching, or naturopathic healthcare. They are as important to your business as electricity is to your home.

A Client Attractive Website for Your Practice

It's a well known fact now that most people who have computers do an internet search first when thinking about needing our services. In addition, many allied professional want to check us out before referring, and want to see our website. If you don't have one, it's like announcing to the world that you aren't ready for prime time.

You don't have to pay a designer thousands of dollars to have a website. They really aren't that difficult to create on template-driven webhosts. See my Web-Based Marketing Resource Packs for Counselors, Coaches, or NDs for a list of recommended, inexpensive and easy to use do it yourself web-builders.

Your Own Domain Name

Rather than having your website address be something like yahoo.com/TopekaTherapy it really is better to buy just Topeka Therapy.com. It's more memorable and clear, and looks more professional, like you are serious about your work and the success of your business.

Many webhost / website builder companies will also have domain name registration as part of your package. Some charge more than they should, but many make the whole process very easy. One that I like so much that I became an affiliate of is Webstarts.com.

An Autoresponder Vendor That Can Send Attachments

To build relationship with potential clients who are yet ready to make appointments and commit to therapy or coaching, you'll want to be able to provide them with a useful piece of self-help in exchange for collecting their email address. In the beginning before you have more than 50 names on your business email list, you could manage this manually with your personal email program.

Once your list goes beyond 50 names you really will need an account with an email broadcast vendor such as Constant Contact, MailChimp or Aweber. Short information pieces -- such as tip sheets -- or a series of short articles, these can be delivered by your personal email, but will tend to get blocked from delivery if you send to a group larger than 50.

The best solution is to pre-program an autoresponder to send your self-help tip sheet or special report on request. Constant Contact is the easiest for that, but can't yet send attachments. Aweber sends attachments but is more difficult to configure. All broadcast email services provide a sign up box you can install on your website.

Listing in Locator Directories

Once your website is live on line, with its own address, and with an autoresponder email collection box on it, it's time for the last of the 4 essential items you must spend money for -- listing your practice on a locator directory, such as Psychology Today, CoachDigg, or HealthProfs. Some are free, but the better ones charge a monthly fee to list your practice. Look for the ones that rank high in natural search results, which means more people use those directories to find practitioners.

Don't forget that all these expenses are likely to be tax deductible in the cateogry of Advertising because they are spending you need to do to let the public know you are open for business.

What To Do vs How to Say It

noreply@blogger.com (Coach Deah) — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 18:45:00 +0000

Have you been frantically or even systematically chasing one marketing strategy after another, hoping to find the magic answer to "what works" for getting more clients in your private counseling, coaching or NM practice -- with the only result being holes in your shoes and in your monthly income?

Perhaps it's time to consider that the problem isn't knowing what to do, or even having excellent follow up in doing it. Maybe the problem is knowing how to say it.

I'm finding with my clients that what seems like a direct, specific description to insight oriented counselors and coaches often isn't as concrete and clear as needed for marketing.

Writing for marketing tends to require all of us to learn the language of marketing. It's a hard switch to make. Marketing isn't one of the foreign languages taught in high school -- but it probably should be!

To help learn this foreign language called marketing, I've developed a 9 week curriculum for beginners and advanced "speakers." These videos outline what you will learn and complete by the end of either course.

Courses start in July. Registration at www.TheNoHypeMentor.com/id5.html

The Shy Counselor Client Solution

noreply@blogger.com (Coach Deah) — Tue, 25 May 2010 15:34:00 +0000

So many of my clients -- counselors, coaches, even naturopathic doctors -- are basically shy when it comes to self-promotion. Others might be better described as energetically introverted, and many could be said to have been trained into being inhibited when it comes to marketing their private practice.

I can relate.

It's hard to put ourselves in the spotlight intentionally. It's draining to follow the conventional advice that always pushes for high visibility with a persuasive patter of what feels like selling ourselves.

And we have our professional image to consider -- not to mention professional licensure to protect.

Most service businesses owned and operated by single individuals fail because of either not knowing how to market, doing the wrong type of marketing, or doing no marketing at all.

If you're not getting enough clients for your practice to survive, here's what I'd recommend doing THIS WEEK:

1. List all the marketing activities you are doing on a daily basis, or have in place.
2. Review how well they are working for you -- when was the last time you got a client from each effort?
3. Critique your website for client attractability -- what could be changed , removed, or added?
4. Choose ONE marketing activity and create a multi-step promotional campaign for it. Work at that campaign until it starts working for you by itself.

Not sure how to get started on some of these things? See my new website http://www.ShyCounselorClientSolution.com

Is the Internet Oversaturated with Clinicans and Coaches?

noreply@blogger.com (Coach Deah) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:59:00 +0000

Close to 100 years ago one of the "fathers" of modern advertising taught that it generally took a man 20 exposures to an ad to buy the product [apparently they didn't let women out of the house then, or we couldn't read, or it was illegal for us to carry money and transact a purchase, or something, but that's a different topic :D].

