How To Make More Money and Help More People

bbsadmin Publish time 2009-04-27 16:47:20

How To Make More Money and Help More People In Your Alternative 
Health Business by Michael Pang. 
 
Part 1 -Why alternative health businesses struggle and how you can 
overcome this 
 
> It is an unfortunate reality that the majority of alternative health practitioners struggle to make a decent living from their practice. The proportion of people who 'do it tough' in this industry is excessively large when compared with other industries. This raises the question: "Why are people who are dedicated and passionate about what they do failing to translate this passion into a successful business?" 
Having worked with countless alternative health practitioners, I have 
identified three main reasons why the majority of practitioners are struggling: 
 
> 1. They lack the appropriate business and marketing skills to adequately 
run their business. 
 
> 2. They often do not realize that their healing work can also be a 
successful business that makes them money. 
 
> 3. They believe that it is not ethical or spiritual to make a lot of 
money doing this type of work. 
 
> Since the aim of the rest of this course is to provide you with a basic 
> understanding of the appropriate marketing and business skills to run your 
> practice effectively (reason one), I would therefore like to address 
reasons two and three in this module. 
 
> Too many alternative health practitioners treat their business like a 
hobby. Many practitioners get into this business because it is something they love to 
do and passionately believe in. Their commitment is great and they are prepared 
to struggle for their passion. 
 
> While this is very admirable, the fact is you do not have to struggle in 
your business! The idea that you must struggle if you want to be an alternative 
health practitioner is a limiting belief holding you back. 
 
> Let us assure you that it is possible to turn your passion into a 
successful business that makes you money. We know many successful natural health practitioners and there is room for many more. 
 
> Once you have established that you can have a thriving natural health 
business, let us address the belief that it is not ethical or spiritual to make a 
lot of money doing this type of work. This belief means that practitioners are 
often reluctant to make money from their calling. They believe that in order to 
be spiritual or ethical, they should not make much money from their modality. 
This is another limiting belief. 
 
> Spirituality and ethics have no relationship to money. You can be very 
spiritual and ethical and be rich. You can also be very spiritual and ethical and be 
poor. 
 
> The fact of the matter is that you are able to make a bigger difference in 
the world and pursue your spiritual path more fully if you don't have to worry 
about how you are going to feed your family from week to week. 
 
> It is only when you are secure in your own finances that you are able to 
start making significant contributions, in terms of time and money to worthwhile causes. Judge not a person's spirituality or goodwill by the amount of 
money they earn, but rather by what they do with this money and with their time. 
 
> It is important to understand and overcome these blocks first so that you 
can create a thriving alternative health business and make good money while 
helping more people and doing what you love. In the coming modules we will be 
covering the business and marketing skills you require to achieve the level of 
success you desire in your natural health business. 
 
 
> Part 2 - Why marketing and business skills are essential for alternative 
health practitioners 
 
> Marketing is an essential skill for all those who wish to be a 
self-employed natural health practitioner. This is equally true for anyone 
who just wants a steady one-person practice to those people who want to 
establish multiple centers or a large business. 
 
> Studies show that 80% of businesses fail within their first five years of 
operation and sadly, natural health businesses are not immune from this 
alarming statistic. Given this, why do the majority of natural health 
practitioners fail to learn and implement effective marketing and business 
strategies? Why don't they learn the skills that will stop them from 
becoming another statistic? 
 
> Practitioners generally spend all their time and energy on learning and 
updating the skills required to practice their modality but spend very 
little time on learning how to market themselves and their practice. The 
unfortunate reality is, regardless of how well trained you are, if you don't 
learn how to market yourself you will not have the client base to share your 
expertise with. While you may be the very best practitioner in your 
industry, if you do not know how to market yourself effectively no body will 
ever find out and you will find yourself out of business fairly quickly. It 
is for this reason that it is essential to not only be a competent 
practitioner, but to also be a competent marketer. 
 
