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!

I’m a big fan of growing your practice in a way that’s a fit with your personality. One of my core passions is that we should get rid of our imagined unpleasant practice building activities and ask ourselves to get a wee bit more creative. If you hate public speaking couldn’t you start a blog? If you hate dropping cash on some ad, couldn’t you introduce yourself to your community in other ways?That said, I got on my “you don’t have to do the practice building activities you hate” soapbox after a couple of disastrous attempts that I made very early in my first practice.

Hilarious “What the hell were you thinking” story # 1:

Enter Brooke’s deluded internal voice:
“Hey Brooke, I know you detest public speaking and you get all freaked out and deer in headlight-y even at the thought of it, but why don’t you go on down to that meeting of local chiropractors (none of whom you’ve ever met) and give a talk on just how great Rolfing is? You know, because you get nervous and shy in front of groups of people you’ve never met and you’re a new grad whose ability to talk clearly about the benefits of Rolfing is still working itself out? Doesn’t that sound great?”

And here’s how it turned out:
A group of men who’ve all been in practice for, and known one another for, eons meet up and are sharing that warm familiarity that this kind of history brings with it. Everyone is asking after everyone else’s kids, inside jokes abound, you get the idea.

I show up, the 25 year old woman who’s just moved to town and recently graduated from The Rolf Institute and I timidly (barely) introduce myself to the group.

After they all get seated and their friendly banter dies down, I clear my throat, flush bright purple, begin shaking and sweating, and squeak out a few words about Rolfing. I can’t remember for the life of me what I actually said, but I can assure you the gist went something like this, “Rolfing is really great. And it probably is beneficial alongside chiropractic. And I like it. You should too probably. I just moved here and I don’t know anyone and I don’t have any clients and I’m dyin’ out here guys so if you could please make some clients magically appear on my doorstep I’d be really grateful. They’d be sure to ask you why you sent them to this weird nervous girl, but still, it would help me to eat this month. Thanks.”

I wish I could track down one of those guys so that they could attest to the fact that I am in no way, shape, or form exaggerating here. It was that bad. But I can’t track them down because, bizarrely, none of them ever referred to me or spoke with me again.

Hilarious “What the hell were you thinking story” # 2:

Enter Brooke’s deluded internal voice:
“Hey Brooke, I know that chiropractic talk was awful, but this time one of your clients actually invited you to this gathering of local people/political fundraiser type-deal. Sure you’ve never met any of them before and you still get nervous surrounded by strangers and that whole debilitating shyness thing takes over, but I’m sure this time it’s gonna be great! These people are going to be so psyched that you showed up with so many business cards to hand out!”

And here’s how it turned out:
I do get some points for progress because at least I wasn’t giving a presentation on Rolfing. But I was there to talk it up, so I timidly mentioned to everyone that I met that I had a new Rolfing practice in town. That is, until the saucy lady with the dramatic gestures heard the word “Rolfing” from across the room and started yelling towards me, “Rolfing! Rolfing! Oh my God!” (This was not in a delighted or happy tone. Her tone skewed more towards horrified.)

You haven’t met this lovely party-goer before, so you don’t know just how commanding and over the top her gestures are. So I’ll tell you this, she now had the attention of literally everyone there, and they were all forming a circle around her. Once she had everyone’s full attention she then began telling them exactly what Rolfing was all about: “It’s like you’re a chicken being de-boned! It’s awful! It’s practically abuse. Horrible! Horrible!”

Now folks, first off, um this is not true. But Rolfing has this old school reputation for being intense (we’ve evolved, seriously) so by now I’m used to the occasional outburst like this (but no where nearing the fevered pitch of this one). These days when the Rolfing-is-so-painful storyline comes up I can laugh with them, talk about it, and soon everyone is giggling and at ease.

But back then? No. I was super sensitive and terrible at rolling with this kind of thing.

She polished me off by asking me what I was thinking moving from Boston to open a practice in Sonoma- implying with very little subtlety that Sonoma didn’t take kindly to outsiders on their turf.

