Way back when I started this blog I was in the final stages of tidying up a manuscript for a practice building book. In my mind, the blog was mainly a vehicle to connect with practitioners while I wrote and eventually released the book. Well, life has a way of taking its own twists and turns and my manuscript ultimately became my online course and community, Practice Abundance.

People often ask me if I regret not getting my book published and out there and my response was always, “Kinda”. I truly feel like my book was meant to transform into Practice Abundance, but it did bum me out that there wasn’t a printed book that people could get their hands on to help them grow their practices. There is something powerful about the printed word, after all.

But there’s good news! I no longer feel “kinda” bummed out! Hoorah! Hoorah! Dan Clements and Tara Gignac N.D. have stepped in to fill the void by publishing their outstanding book, The Practitioner’s Journey. I was fortunate enough to get an advance copy of the manuscript from Dan, so I’ve read it and can honestly say that I think it’s an invaluable resource for people looking to grow their practices. Let me say it again: invaluable. I give it 5 stars, you know, if I had stars to give out…

If you’re feeling like you could stand to have a book to guide you as you grow your practice, you can check out this blog post that describes the book and all the delicious gifts that it has in store for you.

And if an online course and community seems like your thing, just a reminder that Practice Abundance will open to new students this July so if you’re interested in getting information on that, you can get on the list here.

I hope your practice building journeys continue to unfold beautifully and that you are sharing your healing goodness with the world- the world needs it!

Wow time sure does fly! The Practice Abundance Course opens to students from March 17th to March 20th, er, that’s two days away!

So just a quick post to point you to the sneak peek resources in case you missed them.

You want the complete course outline? You got it. Here’s all the information about all the goodies we’ll be learning over the next three months.

And if you’re wondering how this whole online course thing works, and what kind of support it includes, well that’s right over here.

Those of you who read the blog know me pretty well by now, but for you new readers, this is where you can find out all about who I am and decide if I’m the kind of person you’d want to learn from.

If you think you might be interested get on the list to be notified when we open for enrollment. I’m only taking on a small number of students this go around, so if you think it might be for you I’d mark your calendar.

THE LOVE:

Over and over again here’s the story I always hear from wellness practitioners about why they decided to study what it is they currently practice: One day it occurred to them that if they ever truly wanted to party with Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton that they would have to A. have a job that made a TON of money and B. have a job that was sexy and flashy enough that all the VIP clubs would want to take them straight to the front of the line and comp them all the overpriced champagne they could drink.

So, with that goal in mind they sat down at a desk and made a list of all the jobs that would fulfill both requirements A and B. Turns out acupuncturist, massage therapist, naturopathic doctor, yoga teacher, therapist [enter your modality here] wound up being at the top of the list, so off they went to school and upon graduation they started partying with spoiled celebrities and lived happily ever after…

Sound familiar?

No.

Exactly. When you decided to study whatever it is you practice some part of your being- your heart, your body, your gut, your mind, your spirit, or perhaps all of the above- called out to you and said, “Yes. This.” and you dove into it not for any promise of what life would look like after graduation, but for the love.

And it was easy to bask in the love while you were in school. You were surrounded by like minded people who shared your same passion and you were all diving headlong into work that was coming straight from your heart.

But I’ve found that after graduation things change. There’s still the love, of course, but it often gets silenced by a sneaking and very unpleasant feeling that you’re now in the business of convincing people to pay you. Which sucks. It’s hard to love that feeling.

I think what happens is a version of “deer in headlights” syndrome. There you are, basking in the glow of a concentrated period of time spent with colleagues just gleefully geeking out on what you love about what you do, and then you come back to Earth. Where not everyone knows just how endlessly fascinating fascial anatomy, or Udayana Badhna, or the joys of using intersection needling points can be, and so you wind up feeling like an arm-twister.

What are you supposed to say to potential clients? “No really! This work can change your life! Just hand over some money and you’ll see- it’s amazing!” Depending on the tone you’ve become a used car salesman at best and a cult leader at worst. And so you retreat. You hope that your love for your work and the tremendous value it has to offer will shine through, but you’re not sure how to get the word out without feeling like a sleazoid.

THE PROBLEM:

Our schools, while great at teaching us how to be highly skilled practitioners, seem to be at a loss about mentioning that we need to actually know how to get clients through the door (i.e. manage to pay our bills doing this thing we love so much and are really pretty good at.)

Don’t get me wrong, I love our schools for creating places where more and more generations of practitioners can be trained to positively impact the world. I love, love love that. I adore it. Really. However, I also wish- forgive me for my bluntness- that they would take their heads out of their collective asses and find a way to give this skill set to their students before graduation (really, honesty give them what they need, not mess around with telling people useless things like, “You should have a business card.”)

And so here’s my rant. I recently received an email from an acupuncturist where she told me about how her school constantly repeated the mantra, “In 5 years, 50% of you won’t be working as acupuncturists anymore” to the students. That is all. They never followed that sentence with one that started, “so here’s how you can avoid being a part of that 50%…” Gee thanks guys, the future’s feeling pretty bright now! Here’s my tuition check- or shall I just flush it down the toilet!? To the schools I would like to respectfully say: Don’t take our money, put us through your schools, tell us how we’ll likely fail, and then send us out into the world with no attention paid at all to how we might avoid becoming the aforementioned statistic.