> The lack of marketing and business skills exhibited in this industry often 
comes from a misunderstanding of what marketing actually is, as many 
practitioners have misconceptions about this subject. 
 
> Some practitioners believe that marketing is about manipulating people 
into buying something that they do not want or need. However, this statement 
could not be further from the truth. Marketing is about helping and 
educating people. It is about finding the people who are seeking the 
benefits that you offer and showing them how you can help them and make 
their lives happier by fulfilling these needs. It is marketing that allows 
you to connect with those people who need your services. 
 
> Practitioners generally don't realize that marketing goes much deeper than 
just slapping together an advertisement, brochure or flyer when you need to 
get more people through the door. Marketing encompasses all levels of 
customer service; from what you say to your customers and how you treat them 
to how they feel when they walk out your door. It also includes your 
relationship with your staff, your relationship with your suppliers, the 
look and feel of your products, services and your practice. Marketing 
involves your relationships with other businesses in your community and 
involves many different activities that bring exposure and clients to your 
business. 
 
> Marketing essentially involves anything and everything that makes a person 
want to do business with you. 
 
> In order to make your natural health business a success, you must accept 
marketing as an all-encompassing and critical skill that you need for your 
business. In these times, it is not enough just being a good practitioner; 
you need to learn the fundamentals of business and marketing if you want to 
have a full time natural health business. 
 
 
> Part 3 - How to gain a competitive advantage by differentiating yourself 
from your competitors 
 
> Today's module is about gaining a competitive advantage in the 
marketplace. It is very common in the natural health industry for a new 
practitioner setting up their business to replicate the systems and 
processes of other practitioners. This can be very detrimental to the 
success of your practice as so many of the practitioners you are copying are 
struggling. 
 
> In addition, following the footsteps of other practitioners provides you 
with no point of differentiation from your competitors. 
 
> In order to be successful, you have to provide a compelling reason to your 
clients as to why they should do business with you. If your business is just 
like every other natural health practice then it follows that your clients 
can simply receive the same service from your competitors. 
 
> Businesses that operate in this manner promise no great value or service, 
just a "buy from us" proposition that feeds solely on the momentum of the 
market and provides no justifiable or rational reason as to why someone 
should visit them. The fact that this is so prevalent in the natural health 
industry provides significant opportunity for savvy, open-minded 
practitioners to distinguish themselves from the rest of the market. 
 
 
> In order to stand out from the crowd and attract a large client base, you 
need to establish a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) for your business. 
 
> A USP identifies what it is that sets you apart from your competitors and 
is an essential first step in creating a sustainable practice. Your USP is a 
distinct and appealing idea that your customers can relate to. 
 
> Creating a USP is a personal process as it requires you to consider the 
following questions: 
> (a) What services do you offer? 
> (b) What products do you supply? 
> (c) What are the objectives of your business? 
> (d) What is the essence of your business? 
> (e) What benefits do customers get from visiting your business? 
> (f) What makes your business different from others? 
 
> While answering these questions might initially take up a lot of space, 
the answers should then be broken down into a short paragraph or a sentence 
that communicates your "Unique Selling Proposition". Once this is 
established, you can integrate your USP into all your promotions and 
business systems. 
 
> Developing a USP is about making what it is your business offers different 
from and more valuable than what your competitors' offer. 
 
> By establishing and promoting your USP, you are implanting your message in 
the minds of your existing and prospective clients. This will create a 
sustainable competitive advantage that will enable you to attract new 
customers to your business and result in your existing clients remaining 
with your business. 
 
> Part 4 - How you can avoid one of the common advertising mistakes that 
cost alternative health businesses thousands of dollars each year 
 
> Natural health practitioners need to build awareness of the various 
wonderful techniques and treatments they offer as an alternative to 
traditional medicinal practices. This industry and your business can only go 
so far if you rely solely on word of mouth advertising to grow your 
business. 
 