I drove home crying. Good times.

Ok, so I have good reason to preach about taking on practice building activities that feel like a fit for you. That one was learned in the fire.

However, sometimes it’s worth expanding the old comfort zone a little. Sorta a good tip for life in general, I think. It’s been many, many years since those experiences and I recently found myself actually considering teaching a workshop at my favorite local yoga studio.

The problem is, when I sat down to think about what I’d be saying to all the people who would show up for it, I drew a blank. Rolfing is experiential, yet I couldn’t exactly tell a room full of 30 people that they’d each get a session in the 2 hour workshop.

I finally hit on a compromise that allowed me to get in front of a room of people again, but to do it from my strength- i.e. introducing people to my hands and my quality of touch, not some blah, blah, blah about why they should want to pay me for Rolfing.

My dear friend Ellen Lenson teaches an amazing restorative yoga class, and one bonus of restorative (among its many) is that people are in supported, passive poses for long periods of time. Just the kind of thing that’s perfect for a little touch!

I asked Ellen if I could assist her in her class by giving her students a little hands-on work in their poses and she was game. So last Wednesday I got in front of a room full of 30 people and introduced myself as the new Rolfer in town for the first time since the two California debacles (it only took 9 years, but whatever…)

And it was great! Just a short little “this is who I am and why I’m here” intro and then I got to connect with people in the best way I know how- by working on them. The result was that I gave out all the business cards that I brought (they were requested, not foisted upon people), I have one new client who has already come in, and had a lot of really lovely and thoughtful conversations about Rolfing with some of the students after the class.

I’ll be there every Wednesday now, challenging my “stand up in front of a group” fears, and easing in to some new practice building skills.

What could you do to widen the comfort zone circle a bit?

I’ve got great news! I failed! OK, so no one ever gets that excited about failure in the moment. And yes, it’s a wee bit humbling to write a blooper reel post for all of you today. But when I announced I was kicking off a new practice from scratch I promised total honesty, even with the flops. So here goes:

That whole Meet the Neighbors promotion that I dreamed up to keep my December busy? It was a total wash.

In my haste to keep momentum going through December (which I can tell you- brutal honesty remember!- didn’t work. The last 2 weeks of December and first week of January were quiet as usual) I broke one of my own most sacred rules and did the whole wide net thing. You know the one: toss out a big old net to everyone you can possibly think of and you’ll dredge up something which is better than nothing. Except it never works. It’s only a sure fire way to maximum effort and minimum return.

The sacred rule that I broke is this: do practice building outreach for who would be your ideal** clients, and forget about trying to reach and please everyone.

Seth Godin (who yes, I quote constantly, but it’s because it’s well deserved) described it best when he said, “the problem with huge markets is the same problem you’d have playing squash or racquetball on a court that’s too big. The ball doesn’t have a wall to bounce off of.” This is a great visual- imagine trying to play racquetball in an open field. Imagine whacking that ball with all your might only to send it off into empty space and you get a feeling for how exhausting and fruitless trying to target everyone is. If you can get on a proper sized court, so to speak, you can get a good game going. You also don’t waste energy sending balls out into the void.

So let’s break down the damage on the Meet the Neighbors idea.

Lost:

• About 3 hours of my time
• $60 in the cost of printing, shipping, and envelopes
• Potentially $60 in income (The only person who took advantage of my 50% off deal was the only person in the building that was already a client of mine. He may have been spurred into setting up a session because of the promotional discount- in which case I gained $60 I wouldn’t have had. Then again, he may have come in anyway and paid my full fee- in which case I lost $60. I think we’ll call this one a toss up.)

That means… drumroll please… that exactly no one who was new to my practice took advantage of the 50% off offer. No one. Nada.
For comparisons sake, I reached out to a fraction of the number of people through my Help for the Helpers promotion and it jump started my practice in no time flat. And it continues to feed my practice. That first group of people who came to see me are such generous spirits that they keep spreading the word.

