just 3 days”, her latest venture is “be your own money guru” · asked by potential clients...

© Olivia Stefanino Former Principal of the Quantum Business School for Therapists, Olivia Stefanino is a coach, speaker and author of the book “Be Your Own Guru – personal and business enlightenment in

just 3 days”, her latest venture is “Be Your Own Money Guru” – find out more at www.oliviastefanino.com

www.sirpauk.com, 01484 452500

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Discover how to create a target audience who love what you do and who are begging to pay you what you’re worth!

The key to being successful as a therapist – well, in business generally – is to be a

specialist, not a generalist! When you’re a generalist, all you’ve got to compete on is price –

but when you’re a specialist, you’re within reason of course, pretty much able to set your

own fees.

One of the most important things to understand is that – more than anything else - you must

avoid getting into a price war. And when you’re a generalist, the only way you can

distinguish yourself is by lowering your prices, which means that you’re on a very slippery

slope before you’ve even started.

So, how do you go about becoming a specialist? It’s tempting to think that if lots of other people have trained in the same therapies as you,

then you’ve got no choice but to be a generalist. But the good news is that you’d be wrong!

Becoming a specialist isn’t about doing loads more studying – it’s more about creating your

very own niche. And it really helps if you’re the “owner” of that particular niche. Think of

Domino’s Pizzas, Sky Television and of course, Microsoft! While there are lots of other

competitors, each of these three are definitely all the “big fish in a small pond”.

And when it comes to running a therapy practice, you want to do the same for yourself. Of

course, you get to create the parameters of your niche – whether it’s the combination of

products and services you offer, the specific audience you cater for - or even the

geographical setting in which you offer it.

For example, a therapist called Colleen was keen to get her massage business off the

ground and she was adamant that she only wanted to work with women. She recognized

pretty quickly that there are a lot of masseurs about – but as a single parent herself with

grown up children, she decided that she’d focus on offering stress-busting aromatherapy

massages for single parent mums.


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Now she’d chosen her niche, she was able to think about what that particular clientele would

value. Recognizing that money was an issue for some of them, she put together a special 3-

for-1 offer (which meant that she was immediately creating a bank of loyal clients with whom

she could build powerful relationships). Rather than hiring rooms, she decided to offer a

mobile service, which meant that she go to the mum’s houses, at a time to suit them. And it

wasn’t long before she’d built up a thriving practice.

Meet Anita, a hypnotherapist who found herself trying to undercut her competitors. After

some gentle coaching, she soon realized that everyone was losing out. Anita preferred

working with women, particularly women with fertility issues. Further probing revealed that

she wanted to work with professional women who would be serious in their approach to their

work with her. She recognized that to serve these women, she would need to offer her

service out of “office hours” and for that service, she could charge a premium rate. Because

Anita was prepared to work out of “office hours” she was able to charge a premium rate

because for her clients, time was more important to them than money.

A lot of therapists are concerned that if they specialize, then they’re closing themselves off

from business that’s outside their niche. Paradoxically, nothing could be further from the

truth! When you’re a specialist, everyone takes you more seriously – and interestingly, they

also often make an association in their mind about other things that you might be able to do

for them too.

For example, hypnotherapists who specialise in helping people to give up smoking are often

asked by potential clients whether hypnotherapy could also help them with losing weight.

And because they’re now in conversation with the hypnotherapist – and are building a

relationship with them – nine times out of ten, they’ll book in with that same hypnotherapist

for a weight loss session.

It’s odd, but people generally make the assumption that if you’re great at one thing, you’re

probably pretty good at everything else too. Of course, we’re not talking about pretending to

be something you’re not and as a therapist, you must only work with people who you can

genuinely help. If you can’t help someone you must say so and turn them away. To do

otherwise is unethical – and you’d soon get a bad reputation which certainly isn’t good for

business!