As television caught on 60 years ago and marketing psychology got more sophisticated, the conventional wisdom of the time pared the 20 exposures down to at least 7. But that was when tv only had 2 or 3 channels, you had to actually get up and walk across the room to change the channel -- imagine! -- and it wasn't on 24/7.

Now an electronic marketing message has to compete with all the other electronic media that nearly everyone is plugged into these days, sometimes more than one at a time. Plus, lots of people are pushing virtually the same services without making their unique distinctions crystal clear and without connecting to the emotional suffering of potential clients in any authentic, relationship building way.

Years ago I learned some cool things about developing and giving a signature talk as a way for people to get to know you, like you, and trust you, and thereby want to work with you or refer to you. As an introvert but experienced teacher, I found doing signature talks comfortably like teaching and much more preferable than going to braincell-sucking networking breakfasts (not that those don't work for some, they just never worked for me).

My take on the latest marketing fad about getting out of our caves and into the community is that people are craving live experiences again because we've all gotten overly isolated in our little ipod/iphone/inetbook, rss, tweetme then retweetme worlds. They want to experience our personality, energy, humor, empathy, compassion, knowledge and expertise BEFORE they commit to working with us, and being in the spotlight of a speaking event might be a place where you too can shine and then close the sale.

AND, it's also still quite possible to let your personality, energy, humor, empathy, compassion, knowledge and expertise shine through your website and other writing -- yes, even still on the internet and without having to close the sale -- because the world is not oversaturated with YOUs.

If you aren't one of the millions for whom public speaking is only slightly less objectionably scary than getting buried alive in an ant hill after a honey bath, it can be an alternative way to leverage your time and effort in reaching many people at once rather than schlepping to doctors' offices one at a time with baskets of muffins.

Bottom line, in my view, is that the smart thing to do is to make use of whatever marketing strategies fit your personality and comfort zone the best.

Step 3 for Getting More Clients

noreply@blogger.com (Coach Deah) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:16:00 +0000

Here's the simple secret:

To get more clients, narrow your sights.

I know that sounds crazy. I know it defies "logic."

I know it works.

By narrow your sights I mean focus on a specifically defined ideal client type. "People who need your help" is not a specific client type. Neither is "women with anxiety," or "children and adolescents," or "men with substance abuse issues," although each of those is a toenail closer to a useful definition.

A mistake I hear counselors, coaches and NDs make all the time is in equating the idea of the ideal client with the majority of people who already happen to show up in your practice. I always ask new clients, who is your ideal client, and they always tell me, "well, I see a lot of .....", or they say, "right now, I'm mostly getting people who...."

No. People who happen to show up when your marketing message is vague and disconnected from specific problems and their impact in daily life are not usually our ideal clients. Any warm body is not the ideal client, folks. Any paying customer is not the goal to shoot for if you want your business to thrive.

So how do you know who your ideal client is? Well, who do you want it to be? You get to decide.

Determining your ideal client is like painting a picture, or better, like writing a screenplay with characters who:

have the problems you are passionately interested in working with
make you feel competent and great at what you do
make your heart sing when they achieve a breakthrough
leave you more energized at the end of day seeing 8 of them back to back

Stop and think about this right now: What kind of client with what type of problem would be ideal for you to work with?

And don't sabotage yourself here by thinking that you'll get bored with just one type, or that you have too many interests to pick just one, or that you really don't know. Let me assure you that marketing to a specifically and narrowly defined ideal client niche will NOT prevent others from asking for an appointment. That's another counter-intuitive but absolutely true phenomenon in client attraction marketing. So don't give that another thought.

Deciding what kind of client with what type of problem is your ideal helps you know where to spend your marketing dollars. Their demographic features -- who are they and their problems -- help you correctly identify where they can be found. When you know where they can be found, you know what kind of marketing you'll need to do to reach them.

Deciding how their problem impacts their daily life, and what they want instead tells you what they need to hear from you in order to be motivated to spend money on your services. These psychographic features -- how they feel about their problem, and what motivates them to change -- help you correctly hone your marketing message. When you have an emotionally compelling marketing message it's like laying a trail of bread crumbs to your phone number or email.

Step 3 -- identify your ideal client -- is the step on which all the rest of your marketing will pivot. There's nothing more essential than this.

Coaching questions:

1. What types of problems are easy for you to help clients resolve?
2. What kind of suffering is rewarding for you to help end?
3. What kind of people do you naturally align or resonate with?
4. How old are they, in what occupational category, with what level of education and income?
5. What do these people who suffer from those problems desperately want?
6. What will they be willing to pay anything -- out of pocket -- to have?
7. What do you know without doubt you can help them achieve?

Step 2 in Becoming a Client Magnet

noreply@blogger.com (Coach Deah) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:50:00 +0000

Following on from the last post, the marketing question to ask today is this:
What makes you unique among your peers who do the very same work?

And let me encourage you to try to answer this from your prospective clients' point of view. Think about their decision making process. What's the intangible something that you have and others don't that will cause clients to select you for their counselor, coach or ND?

Hint: this isn't necessarily about your training, and usually it won't be about your clinical affect or coaching presence. We're all warm and supportive, each of us creates safety and an atmosphere of enthusiastic hope. Those aren't unique selling points in our business.

