ricardo

Advice required from the wide audience of Scoobynet...

My wife is a practitioner in hypnosis, Reiki and life coaching. So far this has been done largely to non-paying clients, but now there are a number of paying clients where hypnosis has been used to help them give up smoking.

To take this further as a business proposition is going to require more clients. Word of mouth is good but takes a while to get critical mass, other options include leaflets, notice-boards, small-ads and so on.

I'd be interested in whether anyone else on here, or a partner, has made a business out of such a thing. What was effective at getting clients, and what wasn't ?

If you are potentially a client, where would you look ? (Let's say you were keen to give up smoking where would you seek out somebody to help you ?) Likewise, hypnosis can be used for phobias but if you had a phobia that might respond to hypnosis what would get your attention as a potential client ?

I can't help thinking that small-ads are not going to do it. Targeted leaflets/notices (e.g. a Gym notice board) sounds better, especially since the clients are generally quite local.

Anyone any thoughts, experiences, advice ?

SiPie

My advice would be for her to seek accreditation from the NRHP (see link below) if she isn't already

NRHP - Home page

As for the 'quick fix one appointment cures you etc' smoking promise then 'marketing wise' she may fall under a rather unfavourable eye from fellow hypnotherapists / psychoanalysts who realise that this is nigh on impossible and while it may work initially the long term results ain't that good. This could endager her reputation and she may be seen as more the 'money grabbing type'.

Don't want to get into that debate but it's just a bit of advice for her marketing slant on things.

Check out this guys site (who I used for 4 years)

Exclusive Hypnotherapy - Edinburgh Hypnotherapist and Psychotherapist Robin Thorburn

If you (or your wife) are interested.... the testimonials page has my story on it (peace at last).

Hope it helps and good luck to your wife

pwhittle

my wife does massage reiki and indian head massage.
when she wa s looking at Yellow Pages add, i took the book to work, and asked the girls there which adds stood put to them. I learnt from this that they need to be easy to read (forget curved text for example), and to the point. People like initials after your name, but admitted they didn't know / care what they meant.


for the first year, the YP barely paid for itself (over £400). second year it did, and now she just has a small add, as she has enough clients (only works 4-5 hours a week).

An absolute must, is to concentrate on re-bookings. Much much cheaper than getting new bookings. make sure everything is right for people, even the room temp can stop people coming back.

you could send articles to the local press about the business - sometimes they'll send a hack round to try it out. brilliant advertising for no cost. Life coaching is more unusual (and can be very profitable), so maybe more chance of getting something written about that.

My wife went for some of the offers people phoned about, eg buy a 2" slot in a health booklet being sent to 2 billion people. none of them ever got any work.

The Telegraph do a 2 for 1 sometimes, where they list you in the booklet they include, and you commit to a certain number of 2 for 1 bookings.
obviously, know you market. ask people how they would choose (as you have!) .

It's usually quite cheap to put leaflets in windows / on notice boards, so you may as well.

Really, it's v. hard to make a full time living, most people fail. Profit in the first year is unlikely, but if you're good, and get the marketting right...


I'm setting up a photography business, and have learnt from some of the above.

Good luck!

P.S. if you include massage in your add, you do get some amusing phone calls late at night...

oh, and a basic listing on Yell.co.uk is free

DJ Vinyl Ritchie

Look into my eyes, my eyes.....not around the eyes.....not around the eyes...look into my eyes. Right your under....


.......repeat after me...... it's a load of nonsense, only for the weak, gullable people!!


3,2,1 your back in the room.



DJ Vinyl Ritchie...........I'd much rather spend my money on high end, eastern european hookers

Trout

iTrader: (1)

I run a coaching and consulting business and would suggest that to develop a private practice in coaching and hypnotherapy you should concentrate on developing referred business.

The UK marketplace is awash with coaches/life coaches who are emerging from various sources at the rate of literally thousands every month. What you need to do is to differentiate yourself from that marketplace and find a USP. Your wife may be the best therapist/coach ever and she needs to get her message to the marketplace - the best way is that results create referrals.

Other approaches include: -

- affiliation to local 'holisitic therapists' e.g. chiropracters or similar; the risk is that someone may have beaten her to it
- join momentum groups like the 'YES' group; the risk there is that there are likely to be a lot of other coaches there competing for business, although it will give her an excellent peer group to help her develop her skills
- leaflet drop target venues such as alternative retail, vegetarian or organic restaurants and shops; again she may well have been beaten to it
- direct mail small businesses offering a free coaching/therapy session for introduction; expensive with a small conversion rate
- attend major events such as Robbins Unleash the Power Within, Life 2007, Inspire Scotland or similar; lots of competition but also lots of clients
- speak at local events such as women's groups, local institutions, Ladies Circle, WI, etc

In my experience all of these can create business and competition for accessible clients is fierce. I can also comment from real experience that coaching people for free is a doddle, people will be queuing around the block. As soon as you move to market rate, even those who can easily afford to pay will disappear like flies in the rain.