So what’s the difference? In the Meet the Neighbors promotion I offered a very generous discount as a holiday gift to people based solely on the fact that they work in the same building as me. In other words, the only thing we have in common is location.

In the Help for the Helpers promotion I offered it only to the people who have been my best fans and referrers over the years: yoga teachers and other CAM practitioners.

Ok. Lesson learned. No more wasting time with those who aren’t likely to be my ideal clients.

The other experiments fared better- I got a good amount of interest from my gift certificate program, and I was right when I predicted that people find a lot of services via flyers in this town. Every time I put up flyers I seem to get between 2 and 5 new clients within 24 hours. These ivy league towns sure do love their flyers! My business is also now up on Yelp, but it’s too soon to report on that one yet. I’ll keep you posted.

So yes, there are some wins among the loss, but the thing I’m most excited about is the failure. Failures range from being a bummer (like this one) to a life altering catastrophe (trust me when I tell you I’ve had one of those). But the thing about them is that you always learn a ton. The learning is almost always more valuable than the loss. Even if the loss hurts like a bitch.

I think we spend so much time walking on eggshells terrified of making a mistake that most of us err on the side of doing nothing. Our educational system rewards those who are the best drones, and drones don’t put themselves on the line and risk failure. They color inside the lines to receive whatever tasty morsel of praise coloring inside the lines promises (hint: it’s not that tasty).

Whereas those who are willing to take a stab at something when faced with the alternative of doing nothing actually gain, well, something. Yes sometimes it’s heartbreak or embarrassment, but coupled with those is always (always) a big quantum leap in your knowledge which can get you where you want to go. All you have to do is dust yourself off and start moving again by putting that new knowledge to work.

Those who try nothing- hoping to not stand out, hoping to avoid criticism or embarrassment, hoping to coast by and that some miracle will drop into their lap what it is they’re truly yearning for- they most often get only more of the nothing.

As Seth Godin says in his newest book Linchpin (which is brilliant and addresses just how we avoid doing the work that matters out of fear so go buy 25 copies and hand them out to everyone you love) “Do the work. Fight the resistance.” In other words- keep going! Do something!

A blog post with footnotes! Hilarious!

*The title of this post is lifted from my dear friend Jonathan FitzGordon who used to own Brooklyn Yoga Center. When I first walked in and saw that he had t-shirts printed up with Brooklyn Yoga on one side and Failure is my Friend on the other, I knew I had found my dream yoga center. He’s currently doing righteous movement work at www.Fitzgordonmethod.com.

**While “ideal client” is a business-speak term that encompasses defining your ideal clients’ demographics and psychographics, I define it as “those who you’d be most delighted to see walk through your door every day, and who are likely to be vocal fans of what you do.”

Hi all! This is a guest post from the good people over at Alternative Health Practice- Dan Clements and Tara Gignac. Check them out since they’re also doing great work to help us all thrive in our practices!

There are a lot of names for what we do in practice – alternative, holistic, complementary, integrative. But behind the labels, we all have one thing in common: we’re trying to help others. The catch, however, is that in order to find those people who need our help, most of us have to make some effort to market our services.

Sometimes, though, the very thing that makes many practitioners so good at what they do – their ability to connect with and be sensitive to others -  also makes them very, very uncomfortable with the idea of marketing. Behind many of the questions we get from practitioners is a common theme: I’m shy/introverted/timid/reserved. How can I  promote my practice?

To answer that, let’s start with a few key truths about practice marketing for introverts:

Introverts Have an Advantage

So you’re an introvert. You’re inward-looking. You prefer the company of yourself, or a close interaction with one other person. You’re insightful, a good listener. All these things, as it turns out, make you a kick-ass practitioner, too. What no one may have told you, though, is this:

The same things that make you a great practitioner can make you a great marketer, too.

Not only is being an introvert not a flaw, you also have a unique set of advantages, well-suited for health care and health care marketing.

