Control your mind to achieve goals and get more done.
I decided to set up a Limited Company to buy property investments. I had two rental properties in my own name and when I worked out my profits after tax, I was horrified to see that I just about broke even.
Continue reading “Setting up a Limited Company to buy property in the UK.”
Have you ever stopped a regime of good habits, or fallen off the wagon? Whatever that wagon is for you. How do you get back on track? Here is how I got back on track.
I’ve read lot’s of books on the art of communication as I’ve had a career in sales. Sometimes, though, real life is the best teacher.
“It’s your posture”, she told me.
“That’s what’s causing your bad back”.
These were the fateful words uttered to me, by my G.P. on that fateful day in November 2003.
What follows is a sorry tale of misunderstanding and woe; A modern fable on communication. It’s something only Count Arthur Strong could better.
By telling you this I merely wish to caution you on the importance of listening carefully. You see, my friend, the truth is stranger than fiction.
My Doctor went on to explain that I needed to improve my posture. She then proceeded to refer me to a Physiotherapist, to show me how and to give me some exercises to do.
She then slid the piece of paper, she had been scribbling on, across the desk in a way only G.P.s do.
Nadine, Physiotherapist
Whitefield NHS Clinic
Friday 4th November 9.15AM
I picked up the chitty and carefully folding it and slipping it into my pocket, I offered my sincere thanks. With that, my fate was sealed, the dye was cast.
At precisely 9.14AM, on November 4th 2003, I launched into Whitefield clinic only to find the receptionist on the phone, deep in communication with another patient.
I waited for eye contact.
9.15AM
“Come on” I whispered to myself.
She’s still gabbing on the phone.
There was a bell on the counter, like the one in Faulty Towers.
Should I ring it, whilst she’s there in front of me?
9.16AM and finally eye contact.
The receptionist finished the phone call.
“Michael Holden, to see Nadine the Physiotherapist – 9.15”, I announced.
“Ok, I’ll let her know. Please take a seat, she’ll be out shortly.”
9.17AM – I sit down in the waiting area. Not long now.
I idly browse through some back issues of Country Life, as you do.
It was 10.03AM that I realised there might be problem.
“Is there a problem?” I asked. “Only I’ve been waiting over three quarters of an hour and I’ve not been called.”
The receptionist said she would check for me.
Just then Nadine come out of her surgery and quickly looked me up and down, with a puzzled look on her face.
“What time did you think you should have been here?”
“9.15 today”.
“But we’ve no record of your appointment. I’ll tell you what, I’m free now for an initial consultation if you ‘d like?”
“Let’s go then” I rebounded. As I followed her to the surgery.
Now let me tell you, this was the strangest physiotherapy surgery, I’d seen, even though I’d been in precisely zero before this day. There was a couch, though and Nadine indicated to me to sit down on it.
As I sat down, I noticed a statue of a head on the shelf. You know the ones which show the regions of the brain on it. I thought the NHS must be looking into using the mind to control back pain. Enlightened.
Then in all innocence I asked Nadine if I should take my shirt off now. She recoiled in shock, but quickly regained her composure.
“Do you feel you need to undress?”
“Well, I did at my GPs, she had a look at my back and then sent me to you.”
“Well I think you better stay dressed. What seems to be on your mind then?”
What a strange question for a psychotherapist to ask. It was at that precise moment that there was a knock at the door, which opened, and a uniformed lady popped her head round it.
“Excuse me Nadine” she said politely.
“Oh, hi Nadine, what can I do for you?” replied the first Nadine.
“Well, I seem to have lost one of my patients and Margery on the front desk said he might be in here. Mr Holden, I presume?”
Then as I sheepishly got up to follow Nadine no. 2 to her surgery, my eye caught the sign on the door.
PYSCHOTHERAPIST
What are the chances of that happening? Me living in a sitcom.
See if you can spot each example of poor communication in the above. Let me know in the comments.
What time is it? What do you do when someone asks you that question? Chances are you look at your watch or phone. Why is that? How did time get there? Well, I’m going to tell you. 3 or 4 minutes in the future (if you keep reading) you will be able to identify the key milestones in the history of time.
First, lets go back in time. Way, way back, into prehistory. Imagine if you had asked someone then the same question. What would be the answer?