What is it in your own history and set of personal interests that give you your passion for wanting to do your work in the world?

Maybe you specialize in working with women with postpartum depression because you know what that's like, because your own life has been touched by it in some way -- be it in yourself, your sister, a friend, etc. This gives you empathy and insight that no one who has never had PPD can fully comprehend.

Perhaps the dream of your youth was to be a professional dancer -- until you blew out your knee or injured your back, and your entire self-concept was suddenly, traumatically altered. As a healer now you bring a depth of personal understanding into every encounter with clients whose life dreams have been shattered in a similar way.

Knowing that you have had your own challenges and have overcome them -- of that you have a personal connection to someone with such challenges -- is a compelling factor in the selection process when prospective clients are searching for a provider.

Clients expect us to have been trained and tested. They assume we follow the standards of practice for our particular field. Most aren't knowledgeable enough to know the difference between techniques or schools or approaches to our work. We don't need to over emphasize these factors in our marketing. What starts building rapport and trust is a glimpse into who we are as individuals.

Coaching questions:
What type of experience in your own life sets you apart? How much of that are you comfortable with disclosing in your marketing?

What qualities of personality contribute to your uniqueness, compared to your peers? Are you more direct than the norm, do you listen more, ask more powerful questions, go out of your way for clients more, etc? What unique personality features will stand out to prospective clients comparing you with your peers?

Step 1 to Effective Client Attraction

noreply@blogger.com (Coach Deah) — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 20:52:00 +0000

Friends and colleagues, it's time to get back to basics with a pop quiz. What's THE number one most important step to attracting more clients to your healing arts practice?

Aw, c'mon, take a guess. Do a website? Network like crazy? Build a referral system with allied providers? Get on insurance panels?

Useful as all of those strategies are, they are not THE essential first step. So what is?, I hear you ask.

Time.

That's right, time. As in, carving out time -- daily -- for taking strategic action steps, and then giving those actions time to work.

Something so simple seems to be enormously difficult to accomplish. And I'll confess right now that I don't always manage it either, what with actually working with clients, creating new resources (my "artistic" passion), keeping up with bookkeeping and other non-marketing business demands, and striving for balance in the rest of my life.

But I can testify to the fact that when I work an action plan daily, I get more new clients, or returning clients, than when I goof off in my marketing discipline.

I have clients with success stories who are living proof that daily discipline in working an action plan does pay off, and faster than expected.

So why is this a habit that is so hard to adopt? Three reasons come to mind:

the thought of daily marketing feels overwhelming
we aren't really sure what to do or how to do it
we give ourselves legitimate excuses (but those just sabotage our business)

I'll let you in on the secrets to getting beyond these reasons and getting into the daily action plan habit. Ready?

Take on one project at a time
Make the action steps small and easy
Track your accountability on paper (or in Excel)
Use an accountability partner (colleague, friend, coach) to keep you focused
Get just-in-time help for only one immediate project or one action step at a time
Set your action plan work time into your business schedule as an appointment with Success
Identify your time wasters and energy vampires, and eliminate them
Sacrifice a little leisure, social or volunteer time for a month & devote it to your business

Coaching questions:

What are your personal time wasters and energy vampires? What will you do today to eliminate them from your attention for the next 30 days?

Look at a project or marketing strategy you know you should be tending to. How can you break it into small, easy action steps?

What specific time block each day will you commit to making your business a success?

Set It and Forget It – Bad, Expensive Idea

noreply@blogger.com (Coach Deah) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 17:11:00 +0000

Last week I was contacted by an out of state “firm” who had trawled Meetup groups for clinicians seeking marketing help and wanted me to recommend their services to “my constituents.”

In checking out their glitzy website, I discovered that their offer included an onsite assessment from “secret” patients (as if my practice were a clothing store or restaurant), a report replete with statistics on demographics, psychographics, and growth goals, and a strategic business plan – all for only $5000.

Further checking showed their minimum recommended level of budgeting for marketing was $5000 a year, and included items such as promotional incentives and gifts to get new clients – common practices in some industries. This firm could apparently accomplish everything for me short of driving new clients to their appointments.

Hmmm. When you’re a one person show, it’s very tempting to want to outsource all the thinking and planning and implementing of business operations and client attraction work. An offer like this appeals to our desire for set it and forget it marketing.

I can remember the time when I too wished I could hire a promoter to get clients lined up at my door. It would have been a great solution to the anxiety and insecurity I felt about having to talk about the benefits of counseling in a way that would convince people they needed it, and that would persuade them that they should hire me.

What this approach to marketing your private practice fails to consider is that tactics that work in retail, or for large impersonal clinics with multiple clinicians and admin staff don’t work for counselors and coaches with a solo practice.

Our distinguishing feature is in the quality of relationship we build and sustain with prospective, current and former clients. That takes constant personal attention. It can’t be wholly outsourced.

No slick advertising or website / brochure produced by an out of state consulting firm can successfully capture your unique personality and healing presence.

Phew – you’ve just saved yourself several thousand dollars.

Coaching questions:
When you feel resistant to marketing your solo practice, what anxieties and insecurities are under that resistance?

