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!

Every once and a while I have an epiphany that I’ve had maaaaany times before, and I realize that maybe (just maybe) I should listen to it this time.So what was it? “Do the stuff you’re good at and hire others for the stuff that they’re good at, so that you don’t waste your time on learning curves that you don’t care about.”

It sounds so simple, no big deal right? Well underlying that epiphany was the more crucial, “The little part of your brain that is terrified of change- the lizard brain- will shape shift in any way it needs to in order to stop all progress and make you think you are sane for doing so.”

Let me back up a little bit. On January 14th to 15th I was in New York City to go to a Triiibes event (a two day meet up of those of us who are on Seth Godin’s social network, Triiibes), and then to grab dinner with Seth himself and the rest of the Triiibe (!), and go to his first talk about his new book, Linchpin. I read Linchpin on the train ride down and then lived and breathed the ideas in it for two very inspiring days. If you haven’t read Linchpin, first, go get a copy. Second, here’s a very brief synopsis of the ideas that I’m referring to in this post:

Here’s what Seth’s book is a call to action for: Do work that matters, solve interesting problems, connect, create, lead, give the world a gift (preferably several)- in other words, be a linchpin.

Here’s what’s holding us back: First, you don’t have to be a worker drone for the industrial era/capitalist machine anymore, but unfortunately it is what you were trained to be in school. Schools evolved to create complaint workers. (”Color inside the lines!”)

Second, your lizard brain, otherwise known as “the resistance”, is the first part of our brain that evolved millions of years ago. Its main concern is keeping you safe- so it fears ALL change like it’s a life or death issue, and takes any steps it can to stop your progress.

So I leave New York feeling full of clarity and excitement since I also happen to have this big project brewing that I want to launch in March. What perfect timing! I’m finally putting all I’ve learned from my 10 years in practice, blogging here for over a year, one mega manuscript for a printed book, one free ebook, and many conversations with my fellow CAM providers about their own triumphs and trials into one master place: an online course and community on how to grow and sustain a practice that not only pays your bills, but also feeds your spirit.

Yup, it’s a biggie (more info to follow in my next post…) and I’m feeling pretty confident that my fresh perspective on the lizard brain will keep it from interfering in my course. I’ve got your number lizard brain! This project is going to launch on the day I promised it would launch and no little internal saboteur will get in my way!

Turns out I’ve gotten very good at spotting certain signs that I’m being controlled by the lizard brain. When I spend an hour at the computer constantly cycling between checking my email, Facebook, and Twitter- the lizard is in control. When I start off working on something essential and 15 minutes later I notice that I’ve gone down some rabbit hole and am doing something pointless like cleaning out my sock drawer- yup, lizard brain. And when I keep complaining about how crazy busy I am (I’m a single mom! I have to keep my practice afloat! I need to write on my blog! I’m trying to launch this big thing!) and yet, somehow, I miraculously find time to hang out with my friends and to never miss an episode of 30 Rock? Lizard brain.

Honestly I’m in awe at how much progress I’ve made since reading Linchpin. It’s amazing how much less time things take when you separate out the pointless time wasters from the meaningful work.

This is where my lizard brain went undercover and got me.

Lizard brain (in disguise as sane brain): “Well you know Brooke, if you’re going to build this thing you might as well do it right and build the whole thing on your own from scratch this time. It’ll save you money and you’ll learn a lot about the technical details.”

Brooke (thinking this is her sane brain): “That’s a great idea! I’d feel so accomplished and proud of myself, PLUS then I’d have an excuse to waste endless hours on some crap that I don’t care about and am no good at, which will keep me from doing the important stuff. Thanks, sane brain, for helping me to find a loophole to get out of all this progress I’ve been making!”

Yeah, it didn’t go so well. At the end of all the frustrating time spent trying to understand CSS I had exactly no website, and lots of time lost on the important stuff that I actually enjoy.

Lizard brain: 1
Brooke: 1

For now it’s a tie. I’ve hired the lovely Taryn Wallis over at Phenomenoodle to set up some of the stuff I’ll need on a platform that I know and love (Wordpress). Time to keep it simple. Thanks to Taryn for seeing my distress flags on Twitter and reaching out- glad to have you on my team.

For the rest of you, dear readers, where can you get help on the stuff that’s not your strength and save yourself the angst already?

And- most importantly!- where is your lizard brain shape shifting and keeping you from doing the important work? How can you get back to it?