When should we sow, when should we reap? The seasons gave us the answer. So, the answer would be, for instance, Harvest Time. Or it would’ve been whatever season depending on the orbit of the earth around the sun – the year. Although to be fair, from their perspective the sun travelled round the Earth.
That other celestial orb that travelled around the earth was useful too. The moon waxed and waned a tad over 12 times a year. Now we could separate the year even further and become more successful at hunting, gathering and then later farming.
So, about 12 thousand years ago, we could now cultivate crops and grow them exactly where we wanted, soil and climate permitting. Now we could settle down. We formed our first static communities. Villages became towns, which became cities. Eventually kingdoms formed, with kings to rule over them. These rulers needed to control their subjects and how they worked, to ensure the work got done. The carrot and the stick were both used and a new form of time came about. Work and rest days.
Festivals divided up time, into when you could eat drink and be merry, provided you worked to the bone in between. The week of 7 days also arrive with each day give a special name. Oh, and you could rest on the seventh. You’re welcome.
The day is an obvious unit of time, but it wasn’t until the Ancient Egyptians, that we measured the time of day. Sundials were used to track the sun across the sky. The Greeks were the first to divide the day up into 12 divisions or hours. One slight problem. Daytime changed in length every day, due to the tilt of the Earth on it’s axis. The length of daytime and nighttime is only the same twice a year, at the equinoxes.
This problem ticked on until the 14th Century when a bright spark had the audacity to invent the clockwork mechanism. Now we could really tell the time. We had proper hours, minutes and seconds. Punctuality and being on time were good traits to have.
Next, we have the industrial revolution. Mass travel and the railways caused another problem. You see, back then we had local time. The time was different in Manchester than it was in London. The position of the sun at its highest point, determined at what point noon was and that is very different depending on where you are. That’s fine if it takes you a week to commute between two cities, but it’s a huge problem when you have train timetables.
This prompted another great leap forward – standardised time or Greenwich Meantime here in the UK. Now you could ask anyone in Britain what time it was and they could give you the same answer.
So, there you have it, job done. Now you can answer the question with certainty – what time is it? Or can you?
When NASA started sending satellites into space, they quickly realised that they had to reset the onboard clocks continuously. This is because time slows down in space. Now that would eventually really screw your Satnavs up. So, time is different where you are in the universe.
Well, here we are 3 or 4 minutes into the future (thanks for reading fellow time traveller). Now you can identify the major events on time’s timeline. But are you any more certain than our ancestors in the fields 12,000 years ago, when I ask?
What time is it?
In this article, I describe my notebook system. It’s not just a note taking system, it’s much more than that. It’s my diary, calendar, planner and note system all in one. This system has evolved over the years and is still evolving day by day. Over time I’ve added different facets to it, as I’ve gradually come away from digital.
I didn’t always have this system, throughout the 2000’s I gradually moved from the old paper-based systems to digital apps. First my day-to-day diary went to Outlook and then Google Calendar. Next the wall-based calendar went from a useful planning tool to just a wall decoration with pictures of Beagle puppies on it. This too was replaced by Google Calendar. I’ve now gone back to the Beagles.
My written to do list then went digital. I’ve tried many digital to-do apps over the years – Remember the Milk, Goals to Action, Zendone, Nirvana, Outlook to name a few. The same problem always returned. I will describe this later.
In my career in sales, I’ve always tried to write down as much as possible. I’m firmly in the ‘faintest ink is more powerful than the strongest memory’ camp. I’ve had Sales Managers early in my career who indoctrinated this into me, so yes, I am a convert. Eventually though I went digital with this too. I’ve scanned notebooks and used apps like Evernote to try to organise everything.
So, by the end of that decade, I was firmly in the digital camp. Oh, how clever I thought I was. But there was a problem that I alluded to before, that kept coming back. None of these apps were designed for me.
I would go from App to App trying to find the perfect one. Eventually I realised there isn’t a perfect app. They are all designed for the maximum audience possible and so they lose their flexibility. The problem is that you would reach a point where the App couldn’t do something you want it to. I would have to design my own App or, heaven forbid, go back to paper.
Firstly, you need many different apps to cover all the bases. Either that or the App is so generic that it won’t do anything. Sure, you have great Calendar apps that synch across all your devices, like Google Calendar, but this fails as a to do list and note taking device. (For me anyway).