> Do not misunderstand the previous statement. I believe that word of mouth 
advertising is of vital importance in the natural health industry, but if we 
want to grow this industry and spread the word to an ageing population that 
is increasingly concerned with health issues, then advertising will also 
need to play a role in your business' strategy. To maintain a steady client 
base in an environment where new practitioners are emerging every day, it is 
imperative to learn how to advertise your business effectively. 
 
> The problem with natural health practitioners is that they generally don't 
have any training in the methodology of advertising. While more and more 
natural therapy colleges are teaching a business subject, this is generally 
very limited in its nature and doesn't cover the practical aspects of 
creating advertisements, promotions and implementing various other marketing 
strategies to attract the clients to your business. This leads to many 
practitioners allocating money to ads that do not generate enough clients to 
justify the cost of the promotion. 
 
> It pains me to look through publications and see that the large majority 
of ads make the common pitfalls of advertising which dramatically reduces 
the response to the advertisement. Most prominent of these mistakes is the 
failure to write an effective headline. 
 
> The headline of an advertisement determines 80% of the success of that 
advertisement. The importance of a good headline can not be overstated. I 
have clients who have changed the headline of their ad and nothing else and 
received over a 500% better response rate to the same advertisement. That's 
five times as many clients for the same financial outlay! 
 
> The headline is of vital importance to any promotion as it is effectively 
the "ad for your ad". It needs to attract the readers' attention and make 
them want to read the rest of your advertisement. When you read a magazine 
or newspaper you generally don't read the whole thing from cover to cover 
and instead only read those articles that interest you. But how you decide 
which articles interests you? 
 
> It's the headline isn't it? 
 
> Well the same principle applies to your ads. The headline needs to grab 
the reader's attention and signal to them that your advertisement is of 
interest to them. 
 
> Do you think you would be as likely to read an article from a magazine if 
instead of a headline it had the authors or the publisher's name? 
 
> Not likely. Well the same principle applies to your advertisements (and 
all promotions for that matter). 
 
> What do I mean by this? I will make this very clear because this is a very 
important point - your business name is NOT a headline! 
 
> While your business name or logo may look great to you, your family and 
your friends, to a prospective client who doesn't know your business, it 
means nothing! Accordingly, using your business name as a headline will not 
capture the reader's interest. 
 
> In order to create a successful advertisement, you must write a 
benefit-driven headline that appeals directly to your target market and 
makes them want to read the rest of the ad. 
 
> This principle applies to all your marketing from newspaper and magazine 
advertisements, yellow pages ads, direct mail, flyers and brochures. If you 
write a headline in this manner, you will find a massive increase in the 
response to your advertisements and promotions, which will lead to a 
significant increase in revenue for your business each year. 
 
> Part 5 - The secret to creating powerful promotions that will fill your 
business up for months 
 
> Writing great advertisements that generate a large number of customers 
for your practice involves a lot more than just telling prospective customers that you are open for business and that you provide a service or product they might want. You can probably appreciate that there are hundreds of other businesses selling prospective customers the very same thing. The fact of the matter is that people are not interested in the service or products you are offering. This statement is not only true of prospective clients but also of your current customers. 
 
> You are probably perplexed at the previous statement and saying to your computer "of course my clients are interested in the service/product that I offer, otherwise they wouldn't be my client". I would like to challenge your thoughts here and get you to think a little deeper about the motivation of your clients. 
 
> It is vitally important to realize that your clients are after the benefits of your service or product and not the service or product itself. 
> For example, an injured sports person does not want a remedial massage, but they do want to recovery from their injury as quickly as possible. It is easy to forget this and think that just because your clients are happy and continue to come back that they love your service or product. While they do love coming to your business it is not the actual performing of the service or purchase of the product they love, it is the benefits that this 
provides them with that they love. 
 
> With this important concept established, how can we use this deeper understanding of our clients' buying motivation to write effective advertisements and promotions? The answer is to always emphasize the benefits the reader will receive from using the service or product you are selling. 
 