Parting tip one: my lizard brain and I have been talking lately as in, “Hi Lizard Brain, I know you’re scared and threatened and all, but I really don’t think I need to check my email for the 20th time this hour. I’m pretty sure nothing important has come through. But thanks.” It’s working (for now…)

Parting tip two: The single best time management technique that I’ve found is the Pomodoro technique. It’s what’s kept time wasters at near zero, and I can make progress without feeling like I’m beholden to some super complex organizational/time management protocol. It’s simple and it works like a charm.

By Honora Wolfe of Blue Poppy Enterprises

If we want to do well in business even in times of a poor economy, we must first understand that it does absolutely no good to complain to people about tough times. When we complain about how bad business is, people may sympathize but cannot do anything to help us and, more disastrously, our brain and the universe gets the message we just sent and responds accordingly. So, instead of complaining to colleagues, clients, or even to yourself, get busy! Chances are the untapped profit in your existing customer relationships is much bigger than any economic downturn. You just have to work creatively to find better ways to tap into those relationships. Below are several ideas to help us all get through difficult financial times. Not every idea will resonate with every practitioner who reads this. Some won’t pertain to you. However, if you implement one, two, or three of the ideas that are relevant to your practice, I can almost guarantee that business will improve.

1. Call your patients, especially those that have not been in for a while. This may sound ridiculously simple, but I find that few practitioners do it, usually because it feels scary. However, I say, would you rather have butterflies in your stomach, or would you prefer to go out of business? So write yourself a script to use so that you don’t become tongue-tied. Ask how they are since they last came in. Ask if they are having any stress-related symptoms because of the economic situation. Tell them that you know times are tough and you have several treatment plans to save them money if they want to come in to see you (package deals, family discounts, a free birthday treatment, ½ price treatments for anyone who has lost their job, deferred payment plans, etc.) If you don’t have any clients for an afternoon, you can sit and bite your fingernails, or try to make one or two more appointments.

2. Ask for referrals. For those patients who are coming in, create incentives for them to send a friend or family member. An incentive could be one free treatment, two tickets to a movie, or a nice chocolate bar. Whatever you do to show your gratitude (depending upon the legal limitations that you may have) you will get more referrals from patients if you ask for them than if you don’t. Put up a sign that says “My business thrives from your referrals. They are the highest compliment you can give me.”

3. Do a real budget if you don’t already have one. What expenses are fixed and which ones are discretionary? What supplier contracts could be renegotiated? This includes credit card interest rates, phone rates and plans, possibly your rent, and every other vendor from whom you purchase anything. What other ways could you cut expenses without sacrificing good service? One practitioner I know changed her schedule to three 12-hour days and rented out her space two days per week to someone else. She saves on commuting expenses as well as rent, and her patient population responded well to the night hours.

4. Collect on old accounts. If anyone owes you money, try to get it. Negotiate a payment plan with them even if they can only pay 5 quid per week.

5. Develop new relationships. If you have time on your hands, look for a useful volunteer opportunity that will connect you to as many people as possible in your community. This could be coaching a girls football team, the local hospital auxiliary fundraising committee, a community food-share organization, a 10K race to raise funds for breast cancer. The possibilities are endless, but should be related to the type of patient that you want to attract. If the work is event-specific, when it is over send out a thank you card to everyone you worked with that includes your business card and tells them that you don’t know if they might ever need your services, but you’d be happy to speak to them if they are ever in need of healthcare.

6. Create a new service. What portion of the possible market are you not serving? Could you take a class, read a book, or somehow get up to speed in a new market? For example, if you treat women, remember that a mother will go to almost any lengths to help a sick child. Pediatrics might be a good way to expand. Or, if you want to go for a more upscale market, aesthetic acupuncture (facelifts) can be a great direction to go. You can even market this service as being far less than going under the knife!

7. Sharpen you skills. Take a survey of your treatments over the last year to determine how many of your patient interactions were as successful as you would want. Look at this as honestly as you can stand. Could you do better? Then think about when was the last time your really studied the medicine? When was the last time you read a book on Chinese medicine. We must never assume we know everything we need to know. Decide to get better at one thing…just one thing, and find the resources to do that. You’ll be surprised at how the universe will respond.

8. Rededicate yourself to concentrating on giving incomparable service. People recognize excellence when they see it. I know one successful acupuncturist whose business has grown in the last few months. Her secret to success is that every patient she sees absolutely knows, every time, that she is completely and totally there for them every minute. No distractions, no self-centeredness, no excuses. She dedicates every minute when there is no patient to studying the medicine. She is an extremely competent practitioner and her focus is always on her patients and the medicine, period.