• You Listen Better – One of the greatest complaints about lousy salespeople and marketers is that they don’t listen. You’re telling them you want green, but they keep sticking red in your face over and over. As an introvert, odds are you’re a better listener than your extraverted counterparts. That means you stand a chance of actually hearing what it is your prospective clients want. What’s the biggest sales technique you’ll hear over and over in sales training? Listen to your prospect. It turns out that you’re a natural.

• You Get Others Talking – It may be that you don’t like to be the center of attention, or it may be those great listening skills, but whatever the reason, introverts have a knack for keeping others talking. That gives you a much better chance of hearing about a health concern or a subtle detail that might never come up otherwise. It means you learn far more about prospective clients than anyone else.

Introversion Isn’t a Character Flaw

We live in a culture that tends to value extraversion. Don’t buy in.

If you tend to be energized by time alone, and a little introspective, you’re in good company. Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Steven Spielberg? Yep – all introverts. Who says introverts can’t find a little success in business?

And remember, just about everyone feels the way you do at some point. You are neither broken nor alone.

Introversion and Extraversion Aren’t Permanent States

Introversion and extroversion are one continuum. We move around that continuum depending on our environment and experience. While there are genetic components to personality, they are, as with most things, not the whole picture:

Even a broad category such as introversion is like Silly Putty once life gets hold of it: a “genetically shy” child whose parents gently encourage her to get herself into the sandbox and mix it up with other kids is more likely to outgrow her shyness by age 12 than a shy child whose parents take her trait as a given. <source>

Instead of thinking yourself as flawed because you’re nervous about getting out there, think of yourself as inexperienced. We don’t blame kids for not being able to ride a bike, we just support them as they learn. You should cut yourself some of that same slack, and go easy on the labels.

Extraversion Isn’t Bad

For many, the idea of marketing a practice isn’t the fear of the actual act of say, networking, but a fear of becoming an icky extravert. That stems in large part from our stereotypical view of the marketer as the deceitful used-car salesman in the plaid jacket and snakeskin boots.

Just as introversion doesn’t mean “loser,” extraversion doesn’t mean “phony.” You can adopt aspects of extraversion without compromising your integrity or losing your personality.

You’re Already Marketing

Those great client skills of yours? Listening, reflecting, connecting, empathizing, assessing, diagnosing, prescribing and teaching? They’re the hallmarks of exceptional salespeople. The ability to truly connect with another person, understand their problem and provide the perfect solution? That’s all sales and marketing is. You learned it in school, and you’re doing it all the time, but no one ever told you. So I’m telling you right now: you’ve been marketing all along. You just need to get comfortable with the idea of expanding your audience a little.

But How?

Here are a few tips to ease your transition.

to read the rest of the post, hop on over here…

Thanksgiving has come and gone and we’re entering what is, for many of us, a slow season in our practices. Yes, the tumbleweeds are about to start blowing across the prairie my friends.

Every year since the beginning of my practice I’ve written off that barren stretch of time between Thanksgiving and New Years as a time when everyone is too busy and cash strapped to schedule with me. I had caved to the defeatist in me by consoling myself with the knowledge that the New Year’s Resolution boom always followed.

Eh, I think it’s time for a change. This year I’m just saying “no!” to the inner defeatist! No more tumbleweeds in December!

Ok, ok, to be fair my first couple of weeks of the month are looking as full as usual. But I know that we’re in that lull where people haven’t quite realized just how many commitments they have this month, and just how surprising the cost of holiday shopping is. I figure the time is now to grab people while they’re in their lull and try to keep a little momentum going. After all, we private practice people have gifts to buy and travel to pay for too!

So here are my Operation Thriving December brainstorms that I’m working on. Feel free to steal whatever feels like a fit for you, and to leave your own December practice building ideas in the comments. The more we can share with eachother, the more we can all rock it this holiday season.