> The key to writing effective promotions is to focus on how your service or product will improve the reader's life and provide them with benefits that they can see, hear, touch, smell, taste, count and feel. It is these benefits that the readers are looking for - not a particular product or service - and it is these benefits that will motivate them to give you a call or come into your business. So, make sure that your promotions 
clearly communicate these benefits and you will find your promotions are no longer just talking about your service or product, but are instead sales tools 
for your business that are persuading clients to visit your practice. 
 
> Part 6 - How to drastically increase your sales by spending only 50 cents 
 
> What effect would it have on your business if you had 100 salespeople and 
100 customer service people working for your business around the clock for 
only 50 cents each? What if these staff would never ask for a pay rise and 
never go and work for the competition? What if these people would never 
forget to promote your sales points and all the benefits of your services 
and products? Imagine if you could employ 5000 people like this? 
 
> You may say that none of this is possible for the natural health industry, 
but we assure you it absolutely is. You can achieve all this through the use 
of direct mail. 
 
> Direct mail is one of the most powerful strategies for your business. 
Through direct mail you have the ability to employ thousands of 'little 
salespeople' or 'little customer service staff in your business for the cost 
of a fifty cent postage stamp. We are not talking about sending out a 
blanket mail-out because most people will view your beautifully crafted 
letter as junk mail and it will be filed appropriately - in the bin. We are 
talking about sending out direct mail pieces to targeted lists of people who 
are likely to have an interest in what you are offering. 
 
> Targeting joint venture partner's databases or building your own database 
with low cost two-step advertising is a very effective method of using 
direct mail to obtain new customers. While this form of direct mail can 
have a profound impact on your business' profitability, it ignores the 
simplest and most effective use of this medium. 
 
> The ability of direct mail to build and strengthen relationships with your 
client base and to encourage them to frequent your business more often is 
amazing. It has been proven that it is five times easier to sell something 
to an existing customer than it is to sell something to a new customer. 
Direct mail lets you harness the power of this fact for the price of a 
postage stamp. 
 
> Your clients already know you. They have an active interest in your 
business. They have tried the services and products you and your business 
provide and they have bought from you before. Too many practitioners in the 
natural health industry understand this but do not do anything to encourage 
these customers to come back to their business. 
 
> Many business owners, after spending a lot of money attracting a customer, 
merely serve them and wait for them to come back. They think that giving the 
customer good service is enough to get them back again. Unfortunately, this 
is not the case. 
 
> People are very busy and often they would love to come back to receive the 
treatment or products they purchased, but people often get too caught up in 
their busy schedules to come back to your business. This would soon change 
if they received a letter from you. This would show them that you are 
thinking of them and you care about their patronage. This would also serve 
to remind them of your business and, if your letter provided an offer, it 
would give them a reason to go back to your business. 
 
> A simple letter, when sent to your whole or even just a part of your 
client base, will result in a massive increase in revenue for your business. 
 
> The beauty about direct mail is that you can test a letter on a small 
quantity of people and if the letter is successful, then you can send it to 
your entire customer base. This means that you have greatly minimized the 
risk of advertising that may not necessarily work. 
 
> Another benefit of direct mail is that, unlike print advertisements where 
your competitors can see and copy what you are doing; your competitors will 
have no idea what you are doing with your direct mail. This allows you to 
have an advantage over your competition because they will not know what it 
is that makes your business so profitable. 
 
> The types of direct mail you can utilize in your business to build 
relationships with your clients and get them returning more regularly is as 
follows: 
 
> * Thank you letters to new customers offering them a discount or 
something extra with their next purchase. 
 
> * A regular newsletter in which you can not only strengthen your 
relationship with clients, but also educate them about the things you offer. 
When coupled with an offer or discount this will result in your customers 
visiting your business more frequently. 
 
> * You can send offers to past clients who have not visited you for some 
time in order to entice them back to your business again. This generally 
proves extremely effective because these clients already know and like your 
business. When they come back again, they will get back in the habit of 
using your service or product. 
 
