How To Make More Money and Help More People

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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 www.alternativehealthmarketing.com