Well, 2009 has sure proven to be an interesting year, has it not?  As the old Chinese curse says, ‘May you live in interesting times.’

A number of our most established social and economic paradigms are going through a process of rapid disintegration, which is causing a lot of angst, stress, and fear for most small business owners.

Judging from the many emails I have received this year, I know that many of you reading this post right now have been hit hard by the recession.  Not only are many practitioners struggling with declining patient numbers and income, but there is also a clear sense that many wellness professionals are feeling disempowered during this time.

THIS HAS TO STOP!

And that is exactly why I am offering this teleclass this week called Make 2010 Your Best Year Ever.

From what I can tell, the economy is not going to improve much in the coming year.  Most small businesses will continue to struggle… most people will feel financially cramped… and most will buy into the ‘doom and gloom’ mentality portrayed by the mainstream media.

So, with that said, I have one VERY important question for you right now.  If you have not yet reached your financial and business goals, what are you going to do in 2010 to change this?

I am sure you are aware that you will get more of whatever is happening right now–unless you take some proactive steps to better your situation.

Now, here is why I am very optimistic about the coming year.  While most businesses will struggle, there will be a select number of you who quietly enjoy your most lucrative and successful year ever.

Who is this select group and what are they exactly are they doing that is different from the masses?  The answer is shockingly simple:

1.  These are the practitioners and business owners who are proactively, consciously, and consistently working with their own minds.  They are the ones who are choosing to let go of limiting beliefs, disempowering storylines, and any tendency toward a scarcity mindset.  While most of the world is steeped in crisis mode, these entrepreneurs see the current paradigm shifts as an enormous opportunity to help more people.

This person has the mindset of, ‘I will do whatever it takes to succeed and I simply will not stop until I reach my goals.’  In order to truly own this mindset, we have to be highly aware of all the obstacles we impose on reality.. and we have to be willing to step into the unknown and let those old beliefs die.

And when we do, I can’t even describe the shift that takes place.  We see that we are fully accountable for our own success, that we have the power to create whatever we want in business and in life–regardless of where we live, what the economy is doing, or how many competitors we are up against.

2.  These are the practitioners and business owners who have a strategic marketing plan in place that they implement on a consistent basis.  They take their practice seriously.  They want to acquire the skills and knowledge that directly lead to seeing more clients and making more money.

This is the kind of practitioner that wants to go out and network their practice.  They pour themselves into learning online marketing because they see the potential there to get new clients.  This practitioner loves sharing what they do in whatever way they can, whether it’s through public speaking, referral groups, or collaborating with other practitioners.

WHAT THIS ALL COMES DOWN TO FOR YOU…

Now, here is why I am optimistic in 2010– IF you acknowledge and embrace both of these factors for success in the coming year, there is NO WAY you can fail!  Your success comes down to your mindset and your marketing.  If you are really strong on both of these fronts, your practice will be recession-proof.

This has certainly been my personal experience and that of many of my coaching clients, as 2009 has been an amazing year for so many of us.

For the upcoming teleclass, I am going to dive deeply into these concepts and offer you some really powerful guidance on becoming a  fully empowered practice owner in 2010.  I am going to teach you how I personally have overcome some pretty thick layers of limiting beliefs (some of which is based on my book the Purpose Principle).  Then, I want to lay out a marketing blueprint for you in the coming year that is based on the highest leveraging, lowest cost practice-building strategies that have been proven to work time and again.

If this sounds interesting to you, you can sign up for the teleclass here.

I am excited to work with you and I can’t wait to hear about the changes you are making to get yourself aligned with your highest vision for a purposeful and prosperous practice.

Kevin

I want to share a few chiropractic practice management tips that should really help you avoid being a victim of the economic downturn.  Many chiropractors are struggling to make it in private practice, mainly because they are missing the right foundation that will enable them to succeed.

By far and away, the most important focus of your chiropractic marketing efforts should be on positioning yourself as an expert.  Think of it this way:  If you’re dong what 90% of the other chiropractors are doing to market their services, you’ll get the same results as they do–mediocre at best.