What do you need when feeling those anxieties and insecurities?

How can you feel them, and not let them stop you from extending your warmth and humor and genuine personality when connecting with potential clients?

Do You Have My Mother Too?

noreply@blogger.com (Coach Deah) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:03:00 +0000

My 90 year old mother is conditioned by her life experience of living through the Great Depression, and by her religious views, to expect the worst. She lives in fear and pessimism.

So I'm not a natural optimist. Fear of doing the wrong thing, of making shaky or bad situations worse, is more often than not the pot that percolates in the back of my mind.

And I'm here to tell ya -- it's hard to run a business that way. Seems common sense, doesn't it? I'm surprised by how many of my clients have the same mother.

Where I strive to live, and help others dwell, is in the knowing that if you can avoid making choices from a position of fear and desperation, that's always best. Fear based decisions usually trap us in what we don't want and keep us from moving forward to achieve what we do want.

Now sometimes I think we get handed what looks like "sensible" solutions or opportunities as a kind of test of our intention to make the changes we've said we want to make. For example, between Dec 15 and Jan 4 I got multiple requests to do astrology readings (something I used to do as a sideline business).

I had made the decision to not be in that business any more. But here were those opportunities. Much as the extra income would have been nice, I turned them down because I recognized the requests as a test of my resolve to not live in fear of rejecting income opportunities, and to not scatter my focus from my primary business.

So, my bias is -- We have to insist on allowing the universe to support us in the intentions that we put out there, and not confuse the law of attraction energetic dynamic by sending mixed messages (as in, I don't know what I want so I'll do anything I'm sent to do).

Coaching question:
What are you insisting on allowing the universe to support you in this year? If you believed the universe is there to support you in achieving your clearly and specifically stated goals, what could you accomplish this week?

Do We Really Need to Tweet?

noreply@blogger.com (Coach Deah) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 14:37:00 +0000

Everybody's Tweeting, it seems. Where once you were left in the dust if you didn't have a website, or a blog, now the craze is to Tweet.

Incessantly. Mindlessly. Time-consumingly.

I might be clinically anti-social, but I don't get the appeal of reading what you had for breakfast, where you walked the dog, or how much you adore /hate American Idol. Nor has it -- yet -- occurred that I've made real friends (call me old fashioned, but if I've never heard of you, you can't possibly be a friend).

Can engaging in social media really build your counseling or naturopathic practice? Should Twitter, et. al., be a central part of your marketing strategy?

They -- you know, those people who know everything -- say that engaging in the social media frenzy is absolutely necessary to having a successful business. Could that be true?

So far as I can tell, no counselor I know of, and no ND I'm in touch with, is filling their practice with clients gained from spending hours -- much less offering one tweet a day or week -- on Twitter. Or Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, or any social media site. I think this is because there is an essential ingredient missing in the instantaneous global broadcasting of one's daily trivia, personal inspirations, private wins, idiosyncratic gripes, and self-serving promotions.

The missing ingredient is actual relevant value to the recipient of others' streams of consciousness.

What Twitter especially can do for us, is be a traffic cop in helping send more readers to our newest blog post, or to a fresh offer on our websites, or to info about an upcoming event that helps shed light on or solve the problem that our ideal clients have.

Note that the strategic effort goes into the problem solving blog, website, or creation of an event.

Okay, now that I've thrown out my 2 cents, it's time to Tweet that this post exists.

New Decade, Fresh Start -- how will you use it?

noreply@blogger.com (Coach Deah) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:15:00 +0000

I'm excited about the dawn of 2010 -- are you? There's something significant about completing the first decade of this millennium and century. Have you taken a moment in this waning week to realize the many positive changes and achievements you have accomplished in the last 10 years?

Before moving forward with new hopes and plans, it's good to review:

1. In what area(s) of life did you have high satisfaction?
2. When were you most surprised, challenged, and delighted?
3. Where did you get support you didn't expect?
4. How have you integrated lessons learned, and celebrated growth?

Then, it's good to look forward with a sense of purpose and a little extra boldness:

What do you envision for self, relationships, business, or community improvement for this new year?
What do you need to empower your efforts in bringing such improvement into being?
How will you engage your time, attention, inner resources, and commitment in service to your vision?

Remember, it matters little where you've been; it matters a lot where you're going.

Coaching Questions:

How will you be using your fresh start this year?
What would make this year absolutely perfect for you?
If you were 10 times bolder, what risks would you take?
Are you holding yourself as accountable as you could to make of your business, health, relationships, or life as much as you can?
If not, what's stopping you?

Business Housekeeping Countdown

noreply@blogger.com (Coach Deah) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 17:30:00 +0000

Got some extra time on your calendar in the second half of this month due to holiday slow down? Great!

This is the perfect time for a little business housekeeping. You know, taking care of all those little things you haven't made time for because you've been too busy marketing your practice and serving your clients, like:

updating your website, making sure all your links and buttons work
formalizing new service packages and policies
cancelling online accounts that aren't producing
cleaning out your data base of prospects who never buy, attend or hire
deleting all those guru ezines you've intended to read and never have

I don't know about you, but that could keep me busy for 2-3 weeks.