What is wrong with this picture? Why are they such defeatists? What do they think the awful statistics are about? That people who studied acupuncture don’t actually care about acupuncture? That acupuncture doesn’t actually have much to offer people? That they tend to have lazy or flaky graduates? Or could it maybe, just possibly, be because people who love what they do and are committed to sharing it with the world enter that whole private practice thing with little to no idea of how to do that successfully? Maybe? Ya think? Ok, rant over.

AND SO…

In general I find that complaining about what other people should be doing is an ineffective strategy for creating positive change. I can’t really think of many times that straight up complaining got anyone very far. Imagine if Rosa Parks only complained loudly and ceaselessly amongst her friends about how unjust sitting in the back of the bus was, without ever plopping herself in the front of that bus and thereby claiming her own power to make a change? The former strategy wasn’t likely to change history. The latter? Pretty effective.

Ok, so I’m no Rosa Parks. I think that’s fairly obvious. However, because of my own experience of struggling through my first three years in practice and then falling in love with practice building (no one is more surprised than me…) there does happen to be one thing I can do to make some change. I figure if I can pass on the tools and create a place for a supportive community of complementary and alternative medicine providers to gather, then maybe we’ve got a shot at changing the lame statistics. And if we change the lame statistics, then we’ll have a lot more practitioners around and a lot more people getting the help they need.

And so I built the Practice Abundance Course. It’s an online course that is the result of nearly ten years in practice, starting three practices from scratch, one ebook, one mega manuscript for a printed book, a year and a half blogging about practice building, and lots of conversations with practitioners who felt just as helpless and hopeless as I did when I was starting out. I designed it to be the FULL course that our schools left out, coupled with community warmth and support.

It will be open to new students from March 17th to March 20th (kicking it off between St. Patrick’s Day and the first day of spring seemed fortuitous enough…) and I’ll only be taking on a small number of students this first round. The soonest it would open again is this summer, so if you think this might be for you I’d get on the list to get all the delicious freebie information about it that I’ll start sending out this week.

Happy practice building!

Twitter is one of those things that’s blowing up in popularity, and with all the buzz (or tweets?) circulating I’ve gotten some emails from practitioners about how to use it as a practice building tool.

I’m certainly no Twitter guru (I only have 381 followers, the horror!). However, I have been using it happily for about 6 months now, and I gotta say I see its merits. And its downsides. So here’s my brief overview of where Twitter shines, where it flops, and how to get started:

The good: My favorite thing about Twitter is that it’s an amazing networking tool. If networking is too gross a word for you, allow me to replace it with, “forming lovely and interesting connections”. I’ve found some great people through Twitter, and deepened my connection to some others who I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise.

For example, I discovered Chris Guillebeau’s work through Seth Godin and quickly fell in love with his blog and Manifestos. I sent him a few @replies (when you precede someone’s Twitter name with the @ symbol, the message shows up in their @ reply inbox, so they know you either mentioned them or wrote to them), and eventually I caught a Tweet of his saying he’d be in NYC for a tweet-up (meet up of Twitterers). Off I went to the tweet-up and we hit it off.

Several months and several emails later, Chris sent a writer who was featuring him in Psychology Today my way and she included me in an article about people who are living unconventional lives (since I’m shamelessly mentioning it here I should tell you that it’s the Jan/Feb 2010 issue, the “Life Uncharted” article, I digress…) Psychology Today and I wouldn’t have connected if it weren’t for Twitter and Chris’s generosity.

I mention this story purely as a super tangible example of how Twitter can make meaningful connections. I connected with Chris, Chris connected me with Psychology Today, and blammo, I have a wee bit of press. However, in truth, the real gem in this whole story is that I’m connected to Chris at all. Media help aside, he’s just a helluva guy doing amazing work. Now that I’ve gotten my Twitter sea legs, I’ve found lots more wonderful people and follow them on Twitter- this, regardless of any other tangible perk- is what makes Twitter worthwhile.

The less good: I had a Twitter account for nearly a year before I bothered to use it. Every time I checked in it seemed like I was caught in a stream of half-conversations that I wasn’t a part of. It felt pointless and time consuming to me. However, once I found some people who I wanted to connect to, I was a part of this wacky form of communicating, and I grew to really enjoy it.

That said, focus first on finding people who you want to communicate with. The best way to find people you want to follow on Twitter is to see if the people who you already are in touch with are on Twitter (people whose books or blogs you read, or friends and family). In addition, it’s great to see if any businesses that you like have a Twitter account.

This can be especially helpful for growing a local practice if you connect to your local businesses. It can be something really direct, like a Pilates teacher deciding to follow a local massage therapist’s Twitter feed, or it can be really indirect. If you’re a local massage therapist, why not connect to the local restaurants that have Twitter accounts? That way you’re deepening your connection to your community in general, and you’ll be top of mind when anyone in town is asked for a massage referral.

Do I use it this way? Not yet. It’s one of my new experiments, since I mostly connect with people all over the world related to health and wellness. But it seems like a great way to get your name spread around town, so I’ll give it a shot and report back.

Another not so good feature is the huge potential time suck. Keep time boundaries on your Twitter use. Try your best to use it at least daily, but in small chunks of time. I find that if I can check in for 5 to 10 minutes in the am and pm, I’m good. When I find I’m clicking everyone’s links and going down too many rabbit holes, I have to cool it. I don’t need more black holes for my time to fall into.