The first digital device I gave up was the note taking. I went straight back to notebooks. I had a day-to-day work notebook, personal notebook, journal and a little pocket notebook to carry round. There is a logic to keep notes from separate areas of your life in separate notebooks. I get that. However, I now subscribe to a whole life philosophy. Just like in David Allen’s book ‘Making it all work’ all the areas of my life need the same attention but not necessarily at the same time. Also, I might get ideas for personal projects whilst I’m at work and get ideas for business whilst I’m sat journaling.
So, my mind was made up – One Notebook for everything.
If you’ve got notes all over the place, like I used to have, then why not consider consolidating all of them into One Notebook productivity system. Here are the reasons why I think it’s a great idea.
Firstly, all your notes are in one place, which means it will be easier to access information when you need it. One of the worst scenarios that I can think of is when you know you have written some piece of critical information or a great idea, but you don’t know where you wrote it. Or it’s in another notebook, that you left at home! It’s worse than not writing it down at all.
On notebook = one place to look = simples.
One of the things that held me back from having one notebook for everything, was that if I was in a business meeting, I didn’t want customers/colleagues to see my personal stuff. A simple way round this was that with every business meeting, I started my entry with a new 2-page spread, so that nothing else could be seen. This will obviously mean that you are leaving unused gaps in your notebook, however you can always go back and use this for any other notes.
Another hidden benefit is that you get cross-fertilisation of ideas between the different areas of your life. As the personal melds into the business, you will get moments of inspiration as you suddenly make connections. This mirrors how your brain works anyway. You don’t have different areas of your brain for different areas of your life. The infrastructure of your brain can cope with everything all at once.
The different areas of your life operate in real time in-the-now. As I said before, your brain can cope with that. Where your mind copes less is with different timescales and as David Allen calls them ‘Horizons of Focus’.
Let’s say you perform a brain dump, or as Allen suggests, a mind-sweep. You write down everything that you would like to be, do and have; you also list all the things you want to change and all the little jobs that have built up. If you then look at this list you will, I’m sure, have many items from lots of different horizons of focus. You might have a range from ‘Get dog food’ all the way up to ‘Solve climate change’ and everything in between.
How Goals to Actions works is that you label each item with whether it is a task, project, target, goal, mission or vision. You can then treat them differently and appropriately. You can even separate tasks down to how long they will take. For instance, jobs that will take less than two minutes or two hours or a day.
I will show you how to do this later.
In my notebook lives my calendar. I do use a Google calendar to synch across all my devices, but I also like the kinaesthetic value I get from physically writing out my calendar in the Notebook.
Having a digital calendar/diary is great for reference and having this synched means that it is always available. When I am in planning mode, however, there is nothing better than having the written planner in my hands. For me, it seems to allow my planning to flow.
The first thing you will need to do is obviously choose the right notebook. I’ve experimented with various sizes of notebook such as A4. This was fine in meetings, as it is what most people use, but it was too cumbersome to carry round. I finally settled on A5 (210mm high by 148mm wide). My preferred paper layout is squared as this helps when you draft charts in landscape layout.
I always make sure the notebook has a bookmark ribbon and a double ribbon. These will help you mark off your current page or some page you need to refer back to quickly.
Some notebooks already come numbered, which is ideal. If not, you will number the pages in one of each corner. You don’t need to do this all-in-one go, I just number each page in sequence as and when I come to it.
On the first 2-page spread, title this Index. As you start to add entries into the notebook, put the title and page number on the index sheet. The index sheet will be page 1-2.
The first thing I do with a new notebook is add my calendar system. As I said before, I still use Google Calendar across my devices, but I still like to use a paper system for planning.
On the next 4 blank pages after your index, number the pages (3-6), title them Year Planner.
Here I use one single page for 3 months. In an ideal world each new notebook will be started in January, however you may be starting yours in October. In that case use the first blank page as November, December, January and give each month a third of the page. Continue on the next page with February, March, April. Then on the next 2-page spread, continue through to October. You could use more pages to finish off the calendar year if you wish.
Enter Year Planner onto your index.
Now you can fill this in with the important events for the following 12 months:
Birthdays, Holidays, key appointments, deadlines. This will then give you a bird’s eye view of your life in the following year.