Not much fun, though. So, what about balancing the housekeeping with some other business development tasks that you may not have taken time for either, such as:

creating a vision board for achievements you want to accomplish within 5 years
hosting a spontaneous, informal celebration lunch with colleagues to toast the 2009 successes
shopping for a new item that contributes to business efficiency or reach
seeking out a group to join in January that will be part business learning, part social, part accountability keeping
finding teleclasses to take to improve marketing skills

While it's tempting to blow off work entirely over the holiday slow down, a little housekeeping and a little forward thinking can be better for giving your practice an energized start for the New Year.

So what will you tackle today, next week, and before Dec 31?

3 Things You Want Your Blog to Do

noreply@blogger.com (Coach Deah) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:35:00 +0000

Do you think of your blog as a staff member of the marketing department of your business? It really is.

Here are three things you want that employee to do for you on a daily basis.

1. Provide useful information and tips to prospective ideal clients

If your blogs are random rambling musings, you are missing the marketing potential of doing a blog. And you're wasting your time in blogging as a marketing tactic. Instead, imagine a specific individual has asked you a question, and let your blog post provide a direct, immediately applicable solution to that question.

2. Develop rapport and likability between you and your niche market

A blog works best when it is a little online slice of your personality. Write like you speak. Be irreverent, if that's you. Exaggerate the absurd, if you do so in person. This is how your breathe your life-force energy into a flat, "impersonal" piece of writing. Being who you are AND speaking to your audience about their problems and easily applied solutions to their problems increases the sense of trustworthiness that blog readers need to become clients.

3. Establish you as a generous, helpful, knowledgeable, solution expert for your target market's problem

Blogs function best when they are endless sources of quick bits of education and help. Few people have time or patience to take courses or read books anymore, but we all need simple answers to our complex problems. As clinicians we know that real healing and lasting change is more complex than this. But the blog is not the clinician -- it's not supposed to provide enduring transformation, just enough help at the hungriest moment to make you the go-to solution expert for your target market niche.

Coaching question ---

To start thinking of your blog as a valued employee in your business's marketing department, what specific job description will it have? What measurable goals will you hold it accountable to achieving for you?

Just for Coaches!! A Special Quick Start Guide

noreply@blogger.com (Coach Deah) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 16:34:00 +0000

Today I have something a little different for my coach colleagues -- a hot-off-the-desktop-press Web-Based Marketing Resource Pack with tons of tips and links to make your early days getting your practice going a whole lot easier.

Included in the Resource Pack are:

marketing must-haves and must-do's
building a website: where to start
online locator directories to join -- specific for coaches
useful cheap online marketing tools
other services you'll need -- conference call services & small business helps
the 12 marketing mistakes new coaches make
FAQs my clients frequently ask
extroverted marketing activities for the first year in practice
5 crucial rules of thumb
tagline examples and a fill in the blank format
example and fill in the blank format for your compelling elevator speech

For a limited time this Resource Pack for coaches is available at no charge. Scroll down to the form where you can email for the Resource Pack.

4 More Tip Sheets from The No Hype Mentor

noreply@blogger.com (Coach Deah) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:52:00 +0000

Lots of my clients start out as do-it-yourselfers, but quickly get overwhelmed with how much there is to learn about having an effective web-presence.

To help get to the gold fast, I've developed a number of quick guides and tip sheets. I have four more for you today.

Suggestions for 1st 5 Web Pages
Clear, quick advice on what content your first website needs to have to attract more clients to your practice.

17 Sticky Ideas
Especially for coaches, counselors and naturopathic doctors, these suggestions will help make your website more client attracting, and help to increase conversion rates from visitors to people calling for appointments.

Niche Viability Checklist
Sometimes you have a great idea for a very narrow or specialized niche that you know needs your help. This checklist will help you determine if enough of these folks will want your services in great enough numbers for you to make a living.

Crafting Your Ideal Client Niche
Those of you who are generalist in recovery may like some help in figuring out exactly who your ideal client is. Helps develop the demographic and psychographic details that you need for an effective marketing message.

Poor Mr Sleaze -- Everybody Hates You

noreply@blogger.com (Coach Deah) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:34:00 +0000

Sleaze is one of those things that's in the eye of the beholder. Often what it looks like is a set of tactics aimed at convincing us we need something that we can well do without, and persuading us to hurry up and get it when we can't really afford it.

In marketing a private healing arts practice, high pressure sales tactics that work in some retail advertising are generally considered sleazy, such as:

creating false urgency that stimulates the greed factor -- i.e.: the buy now or lose tactic

purporting a false limited availability -- i.e., the this fee good for the first 5 people today only tactic

emotional manipulation of Maslow needs -- i.e.: the become more sexy, have money raining on you tactic

over promised results --i.e., cousin to the above, the you too can become an Olympic star tactic

celebrity association -- i.e., the trained by Tony Robbins, interviewed by Oprah, worked with Andrew Weil tactic

bait and switch -- i.e., the freebies that amount to more sales pitch / less info of value tactic

Most clinicians and coaches are opposed to using sleaze to attract clients -- as well you should be. But, on the other hand, there is a psychology to marketing a service practice. Understanding that psychology and using it to your advantage is smart for business, without being sleazy.