9. Rethink your marketing plan. Do you even have a marketing plan? If not, or if you have not thought about this in some time, find ways to do outreach that cost you little or nothing. For example, look in the local paper’s community news section to find every organization that is having a meeting in the coming week. Contact them and offer to give a free lecture at an upcoming meeting. Find a hook that relates to their interests. For example, a cycling club could be interested in improving recovery times from races or other events; a book club could be interested in improved eyesight. Fibromyalgia, diabetes, heart disease, or other-disease support groups are also obvious choices. You might also volunteer as a local radio health-talk-show host.

10. If you don’t like to do public speaking, for whom can you write articles? Local group newsletters and monthly publications, company intra-net newsletters, and newsletters for any of your patients clubs, groups, and associations are obvious places to start. (Do your patients know you’d be happy to write articles about Chinese medicine for their organization, club, or company’s newsletters?) Of course an email newsletter to all your own patients is cheap, fast, and easy to do. It only needs to be a few hundred words on a seasonal or “in-the-news” topic and at the same time you can announce special offers, classes, up-dates on recent classes that you took or new services you are offering. And, it’s a way to keep you in your patient’s mind.

11. Recreate a fantastic intake procedure that builds your credibility. Use charts to locate pain and discuss how acupuncture can treat it. Show new patients how pain in one area is connected to other parts of the body. A picture is worth a thousand words and, used well, they can make you look really smart and skilled.

12. On calls from prospective patients tell the patient something like, “Why don’t you come in for a free consult and we’ll discuss your problem. Then I’ll let you know if I can help you. If I don’t think I can be of help, I’ll try to make some suggestions for you. If I can, we’ll talk about what the treatment would be like and you can decide if this the type of care you wish to pursue.”

These few sentences do a lot:
• Convince the person to come in without hard selling.
• Establish a basis of trust - tell them the truth, even if it’s that acupuncture isn’t for them.
• Avoid the “When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail” syndrome.
• Establish yourself as an authority in their minds.

13. To elaborate on this, go through every aspect of how your office operates.
• Does your phone get answered promptly and intelligently with each and every call? Have a friend call and ask a few questions of your front desk staff and give you feedback on their experience.
• Is your paperwork clean and easy to understand?
• Is your first appointment with each patient well planned?
• Is your front desk staff well trained?
• Are your directions to the office easy to follow?
• Is your history taking and physical exam competent and lovingly approached without taking all day?
• Are your explanations of acupuncture and Chinese medicine clear, understandable and well rehearsed?
• Do you have good information to send home with new patients that help you “close the deal” on becoming your patient?

14. Don’t panic. Remember that a recession is a slow down, not a stop sign. If you are anxiety-ridden, you cannot give the best quality care and you will make yourself sick as well! Remember the wise words of the Dalai Lama, which go something like this: “Worry does not help anything. If you can do something about a problem, then do it and don’t worry. If you cannot do anything about a problem, then there is no point in worrying.” In our case, there are, absolutely, things we can do about our problem. So make a list of the things you can do and, to quote the Nike advertisements, “just do it.” No excuses, no delays, no whining.

15. Also, please know that the suggestions I have listed here are not exhaustive. Go to websites like Entrepreneur.com; sign up for marketing e-newsletters; talk to other practitioners about how you all might help each other and what marketing you could do as a group, since several heads are always better than one.

My main point here is that, while you cannot control the economy or your competition, you can control both your internal and external response to the economy. Start with your attitude by consciously making the decision to refuse to participate in a recession. Then work at developing your networking skills, reviewing your office systems and operations, revising your marketing plan, and updating your skills to keep your business as strong as possible. You don’t have to allow a bad economy be your excuse for failure. Instead, make it your opportunity to succeed. While others are looking at the problems, looking for opportunities will not only get through a bad economy but may allow you to prosper.

I wish everyone who reads this article many blessings for success. If you have come up with an idea that helps you survive and thrive in this difficult time, please share it with me to pass along to other practitioners and students. Thanks for reading.

Honora Lee Wolfe, Dipl.Ac, has owned or operated four different businesses since 1976 and has been practicing acupuncture since 1988. She is the author of Points for Profit: The Essential Guide to Practice Success for Acupuncturists. She teaches classes throughout the US and Europe. You can email her at honora@bluepoppy.com.

I’ve been talking with a lot of practitioners lately who are asking that most essential of questions- how do I get started? I’m hearing this both from newbies just out of school, and from those of you who already have a practice going, but need more exposure due to the lagging economy. I’m a big believer that there is no formulaic way to grow a practice- it is truly something that should fit with your strengths and personality. That said, there are also a couple of insta-visibility tactics anyone can benefit from. If I was to start from scratch again (and I may be, stay tuned…) this is how I would kick things off.

