Successful Marketing And Business Building  – Day 2 of 5

Thinking (Just Enough) Like A Real Business Person

Now that you have worked on your own value and hopefully you are starting to reassess your financial worth to clients, the next step is to start focusing RIGHT NOW on increasing the most important numbers in your business.

The information and exercises here were initially put together in a report for my hypnotherapy colleagues but the truth is that these principles are universal and getting this stuff right will change your results profoundly.

1.    How many new clients you are seeing
2.    How many times you see each client
3.    How much you charge per client session
4.    How many referrals you receive from each client

I’m sure you have been told this many times before, but if you’re still not seeing as many clients each week as you would like to, then it needs to be repeated and illustrated in many different ways until it starts to sink in.

Understand the ‘numbers’ of your business

Of the four numbers above, it is the first two that you need to be specifically focusing on more than anything else in terms of your business development, ie:

1.    How many new clients you are seeing
2.    How many times you see each client

Let me give you a demonstration of why these two numbers are critical for you to survive and flourish.

I’ll start with a hypothetical scenario. Let’s say you see 10 new clients a month and you see each of those clients for five sessions on average. Let’s say also that you charge $100 per session.

Therefore:

Current Monthly Revenue
Your monthly revenue is 10 x 5 x 100 = $5,000
Annually that makes a revenue of 12 x $5,000
= Annual revenue for your practice of $60,000

Now, let’s look at what happens if you increase each of those numbers by just 10% (an achievable goal, I hope you agree).

So now you see 11 new clients a month for 5.5 sessions on average and you charge $110.

New Monthly Revenue
Your new monthly revenue would be 11 x 5.5 x 110 = $6,665
Annually that makes a revenue of 12 x $6,665
= Annual revenue for your practice of $79,860

So by increasing three things by just 10% each, you have increased the overall annual revenues for your practice by over 33%!

And your profits will increase by a LOT more than 33% because so many of your fixed costs stay the same.

Now it’s critical for you to understand this concept for several reasons, not least because if your competitors understand this kind of basic marketing they are going to slay you. Sorry to have to be so blunt but it’s true.

Small Improvements Make a Massive Difference!

There are other things you can improve such as your referral systems, leveraging your skills to deliver training days, produce products, provide consultancy etc but for most of you I think that the best advice right now is to look at those three numbers and ask yourself the following questions.

1.    How can I get 10% more new clients each week or month?
2.    How can I see my clients for 10% more sessions?
3.    What’s stopping me from increasing my charges by 10%?

A couple of quick notes.

Numbers 2 and 3 on the above list are NOT unethical!

Seeing a client once if you don’t provide sufficient value is unethical. Seeing a client 10 times and providing true value is not only ethical it is priceless.

Seeing your clients for more sessions is often incredibly ethical. I have studied this extensively and in my experienced opinion, most therapists and coaches are far more guilty of seeing their clients for too few sessions and short changing them in terms of the amount of change and improvement they are getting.

And if you don’t feel you provide enough value to see your clients for multiple sessions then you need to get more training, more skills, more ideas.

Also, it all comes down to value. If you really believe that you can give clients value then you are worth every penny, every session and more.

I believe this with a passion! If the average person cut their fast food budget by 50% and spent the money on personal development, coaching, therapy etc, then the world would be a SIGNIFICANTLY happier place.

What you need to realise (and this is a good opportunity for me to throw a metaphorical bucket of cold water in your face) is that there are people out there now in your home town who understand these laws of business and they are chasing after the same potential clients as you.

So if you get this right you will soon be back on an equal footing with them and everything will start to get a lot easier for you.

Tomorrow’s lesson is called :

How to Get More Clients In – Something They Didn’t Teach You on Your Training Program

Look forward to seeing you then…

All the very best

Ed Lester

“The Secrets of A Highly Successful Website” – Do you wish you could get more clients online?