Getting started:

How do I learn the nuts and bolts? If you want to know the basic stuff like how to respond to people or what the hell a re-tweet is, just grab something cheap and easy like Twitter for Dummies (I’d grab the edition co-written by Laura Fitton @pistachio to Twitter users). Don’t bother laying out a bunch of cash for some social media guru’s product. This isn’t rocket science.

What do I write about? Always remember that Twitter is a social medium, not a place people show up because they’re craving more spam and sales pitches in their lives. Be you, write about what you’re up to, what goodies you find, what you care about, and shine a light on other people doing good stuff, but don’t directly pitch people.

I’m glancing over my Twitter profile (where I can see recent Tweets I’ve sent) and it’s a hodgepodge of stuff: everything from talking with a fellow mom who’s home sick with one of her wee ones, to lamenting that a recipe of mine didn’t turn out, to re-tweeting someone else’s link about one cruise ship making the grotesque choice to go forward with their scheduled stop in Haiti so their passengers could frolic on a Haitian beach while armed guards stood by (seriously). On any given day I could be tweeting about a lot of different things, but they’re all things that I care about and that reflect what I’m up to.

Where can I go for phenomenal inspiration? Yes, I did say not to spend money on any social media guru’s overpriced products if all you want is to figure out the nuts and bolts of Twitter. However, thanks to the goodness of Chris Guillebeau (who is getting quite a lot of mentions in this post!) and Gwen Bell, there is an alternative to the smarmy internet marketing products that clog the “so you want to be a social media superstar” airwaves.

They put together the Unconventional Guide to the Social Web. Gwen’s contribution is the beautifully written, “Yoga for the Social Web”. If you want inspiration about what it means to communicate through social media, I highly recommend. It’s practically poetry. (And Gwen, who co-owns a yoga studio in Japan and is the most un-guru social media superstar I know of, is one of our people. She gets it.)

Some of my fave Tweeps:

If you’re looking for people to follow here are some of my faves (and if you’re looking for me I’m @brookethomas):

@chrisguillebeau
@gwenbell
@lissaboles
@vanessascotto
@melissapierce
@pamslim
@soniasimone
@worldmegan
@jonathanfields
@markheartofbiz
@reese
@havi
@ittybiz
@hellohealth
@marcjohns
@judyofthewoods

Oh it is so easy to lull oneself to sleep.

So a few months ago I announced to all ya’ll that I would be kicking off practice number three and regaling you with tales of the tactics I used to grow the aforementioned new practice. I imagined much trial and error- lots of goodies for a blooper reel- and some shining successes. However, the thing about doing something the third time over a span of nine years means that my radar for what will or won’t work is pretty well tuned. (It only took nine years…)

So the grand experiment started well- too well. After sorting through all the minutiae that comes with starting any practice (finding an office, getting licensed, building the website) and running one big old promotion- things were really hopping! I had, and have, a full practice full of delightful clients.

And very little to write about on my blog in terms of real-time experimentation in practice building.

Like you- I don’t particularly want to spend gobs of time on the growing of the thing when I am, in fact, already doing the thing. Especially when the other nooks and crannies of my time are veeeery full with raising my wee one, some work with other clients, and a mega overhaul of the The Well Practice going on behind the scenes (the grand unveiling is probably about 4 to 6 months away- so stay tuned- it will rock. Oh yes, it will rock.)

However, unlike you I’ve commited to being a practice building guinea pig and I’m a full blown practice building nerd (we’re a very rare species). So it’s time for me to rouse myself from my slumber and up the ante. I have loads of practice building experiments in mind that I can (and will) run. These are my upcoming commitments to you with more to follow:

I will:

• Go old school by running a full-blown flyer campaign. That’s right! Paper tacked to bulletin boards! I live and work very near the campus of Yale- so it’s kind of a flyer town. I figured I’d go super low tech and see what happens.
• Put a Rolfing ebook for current and prospective clients up on my website for free download (aaaah, some tech deliciousness).
• Get myself on Yelp and perhaps a few other directories (more tech deliciousness).
• Advertise. Wow, I never thought I’d go for this one again. The last time I ran an ad for my practice was about nine years ago and it wasn’t just a dud of a failure- it was a mind-blowing failure. (story to follow) so I’ve been pretty allergic to the whole ad thing. But so many people do it that I’ll give it a shot and report back.

And you will? Let me be your guinea pig?

All (reasonable) suggestions for practice building will be considered. I’m not going to walk naked through town with a sandwich board for Rolfing- but if you throw some ideas my way that you’re curious about trying, or that you have tried with limited to no success- I’ll dive in and give it a try and report back.

Who doesn’t love having their own personal guinea pig? Go ahead and email suggestions or leave them in the comments section. Let’s get this party started.

I’m remembering back about a year ago when I met a woman- she’s an EFT practitioner and now a life coach- and she told me about a phone conversation she had with a marketing consultant. She was wondering why she couldn’t manage to get her practice together and get her clients excited about how amazing EFT was, and he jumped right to it and hit her with a big old blammo right between the eyes.

It made her see red, and shoot fire out of her eyes at him, and sulk and pout for days. And yes- he was right. (and here’s a link to a video of her telling this same story)

So what was the sucker punch he delivered over the phone? Are you ready to shoot fire out of your eyes at me (because, yep, I agree with this guy)? Ok, hold on to your seats because here comes the big Debbie Downer moment: … drumroll…  

People don’t care about what you do.