Website: First things first, if you don’t have a site for your practice, hop to it and get yourself one. You can read about how to do it for free here and here. Other quick, cheap, and successful ways to go can be found at The Holistic Alliance, Technology Therapy (they built my site and they’re a lovely team), and there’s always someone talented who is willing to do your bidding at Elance.

PPC ads (or Pay-Per-Click): Now that you have a website, you’ve gotta get some eyeballs on it. Unless you know you’re in the minority in your location, you’re not likely to hop right to the top of the search results when someone does a Google search for your area of expertise. For example, I happened to be the only Rolfer in Brooklyn, NY for a good long while, so when someone typed in “Rolfing Brooklyn” I popped right up. On the other hand, if you’re one of a thousand massage therapists in Boulder, CO, you might not be so lucky and could wind up on page 8 of the search engine results. When was the last time you even checked page 2 of the results? To get your practice to show up first, you have to pay to play. However, it can be very cost effective, especially with a practice tied to a local area. Learn all about how to get started here.

Yelp: One last item of online practice building. Head straight to Yelp and set up a business profile. Yelp is an online review site, and many people search for all their local services via this site. You can learn how to set up your business profile on Yelp here. Once you’ve got it up and running, tend to it carefully by asking your happy clients to post a review about you. Remember to make it easy for them by sending them a link to your Yelp profile via email with a friendly reminder to post. If they have to hunt and search, it’ll never happen.

Community outreach: So you’ve got a pretty good jumpstart in cyberspace. The tangible world is still one of the best places to grow a local practice, and I highly recommend getting cozy with your local community. Brainstorm about all the businesses in your area with whom you could collaborate with. Think of places where you can both benefit from the exchange. Always approach reaching out to people with the question, “what can I do for them?” on the top of your mind. Can you cross-refer with someone? Cross promote with a ‘buy my service, get a discount on theirs’ offer or vice versa? Set up an event in which you both get more exposure? Even the straightforward act of gathering a group of other local wellness business owners for a practice-building buddies support group (otherwise known as a networking group) can reap huge rewards. Reach out and see if you can’t all thrive from the connection! You can gather more ideas here.

If you give these a shot, let me know how it goes, I want to hear how you’re all doing!

These are tough times for those of us in private practice. It’s been months of the doomsday bells ringing non-stop about the recession, and everyone’s a little scared. People who are scared don’t spend money, and I think we’re all seeing the well dry up at least a little bit.

Tough times exist in order to call us to raise our games. If you have empty spots in your appointment book, fill those slots with practice building, not moping. I know watching our economy unravel can be unnerving, to say the least. I recommend you foster a feeling of growth and potential by tending carefully and lovingly to your own personal economy. We can only work on what we have ownership of, so let’s take this time to sow the seeds of success. You may start to work on getting your practice out there and be rewarded immediately with a new influx of clients, or you may spend a long time planting those seeds and waiting for people to show up. Don’t get ahead of yourself waiting for the result of your efforts, just get to work tending that garden. If you’re passionate about your practice, you’ll succeed as long as you’re willing to put in the work. In Sakyong Mipham’s book, Ruling Your World,  he talks about the value of exertion by saying, “We can make almost any hill flat with exertion, because we’re excited to run up it. By contrast, without exertion, even walking down a flat road is difficult. There are differences in elevation, of course, but the real difference lies not in the road but in our mind. Subconciously we know we’re on the wrong path. Lack of exertion- and lack of joy- is laziness. Laziness reduces the possiblity of bringing about happiness. Exertion liberates us from laziness, and takes us toward joy.”  It’s make it or break it time, so start exerting yourself and increase your potential for joy and success!

Drumroll, please… is to be outrageously committed to your client’s success. Because it’s so easy to fall into the trap of thinking of ourselves as being in the job of “fixing” people (which we’re not, by the way), I’d like to define the term “your client’s success.” This doesn’t mean you have to cure whatever it is that ails them. We all have useful skills, but we’re not magicians. If a client comes to you seeking to resolve their back pain, you simply cannot know what shape their healing journey will ultimately take. As wellness providers, we are but one influence in their healing process; not the whole process. To be committed to their success means to be receptive to what might be the best influences in their healing process (whether they come from us or from other practitioners whom we feel they might be better served by), and then to be as supportive as possible of their journey while still honoring our individual paths. Consciously remove your ego from the equation, and approach what might be in your client’s best interest with an open mind. That can take many forms, from how you approach your work together, to referring them to a modality that you feel will be more beneficial in the long run. By being a partner in your client’s healing, rather than the one holding the magic wand, you will be doing both your clients and yourself a huge service. You will also exponentially grow your practice, no matter how counterintuitive it may seem.