> * You can also send birthday cards, Christmas cards, New Year cards, or 
any similar form of correspondence to show your clients you care about them. 
Coupled with an offer you will also entice many of your clients to come in 
to your business. 
 
> The power of direct mail is not, by any means, limited to the above 
applications, but this is a good starting point at which you can begin to 
implement this strategy in your business. The increased customer loyalty and 
sales associated with implementing just one of these strategies will lead to 
a notable increase in your business' profitability. 
 
> Part 7 - The future for alternative health therapies and products 
 
> The complementary and alternative health industry is emerging as the new 
growth industry and is quickly gaining momentum. As the baby boomers grow 
older, demands on our healthcare system and healthcare providers are also 
growing. As these resources become more stretched and more costly, many 
people are beginning to look beyond traditional medicine's 'band-aid' 
approach to healthcare. These people are looking for a more holistic 
approach. 
 
> There is also a strong trend emerging in our society towards the 
achievement of emotional and physical 'wellness'. This is causing prevention 
to become as important, if not more important, than the cure. Instead of 
just running to the doctor when a symptom or disease emerges, many people 
are looking for therapies and products that will help them to maintain a 
high level of health and well being. Increasingly, people are looking for 
information and guidance on the following issues: 
 
> * How to look after their minds and their bodies 
> * How to take action to prevent physical or emotional problems 
> * How to function and perform at their peak 
> * How to harness the healing power of the body and the mind 
> * How to develop and sustain a healthy and balanced lifestyle 
 
> The rise in the number of people looking to natural health therapies and 
products to treat their ailments and the rise in the number of people 
looking to these same therapies to maintain their health is leading to a 
dramatic increase in the demand for alternative health services. 
 
> In America alone, the annual expenditure on alternative health therapies 
is $US 34 billion. Professor Marc Cohen, head of the department of 
complementary medicine at RMIT University tells us that "In the US there are 
more visits to complementary medicine practitioners than traditional 
doctors". 
 
> These figures can also be observed emerging in developed nations around 
the world. Research by Alastair MacLennan, a professor of medicine at 
Adelaide University, shows that Australians spent $2.3 billion ($AUS) on 
alternative health therapies in 2000. Professor Cohen estimates that this 
figure has grown by 10-20% per year since then and will continue to do so in 
2004. 
 
> While the growth in the demand for these alternative health services has 
risen substantially, the market is still relatively immature in terms of 
market penetration. There is still substantial growth to be had before this 
industry reaches the critical mass that would see it being regarded as a 
'mainstream' alternative to traditional medicine. 
 
> There is still a large majority of people who do not consider alternative 
health therapies as a serious alternative to the treatments that traditional 
medicine provides, or who have had only limited exposure to the type of 
treatments available to them. 
 
> While hundreds of new practitioners emerge each day to serve this growing 
demand, we believe that the majority of these people are not doing enough to 
firstly promote the industry and secondly create a profitable practice. 
 
> Practitioners in this industry need to stand up, educate and create 
interest in the marketplace about the benefits of alternative health 
treatments. Practitioners need to provide this information so they can help 
people make informed decisions about all the possible treatments available. 
They need to inform people of all the things they can do to lead a healthy 
lifestyle which, in turn, will reduce the number of health issues they have. 
 
> In order to do so, alternative health practitioners need to adopt sound 
marketing and business skills to enable the broader community to experience 
the effectiveness of these therapies. It is absolutely imperative that 
practitioners start thinking of themselves as business people as well as 
practitioners and begin to run their practice in a business-like manner. 
To gain a more in-depth and practical understanding of how to 
grow your 
> practice visit <a href="http://www.alternativehealthmarketing.com/" target="_blank">www.alternativehealthmarketing.com</a>

Pages: [1]

Mebo--TCM Forum's Archiver

How To Make More Money and Help More People