• Get to know the neighbors: The wellness center I have my office in happens to be one bright spot o’wellness in a large office building filled mostly with lawyers and mortgage brokers. It’s a bit odd, but it works for us. The thing is, our dear neighbors don’t really know we exist (the center is a year old, and did I mention it’s a big building?). Turns out the holiday season is the perfect time to introduce ourselves to our neighbors with a little ethical bribe gift to inspire them to come on down and get some work. I’m thinking we’ll get some holiday cards or postcards printed up with “Happy Holidays from your neighbors! Hope this gift can bring you some holiday cheer and help you to kick off your New Year’s Resolutions. Bring this card in for 50% off one session if you book between now and January 15th.” with a link to our websites, etc. Yes, 50% is a big heap off a session- but it’s only for one session and we didn’t want it to seem too self-serving. Yes the goal is to juice up our practices, but it is also a gift. In my mind a gift requires a certain level of generosity. If you decide to use this idea- remember the crucial cut-off date. You don’t want to be honoring these things come spring when the whole idea is to keep your winter busy. For printing, I’m looking at Zazzle’s holiday postcards. This design is my favorite so far. Overnight Prints has some custom card and postcard options as well. What neighbors- whether they’re near your office or not- need to know you exist?
• Give thanks: There are always a few people who grow our practices for us like crazy by spreading the good word. You know who they are- they’re your true fans. Methinks tis the season to express our gratitude with a dollar amount off of a session. You decide just how generous you’re feeling- $10 off? $20 off? 50% off? (gasp!) free? Send them this discount thank you in a cheery holiday card and your true fans will be spreading the word about just how fab you are with even more vigor.
• Rock the gift certificates with a little something extra: If you offer gift certificates, don’t sit around waiting for someone to request one. Remind your clients of this wonderful gift idea by sending out an email to your client list. I’m thinking I’ll up the ante a little with a perk for the purchaser: anyone who buys a gift certificate gets $10 (or $20?) off their next session with me. That way they get a gift for themselves at the same time that they’re gifting another, and it insures that they’ll be more inclined to schedule with you sooner than later.

These projects ought to keep me busy through the New Year. However, I usually report on practice building experiments after the fact to let you know how they went, so this time I’ll do a follow up to know what flew and what bombed.

Very Happy Holidays to all of you! And again, I’m just ridiculously honored to be able to be of service to all of you. Thanks for reading.

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’ve been building my third practice I’ve been thinking a lot about what it is that has helped me to grow so quickly in a crap economy because- as ya’ll know- I’m trying to bring back the gems to you here so you can do the same for yourself.

It keeps striking me that most of my clients are so voraciously spreading the word about me because they really like me and feel comfortable around me.

Aaaaaaaaargh! I know, I know- “Hear ye! Hear ye! Let it ring out across the land that clients will spread the word about you if they like you!” What earth-shattering information!

The thing is, I don’t think my clients liking me is so much about me being a helluva gal, but rather because over the years I’ve found a way to be comfortable in my skin and to let my authentic self shine through, rather than putting on the practitioner mask.

“The practitioner mask” is my phrase for the wise, evolved, beatific, angelic thing so many of us do (and man oh man I was the worst offender of this for years) when we’re new in practice and we just reeeeally hope that people will like us.

I’ll be sure to tell the story of my hard-won lessons on dropping the practitioner mask (otherwise known as the please, please like me mask) in another post- but for this post I want to focus on all the happy side effects of dropping said mask. Namely, growing a practice more quickly, with less effort, and filling it up solely with people who you totally adore working with.

Honestly, I’ve hesitated to write this post. First off, I don’t particularly want to be another voice in the authenticity parade- because, all right already- we get it, and lots of people are talking about it in a way that’s much more effective than I can. And second, it reminded me of a book I picked up that had a particularly eye-rolling effect on me.

About a year ago when I was kicking off this Well Practice adventure I did what any good entrepreneur would do and I decided to check out the competition. I headed to Amazon and bought a handful of the top selling practice building books. One of these books (which shall remain nameless) was more like a leaflet that restated some version of “If people like you, and you’re a good person, your practice will grow” on every page. What a nightmare! First of all- way to set yourself up for self-loathing: “Uh-oh, my practice is quiet. It must be because I’m an asshole.” Second of all- “be nice and it will all work out” is not practice building advice. At all.