I believe the very best way is to be patient and to build your private business via referral and recommendation. The it is about converting and closing rather than competing.

Good luck - PM me if you there is anything else I can help you with.

Rannoch

PS SiPie - I have an alternative view to your comments - why would someone who can take fees from you for months or years support an intervention from someone that can be achieved in a day or weekend? Who is the one grabbing the most money?

For example the three people who were closest to me at the time all smoked a lot (two did 30 a day one did 60 plus) and in a single weekend intervention all of them have not smoked since - and this is over years not just a few weeks or months.

It can be different!

Something to think about

SiPie

As you are probably aware my experiences of hypnotherapy had nothing to do with smoking.....so his fees were taken for other things that improved greatly steadily throughout the years (ie. until I could leave the house alone !!!) We did talk about whether it was worthwhile using hypnotherapy to aid stopping smoking and although he said he could help a bit, he mentioned that a hypnotherapist is effectively unable to force a will. My mindset naively at the time was that 'smoking was great fun and I loved it!!'...it's hard to get someone out of that mindset.

Hence he suggested I read Allen Carr's book and that worked (stopped 2 years ago on Monday come to think of it!!!)

Appreciate and totally agree with your point had I been attending the hypnotherapist re stopping smoking alone....

LG John

Good pic of you ice climbing mate

SiPie

Thanks Kenny... one of the best days of my sheltered little life spent climbing all over that

Glacier Guide Franz Josef New Zealand, Glacier Tour Franz Josef New Zealand : Franz Josef Glacier Guides

(link supplied seeing as you are bored at work)

Trout

iTrader: (1)

SiPie,

I am glad that you got the results you are seeking - and that is what counts.

My experience is very different and an experience based on gaining very significant results in a very short space of time. I merely used the 'smoking' example as it was simple - I have seen the work I am involved with work with significant phobias such as agoraphobia and deep depression. It is not for everyone and it does not work with everyone - where the will to stay is strong then no-one is for moving!

Anyway - neither of us intended to hijack the thread - I simply wanted to say there are different ways to get results with different interventions.

SiPie

Totally agree Rannoch and obviously what works for one won't necessarily work for another ...

Cheers and thanks again for your e-mail the other day

ricardo

Many thanks, some good advice there. (DJ Vinyl Ritchie too...)

Just talked to the NRHP and their accreditation doesn't cover people from the London College of Clinical Hypnosis, since the NRHP seems to be more psychotherapy plus hypnosis, while the LCCH is predominantly hypnosis. Sue has joined the BSCH (British Society of Clinical Hypnosis) though.

I agree about the free versus paying clients, although there is a small number of paying clients now referred by a clinic for weight-loss issues. Each of those represents an opportunity for further clients in the longer run, or indeed lifetime repeat business from the same clients Building on that arrangement with the clinic seems like a useful way forward, the consultations use their premises as well.

Still pondering what the USP needs to be...

David Lock

Can you get anything in a reasonable local paper? Say an article which you prepare about giving up smoking and then get a link to your wife's services? A lot of papers have a "health" section and perhaps you could combine something with no smoking day or similar. Failing that pay for an "Adversorial" or whatever they are called which is better than a straight ad.

A USP could be a money back GUARANTEE if you are reasonably confident that it works most of the time. In any event I expect that there will be some clients too ashamed to claim!!

RichB

a friend is doing exactly this, she attends businesslink lunches and has had quite a lot of success with it, she is more massage/reiki/indian head than life coaching though.

I would suggest looking for local alternative therapists with a going business and see if your wifes skills complement them...

Trout

iTrader: (1)

Bear in mind that there are many established therapists going down the stop smoking or your money back route and the fee is often very low - £60-80 for the intervention.

Its a lot of work to make money.

ricardo

Agreed. Sue has an NLP and coaching background with the hypnosis recently added, so can mix'n'match the type of work to some extent. She also has a background of working with kids, so maybe there are openings there.

For some reason she is very good at getting extremely good deals on expensive items like cars, but whether that's via hypnosis or NLP techniques I wouldn't like to comment... Several people have said that she ought to take part in the price negotiations for such items on their behalf, for a percentage of the saving...