Yes, I’m cringing and covering my eyes as I write that. It’s brutal, it’s awful, it’s an ugly string of words- but on one level it’s true.

OK- please interrupt your shouting of profanity, or resist the urge to flee this page, or just take a big old deep breath and allow me to explain. Most of you know me by now and you know I’m not so hard-hearted. So on to the juicy nugget that the ugly sentence holds:

In marketer-ese (yes, a language I’m sure you’re not rushing to become fluent in), this is the old issue of features vs. benefits. The marketing peeps will always tell you that you need to focus on the benefits of what you do, rather than the features. What this consultant was telling her was that no one cared about EFT- they only cared about what it could do for them.

An example of a ridiculously successful product may help clarify here. Let’s take the iPhone, which last I checked is doing pretty well. The simple benefit of the iPhone is that it makes your life easier. That’s what Apple is selling- making your life easier with that device.

If, on the other hand, they were to geek out on features they could talk for days about the perks- everything from the benefit of having your phone, music, and internet all in the same place, to apps that do everything from find the cheapest place to buy that shirt you’re eyeing, count your calories, or even (for real) count the time between your contractions when you’re in labor.

Yes, they could go on and on about the revolution of the apps and the many delicious features that they’ll bring you. Imagine the dizzying ads listing all the endless features. But they don’t have to. Instead they convey simply that this device will make your life easier, and with this approach your eyes don’t start glazing over when they hit the story of app number 3,084.

This affects us as wellness practitioners because we all have a tendency to talk features when new clients are seeking us out for a pretty specific benefit that they have in mind.

The benefit they seek is always some version of, “Can you make this hurt go away?” The hurt can be physical, mental, emotional or spiritual but it all boils down to seeking out our services in order to “hurt” less. It could be said we seek out everything to hurt less, but I digress…

I think our tendency to get feature obsessed is because we all fall so head over heels in love with what we do, and then we go to school where we drink deeply of the Kool-aid and fall only more deeply in love. By the time we get out into the world and need to grow a practice- we’re in school mode (otherwise known as minutiae mode). And when talking with clients, all we can do is tell people how amazing the features of what we do are.

And they don’t care. Because learning about acupuncture, or homeopathy, or Thai massage is not why they’re calling. They’re not enrolling in school- they want to know if you can make the hurt go away.

Ask yourself how many people have come to you for your services saying, “I don’t have anything that’s causing me pain, difficulty, fear, or existential angst. I just want to experience the magic that is [insert modality here].” Not that freaking many. Some, perhaps, but veeeery few.

Yes, there will be clients- especially those who are already working with you- who will have the information junkie in them awakened and who will want to dive more into the how of the voodoo you do. Most of my clients do, at some point, get fascinated about connective tissue since it’s the medium my particular modality works with.

But my first conversation with them, and my practice building materials (website, business cards, etc), don’t focus on how fascinating connective tissue is. They focus on the main reasons people seek out Rolfing: to decrease pain, to move more easily, to increase flexibility and improve posture- these are the benefits.

Start listening carefully to the “it hurts here” behind all your client conversations. They won’t all be the same, but they’ll usually fall into a group of things, like my Rolfing example above. Every modality is different, and different practitioners within each modality will attract different kinds of “hurts”, so it’s the listening that becomes really important.

This whole shtick about people not caring about what we do is just another way of saying that you must speak to people’s actual needs. You’ll save yourself a lot of time and grief if you clarify and understand what these are and then speak very directly to them when growing your practice.

It’s essentially the same thing that I think makes for a successful Rolfing practitioner (though it extends to all practices, I think). When you’re working with a client you can decide what that person’s body needs and get bossy and pushy with it to try to meet this goal you’ve set for them, but all you’ll achieve is both an exhausted practitioner and client, with little benefit.

However, if you can decide to become an expert listener and follower- you can work magic. Not because you have a secret magic wand, but because you’re addressing what that human being in front of you actually needs, rather than fulfilling some agenda of your own.

It reminds me of my new favorite quote, “Sometimes it is necessary to re-teach a thing its loveliness.” (from the poem St. Francis And The Sow by Galway Kinnell)

While I may be going out on a limb here- and this probably deserves its own post- I would argue that we’re all really in the business of re-teaching people their loveliness. That’s only possible when we listen to where they got disconnected and offer to them the tools we have that we believe can re-introduce them to their loveliness. To do this- we have to listen and be able to connect with them by talking about the benefits.

But listen comes first.

As I’m going through the process of kicking off practice number three- it’s occurring to me that it would be useful to have a series of articles here on exactly how to get some of the nuts and bolts basics together as quickly, cheaply, and painlessly as possible. So here goes! Post number one in the series: getting the website done.