If it is indeed October when you start your new notebook, then the first month plan will be for November. Use the next 2 blank pages (7&8) and title them November [year]. Add this to your index.
On the left side page will be your monthly calendar, with date and day name. Enter all your key entries from the year plan, for that month, plus any other reminders. Choose a date for your Monthly Review and enter this. I do mine on the first day of the month.
On the right-hand page, will be your list of tasks for the month. it will also be for your goal stepping stones (more on this later).
On the next 2 blank pages (9&10) start your first weekly plan. Divide the left page into 7 with date/day. Here you will write in your main appointments for the week, plus any recurring weekly activities. On the right-hand side write down your weekly goal steps, tasks and everything you want to achieve that week. I don’t put the weekly plan into the index as you should find it easily enough if you follow the chronology. I plan this out for each upcoming week, at my Friday weekly review.
On the next blank page {page 11 in our new notebook) you will start your first daily plan, which will be the following day from when you are writing. Starting from when you awake till when you go to bed, mark down the hours. I usually put one line for every half hour and use this daily plan to fill out my day.
I will list everything, from morning routine, meals, getting ready and all appointments. The aim here is to fill the day with planned activity, so that you can see at a glance what free time you have, for working on goals and projects, or leisure. In the gaps in the daily plan, you can add key tasks and priorities.
It’s not unusual for things to change during the day, but here you will have at least a plan to keep you on track.
I will repeat this every evening for the following day’s activities.
My one notebook for everything also becomes my journal. On the next page after each daily plan, I will write notes and ideas from everything that happens. As actions arise, I will write them down here, so that I can carry on with what I was doing. I will refer to these each evening, so that I can add these actions to my task lists.
For specific meetings, as I said before, I will start a new 2-page spread with a title and date. I will also write out my preparation notes and agenda in this entry, plus an entry into the index.
If I ever have subsequent related meetings with the same customer or subject, I will refer to the page number of the previous new entry, at the top of the page. This way if I ever have to refer to previous entry notes, I can quickly find the relevant page.
Place all these items in separate lists in your notebook so that you can tackle like-items together. It would look something like this:
Then you could start tackling the smallest horizon jobs first i.e., all your two-minute jobs together. Then start on your two-hour jobs. Slowly work up the horizons. When you get to Projects, these will need to be planned out, so that you breakdown the sequence of actions and you know what the next action is. Then you can tackle these actions. Once all your projects are underway, start on targets. For instance, your target might be to reach a certain sales figure, so what are the various projects you need to finish to reach this target. Again, once you have a list of projects, break these down in the same way as before.
Next come goals and these will be broken down into targets and projects, which can be broken down further. And so on, you get the idea.
With this method you are getting things done from the ground up and the sky down, so to speak.
I can recommend reading my post David Allen’s Getting Things done, where I explain more about action lists. Essentially what you will do is have one page for each of the following lists. Mark these off in your index.
Write down you big Whys. Why are you doing the job you are doing? What is your purpose as a parent? Why do you want to make money?
How do you see your life in say 3-5 years. You can write this out as if it were a narrative that your future self is dictating.
What do you want to achieve in the next 1-2 years, in all areas of your life.
What projects do you want to start and continue, to reach your goals. What else do you want to do, that will take more than one action to complete. Again, see my post on David Allen’s Getting Things done, which explains the mind sweep method of building up your projects list.
Projects List. With projects you will have a double page spread for your list of projects. Mark this off in your index.
Project action lists. For each single project, there may be further planning required, especially if they are complex and multifaceted. In that case, devote a new page to this project and place reference it in your index.
Allen recommends that you have separate task lists for each context. I.e. where are you when you nee to do this project? These contexts will be unique to you, but examples could be At home, At the office, On the phone, On the computer, Errands. Have separate page for each context list and mark this in your Index.
As well as actions to do list, I will also have a list of things I am Waiting For. These could be tasks I’ve delegated, or answers I am waiting for.
Someday maybe: for tasks and projects I’m not ready to do now or are just ideas, I have a someday maybe list. This acts as an incubator, which I review every week. If anything is appealing, I will add it to a list to do now. If not, I can just leave it there or remove it.
