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?

2009 has been very good to me, and before the clock strikes 12 tomorrow night I wanted to send you all a brief shout out of gratitude for all your support this year. Spot the ways you helped me (and you) to thrive this year:

1. You read Practice Building 101 and/or the blog and sent me delicious emails to let me know how much it helped you. Spectacular words like “lifesaver” and “THANK YOU” (yes, in all caps), and “joyous” were used, which made me feel like my work is worth something, and that is pretty much the best feeling ever.

2. You emailed me to tell me how delighted you were to find The Well Practice after Googling the words “HARO” and “gyrotonic” together. This may be the funniest search engine word combo to lead to my door thus far.

3. You embraced me as your Rolfer in New Haven thereby giving me good news to report on the blog from the ‘practice building in a crap economy’ front. This had the additional perk of saving me from having to report that I was a failure. Whew.

4. You shared my writing with someone you know who could benefit from it and sung The Well Practice’s praises. (Most recently big thanks to Burton Kent of Acupuncture Clinic Marketing. I finally solved the mystery of where all the new acupuncturists were coming from when one of your readers emailed me and told me you’d shared a link with your list. Thanks!)

5. You (Jenn Givler, Honora Wolfe, and Dan Clements and Tara Gignac) wrote fab guest posts!

6. You are one of the following people whose work inspired the hell out and kept me moving forward. Huge thanks to Seth Godin, Lissa Boles, Chris Guillebeau, Jonathan Fields, Havi Brooks, Naomi Dunford, Hugh MacLeod, Melissa Pierce, and Vanessa Scotto (who is amazing even if her website isn’t link-able yet).

7. You turned one year old on October 17th! (You being my blog)

8. You sat across from me over Indian food, or a latte, or in a park, or over the phone, and poured your heart out about what you really needed to be happy in your practice.

9. You gave me this nifty “thank you as a list” idea in your charming Christmas card.

10. You don’t know this, because I haven’t bared my soul to most of you in a moody cafe or anything, but you helped me climb out of the rubble of a very, very challenging 2008 by showing up here and caring about what I had to offer. Thank you.

And last but not least, here were the top posts of the year:

Feeling Grateful (and Hearing Voices)

Un-Guru

Non-Sensical Panic Attacks

Kicking it Off On the Cheap

Practicing Radical Generosity

Why Does the Word “Networking” Make Us All Want to Shower With A Brillo Pad?

Happy New Years! Sending you all lots of love and happy practice wishes for 2010!

I was talking with the loveliest Rolfing practitioner the other day about practice building and she mentioned that she, “really needed to start to do more… [deep, melancholy sigh]… networking.” And it occurred to me that I precede the word “networking” with the same deep, melancholy sigh on the outside- and on the inside I’m thinking I want to run for a scalding hot shower while screaming, “Get it off! Unclean! Unclean!!!”

As it turns out I’ve been getting familiar with that deep sigh lately. So I have this little site here, and it, well, really matters to me. It may sound corny, but I’m truly on a mission to help wellness providers to thrive- and ultimately to help more people who are in need of our righteous healing goodness to find their way to us and get well. What that means is that I need to let the world know that this little site exists.

Enter the melancholy sigh.

I’m proud of my work here, but when I think about carving out tangible chunks of time to “network”- I resist. In fact, I want to run a really hot shower and grab a Brillo pad.

As I was internally groaning about networking, the clouds parted for a moment and I had a hilarious epiphany. In just the last month or so I’ve managed to have a nice little e-conversation with Seth Godin, get a shout out from Havi Brooks on her blog, and meet Chris Guillebeau and Jonathan Fields in person and then to stay in touch with both of them a bit. (OK I know it’s dreadful. I realize I’m name dropping and that that’s annoying. I only do the blatant name drop because it’s meaningful for this post. I don’t mean to imply that we’re all BFF’s who have sleep over parties and plan benevolent world domination together.)

Without ever dragging ass and forcing myself to do the dreaded networking, I’d somehow connected with four of the people whose work I most respect and admire. That’s because I had never filed these interactions under the networking category in my brain. They could instead be found under the “connecting with people whose work I really freaking love” file. 

I propose we re-label the networking file in our brains as the connecting with people whose work we really freaking love file. It’s not networking in and of itself that’s awful, it’s just the word that sucks.