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Three ways to transform yourself into a specialist… For our purposes, there are three ways to transform yourself from a struggling generalist to a

successful specialist. You can:

§ Choose a target audience

§ Decide to specialize in a particular geographic area

§ Combine your therapies with some of the elements that make you unique

And of course, there’s nothing to stop you combining any two – or even all three – of the

above points.

Remember Colleen and Anita? They’d worked out how to target a particular target audience

– and very successful it was for them too. They could of course have decided to specify that

they only work in say, “Cheshire”, or “Milton Keynes”, which would have narrowed their niche

still further.

And in our first example, Colleen had chosen to combine her massage service with the fact

that she was a single mum – something that other single mums would really appreciate

because at the end of the day, we all like to feel “understood”.

Take some time out with the following exercise – you’re worth it…

What group of people do you feel that you can most help? What target audience

particularly appeals to you? List them here:


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Which geographic are do you feel you can best serve? You might want to start with

the town, city or county where you live: List the different therapies you’re already qualified in: List what life experiences you have had that make you unique – this could include your previous working history, your family experiences as a parent, partner or sibling, unusual hobbies etc: Now look at your four lists and let your imagination have some fun! What unusual combinations can you make from the list? Write them here:


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Now examine the unusual combinations and ask yourself which ones make your heart sing! Which unusual combination would make you passionate about what you do? Write your “specialist” combination here: Congratulations, you’re now well on the way to becoming a specialist… Discover the other benefit of specialising… Now you’re a specialist, life is going to get so much easier when it comes to promoting your

products and services. When you know who your target audience is, it’s much easier to

decide where to place your advertising spend which means that you’ll get a much better

return on your investment.

Generally speaking, a vague advertisement in the Yellow Pages listing the therapies you

offer is going to be a very expensive waste of time. But a niche ad, placed in the relevant

media and aimed at a target audience which focuses on the benefits you bring rather than

therapies you provide will pay you huge dividends.

And as you’ll discover in workbook 8, as a specialist, you’re perceived as an expert – and

the media just loves experts, which means that you’ve got much more chance to get yourself

known on a far bigger playing field.

There are thousands of magazines and newspapers out there – and when you’re a

generalist, it’s really tough to know where to start, whether you’re organizing advertising or a

public relations campaign. But when you serve a specific target audience, it immediately

becomes much easier to work out which publications you should target.


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Why you can earn more as a specialist… And the great news is that when you’re a specialist, people expect – and are happy -

to pay more, even though you’re doing exactly the same work!

At the end of the day, even though we all love a bargain, when it comes to our health and

well being, we all want the best. Think about it, would you choose a heart surgeon simply

because he or she was the cheapest? No! You’d want the absolute best person you could

afford, who had relevant experience and a glowing reputation.

It’s an interesting fact to know that when you charge too little, you’re perceived as someone

who’s only average at what they do. Subliminally, there’s a thought process that says you

pay the most for the best – and correspondingly, the least for the worst.

Of course, this is absolutely not about ripping off your clients. But you must make sure that

you’re not ripping yourself off either – and if you’re going to earn what you deserve then you

must be in a position to charge a fair rate.

It’s all too easy to feel nervous about charging more for your services – and if you’re

struggling with this issue, then it’s time to reframe your perceptions.

First of all, it’s important to remember how much you’ve invested in both terms of time and

money in your own learning and development. It’s only fair – and you deserve - to get a

return on your investment.

Also, you must make sure that you’re charging enough to cover your taxes, insurances,

holidays, sickness and further training.

And there are other things to consider too. For example, when setting your fees, you must

take into the equation the fact that there’ll be times when you’re working but not earning. For

example, marketing and admin are necessary for every business and while they’re time

consuming activities, you don’t get paid to do them. That’s sadly one of the downsides of

working for yourself…


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But this time has to be paid for in some way, if it isn’t, you’ll soon find yourself working flat

out to make ends meet – and having to do the other “business stuff” in your spare time. And

this is unsustainable in the long term. Burning the candle at both ends in this way means that

you’ll get over tired and won’t be able to give your best to your clients. And if you’re not

giving the best of yourself to your clients, you’re as good as ripping them off, even if those

aren’t your intentions.

