Ask Marilyn

Answering YOUR Burning Marketing and Business Development
questions to ensure a full and thriving holistic practice.

Submit Your Question for Ask Marilyn HERE

October 29th, 2009

• Have you every wondered how to set fair prices that prospects won’t balk at?

• Have you struggled to motivate a potential client to make that final decision without seeming too pushy?

• Have you fought against marketing because you want it to all happen naturally?

If so, you might actually be asking yourself…

‘How can I feel good about compelling people to invest in me?”

Let me ask you this. If your dear friend had health concerns and was fed up with her doctor, would you try to compel her to visit your new holistic chiropractor who had recently changed your life? Would you be creative and persistent? Would you feel elated when she finally said ‘yes’? Of course! So, why when you are doing the same on behalf of your own business does it feel manipulative? Forced? Even deceitful? Aren’t we holding our potential clients as complete and whole?

Is it purely because you have a distaste for the role of salesperson or is there something deeper going on? Perhaps you don’t want to be a stand for that person investing in you because some voice inside is telling you it would not be in their best interest. Perhaps that voice is going even farther and telling you that you are a fraud.

So, are you?!?!?

According to Merriam-Webster, a fraud is a ‘person who is not who he or she pretends to be’. So, if you are pretending to have knowledge, skills or information that you do not have, it is probably time to find something else to do with your time. However, if you are in that common gray area where you compare yourself unfavorably to other providers or wonder exactly how to quantify the value you bring to your clients lives, you just have a little grounding to do!

1. Accept where you are in your own mastery. There may be other healers who have achieved facility beyond yours and they are either reaping the rewards of their work with high level clients, waiting lists and book tours or they have chosen to keep a low profile which may not be in service to their ideal clients! Your willingness to take what you have and get out there makes you brave as well as devoted.   

1. Remember that your offering is unique. You are a healer, a teacher, a coach, a consultant but most importantly, you are YOU! You might simply rest in the knowledge that whatever is flowing through you happens to heal and support others. Or, you might be ready to do some soul searching to give shape and language to this ‘you-ness’ so that you can give that clarity to yourself as well as your prospects. In either case, just know that it does not have to be proven, it simply is.

1. Take the pressure off. You may not want to be responsible for building the whole house, but boy are you talented with plumbing. Weird analogy aside, the larger promise of coaching in your target market might be financial freedom. But on route to that is a discrete shift from blocked to unblocked and that is where you come in and get the job done. By crystallizing your role and putting it in the context of a larger goal you are compelling and inspiring without overstating what you are here to facilitate. You are almost instantly transformed into a masterful specialist just be defining your contribution.

1. Get over it!   Guess what? You are not the only life coach who has imbalance in her life. You are not the only energy worker who has blocks physically or financially. The point is not to pretend anything. Just be the one out in front of the line with a willingness to learn and share. This is called leadership and it is no small feat.

You are not a fraud, however there may be some inauthenticities in your mindset and even in the way you have set up your business. You may be pushing yourself to be too much or comparing yourself to something you are not. That can feel like a lie because it is one you are telling yourself and it impacts your ability to share freely and passionately with others. It is not malicious but it can be very uncomfortable and you deserve to be rid of it. Not to mention, your future clients deserve a more clear and confident you.

Want some help working through your own blocks?

Get on the Hot Seat at one of our upcoming events!

Click Here for details.

Happy Marketing!

Best,

Marilyn

Marilyn O'Leary
The Business Healer
www.HolisticBusinessDevelopment.com

Want to join this discussion? Log In Now or Join the HPBA for FREE using the button on the left column of the HOME PAGE.