OK, ok, and the history of people doing it that uber sleazy way.

I remember a couple of years back I was at a holiday party at In Good Company- a fabulous place that supports women entrepreneurs- and I encountered someone who is the reason that the words networking and “Unclean!” go together.

There we were- a group of lovely women having a nice chat- eating the occasional cupcake- taking the occasional sip of wine- and just generally enjoying one another’s company when a random loud mouthed guy pushed into the group, disrupted all conversation, and yelled, “Who’s here to do some NETWORKING!” while thrusting business cards at all of us which were (I kid you not) fanned out carefully in each hand. Seriously. True story.

What was lost on him was that we were networking in that “connecting with people whose work we really freaking love” way.

So we all know none of us is going to be as clueless as desperate-holiday-party-guy. Nevertheless, I propose a clarifying question we can all use to keep us in our happy connecting place when we’re hating on the yucky networking dark place. When you’re trying to grow your, er, network- ask yourself the question, “Would I genuinely enjoy having lunch with this person.”

Let’s say you’re a massage therapist who’s trying to grow your referral network in your town and there happens to be this acupuncturist who has a crazy busy practice. So you think to yourself, “I should really connect with that guy. Too bad he’s an annoying egomaniac. Ugh. Guess I have to suck it up and do that whole networking thing…” No thank you please. Forget about who’s busiest and see who passes the lunch test.  Find the acupuncturist with the practice that’s half as busy, but who you find to be really quite lovely.

The lunch test is a great one. Frankly, I’d fly halfway across the world to have lunch with Seth, Chris, Havi or Jonathan. Which brings me to my last point. If you know there are people out there who you’d drop everything just to have lunch with- by all means, prioritize that relationship, reach out, and start connecting. 

*for more non-dread inducing tips on networking, you can check out this earlier post.

As many of you have read, I’m starting from scratch again. I’ve hit my first hurdle: *Licensure. Argh! The legal minutiae! However, it’s important to have all those i’s dotted and t’s crossed. In Connecticut I have to take the NCBTMB exam. Because my two previous practices were in states that didn’t require national certification, I never took it. That’s right folks, I have to study for a test nine years post graduation and I have to fess up about it since I promised total transparency in my practice building process. Yikes, I sure hope I pass or it’ll be really embarrassing. I’ve spent the last 9 years unlearning academia terms in favor of finding words that can be easily understood by my clients (dorsiflex your foot, or flex your foot towards your head- hmmm, what’s clearer?), so I have to hit the books. It looks like the whole process will take four to six weeks, which means that I won’t be kicking off my practice for a while.

So what’s a girl in licensure limbo to do? While trying to jog my memory to recall the names of all twenty-six bones of the foot (twenty-eight with sesamoids!), I’ll be busily getting cozy with my community of fellow wellness providers here in New Haven. When you’re unable to charge for your services, it’s a great time to set up trades, give free work away, and just generally get to know those who need to know you exist.

Seek out the wellness rock stars in your community by showing up where they are (hello yoga studio!), and listening carefully to whose name keeps coming up. Likewise, if someone is telling their amazing story of their practitioner, make a mental note. Local papers can also be helpful, but I tend to look more for articles than ads. “Best of” editions usually come out annually and they can be a great way to see who is getting acknowledged for their work in your town.

Trust me, once you connect to one person, the floodgates will open and you’ll have a long list of names that will give you a pretty good idea of who’s rocking it in your town. I showed up to one yoga class, met an amazing instructor, and things have snowballed from there. I’ve already connected with some really wonderful people and I feel super enthusiastic about all the juicy wellness stuff going on here. As a result of my current trades and giveaways, I already have my go to Pilates teacher, nutritionist, personal trainer, massage therapist, and yoga studio. I’ve also just met an amazing group of midwives and Ob/Gyn’s and am soon to connect with a chiropractor, and an acupuncturist and naturopath. There are so many people doing amazing work- it’s in your best interest to find out who they are in your community and then- please!- think of them and treat them as colleagues, not as competitors. I’ll be gladly sending business to all of these people once I’m up and running.