So, you owe it to your clients – and of course yourself – to be in peak physical and emotional

condition. The way to do that is to be well rested, well nourished and well provided for

financially.

Remember, it’s not about the price you charge – it’s about the value you give. Your client

wants to know what value he or she’ll get from spending time with you. It’s all down to

priorities. Even though most people’s pockets aren’t bottomless, they’ll choose to spend on

the things that they value.

Have you ever experienced the interesting phenomenon of someone telling you that they

can’t afford to book a therapy session with you, while at the same time they’re lighting a

cigarette? That’s because they value smoking more than therapy! We all have free will and

free choice – and people have every right to choose what they want to spend their hard

earned cash on.

And as marketers – and make no mistake, when you work for yourself you simply have to

become a marketer if you’re going to survive and thrive – it’s up to us to convince our

potential customers of the value they’ll get from spending time with us.

Convincing others of your value… The key is to understand that people only buy for one reason: because they’re in pain of

some kind. Even when it comes to pampering rather than treatment, people buy because

they want to be – or look - less stressed, or because they feel they deserve it after working

so hard! (And the pain factor is the hard work!)

But there’s even more to it than that. What gets people motivated to buy is that they want to

get out of pain – however what convinces them to buy is the knock-on benefits they’ll get!


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So, while a hard working mother of three might feel stressed – which is the pain – the benefit

they’re actually looking for is to feel and look great. And if you want to be really convincing,

it pays to explain how the benefit will impact the client.

One of the biggest mistakes that therapists make is to focus on the features (or the “what”)

they do, rather than the benefits. It’s so easy to get really excited about the therapies you

use – but make sure that you tell prospective clients about how those therapies could help

them, rather than simply chattering on about the different methodologies you use.

Why you must focus on the benefits, not the features… Let’s say you’re an aromatherapist. If you’re asked what you do, you could simply answer:

“I’m an aromatherapist.”

Now, if the person you’re talking to already knows about aromatherapy, then you could still

get into a conversation. But if they don’t, there’s no where else left for them to go!

But if you’d said:

“Using aromatherapy, my mission is to help clients unwind and de-

stress so that they both feel and look better…”

…then you’re probably going to get some interest.

But imagine the power of saying:


stress which means that they not only sleep better but they also

look ten years younger!”

Now, who isn’t interested in looking younger?


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But of course, the real subconscious reason we want to look younger is because we want to

be attractive to a partner. So, we could maximize the power of our statement by saying:


stress helping them sleep better and look ten years younger which

means that suddenly romance is back on the agenda!”

Of course, you should use the words you’re comfortable with – but the key is to include the

phrase “which means that” in your marketing message, whether it’s the written or spoken

word.

Re-examine your own specialist offering and create your own power statement:

Using , my mission is to which means that

Now you know how to create a target audience who love what you do, take our easy

questionnaire and find out just how much you’ve learned – and then you can start

putting it all into practice!


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Your Questionnaire!

1. Why is it so important to be a specialist and not a generalist? 2. What are the three easiest ways that you can transform yourself into a

specialist? 3. Why does it help to be a specialist when it comes to working out where to

spend your advertising budget? 4. When deciding at what level you should set your fees, there are a number of

things that you must take into consideration besides your actual time. List five reasons:


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5. Explain the difference between price and value:

6. What motivates people to think about buying?

7. What convinces people to buy?

8. When you’re telling people what you do, should you focus on the “features” or the “benefits”?

9. What is the key phrase that you should use when it comes to explaining the benefits of what you offer:

10. Write your specialist offering “power statement”:


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Space For Your Thoughts…

just 3 days”, her latest venture is “be your own money guru” · asked by potential clients...

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