I rant from time to time about how important it is for wellness providers to get their website up- so I think you’ve heard it all before (short version: do it already! It’s really freaking important if you want to pay your bills and not collapse in a pool of self-loathing, brought on by watching tumbleweeds blow across your office!). So here’s a little breakdown of exactly how to get your site up:

Stuff you’ll need:

• Planning: This part can somehow be so easily blown off, but nothing happens well, or often at all, without some planning. The most painless way to do this is to decide what your needs are for features- will you simply need pages that answer questions about your practice, as in a traditional brochure type website, or will you also need some more bells and whistles like a blog, or a forum where you can communicate more effectively with your clients? Once you have an idea about what the scope of your project is, find three websites that are similar to what you’d want and write out a critique of them. What do you love about them- both in terms of design, tone, and functionality? Use these points to craft your website. It’s so much easier to pull from something that already exists (and that you love) than to start with the blank canvas.
• Domain name: You will need to grab yourself a domain name- that being the name of your website. I’ve outlined my strategy for picking one here. The short version is that I prefer to keep it simple, and get the name of your location and the name of what you do in the title (i.e. www.newhavenrolfing.com). I hear both Network Solutions and Netfirms are good for buying domains. I’ve used Go Daddy in the past, but have decided that they blow.
• Design: I rant about this one a lot too (geez! so cranky!)  so feel free to take a gander at this post for more in-depth information, but the short version is that you want to make sure your site isn’t looking- how do I put this gently- like crap. Design is super duper important to a client choosing you over someone else- so either invest in working with a designer for logo design, or just use my most favoristist site building tool, Squarespace (or both, which is what I did for New Haven Rolfing). You can get some good logo design on Crowdspring or Elance. My go to girls for amazing design work are Nette and Reese(they’re not a dynamic duo as they have two separate businesses, but if they were a dynamic duo they could probably take over the world. And what a design savvy world it would be).  
• Great copy: I wrote a full post on exactly how to do this, so I suggest wandering over to my I Am Not a Robot post. The short version: be yourself, be yourself, be yourself. People are deciding to work with you (or not) based almost entirely on who you are and if they feel they resonate with you. Fancy initials after your name can help, but the rest of the writing on the site should come from your heart about your particular passion for your work and how you practice. Also have a team of proof-readers, and be sure to choose them on who you know will tell you the truth. Having one or two people on the team (thanks mom) who will compliment every decision you make doesn’t hurt either.
• A way to get building: My favoritist tool for building a beautiful site quickly and easily is Squarespace. This is, by far, the cheapest and least painless way to go that I’ve found. I’m talking two hours (that’s the amount of time it took me including my bumbling around figuring out how to use it for the first time) to get a site up and $14/month. Not to mention that their templates are gorgeous, so some of the design burden is lifted from your shoulders. Kind of amazing really. Wordpress is also fantastic and pretty user friendly if you want to go the DIY route. If instead you decide you want to hire someone to build your site for you, I can highly recommend Technology Therapy who built this site. Keep in mind that hiring a tech team is usually best reserved for larger and more in depth projects as that’s where their expertise really shines, and where the price tag becomes worth it.  

And that’s it! That wasn’t so bad, right? It’s a pretty short list and with the new fabulous tools out there, you can honestly get a site up in a surprisingly short amount of time.

One last tip for avoiding the inevitable overwhelm that creeps up when taking on a new project and a new learning curve: start small. If you’re wondering if you need a forum, or a sign up for a newsletter, or whatever other extra you can imagine- my advice is to start small. It’s better to have a basic site up than a mass of un-used ideas. You can always evolve a site later. On the web, nothing is set in stone.

Let me know how it goes! If you’re getting your site up for the first time, or re-doing an existing site, I’d love to see them! And if you have other tools you love, I’m always happy to hear about them- so feel free to post them in the comments section.

This post is part of a series of posts chronicling my experiences starting my practice from scratch (again) in a brand new city. To catch up on the earlier posts, you can find them here:

Starting from Scratch (again)

How to Become a (Local) Rockstar

Office Space and Dr. Evil

Good Design. Get Some.

I Am Not a Robot

Practicing Radical Generosity

Whew. What is it with me and the long posts lately? If you want to skim, you can just browse among the headers you have a question about: Website, Business Cards, Office Space, Legal, and Practice Building Know-How.

This whole starting a new practice thing costs money. Between licensure, office space, a website, business cards, and the rest of the whole deal the end result is that you’re spending a bundle of money for a while. You’re launching a business (even if we holistic health types shudder at calling it a business) so it’s natural that there will be some up front expenses, but as with launching any business (ha! I used the B word again!) it’s best to keep the upfront costs and overhead lean. Not so lean that the important things are scrapped, but certainly not overdone so that you’re starting out with a bundle of debt.

I happen to be on a spectacularly tight budget these days (I’m setting aside money for big upgrades to The Well Practice, raising my sweet boy, and paying off an old business loan- hence my warning about not starting off with debt). And so with that, I present to you my list of stellar cheapies that will help you save money and have all the important pieces ready to go and looking lovely.

* Evenif you’re not kicking off a brand new practice, this list will help you cut costs as you grow, and also just happens to be a list some of my favorite services out there for small business owners.

Website

Hold on to your seats. Lecture mode is bubbling up within me. I’ll keep it brief: don’t be that person who decides to save money by launching a practice without a website. Build the website first. Without a website in this world, you have no credibility. Without credibility you have a veeeeeeeerrrrrry difficult time building a practice. I’ve seen lots of folks trapped in the “I’ll get a website when my practice is busy enough to pay for one” spiral of doom many times. You won’t have a practice that can pay for anything- rent, groceries, heat, let alone a website- until you have a website. Fortunately, the days of laying out a thousand dollars to get a site up (and this would be considered cheap) are gone. There are a couple of stellar platforms you can use to do it yourself. Lecture rant over and out.