Let's start with some reasonable assumptions about our ideal clients (regardless of who those are for you). They have a pain or a problem that is adversely impacting their daily life, they don't like that impact, their attempts to resolve it have failed, it's getting worse or spreading into other areas of life and relationships, and they want are ready to do anything to stop it.

(If your picture of your ideal client doesn't address their pain or problem in this way, it's time to go back to square one.)

These clients don't need to be convinced they have a problem. They are all too aware of it. They don't have to be persuaded to pay for the help that will end the problem. They are already willing and ready to do so.

So, what do these clients need to hear from our marketing? They need:

to feel that you see and understand their pain -- show that by talking about it
to feel warmth and caring from you -- don't say you're warm and caring, demonstrate that by your language
to feel a connection with you -- talking to them about them creates this
to start to trust you -- talking about what in your own life gives you empathy with them shows this
to believe there is hope for change -- provide reassurance that you will do your best to help

Is Mr Sleaze involved in any of that? I don't think so.

7 Things to Think About When Creating Your Website or Hiring a Designer

noreply@blogger.com (Coach Deah) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:47:00 +0000

Websites and blogs both need to be designed. Fortunately, many template-based, free or low cost, easy do-it-yourself (DIY) platforms exist for tech-less solopreneurs to accomplish this relatively quickly.

To work as the effective center of your web-presence, your website and/or blog needs to be created with multiple functions in mind. The old idea of a website simply being an online brochure is no longer a smart approach for attracting clients.

At minimum, this is what all solopreneurs in the healing arts need:

a visually attractive and attracting design
conversion elements such as data base builder contact management and autoresponder widets
good search engine optimization (SEO)
compelling copywriting
purposeful strategic marketing

Those who are a little more technologically able or fascinated, may also want to include the following (and some DIY web and blog builder programs offer the ability to include these fairly easily):

appropriate community-building components such as a forum and rss feeds
social media integration

Not all private practitioners will need the more gee-whiz capabilities, particularly if your business relies strictly on in-person clients, and you aren't even trying to reach millions of consumers to become an internationally recognized expert or product seller.

Most web designers can provide pretty pages with smooth navigation and install conversion elements. Many can ensure or advise on SEO. Some will know how to best incorporate community building and social media components.

Few are really skilled in helping you write compelling content. Almost none will know how to develop good client attracting marketing for the private practice professions that have more conservative ethics than the majority of internet businesses.

If you don't yet have a website or blog for your business, or if you know you need to update and upgrade, ask yourself:

what do I want my website or blog to do?
what do my ideal clients need from my website or blog?
what's the easiest, cheapest, best way to provide that?
how much can I create and control myself?
what will I need a designer's or tech-savvy person to help me with?

2 Ways Therapist Training Sabotages Your Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Coach Deah) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:21:00 +0000

I have a lot of psychotherapists for coaching clients, and I'm seeing an interesting pattern of learned self-sabotage in how counselors tend to approach marketing. It's ironic that we gain a deep knowledge of mental disorders in graduate school, but nothing about the psychology of what motivates people to seek help.

Most therapists are trained to resist providing answers when clients ask for advice. Unfortunately, that carries over into how therapists try to market, and it doesn't work for getting clients.

When people are in emotional distress, they want to stop feeling bad, sad, mad, out of control, incapable, scared, or hopeless. Our marketing needs to acknowledge how they feel and provide a belief that there is a solution that will help them end, overcome, lighten, or otherwise change their felt distress.

This is what motivates them to seek help. This is what our marketing must say.

Secondly, almost all therapists are schooled to keep their personal lives separate and secret from clients. Sometimes that's wise, if you work with dangerously unstable populations. But most of the time that non-disclosure rule prevents the essential know you / like you / trust you factor in marketing that brings people to you door.

Recitation of credentials is not the same as self-disclosure. Especially when given in the impersonal and pseudo-professional 3rd person style of talking about ourselves as if we were someone else, our credentials can come across as cold and distancing. A listing of degrees, awards, and continuing education with trainers no client has heard of is more intimidating than connecting.

Instead, self-disclosure for marketing tells the story of why you are interested in working with a particular type of client with a specific type of problem. It presents you as having your own life touched in some way by something similar. It creates rapport and trust.

Feeling rapport and trust motivates prospective clients to select YOU out of the five dozen other therapists in your zip code.

20 Thoughts to Juggle in Naming Your Business

noreply@blogger.com (Coach Deah) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:38:00 +0000

Selecting a good business name is always a challenge. There are lots of considerations to keep in mind.

What will the name mean to people who are seeking the type of services you are offering?

Will the name have a degree of energetic resonance for these people, such that it conveys exactly what they are seeking and they recognize that the first moment they see the name?

Is the name a clear descriptor for your service, conveying what your business actually does or is?

Will it create conversation or confusion?

Is it inspiring for you as well as for your clients?

