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Marketing Your Alternative Health Private Practice, Part I

Most private practice owners believe that if they are well educated and skilled in their particular field of therapy that clients will automatically flock to their practice when the doors are opened. This is simply not the case. A practitioner may have three doctorate degrees and twenty years of experience, but if that therapist is not successfully marketing his or her services, very few clients will appear. The marketing strategy in this dissertation focuses on two primary areas of private practice: (1) getting new clientele, and (2) training the mind for a successful practice. No matter how well qualified a therapist is, he or she cannot practice without clients. Successful marketing must come before successful practicing. The following strategy is a 100-day challenge, and should be the complete focus of the practitioner during that period.

Market and Niche

The first phase of successful marketing is determining the target market and the specific practitioner niche: in other words, the “who” and “what” focus of your private practice. Marketing alone is useless. Successful marketing must be focused marketing. The second phase of successful marketing is promoting “two-for-one” sessions. This strategy will significantly increase your client base rapidly. “Two-for-one” sessions is not necessarily to be taken literally. This strategy can include many ways to hook a potential client. The variety of ways to use this strategy will be discussed in detail a bit later. The third phase of successful marketing is to stay in action. Do not let one of the one hundred days pass without adhering to your strategy. Each day should bring new opportunities to implement the strategy. The fourth phase of successful marketing is to feel good about your future. The power of the mind plays a large role in how successful you will be. Chanting mantras and doing other focused activities will direct the power of your mind into the realization of a successful private practice.

Phase one in creating a successful private practice marketing strategy is defining your target market and your therapy niche. Your target market is those people who are most likely to already need your services, and are willing to pay for your services. Your therapy niche is the alternative modality you wish to practice the most (i.e. hypnotherapy, reiki, reflexology, etc). In determining these two factors, it is necessary to remember two important points: (1) People care more about their problems than they do about your treatments, and (2) most practitioners are not concrete enough in what modality they offer. It is absolutely imperative to put the client’s needs first and to be able to clearly define what it is you offer to the client. Vague marketing will bring scant results. If you take a look at very successful companies the world over, you will find one defining characteristic tying them together: they all have a crystal clear focus. They know what they offer, and they are clear in their marketing materials about their services and products. In marketing your service to your target audience, remember that passion sells better than expertise. If you love what you do, and others see that you love what you do, they are more likely to purchase whatever you are selling. Passion is contagious.

In deciding what your specific niche will be, you should choose an area based on (1) something you have passion for, (2) something you excel in or are able to learn about, and (3) something people have an existing need for and are willing to buy. Your niche should be as clearly defined as possible. Rather than marketing yourself as a hypnotherapist, a reiki master, and a feng shui expert, choose one and market that specific modality. People want to buy into something they feel certain about. If your prospective customer feels you have stretched yourself too thin, he or she will look elsewhere. Prospective customers are looking for an expert in which they can be confident. As an alternative therapist, your job is not to create a need, but to fill a need. Choose a niche with waiting customers, and market your specific ability to those customers. Finding these customers is easier than most people think. This will be discussed in depth in a later section.

In determining your target market, take into consideration the following three rules: (1) be sure you can discover where your market is; (2) be very specific about who you market to; and (3) be able to get deep into your chosen market. The first thing to do is to decide where your market is. If you are marketing your services to businessmen (such as hypno-coaching), that is a very wide market, and you may feel overwhelmed by the prospect of marketing to every business in your community. However, if you narrow down certain places businessmen gather, such as chambers of commerce or rotary clubs, and reserve speaking engagements to a group of businessmen there, the marketing becomes much easier and more targeted. Go where your prospective clients are, and offer your services to them directly. The second thing to do is to be very specific about what you do. If you address the group of businessmen by introducing your service as a way to help businessmen be better at what they do, that is too vague and not very memorable. However, if you open your presentation by saying, “I specialize in motivating salespeople to exceed their quotas each month”, then that’s something people want to buy into. The first introduction is forgettable; the second is convincing and memorable. The third thing to do is to saturate your market. This will take care of itself if your service is quality, and your marketing is well targeted. For example, if you give a focused, detailed seminar about your service to a group of businesspeople, they will tell other business friends about your service in turn. If you marketing is well planned and targeted, trickle down marketing will occur in your chosen market.

Exercise

Use these questions to define your target market.

1. What is my therapeutic focus?

2. What do people say to themselves if they have a problem I can solve?

3. What kind of person wants/needs my therapeutic help (demographically)?

4. From the above questions, narrow down your target market.

One of the most important things to do before beginning your marketing campaign is to devise a mission statement. A mission statement is a clear and concise answer to the question “what do you do?” When writing this mission statement, focus on the specific problem your therapy addresses, and the results it provides for your clients. The mission statement should be no longer than two or three sentences, and should be detailed rather than vague.

Exercise

Begin working on your mission statement.

Imagine being in different situation with people asking you what you do. Answer.

When writing the mission statement, it is not necessary to make it so stiff that it is unchangeable in various situations. While keeping the basics concrete, tailor the statement to the individual you are speaking to. Also, rather than using a labeled profession in your mission statement, focus on what you actually do in the therapeutic process.

About the Author

Paul Daniel Payne is the president of the Universal Spirit University, a spiritual distance learning university offering certificates in Reiki and Hypnotherapy, and research degrees from the Associate through the PhD level in spiritual and holistic disciplines.

What is the best target filling for a bow shooting practice?

I have a 70lb bow and i want to make my own target for practice but what is the best filling for the target cheap, inexpensive and easy to get.

I know of several people who take feed sacks or burlap sacks and fill them any one of these 3 items, old bubble rap like used for packing, plastic shopping bags like you get at Wal-mart, or old rags.
All items must be packed tight to stop a arrow.

Well I shoot a Browning compound that 80 lb draw, arrow speed with my rig on chronograph at 316 fps and bales of hay for me is a waste, even the big round bales shooting on the side I louse my expensive carbon arrows.
I use a Will Stop bag in front of the hay, but if I miss, I can kiss that arrow good bye.
I lost 3 arrows year before last to a round bail that were never recovered.
Last year I tried something new, I made my back stop out of 2 sheets of what is called, Molded Rubber Trailer Mat .
There is a Farm supply and Feed store here called Attwood’s here that I got them.
What it is, is a large mat made of rubber, just like a giant mud flap for a truck.
It’s ½ inch thick and 4 foot by 6 foot, I paid $45.00 each for them.
I made a frame work that is out of 4x4 post concreted in to the ground big enough to suspend 2 mats overlapping the center seam by 6 inches so arrows don’t fly between the mats at the center where they meet.
The mats are attached only at the top of the frame work just like a mud flap would be and are 6 inches off the ground.
Now I have a back stop that 6 foot tall and 7 ½ feet wide that I hang my Will Stop target from the top beam so it’s center of my back stop.
This rubber is self healing and my target point only makes it 4 to 6 inches through the mat before the mat robes all energy from the arrow.
I set back and launched 12 arrows at the mat to test it, not one made it through the back stop.
I have used it for all last year and not one arrow was ever damaged.
The savings of arrows lost or damaged in 2 years will pay for the back stop.
I made it look nice so as not to be an eye sore and all my friends are now setting up a mat arrow stop.
It should last for many years and don’t cause the mess of hay bales and cost about the same a 2 big round bales that I never have to remove or clean up.
Link attached of the mats

http://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?...

Dead Stop and Will Stop bags are about the same.

http://www.basspro.com/servlet/catalog.t...

Hope this was of help.
D58

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