Forming these relationships with fellow practitioners is a practice building essential. To make it a success for yourself, here’s my list of ‘Do-s’, ‘Don’t-s’ and a ‘Why Bother’ for how best to connect:

Do:

• Get to know them before you introduce yourself

We live in a digital world. This is easily done. A little Googling is all you need to get a sense of who they are, what their practice is all about, what they’re interested in and value. Once you’ve gotten input from the great Google, dive in! Read their website and bio, if they have a blog or newsletter read it and subscribe. Follow the digital breadcrumbs and really get a feel for who they are. This should be enough to get a sense of if and how you want to reach out to them.

For example, when I first found Sarah (who is an amazing Pilates teacher) her blog mentioned that she’d be heading to San Francisco to do a Pink Ribbon Program. In my first email to her, I acknowledged this and told her I thought it was a wonderful thing to be a part of. It was a simple thing to do, and I wasn’t blowing smoke up her ass. Sarah and I have since become fast friends and I’ve rediscovered my love for Pilates. Don’t miss out on great relationships by being too shy (or lazy) to make a relevant first connection.

• Ask yourself the question: “what can I do for them?”

This is my prime piece of advice in developing networking relationships. Just take this one thing to heart, and you’ll do beautifully. Because we’re out there networking we usually approach people because we hope they’ll do something for us, namely send us clients. If the true question in your mind is, “what can I do for them so they’ll do something for me?” it will turn people off and send them running. Everyone can smell an ‘I’ll scratch your back’ vibe coming a mile away and it’s, well, gross.

• Follow through with what you can do for them

The answer to that question will take a myriad of forms depending on who it is you’re approaching. This means that you have to follow rule number one and get to know them a bit before contacting them. Once you have met, you’ll surely come across other things in conversation that you can do for them. Finding these things simply requires staying tuned in.

Two quick examples: I met Sabrina, the nutritionist, and she was talking about how she recommends to her clients that they keep food journals. I happened to have discovered Gyminee recently, which is a great free tool for food and fitness logging- so I passed that on. Jason, the massage therapist, mentioned how frustrated he was with the stool he used in his office, because he couldn’t adjust the height. I happen to know about Rolfing benches that adjust to different heights, so I passed that on. Are these mind-blowing contributions to their lives? No. But doing this kind of thing demonstrates that I want to be a helpful resource, rather than a leech.

• Continually follow through on what you can do for them

Stay in touch without becoming a stalker. If they have something that is continually updated, whether it’s a blog, a Facebook profile, or they’re on Twitter, stay up to date. If three months from now they Tweet that they’re thinking about doing a renovation of their wellness center, send them the info on that great contractor you know. You get the idea…

• Let go of all attachments to getting something from them

Seriously. They don’t owe you- just be a resource out of the desire to contribute and leave it at that. Connect with wonderful people who are doing amazing work and then treat them well. That’s all. Build a relationship, and the rest will follow.

Don’t:

• Blanket your town’s healthcare offices with a form letter

Please, please, don’t send a form letter introducing yourself to every wellness provider, doctor, and physical therapist in your town and just blanket the area with the same stale letter. In a day and age when you can make a relevant connection to someone by spending a little time Googling, form letters are insulting junk mail to the person who receives it and it’s a waste of time and paper.

• Ask for anything in your first meeting

Re-read the “What can I do for them?” bullet point above.

• Ever ask for them to refer to you

Nope. Never, never, ever. If someone wants to refer to you, that will happen naturally. If someone doesn’t want to refer to you (or doesn’t have the opportunity) then they won’t and that’s ok. Really. Re-read the “let go of all attachments” bullet point above.

Why bother:

Why bother spending all your time on developing relationships with other practitioners when what you really need to be doing is developing relationships with clients!?! After all, we all have bills to pay here, right? Because, this is your connection to clients. Becoming a well regarded member of your town’s wellness community:

1. Puts you on people’s radars. Suddenly they’ll be hearing your name around town.

2. Establishes your credibility and authority.

3. Makes you the kind of person people want to refer to, without having to ask for it.

*side note: The licensure thing can be a drag if a state’s requirements are a total surprise to you. Depending on your modality, things can vary wildly from state to state. If you’re in school, be sure to sniff out what will be required in your state before you graduate. This should be talked about in class, but if they leave out this essential information, ask for it and/or approach the administration to find out where you need to look to get the info. If you’re already in practice and are moving, do your homework in advance of your move to see what will be needed. Your school’s member or alumni services office should be able to point you in the right direction. And there’s always Google.