So let me clarify, this isn’t about being “nice” or “likeable”, because when we try to take on cookie cutter qualities, we’re just finding a new mask.

People have such sensitive trip wires for inauthentic behavior these days- after years of falseness in advertising, government, you name it- we’re all like little tractor beams searching for someone who isn’t busy trying to seem like something, but rather is whatever they are.

So how to be whatever you are? Well, this is an ongoing process for me. I feel like my voice started to shine through on this blog only recently, and many of my practice building choices in New Haven were a risk for me of really communicating only in my voice- no trace of practitioner mask allowed- and it’s paid off. But there was that moment of tossing myself off the cliff.

It can be so terrifying to be authentic because then we’re being judged on our true selves. Putting up a false front can be so much more comforting in that we’re defended by the mask.

Yet there’s this magic side effect of being authentic that means we understand a little more clearly that the world comes in lots of different flavors, and not all flavors will be attracted to you, just as you’re not attracted to everything that’s out there in the world. The benefit is that the people who are attracted are truly your Right People (in the words of the lovely Havi Brooks): the people who you’re delighted to spend your workdays with and who can most benefit from your work.

Case in point- I saw a new client yesterday who is a very highly regarded local massage therapist. When I met her I saw instantly that she had a distinct comfort in her own skin- she wasn’t putting on any airs- and I giggled to myself thinking that she was the perfect example of this authentic self I had been pondering for my blog post. How fortuitous that she landed on my doorstep that day! Then I mentioned that so many people in town had absolutely glowing things to say about her, and she gushed in the most genuinely enthusiastic voice, “Oh! I just have the best clients imaginable. I’m so lucky to work with them.” Coincidence? I think not. By being herself, she’s out there drawing her Right People to her.

I wish I had some handy list of bulleted tips to give out about how to get in touch with your authentic self and feel more comfortable in your skin- that would be a really snazzy way to wrap up this post- but this is more of an individual journey that we each undertake rather than a, “be your authentic self in 5 easy steps” kind of deal. I can only say that, for me, these things, people, and resources, have helped:

• Time and experience: I’m as impatient as the next person (actually much, much more so), so I understand that this can be an annoying item to kick the list off with. However, being yourself and finding your voice is a lifelong process, so it’s not going to happen in a weekend boot camp. Part of why I can relax into myself is the fact that I’ve had enough years of experience behind me as a Rolfer that I feel confident in my skills, and happy in my own skin. Except for when I don’t. And then I’m reminded of the fact that this ride just goes on and on (and on and on…)

• Any and all writings by Pema Chodron: With book titles like, “The Wisdom of No Escape” and “When Things Fall Apart” you know you’re in for a ride and a half. Absolutely every shred of Pema Chodron’s work has had a remarkable effect on my life.

• Seth Godin: Seth Godin is my hero. I fell in love with marketing when his work opened my eyes to the fact that it isn’t about smarmy advertising, but rather about the art of spreading ideas. If we decide to spread the ideas that matter, we can change the world. If you’re one of the ten people on planet Earth who doesn’t subscribe to his blog, please do, and you’ll get a great feel for someone truly living their authentic self.

• Lissa Boles over at True Callings: Lissa is a dear friend and a total genius when it comes to shining a light on all the nooks and crannies you never expected about the big unfolding Journey (yep, worthy of capitalization). Nearly all of my conversations with her leave me feeling like she flipped a switch and turned on floodlights in my brain, leaving me to see all the goodies I didn’t know were skulking around in the dark.

• Havi Brooks over at The Fluent Self: As the title of her website suggests, Havi Brooks knows a thing or two about finding your fluent self. She’s so real about her own process, and she has great tools for your own journey. I love her writing and always come away with a new A-ha to ponder.

What helps you get to know and love your own skin a little better? And have you found any impact on your practice with this?