Thursday, December 11, 2003

Specializing by Client Need I believe that holistic health practitioners are specializing the wrong way. Right now, people tend to specialize by modality. "I am a massage therapist" or "I am an energy worker" etc. This causes several issues. From a business perspective, it makes marketing difficult. When a business specializes in terms of its own "technology" it cannot present a useful-sounding set of services to its clients. It is like a plumber saying "I use the nifty double-plunge certi-gauged plumb-o-wheel for all my jobs!!" Who cares what technology you use?? What problem that I have can you solve? This is something that has plagued the business world for years. Advertising agencies struggle mightily to give Microsoft or Cisco or IBM a set of services that sound like they solve the problems of the customer. "We give you security and peace of mind." "Choose us and your people will love you." You've all seen the ads, and, undoubtedly, you know that IBM gives you no more or less security than Microsoft or Cisco. The Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) craze in the early 1990s has come into total disrepute since then, because it is blamed for massive layoffs and destroying "company loyalty," which has almost completely disappeared among employees of all large companies since then. BPR mistakenly treated employees like removable cogs in a machine, which, of course, they are not. However, I believe there was one concept that BPR had right. You must align your business with the needs of the customer. The person who answers the phone should be able to help the customer with almost any problem they call in with. I endeavor to help holistic health practitioners understand this same concept. Instead of saying "I am a massage therapist who also does trigger point, LaStone therapy and acupressure" I would like a practitioner to say "I help families with kids who have trouble at school." I know that must sound weird. But think about it. If you were looking through a holistic health magazine (like the Wellpoint, for example), and you had a particular problem, let's say kids who are having trouble at school, how interested would you be in all the various holistic modalities? Probably more confused than interested. But what would happen when you saw the ad for "I help families with kids having trouble at school?" You'd probably jump on it! And would you be doing price comparisons with other holistic practitioners? Probably not, because no one else addresses that particular issue. Everyone else is saying "I'm a massage therapist" and "I'm an aromatherapist" and if you called them up and said "I have this kid who is having trouble in school" they'd say "Come on in and let's see what we can do." Chances are they could really help, actually, but where is your confidence level before the first appointment?? So, my goal is to help each practitioner create a unique (enough) set of services that appeal to a particular customer population. Here are some examples of students so far: - I help people going through divorces (energy healing) - I help people going through chemotherapy or trauma (intuitive healing) - I help emergine psychics and healers (training sessions, novels, intuitive healing) - I help displaced kids reduce their fear (coloring books) - I help people with chronic pain and injuries heal (massage, counseling) - I help medical professionals learn about body work (training) - I help holistic practitioners enrich their own spirituality (massage) - I help overweight kids gain self-respect (yoga, pilates) - I help families with kids having trouble in school (aromatherapy, Bach flowers, nutrition) From a marketing perspective, this makes it much, much easier to attract clients. From a life-long practice perspective, you don't have to stick to that one modality that you've chosen to specialize in. You can branch out to anything, as long as it still serves your stated purpose. Anyway, that is part of what you'd learn in the business planning class. It is so fun to help people find their passion and then to use that to specialize their business. 1:14:15 PM

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