*One side note: I love my web designers and am more than happy to pay them for their services as they provide a ton of insight and expertise to a more complex site build. However, if what you need is a brochure site to let people know you exist, you can definitely go the DIY route with these tools:

• Squarespace: This may be my new favorite find of the year. This is a genius platform for building websites yourself. There are so many businesses out there that promise a platform where you can “build a website in 5 minutes!” and they’re all crap (at least all the ones I’ve investigated). But Squarespace is like this beacon of hope in the DIY website world. It’s easy and highly intuitive to use, requires zero knowledge of code, has a lot of beautiful templates to choose from, and a nice variety of features. I built my New Haven Rolfing site on Squarespace in a couple of hours and it costs me… drumroll please… $14 a month. This is what you’d normally pay in hosting fees alone- and this fee covers it all. I’m in love. Seriously. I’m strongly considering shifting The Well Practice onto their platform and testing out their more robust features- of which they appear to have many. To check out other Squarespace sites, head on over here.
• Wordpress: My second favorite option is Wordpress. It’s primarily what this site runs on. While it’s a blog platform, it’s also very flexible and you can easily create your whole site with it. In other words, static pages like “About my practice” can happen too. If you go the Wordpress route you’ll need to choose a theme. Word on the street is the Thesis theme is the way to go- but feel free to browse around. Thesis will cost you $87, and running on Wordpress with your own domain name, and ad free (if you don’t pay to be ad free, they’ll run ads on your blog, which I’m not a fan of), will cost you $44.94 per year. Still not too shabby for a righteous web platform.
• Domain name: While both Squarespace and Wordpress offer cheap (Squarespace) or free (Wordpress) options to run your site without owning the domain, I recommend against using them. It’s a longer conversation than I’ll have in this post, but the short version is that it doesn’t look very professional, and you’re going to want to own your domain name (the name of your website) anyway. Domains are still cheap, usually $15 or less per year. You can buy them at Network Solutions or Go Daddy (though Go Daddy’s been annoying the hell out of me lately with both the minefield of pointless “extra features” you have to walk through on your way to checkout and Bob Parson’s lame “womanizing is a great marketing model” mindset- just sayin). I recommend trying to get a .com. It may seem silly, but it’s still a signifier to all of us of quality- .net, .biz, or any other incarnation of the .whatever comes off a bit shabby (unless you’re a non-profit or educational association in which case .org and .edu are the expected norm).

Business Cards

Business cards still give us a lot of mileage since most of us work with clients one on one in the tangible world (Shout out to the life coaches! Keep rockin it in cyberspace!). Clients will pass them along to others, and it’s handy to leave stacks of them in related businesses with permission.

When getting the cards together, there are two issues that are going to cost some dough- design and printing.

*For more information on navigating design check out my eariler post Good Design: Get Some.

Design

• Crowdspring: While I haven’t used Crowdspring myself, it does seem like a very nifty idea for getting custom branding done cheaply and easily- and with input from a lot of creative voices, rather than just one.
• Elance: I also didn’t use Elance for my New Haven Rolfing design work, but I have used them for other projects with good results. This is a huge site filled with people who can create a brand for you. The best way to go is to post your project and see who bids on it- otherwise it’s a pretty big sea of portfolios to sift through.
• Friends and colleagues: So if I didn’t use Crowdspring or Elance, who did I get to do my design work? My dear friend Nette Gaastra who was kind enough to help a girl out- and who also happens to be a crazily talented designer. Don’t forget to look in your circle of friends and colleagues- and if you want to keep it super cheap, remember the power of barter. Exchanging one service for another can be fantastic in the early days of your practice when the appointment book isn’t exactly bursting at the seams. Just keep in mind that the designer you approach about barter may be very busy and/or not interested in what you offer. I ended up paying Nette, and since she gave me a very gracious discount because of my friend status, I won’t post it here because the truth is she’ll charge you more than she charged me. What can I say- being together through all the ups and downs of pregnancy, childbirth, and childrearing has its perks.

*  If you do decide to hire someone to create a custom logo/brand for you remember that you’ll need the logo, a business card design, and a web header to use on your Squarespace or Wordpress site.

Printing

• Overnight Prints: I’ve always used Overnight Prints and have always been happy with their work. It looks professional, the cardstock is heavy, and they have quick turnaround and great customer service. You can also order in small quantities if it helps for cash flow. I decided to do a small order to start and for 100 double-sided, round corner, full color cards I paid $39.96- and that includes shipping. I did run out of those cards mighty quick though- so in retrospect 100 was too conservative an order. 

The all in one Solution

• Zazzle: If you don’t want to bother with getting a custom logo and do the whole branding thing, you can always use Zazzle’s templates. Overnight Prints and Vista Print also have templates you can use, but I find Zazzle’s to be the nicest by a wide margin. They have lots of beautiful templates that you can just plug your information into, plus they do all the printing and ship them out to you. I have friends who have been very happy with their Zazzle business cards and they do look gorgeous. The reason why I skipped it was because I wanted my web header and my business card to match- so I got the custom logo.