Is it short enough and powerful enough to be memorable, and easy for others to spell correctly?

Does the name evoke a visual image and felt-emotional connection?

Is there an inherent positive connotation to the name?

How many ways can it be misunderstood or misspelled in a Google search?

How much time and effort are you prepared to put into promoting / explaining your business name?

How much competition is there for a similar name?

Does the name convey expertise in a niche market?

Will clients be able to spell and pronounce it when referring you to others?

In an international marketplace (if your clients will come from across the world), can your business name possibly be a bad word or have inappropriate or detrimental associations in another language?

Does the name suggest any particular color or color combination and will that match or clash with your branding scheme?(fascinating article on color meanings here: http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/color/a/symbolism.htm)

Is your favorite name, or one very close to it, already registered with the appropriate business licensing authority?

Does the name convey a serious business, or is it suggestive of an amateur hobbyist?

Did you test several names with people likely to be in your ideal client target market?

Did you test several names with 8-10 year olds and could they tell you what your business does?

Can you fall in love with your business name, and wear it proudly on a sticky networking badge?

Well, you get my drift. Lots to think about.

I personally like names that hold some special meaning to the business owner, that have some special "zing" to them, while also being memorable and descriptive of the actual work being sold.

Ultimately the marketplace will tell all of us whether we've got a great magnetic business name, or one that gets us lost, forgotten, or is off-putting.

5 Great Cyber-Resouces

noreply@blogger.com (Coach Deah) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:50:00 +0000

In our professional training we all learned to seek out the newest peer-reviewed research, or the classic well-referenced textbook when needing to learn a new technique or gain deeper knowledge about a particular problem.

As business owners we need to rely on information from others as well, even though we have less time for self-education. Here are some of the most reliable, knowledgeable, easy to read source of info on running and marketing a private practice that I turn to all the time.

Chris Brogan for new media marketing

Ronnie Noize for her Top 10 (Easy) Ways to Ask for the Business

CJ Hayden's practical tips to Get Clients Now! (tm)

Rhonda Hess's excellent blog Prosperous Coach

Janet Slack's tweets point to great tools

Who do you keep in your cyber-library of resources to consult when you're stuck on a business management and marketing problem? I'd love to hear about your resources.

3 Reasons to Be a Go-To Guy or Gal

noreply@blogger.com (Coach Deah) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:45:00 +0000

A go-to person is someone who is knowledgeable, resource-full, generous of spirit, and enjoys being helpful without coming across as constantly pushing their own services and products with high pressure sales tactics. It may be a natural personality characteristic, but it's also a great marketing strategy.

Reason #1: It draws more ideal prospects to your door.

Prospective clients -- people who fit our ideal client profile but may not yet be ready to seek our services -- do like to window shop. It's human nature. And everyone likes to get something for nothing, or find a bargain. People naturally seek additional information from former sources, and tend to hire providers with whom they have already created a kind of psychological bond. When we establish ourselves as knowledgeable, generous sources of helpful information is creates rapport and loyalty between you and the prospect.

Reason #2: It keeps the energetic attraction magnet working for you.

There's a metaphysical principle that what you put out comes back to you three fold -- another way to state one of the laws of attraction. Being helpful and generous with your time and information, we invite to us people who will surprise us with referrals and opportunities to take our work into realms we may not have thought of. Becoming known as the go-to person in our area of expertise is like fueling up the lighthouse beacon -- energy flows brightly from us, and unexpected rewards know where to find us.

Reason#3: It deepens your credibility, and others' trust in you.

Giving away some degree of help and information puts our priority on being of service. It furthers the know you, like, you, trust you factor that makes people feel it's safe to trust us with their secrets, fears, and vulnerabilities. In sales terms, it's a try-before-you-buy offer or test drive to determine fit, function, worth of our paid professional services. In other words, it's good business because it helps establish the credibility of our services.

Coaching question:
What area of your professional interests will you become the go-to person for?

Fear, Flow, and Focus

noreply@blogger.com (Coach Deah) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:13:00 +0000

Are your client attraction efforts propelled by fear? How many of these fears can you relate to:

Fear of not being visible enough to prospective clients?
Fear of being too visible and drawing people who are wrong for your practice?
Fear of not doing enough marketing, so you do a little of everything?
Fear of not doing the right marketing, so you feel paralyzed or overwhelmed?
Fear of losing traction, so you get caught up in frantically searching for more ways to promote your business?
Fear of marketing taking over your life, so resistance comes up and prevents doing any at all?
Fear of looking or sounding unprofessional, silly, stupid, or sleazy?

Having to combat such fears makes it all the more difficult to produce an effective, compelling, client attracting marketing message. A confident mindset with a good amount of belief in yourself is absolutely essential to the success of any self-promotion strategy.

I highly recommend having some strong techniques for feeling the fear and promoting your business anyway. That should include confident self-talk, an accountability partner, and a step by step system to persistently follow.

