Finding Clients Who ‘Get It’!
By Marilyn O’Leary
Ah yes, the blank stares, the quizzical looks and raised eyebrows. As a holistic practitioner, you have likely encountered your share of these. For some, this is a welcome challenge to educate and enroll, while others experience this resistance to what they do as deflating and, on occasion, exhausting.
As I work with clients on marketing and developing their holistic businesses, I always start by asking them who their ideal client is. The most common answer is something like, “Individuals who are open minded, who respect my profession and who are committed to health and well-being.” What I hear is, “I want to work with people who get it!”
This impulse to find people who speak the same language has led to beautiful gathering and creation as mind-body-spirit communities have found one another and declared themselves an essential force in healing and transforming the planet. However, if we are going to spread our gifts into the ‘mainstream’ and create lucrative businesses, we need to make our message clear and compelling, even to those who may be cynical at first but who will ultimately appreciate and benefit from our products and services.
The “Ideal” Client … for You
There are several ways to accomplish this and the really good news is that they all start with getting very clear about and grounded in who you want to be for your clients and the impact you want to have on their lives. Often, this means taking sincere but perhaps broad intentions and making them more precise and accessible. For example, a practitioner who helps individuals access joy and freedom might benefit by focusing on new mothers and working with them on the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual transformation that is taking place as they welcome a baby into their lives. A new mom may not know the first thing about coaching, intuitive healing, or hypnotherapy, but they do know about the challenge of embracing motherhood. Having a loving, healing spirit offer to help them might be just the doorway they need into these progressive modalities.
Now, I have led us into what is also a common sticking point for holistic practitioners, and that is choosing a niche. Did you just feel your own resistance? If so, take a deep breath and know that this does not have to be forced or limiting. This is simply an invitation to listen to your own guidance and notice if there is a group, condition, geographic area or unique skill set that you could put at the center of your vision. By doing this, you will have even more ease and success speaking clearly and directly to individuals about what matters to them. And by serving them in this way, you will often earn the opportunity to serve them with your products, programs, sessions and workshops.
Align Your Business with Your Passion
So ask yourself the three essential questions to sharpening your marketing message and ensuring your business is aligned with your true passion:
- Who do you want to serve?
- What is the impact that you want to have on their lives?
- What is the unique way that you will deliver on your promise to them?
The truth is, you don’t just want to help others. You want to help teenagers achieve greater confidence in themselves. Or perhaps your want to support families as they work through difficult transitions. When in doubt, take a look in the mirror. Ask yourself, “What has been the central struggle of my life?” Your conscious attention to this challenge throughout your own life experience has been not only the catalyst for personal growth but has given you the tools and understanding to lead others to their own freedom and joy.
Connect with Your Ideal Patients
Once your central theme is revealed, you will begin to see opportunities all around you to connect directly with your ideal clients and be of service to them. Let’s say that you want to serve families in transition by improving their communication through fun team building exercises. Here are some ways to get in front of families and demonstrate your value:
- Speak at a local school or parenting group
- Begin compiling resources and posting them to parent discussion boards
- Partner with a pediatrician, kids’ art studio or other organization that serves your market and do some co-promotion.
- Sponsor family related events or attend them and hand out flyers
- Create a “Family Teambuilding” discussion group
Your goal is to build familiarity and trust with the community you want to serve as well as to educate them on how you can help. With intentional and consistent followup, those folks will “get it,” and you will have successfully introduced your offerings to the community you are meant to serve.
It is my pleasure to be a witness as holistic practitioners heal and awaken the world, and it is my honor to support them as they find the structures and anchors that will serve them well in realizing greater success than they even imagined for themselves. I wish you great success and I thank you for answering your call.
Marilyn O’Leary is a marketing and business development coach who specializes in working with holistic practitioners. She supports her clients in strategically transforming their businesses to attract clients, increase profits and reflect their unique promise. She is the director of the Holistic Practitioners’ Business Association, www.HolisticBusinessDevelopment.com. Visit today to learn the 6 Steps to a Full and Thriving Holistic Practice or Contact Marilyn for a FREE consultation at [email protected].