Office space

If you don’t have any clients yet, and don’t want to fork out some cash for an office rental, there is a good alternative. First, look to share a space with someone else. A practitioner rarely works 7 days a week (and if you do- stop it!), and wellness centers usually have shared rooms in which practitioners alternate days. My office colleagues were gracious enough to accept a temporary pay by the session situation, which will turn into a monthly rental. The bonus of this is that, for now, I only pay when I use the space. In future, I’ll pay a monthly rent like everyone else. Since this is a situation that has to work for everyone involved, here are a couple of pitfalls to avoid for you and for whoever is renting to you:

Pitfalls for them:

• It can be perceived as lose-lose: Depending on their mindset, your paying only per session, and then switching to a monthly rent once it’s cheaper for you can seem like they’re getting the short end of the deal. The main thing that will make the difference is how you utilize the deal. If you dawdle along, safe in your pay-per-session cocoon and don’t really work it to build your practice, then they’re losing money on that space indefinitely. To resolve this, I propose first that you get out there and totally kick ass at practice building so that they see the dollars stacking up quickly. You can also set a time boundary- that they only rent to you per session for three months (or whatever), and then you have to pay the rent on days you use the room. This way they know you’re motivated and that they’re not wasting their generosity on you. Also be sure to clarify that it will be either one or the other. You begin at a per session rate and then transition to a monthly rate. You can’t flip flop between them or resentment will build. There can be no “I’m having a slow month, can I pay you by the session until it picks up?” happening.

Pitfalls for you:

• You can wind up paying out tons of money: Pay-per-session sounds great until your practice takes off and you’re stuck paying 10 times the average office rent. In my last practice in Brooklyn, NY we settled on an indefinite pay-per-session rental. Within 3 months I had a full practice and was paying $2800 a month for the space- which I only used 3 to 4 days per week- dang! Fortunately the owner of the wellness center was gracious enough to realize that that wasn’t sustainable for me and we settled on a much more realistic monthly rent from then on. Also note that it’s almost never workable- or reasonable- for someone to ask for 50% of your sessions. A per session rate of $15 to $35 seems to be the norm.

Legal

Oh there is always more I dotting and T crossing than we anticipate. C’est la vie. Getting the legal stuff set up can feel really intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. Here’s my super simple option- and remember, by no stretch of the imagination am I an attorney- so please, take this with a grain of salt, do your own research, and find out what works for you. For me, the easiest thing one can do to protect themselves legally (besides the liability insurance- which you should get- but which varies so much by modality that I won’t get into it here) is to set yourself up as a Limited Liability Corporation. To do this cheaply and easily, head over to Legal Zoom. It will save you a ton of money by bypassing the need for an attorney to draft it. I’ve used them for several things and have always had a great experience.

Practice Building Know-How

Unless you were blessed with a very concientious school, you studied somewhere that- for all their good intentions- totally botched teaching you anything about practice building. I feel your pain (and I’m on a mission to change it). That means you’ll also have the job of figuring out how to get the word out. Fortunately, there are loads of free ways to learn what you need to know.

• Practice Building 101: Shameless plug for my own ebook? Perhaps. But the fact of the matter is it’s free, and I wrote it specifically to help get us all up to speed on spreading the good word.  
• Seth’s Blog: Anyone, of any business, anywhere on planet Earth, should read Seth Godin’s blog (and books). He’s my hero. He posts every day, and every day I read it and come away with a new shiny nugget of wisdom. There is much to be learned here.
• The Fluent Self:  Havi Brooks’ blog is full of so much goodness. I’m a bit addicted. She talks about all sorts of things, some that are not specifically about growing your thing, but I learn so much from reading her work and following along with her that I think she’s a great resource.
• Chris Guillebeau: Chris is just one of the loveliest people imaginable. And there is so much to learn about getting the word out from reading his work.
• Itty Biz: Naomi Dunford writes this rockin’ blog specifically for businesses with 5 or fewer employees. Since most of us are flying solo, we’re totally her people. I always find myself both crying with laughter and learning boatloads when reading her blog. 

Don’t let the list intimidate you- remember, small bites people! Now get out there and spread your healing goodness!

What did I leave out? Please let me know what else you’re grappling with, and share any tips and tricks you have.

At long last, the fully gut renovated (free!) ebook is ready for download. Practice Building 101: The I-Don’t-Have-to-Feel-Like-an-Icky-Car-Salesman-Guide to Growing a Thriving Wellness Practice is now yours for the low, low price of $0. As some of you know, I first put out a free practice building ebook nearly a year ago. It was definitely full of lots of great info, but badly in need of editing and desperately in need of a massive design overhaul. And now it’s here! It’s fully re-written and ready to go. I could go on and on about what its perks are and who can benefit from it, but that’s all here. So I won’t repeat myself. Needless to say, if your practice needs a kick in the pants, get it, read it, use it.  

For those of you who haven’t read the old version: Phew! Because who wants to read something twice, and this one is much, much, much- well it’s just far superior to the first version.

For those of you who did read the old version: I can’t really give you a big old reading assignment, can I? If you already read it and don’t want to dive into the new one- what can ya do? I can’t really blame you. However, here are some reasons why you might bother to at least skim it:  

• Reese Spykerman, the designer extraordinaire, has done an amazing job with design and layout. So if you find yourself using the old ebook as a reference, this one will be much easier to navigate that way. Plus, it’s sooo much prettier. So- for me- at least click through the pages and marvel at what Reese has done. Lovely stuff.
• I’ve made the practice building categories much easier to navigate.
• Totally updated info- especially in the toolbox section. Blogs, video blogs, and podcasts have gotten some extra special attention.
• I pulled out anything I thought was extraneous to just getting the job done- that being the job of more paying clients walking through your door- so I kind of cut to the chase with this version.