You absolutely have to learn to get creative in the way you package your services and attract patients to your practice.  Here are 3 things you can do right away to quickly and effectively establish an aura of expertise that makes people attracted to your work:

1.  Develop your creative faculties– spend 10 minutes every day in silence, simply asking for a new creative impulse to arise within you.  You can do this in relation to any problem you’re facing in your business or it can be a way of pushing the edge of innovation in your work.  Many thought leaders and geniuses claim that they a basic meditation such as this every day.  The idea here is that your creative genius is born out of a place of inner stillness.

2.  Create an information product for your practice– Consider writing a special report or e-book for your practice and using it for both online and offline marketing.  You can also offer a free audio recording, which for some people is even easier to create.  You can take a basic topic like 3 All-Natural Ways to Optimal Health and offer your info product to current patients, on your website, and at various networking events.

3.  Shoot a video informercial of your practice– This is a fantastic way to authentically sell your services.  Video is a great way to position yourself as an expert in your industry.  You can add a video to your website and you can upload videos to websites like Youtube which is a great way to come up high on organic search engines.  This doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just a 90 second overview of who you are, how you help people, and what kinds of approaches you utilize.  People respond very well to the medium of video, especially for service-based professionals.

What other ways can you get creative with your practice and position yourself as an expert?  This is where marketing becomes fun!  Not to mention that these are crucial steps to take for transcending the economic struggle that so many chiropractors are enduring.  Creativity is one of the secret keys to a lucrative private practice; always remember that if your practice is slower than you want it to be.

I invite you to go to http://www.ConsciousChiropracticBusiness.com and download my free conscious chiropractor starter kit that is full of excellent practice development and marketing tips.

Kevin Doherty is a licensed business development consultant to chiropractors who want to build private practices with integrity and awareness. He is the author of The Purpose Principle, Build Your Dream Practice, Online Mastery for Holistic Pracitioners, and is co-creator of the Practice Evolution Success Kit.

I’ve noticed that many of the coaching clients I have been starting out with lately still have an ‘old school’ understanding of marketing.  This means that they still buy into the approach that you should just run typical display ads or throw up a website that says something to the effect of:  ‘I’m great, take my word for it, and call me now to start paying me for what I offer.’

Now, this used to work–mainly because it was the only way to go about marketing.  This traditional marketing style is a big reason why so many service-based business owners HATE marketing; it feels like a hard/cheesy/inauthentic selling approach.  Conscious business owners don’t want to have to convince someone to do business with them.  They don’t want to force people to see the value in what they offer.  In fact, they don’t want to have to sell at all.

With the development of the web 2.0 world, there is indeed very good news for the entrepreneur who hates selling–you no longer have to!  No longer is it acceptable to try and sell before you have conveyed value.  In this day and age, the average consumer is aware of how much buying power they have.  They want you to offer them something first, something that requires no risk or commitment on their part, before they will pay for your product or service.

This is exactly what the web 2.0 world is about and why marketing has undergone a quiet revolution over the past year or two.  In this day and age, it’s all about getting people to interact and engage with you first.  It’s about establishing a connection before you sell anything.

If you’re a reluctant marketer, this should come as very good news.  You see, now you can offer value-based information as your main marketing strategy.  This can be done on your website by offering a free special report, e-course, or audio message to your web viewers.

Now, because so many business owners are stuck in their view of traditional marketing, the majority still don’t have an opt in form on their website to collect contact information in exchange for useful information.  (Hint:  this is critical to a successful website)

This simple feature of your website is oen of the defining factors of the web 2.0 world.  it’s all about the exchange between you and your audience.  Now, what this does is it builds credibilty, trust, and rapport.  People feel like they know you before they ever even speak with you. Your audience will decide that they want to do business with you because your information sells itself.  It’s a natural and effortless process.  Doesn’t that sound nice?

If you’re serious about creating a strong online presence, make sure you have an opt in form on your website and something valuable you can offer people for free.  If you set this up correctly, you’ll find that your marketing just got a whole lot easier.

Kevin Doherty

RE:  HOW ACUPUNCTURISTS, CHIROPRACTORS, MASSAGE THERAPISTS, AND PSYCHOTHERAPISTS CAN LEVERAGE THE INTERNET TO GAIN MORE EXPOSURE AND ATTRACT NEW CLIENTS IN THEIR LOCAL AREA

I want to give you a brief overview of how to build your practice using various internet marketing strategies.  In this day and age, the internet can be your primary way of attracting new clients and building a thriving practice.  If you know how to market online, you’ll have a huge advantage.  If you don’t, you’ll struggle.  It’s really as simple as that.