Many of us by nature or training value being in a "flow" state of mind, where we've heard that high creativity exists. There's nothing wrong with that when we need to generate new ideas or produce a specific product. How that often plays out for marketing a private practice, though, can look like this:

dabbling at many marketing actions, mastering and following through on few
interacting with your business as if it were a hobby
scattering your energies with disconnected approaches to spreading the word about your services
starting the business day waiting for inspiration, energy, or motivation to strike
flitting from one strategy to the next without giving each enough time to produce results
constantly reinventing the wheel, or being terminally "unique" in promoting your practice

Approaching marketing with this kind of scatteredness is exhausting and expensive for us, and confusing for potential clients. Worse, it sends a subtle message that we don't quite know what we're doing if we aren't consistent with how we market to prospective clients.

I recommend making the best use of the flow state when needing to brainstorm, when wanting to immerse yourself in a creative process, and in visualizing success everyday.

If I could make just one point about client attraction it would be that FOCUS is the big secret. What focus looks like is:

making the health of your business a priority on your schedule everyday
a well defined understanding of your ideal client
an emotionally compelling marketing message
a limited number of effective ways to fill your pipeline, get referrals, present yourself and get hired
a small set of easy, fun, productive action steps taken every day

Focus includes defining, detailing, planning, following through, evaluating, and adjusting. It often sounds like a lot of work, but getting systematic about it makes it very easy, efficient, and really produces client attraction results.

I recommend setting aside time everyday to tend your business in a focused way with clear, measurable action steps that lead to achievable goals.

Why Does Promoting Your Business Feel Sleezy?

noreply@blogger.com (Coach Deah) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:21:00 +0000

Look at me, I'm great, I'm so educated, I have tons of tools, I can do this for you, I can do that -- me, me, me. That's the idea that many coaches and counselors have about what marketing is.

Or -- YOU can be sexier, thinner, more confident, happier, make more money than Ever before, just one hour a week is all it takes and all your troubles will be gone, hurry hurry don't delay, this offer expires today, this chance won't come again, if you want the life you've already dreamed of, act now. Ugh, can you feel the slime rolling down your arms just reading that?

No wonder it feels sleezy to promote yourself and your solo practice.

Leaving aside the comforting fact that neither of those two approaches to late night guru fitness systems and ginzu knife promotions work for professionals in the healing and optimal performance arts, the deeper issue is that they touch us where we are raw -- in our self esteem, belief in our abilities to do our work well, or our lack of ease with feeling in the spotlight.

I want to pass along to you one of the most valuable things that was ever said to me when I was voicing the feeling of being not as good as the next therapist:

Your clients chose you because they intuitively knew that you were the best helper for them, and it's an insult to them to not have the same belief in yourself that they do. They are trusting you, and you must return their trust by trusting yourself.

If you struggle with feeling not good enough -- whether it's an underlying personality pattern or a misplaced acknowledgment of being new in practice -- it is vital to the health of your business that you work on believing in and trusting your abilities.

When you believe in your abilities you won't need to put yourself in the forefront of your marketing message. When you deeply trust yourself to provide the help that your clients seek, you'll focus your marketing message on them, not on yourself.

If you already believe in and trust yourself, it can become easy and comfortable to promote your business without feeling like it's sleezy because you can approach it from the sense of being in service to your clients and their goals.

Isn't that the core of why we wanted to be a counselor, coach or ND in the first place?

What Stops You?

noreply@blogger.com (Coach Deah) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:36:00 +0000

Have you ever made a marketing plan that sounded good in your head or on paper, and discovered when you tried to put it into action that you have trouble forcing yourself into carrying out some of the items?

I developed a new marketing plan for a specific new project of mine this week, and have already found a pitfall.

Seems that what I thought I needed to do is requiring more effort to talk myself into than I anticipated. Does that happen to you?

What's the solution?

It's probably not the idea itself that's faulty. It's the assumptions behind it that haven't been completely made conscious, or thoroughly examined.

Sometimes it's the shoulds that get us. My pitfall action item is a should -- I thought I should attend more networking groups. But I hate those. I assume I'll feel awkward, I believe I won't know what to say. That brings up sabotaging fear. I reschedule, postpone, make excuses not to go.

Re-examining that should I remember that social networking isn't my strength. It's never going to be easy, I think. I'm never going to like it. Hmm, two more assumptions. Are they really true?

Will I be stopped on my road to achieving my goals by these assumptions? How can I coach myself (and you, if you're on the Should and Assumption road) out of this pitfall?

I ask myself (and you):

When you've felt awkward and scared before, what did you do to overcome it?

I took flower essence remedy Madia to strengthen my communication ability, and created a mental mantra to reinforce the sense of feeling comfortable, having fun, feeling accepted by strangers.

How can I make it easy?

I can start with small or purpose-focused groups, like workshops instead of meet and greets. That's easier because I can mostly listen. The pressure is off to talk about myself.

What do I need to experience so that I can like it, and how can I manifest that?

I need to feel a sense of comfort, belonging, and control. I can manifest that with convenient time and place, getting there without traffic, imagining being / playing the role of an extrovert, making a game of how many names I can remember or cards I can collect, being able to leave when I want, using my interviewing skills to start conversations, etc.

What about you? How have you gotten beyond being stopped before? How can you make it easy? What do you need to experience, and how can you manifest that?