I’m a great fan of checklists. Whenever I put one together, it goes into my One Notebook for Everything. They are a great way of remembering what you need to do to complete a certain task. For instance, I have a Travel checklist. This is a list of things I need to check of when I’m preparing to travel.
Some other checklists I have include the regular reviews.:
As I now use this one notebook for everything, some of the other things included are:
Where I gamify my personal development, by trying to beat my previous weekly score. Check out my short book Kaizen and Habit Stacking where I go into a lot more detail on how I make small and constant improvements in my habits, which add up to massive changes.
Every morning I write out at least 4 things that I am grateful for. I enter this at the bottom of my daily planner.
I used to have a separate notebook for recording my dreams, but now these also go into my one notebook. You could record these after the daily plan, so they are in chronological order. If you would prefer these to be isolated in the notebook you can treat these as if they were related meetings. Start a new 2 page spread headed dreams and enter the page number into your index. Then record your entries with the date below this. When you finish these 2 pages, proceed to the next blank 2 pages. On the top of both spreads, you can refer to the other spread page number so you can quickly scan through your dreams over time.
As recommended in Routine Machine by John Lamerton, after each nonfiction book I read, I will write a report on it before I start the next book. This report is based on my notes taken from reading the book and you guessed it; I write these notes in my one notebook.
I’ve developed and refined my system over a couple of decades and I’m still refining it. Everybody’s system would be unique to them, but if you wanted to start from afresh, I would recommend the following 2 books:
An abreaction is an extremely rare event that can occur during a therapy session, when the client is in trance. The client re-lives a past traumatic experience, as if it was actually occurring. This can be quite frightening for both the client and the therapist.
It can happen spontaneously for no apparent reason. It may also occur when the client actually feels safe with the therapist. Their subconscious mind may feel it is the right time to look at this past trauma to address it now. Some therapists may actually induce an abreaction, although ethically I don’t agree with this.
A spontaneous abreaction will happen very rarely. You may actually never experience one. I have never had one and the principal of the Hypnotherapy school I learned at, only had two in his whole career.
Having said that it is important to consider what might happen if one does occur early in your hypnotherapy career.
Before an abreaction occurs, anticipate the abreaction happening. Allow time in between clients just in case. The last thing you want is to be rushing a client who is abreacting, because you have another client waiting.
If you charge by the session, not the hour, you can allow for 2 hours just in case an abreaction occurs.
Keep the following script handy. It is a global reframe script designed to resolve whatever caused the abreaction in the first place. Feel free to copy this one. You could print off and laminate. If a client abreacts, you don’t need to think about what to say. Just read the script.
“Whatever just happened there is just your imagination and is totally safe. Your subconscious mind simply took this opportunity to release a highly charged emotion from your past. I am now going to give you a direct suggestion that your subconscious will fully and completely understand. I am now instructing your subconscious to deal with what just happened there in a safe and natural way. When you have done that, in your own time, nod you head so that I know.”
Ignore the narrative of the client during the first five-minutes of the session. If you don’t, you may add your own subjective interpretation and come up with the wrong conclusion. What they say might not be right.
The sensitising incident might not be what they say it is. This means that whatever they came to you for, may not actually be what sets off the abreaction. You have no idea what the traumatic event was so don’t guess.
Reassure them say “Its ok, just stay with me and listen to my voice”
This is where the reaction is at its most strong. It is important for you to carry on reassuring the client and don’t panic yourself. It will pass.
The reactions may still be strong and seem to come in waves, but they are dissipating.
Now reframe what happened, using the Global Reframe Script above or something similar.
So an abreaction probably may never occur to you in your career but just remember the following.
Don’t panic it is perfectly natural. Nothing bad will happen.
There will be tears and it may get emotional, but it is something that the subconscious mind is now ready to throw out. Always trust that the client’s subconscious mind is doing exactly what it needs to help the client to move forward in their life.
If you are just starting out in your Hypnotherapy or NLP practise and are not sure about how to structure your first initial therapy consultation session, I will walk you through the process in this post.
Before you start to market your hypnotherpy business, decide whether your first consultation will be a Free Session or whether you will Charge. It is a common practice for the first session to be a free consultation, although not always. I will leave this up to your discretion there are pros and cons to charging and giving for free.