My intention then, as now, was to create a comprehensive resource with no barriers (um, free) so that as many people as possible could get their hands on it and put it to use.

My mission with this website is to contribute to the tipping point of holistic healthcare to where it becomes the totally obvious thing that everyone chooses to use in their lives. My hope is to do this through helping people to thrive in their practices. So, if you read it and feel like it was worthwhile, please pass it along to anyone else you feel can benefit.

If you want extra brownie points (and an actual tangible reward) you can talk to the school you attended and let them know this is a free resource they can offer to their students. Come on, take pity on the soon to be grads. Remember how hard those days were? Oh, and as for the tangible reward: if you get Practice Building 101 on your school’s reading list, I’ll give you a free jumpstart coaching session. We’ll talk for an hour and figure out your game plan for getting you to waiting list levels of demand.

This post is a part of a series chronicling my process of starting my third wellness practice from scratch in a new city. If you missed the other posts, feel free to check them out:

Starting from scratch, again

How to become a (local) rockstar

Office space and Dr. Evil

Good design. Get some.

Yahoo! New Haven Rolfing is born in cyberspace! The website for my new practice is up and ready to go and the most amazing thing happened while I was creating it: I enjoyed the process.

The last time I had to write copy for a website or brochure for my Rolfing practice was many moons ago (about 6 years ago, to be exact) and I labored through writing it. At the time I was still in that nervous, newbie mindset- even though I’d been at it for 3 years already- which was dominated by the thought, “I’m new at this. So people are going to think I suck at it. So I’d better prop up my web copy with a bunch of big, fancy words to they know I studied really  hard in school, and will think I suck less.”

This mindset resulted in a boring website with a bunch of academic words sprinkled around. In other words, a snooze fest. Worst of all, a snooze fest that doesn’t give new clients any accessible information about what I do, or any indication of who I am as a human being.

As I see it, almost all wellness practitioners of every variety stumble into these same two pitfalls. So let’s address them each separately through the lens of my own ridiculous blunders:

You do what, exactly?

Rolfing is one of those modalities with a bad name. Literally. I’ve had people think it was called “Ralphing” and ask me if that means I actually make people throw up. (Good times. And no, if you were wondering). This unfortunate name makes Rolfing more challenging to explain than, say, massage therapy, but regardless of what you practice, you have to work at articulating what you do without dredging up all the gobbledy-gook words you learned in school. Your new and potential clients didn’t go to school with you. They have no idea what you’re talking about if you use the big words as a crutch.

For example, I can say, “Rolfing works within the fascial network to achieve palintonicity so that gravity can act as the therapist.” (ok, I’m not sure my old website was quite that bad, but that is exactly what I learned in school) or I can say, “As a Rolfer, my sincere goal in working with clients is for their alignment and posture to improve, for pain to significantly decrease or disappear, and for movement to become more supported, balanced, and fluid.” Which makes more sense? Which one makes you want to head but a curb? Which one makes you want to check out this thing with the wacky name?

Who are you, exactly?

The other bummer about writing like a robot is that people think of you as, well, a robot. That is to say, that you become in their minds “generic acupuncturist” or “generic yoga teacher”.  The biggest problem with this, besides the fact that you’re not “generic wellness practitioner”, is that what potential clients are most interested in finding out before they contact you is who you are. Not in any kind of deep, soul-searching way, but they want to get a sense of your personality. Your personality is the main thing they’re going to go on when they decide to work with you. Think of all the people you’ve worked with who have been your practitioners. The people who you’ve developed long term therapeutic relationships with are the people who get you, and who you get.

This leads us to the crucial issue of finding your voice. This is something that I feel like I’m just settling into. I was looking over older blog posts yesterday and I realized that this feeling of flow when I’m writing is pretty new. And it’s a good feeling. Really, really freaking good.

I recommend you take some time to get in touch with your voice- whether it’s your written voice, your spoken voice, or your way of being with clients (which, ideally, is quite a lot like your way of being when you’re with everyone else). You don’t have to be sharp or hip; you don’t have to be a genius or a joker- you just have to be you. When you’re you, you attract the kinds of clients you’re going to capital L Love working with- because they’re your people. The added bonus of this is a built in burn-out defense since your work days won’t be spent with people who make you feel like you’re swimming upstream.

One of the best ways I know of to get in touch with your voice is to write or tell the story of how you found the modality you practice. (If you’re a writer, put pen to paper or finger to keyboard. If you hate to write, record yourself speaking, or have someone interview you and record it.) Everyone has the story about their first acupuncture session, or first Pilates class, or whatever. It’s that moth to a flame story. Something about what you practice totally lit you up inside when you first found it. Talking about that is the most natural way I know of to begin to notice your natural voice. That and practice. Finding your voice is a skill that takes time and experimentation- at least it has for me.

*Once you’ve done this exercise, include this story on your website! One of the things that I did get right on my last website was talking about what I call my Rolfing Hallelujah experience. I’d say that at least 80% of my clients came to me and told me they chose to work with me over other Rolfers because I had talked about my personal experience with Rolfing on my website (the current version is here). People want to know who you are and why you do what you do- so hop to it and let the world get to know your lovely self!