Fill’er Up Part 1 – Common Mistakes of Marketing

Fille’r UP – How to Fill up Your Private Practice with Clients

This is going to be a four part blog series. I started to write this one post and it just out of hand quickly, so now this will be the entire month’s theme. I hope you enjoy this month of learning different ideas and tactics to fill up your practice. Thank you for checking out this and the following blog post. I really appreciate you!

The#1 question I get from EVERYONE! How do I get clients? Either people have thought about starting a practice or they are years in, this continues to be the most stressful question. For me, I was completely nieve to the process and since have truly made marketing my second passion; nutrition will always be #1.

In today’s post we are going to jump into the ground work of filling of your practice by taking about the common mistake people make. The following weeks of this blog series will cover the following topics:

• Back to School- Niching Down to Your Ideal Client
• Marketing for Introverts vs Extroverts
• Networking – what is it and how to truly have an impact

 

Struggles that Get in the Way of Filling up Your Practice

1.  Forgetting Your Why

Have you ever been doing things around your house, and you walk into another room and completely forget what you walk in there for? I do this all the time when I am distracted or have too many things on my mind. It happens more than I would like to admit. This too happens with our practice, we forget why we went into the practice and get side tracked with other things.

Why did you go into this profession? Spend some time right now thinking about what fueled you to go into the line of work. If I had to guess, I would imagine you choose this path to help people live a more healthy life and you love the power of food and wanted to share that with others. Yet while in school you never thought about or covered a course on website building, SEO, marketing client acquisition, etc. Now in your practice, we get distracted with so much marketing we forget ours why! At the end of this post, I have action items for you to truly get past these top mistakes.

 2. Too Busy to Make Progress – Freeze

Have you felt that it can take so much to grow a practice from paperwork, client work, scheduling, billing, charting, emails, and phone calls? We get so bogged down with all those details and become unsure where what to do next. Then we get worried about what is more important to do that nothing gets done. This can leave us frozen and doing nothing.

The question I get asked by a lot of my coaching clients is

“Where should I really be spending my time?!”

My clients come up with the best reasons that have not made progress, check to see if you have told yourself any of theses – “I know I should network, but not feeling confident in my practice yet to talk about it yet.”  “I don’t want to feel like a slimy sales person, so I don’t want to market or sell my practice.” “I’m a super shy person, so I don’t want to go out of my way to talk to people.”

Get out of your head and get organized! Check out action item #2 on how to get past your frozen state.

3. Not Marketing!!!

When do you decide to open your practice where you just like me?  Hoping and wishing that by magic there will be a line of client waiting outside your door to see you just because you made a website and printed out business cards. I want you to think of marketing as your new second job. Yes, you are a professional first and treating clients but the second hat is a marketer. If you have the feeling of being a sleazy sales person in your mouth by the word marketing, brush your teeth and get over it! This is not marketing, you are sharing what you do for people and trying to let them know how you can serve them.

You are here to serve and help people. This mindset shift is moving away from the idea of selling and towards the idea fo helping and serving.

Mindshift – need to see self a marketer, and you are here to serve people and help, and moving away from the idea of selling and towards the idea of helping and serving. Another mindest shift we will need to change too and that I see often is  “I’m full right now, so I don’t need to market”- you always need to be marketing because your clients are never a guarantee.”  Nothing is guaranteed, and keeping marketing as your second job will help to build a more secure practice with a consistent flow of clients.

4. Doing it all- but not targeted

You might be doing everything and yet seeing nothing for all your hard work. Does this sound like you? Are you writing the blogs, on all the social channels, at every local event chatting with everyone? And do you have with this mentality I will work with any client that is needing help? Yes, we are all needing clients but doing all of the stuff with out a game plan can leave you with no clients and feeling burnt out and overwhelmed.

In iLiveWell Business Academy I teach y’all how to build a custom marketing map. In next weeks blog post we will talk about narrowing down your niche to find your ideal client.  For this week, do action item #4- Do 1 thing and do it well.

5. No Support

Yes, we are in private practice and we might not be interacting a lot with other professionals all the time. This is not good. I want you taking all this marking education and putting into to practice. Make time in your schedule to interact with others, maybe through a mastermind group, meet up, working with a coach, or attending a conference or retreat. Pick something and schedule it.  It takes support and accountability to make things happen. Having encouragement of others help you to take your practice to the next level.

Join me on Facebook for even more support and tips with me!!

Action Items:

1. Know your WHY. Take time right now and write it out. Why did you choose to go into this profession?
2. Getting over the Freeze – make a list of all your fears about marketing/sales and everything you should be doing. This can include blogging, emailing professionals, following up with colleagues, etc. Take that list and put EVERY item in your calendar with a due date. If it is not scheduled it won’t happen!
3.  How do you serve your clients?
4.  Pick 1 and become a master. If you are a rock star at blogging- then blog your ass off and do it consistently. If you are a social butterfly and can talk to any stranger and become besties, then I want you at EVERY networking event in your area. I give you full permission to pick 1 thing and rock it!
5. Schedule time to interact with humans. Find mastermind group, meet up, working with a coach, or attending a conference or retreat and commit to attending to put all this into practice and to hold you accountable.