The first stage in your initial consultation will always be to establish rapport, without exception. This is where you discuss pleasantries, if the client is willing. If the client wishes to dive straight into the issue, then fine. You can still establish rapport, using your listening skills, matching and mirroring.
When allowing the client to speak, always remember the Five Minute Golden Rule. This is where you allow them to vent off their feelings without interruption. You do not judge, but you can maybe ask for clarification.
When allowing the client to describe their unwanted behaviours or results beware of their subjective interpretation. For instance, they may complain that they were passed over for promotion at work because they are clearly not well thought of. This is a subjective interpretation of an event. Do not buy into this. Stay objective.
Is it real? People exaggerate and lie, so again do not buy into it.
Commonly, what a client presents to you is not what needs addressing. The client’s subconscious mind knows what needs addressing. However, the client will consciously dress this up as something else. It is not for you to try to find out what this issue is. Acknowledge it but move on. Your therapy will allow the client to go inside and get their subconscious to heal itself.
Ask them if the have they seen other therapists about this issue. If you’re the fifth person they have seen, then there is obviously something else that needs addressing.
Above all, don’t buy into their subjective interpretation.
What about your subjective Interpretation? You should obviously leave your own baggage at the door. You mind map will be different from the clients. Stay objective and neutral.
Once the client has vented their feelings, you can then begin to question them further. Your aim here is to access resources you can later use in their therapy. Find them and feed them back into the therapy. Ask about their work, hobbies, and interests and note these. Establish further rapport by establishing common ground. Perhaps you or someone you know closely has the same interests. If you can’t find any, then lie. Remember the purpose here is to help the client get better, so a little white lie is fine.
Allow time to shift their headspace from negative to positive. You can do this be exploring what they say and steering it to something positive. Harvest as many of these positive resources as possible. Ask what was good about the situation? Jump on anything positive they say and expand on it.
Check their SUD (Subjective Unit of Discomfort
Here you can ask them on a scale of 0-10 (10 being bad), what is the emotional or physical pain.
Then ask them what level of discomfort would they be happy to live with. For instance, they may say they’re currently at a level 9 but would be happy to live with a level 3. You will use this in later sessions to check on their progress.
Always beware of secondary gains when involved in therapy. These can be an obstacle, for example, a smoker actually wants to stay slim or someone with a bad back doesn’t want to mow the lawn. Now these could be at a subconscious level. During your therapy, you may need to take account of these. You could put in some suggestions to the effect that you will easily maintain your slim physique when you are a non-smoker.
Use clean language, I don’t mean don’t swear, but use language which is unambiguous and doesn’t have negative undertones.
Talk about unwanted behaviours, thoughts and effects, not problems. Your client may present themselves with a problem, but from then on, you will refer to it as an unwanted effect. You can also go one better than this by then flipping it to its positive. So for example, a client may present to you asking to stop her fingernail biting habit. You could start by asking her why she wants to stop. She may say she is getting married later that year and wants long fingernails, to decorate. That is what you will then focus on – the outcome itself.
There are no problems only unwanted behaviours, thoughts or feelings.
Cut out the word try. Let’s say you ask me to go to your party. Perhaps I might say I’ll try to get there. You know I’ll likely not arrive. So don’t ask you client to try to do something. Give them suggestions, directives and orders if you have to.
This also works for you. Don’t say you are trying to do something. Instead, say “My aim is …”, or “My goal is…”, or “I am in the process of…”.
The proper use of language has a profound effect on how you perceive the world. As a therapist, you are in a privileged position of being able to affect people’s lives for the better, just by how you speak.
I keep six honest serving men they taught me all I knew, there names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who. Rudyard Kipling.
My very first Sales Manager taught me this and he suggested to me that the most critical skill I could learn in Selling and Life was Questioning and Listening.
Practice the open questions using the honest serving men from above. They will affect the clients mind by making them go inside to search for the answer. This in itself is hypnotic in nature. You can then begin to access their subconscious better than asking closed and leading questions.
To illustrate this, the question “Is your fear of spiders serious?” is such a lousy question on so many levels. A better question is “How do you feel when I mention the word spider?” continue to ask open questions to get a full understanding. “When does this occur exactly”. “Who are you with?”.
We are not necessarily asking these questions because of the answers. We are asking these to access eye cues and the client’s suggestibility. Ask as many questions as possible.
In a way, therapy is very similar to the sales process. You ask questions, you listen, then you sell the benefits of them changing. The client already wants to change, that’s why they came to you in the first instance. Part of you your job as the therapist is to reinforce the benefits that they will get from changing. This is done in the therapy sessions as well as the consultation. You therefore provide a benefit, then the therapy, then another benefit.
You can uncover some of the benefits that are unique to them by finding out what outcome they want. A great question to ask is, if I could click my fingers and you were instantly better or cured, then how would you know? What would you feel, see and hear?
Listen attentively to the answers. Feed them back into the therapy. You may uncover some powerful emotional benefits here. For instance, they may tell you they want to lose weight to be in great shape for their wedding.
If you uncover these benefits properly, signing them up for the paid therapy should therefore be a formality.
If you would like a free copy of my first consultation template contact me and let me know.
Marketing of your coaching or therapy business needs to be consistent. It is not something you do once or twice. It should be a regular part of your working day. In this short post I give you an overview on how to market your coaching or therapy businss at the very start. See my series on selling.
This means people will remark on you. Have you thought of how much you will charge? Plan to charge as high as you can. You will then attract the type of client who is serious about personal change and development.
Don’t do leaflet drops or newspaper ads or shop windows, unless you want to attract the type of client who responds to those types of marketing.
Be where the people are going to be looking for your services. So who are your ideal clients going to be and where do they congregate? Make it your mission to get into these places. Remember, it’s always easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission.
Giving away freebees can be a good way to gain some client testimonials in the very beginning. However, do have a plan to start charging as soon as you can. From then on, only give free sessions as a volunteer, rather than as a marketing exercise.
Finally, whatever offline marketing you choose do it professionally and stay consistent.
Choose a URL, which is easy to remember and type.
Website terminology is similar to the old printing press terms. For instance, you will have a first fold. This is the top of your home page, which is visible in a browser without needed to scroll down. This acts like the top of a page of a broadsheet newspaper folded over.
You only get seconds to make an impact to someone visiting your site. So cut to the chase and put in a Call to Action – like “Click here to start today”. Start to collect a list of email addresses, which you can send marketing emails. You could give away something free in exchange for a visitor to give you their details.
Always have an about me page. It is essential that people visiting your site know that you are a real caring person. Put a good quality picture of you here.
Also on your About Me page you can list the benefits that clients will get if they work with you. Less is more here. Maybe you will want to specialise in one or two areas.
Don’t bother putting all your qualifications here, just one or two relevant ones. Remember people are only interested in what they will get.
Use emotional words in your copy. This makes you a real person and people like to deal with other people.
Google AdWords can be a great way to generate traffic to your website in the beginning. Here you pay google every time someone clicks a link in an advert, to go to your site. You can determine where these adverts go and, for instance, they can be on the search page on the right-hand side or on other people’s sites that have opted for Google AdSense.
However, there are a few words of warning. Your website needs to have a professional appearance and optimised around a good Call to Action, otherwise people will be enticed to your site and once they get there, they will just bounce right off.
Secondly when you need to be very careful to budget for what price you are willing to pay and how many clicks per day, otherwise it can get very expensive.
In a similar way to google AdWords, you can pay for Facebook ads that will show up in people’s newsfeeds. Facebook ads are better than google AdWords, in a sense, because you can really target your desired market. You can target by geography, interests, gender, age etc. the list is almost endless.
One the first things new business entrepreneurs do is get their business cards printed. Don’t let this be the first job you do as people rarely follow up on business card swaps. The way to stand out from the crowd, especially at networking events is to swap business cards, but you do the follow-up. Assume the other person won’t follow up.
Good old fashioned selling – getting on the phone and making things happen is the most effective way to get your business off the ground. It may be useful in the beginning to target companies for your coaching and therapy business. There are advantages to this. Firstly, you can charge more, but also once you have a corporate client you can use them as a great testimonial.
So many B2B Salespeople have asked me about generating sales leads and I’ve seen so many make the mistake of using ineffective marketing to find leads. They end up wasting their time and not getting quality leads.
That’s just completely backwards.
So I’m thinking of putting together a Free Mini Course on how to quadruple your sales leads, especially in these times, to smash your targets. Would that be of interest to you? Leave a comment below if this would be of interest.