All of these points are greatly expanded upon in my e-book Online Mastery for Holistic Practitioners which you can find at http://www.buildyourdreampractice.net/onlinemastery

1.  Get a website and add web 2.0 features to ensure it serves as a tool for attracting the right clients to you:  A whopping 50% of holistic practitioners don’t even have a website which to me is just pure craziness.  Very few of the ones that do have a site are utilizing the most up to date features including blogging, video, and opt in forms to collect contact information.  To enjoy a competitive advantage online, you want to implement all of these cutting edge trends!

If you don’t have a website yet, or you do but you aren’t getting much business from it, you can check out the Dream Practice web package at http://www.buildyourdreampractice.net/webpackage

2.  Article marketing:  Write a series of health-related articles and submit them to online article directories like http://www.ezinearticles.com on a regular basis.  There are a number of free article directories that will get your content all over the internet.  Do a google search on ‘free article directories’ and you’ll see what I mean.

3.  Social media:  You tube, twitter, and facebook are taking over cyperspace, as these are all some of the most highly populated websites out there.  I recommend setting up a profile on each of these and learn how to gain exposure and credibility on each of these.

4.  Joint venture partnerships:  Find other practitioners in your area who are offering similar but not identical services and contact them to set up a mutual referral system between your practices.  You can find all kinds of practitioners in your area on Google.

5.  Be sure to get plenty of back links to your website through directories like

• www.altmd.com
• www.holisticoption.com
• www.wellnessdestinationscentral.com
• www.acufinder.com
• www.psychologytoday.com

If you take some time to dive into the details of each of these strategies, your practice will greatly benefit.  Good luck!

Kevin Doherty

http://www.buildyourdreampractice.net

Chiropractic Marketing and Practice Management

Chiropractors generally seem to have a better understanding of how to market their practices than the acupuncturists, massage therapists, and psychotherapists.  My experience has been that chiropractors tend to treat their practice more like a business, which means that they make marketing more of a priority.

With that said, there are still many chiropractors who are currently struggling to build and market a private practice.  Many chiropractors are concerned that the economy is going to destroy their chances for a successful practice.

I have also worked with chiropractors who are still trying to use a lot of outdated and expensive marketing approaches and coaching programs to build their practices.  One of my coaching clients was spending $20,000 a year on a well-known practice-building program until he came across my Dream Practice website where he learned that he could implement a much more cutting-edge approach at a fraction of the cost.

As a chiropractor, you don’t need to spend $20k on some fancy coaching system to build your practice.  Many of these approaches use hard-selling, aggressive and outdated approaches, like doing free evaluations and then making the patient feel like they’re an absolute fool if they don’t commit to a long-term and expensive treatment process.

The chiropractors that I work with are committed to the path of conscious entrepreneurship.  They are not interested in aggressive sales tactics, unnecessarily freqent and lengthy treatment plans, or coercing their patients into care they really don’t need.  If practiced with a certain intention, chiropractic can be a tool that shifts people’s consciousness as much as it treats subluxations and improves pain disorders.

The chiropractors who are committed to this intention tend to do very well using the Dream Practice coaching system.  My approach focuses on a few key principles:

1.  Identifying your unique purpose in the services you offer– Most chiropractors don’t have any compelling and unique attributes that distinguish them from their competitors.  This is the foundation to all marketing– and when it’s not in place, whatever you do to promote your work will be much less effective than you’d like it to be.  To help with this, I recommend picking up a copy of my new book The Purpose Principle at http://www.buildyourdreampractice.net/purpose

2.  Utlizing online technology– Your chiropractic website can be the most powerful marketin asset for your practice, but only if it is set up right.  Your website should be consistently generating new patients and helping you to retain current patients more effectively.  You can learn more about my web package at http://www.buildyourdreampractice.net/webpackage

3.  Transcending symptomatic care– Many chiropractors are perceived as a sort of mechanic for the body; when a body part is damaged, go to the chiropractor to get it fixed.  My feeling is that many chiropractors are longing to offer something more profound and meaningful in their work, but they aren’t sure how to go about this.  This kind of chiropractor feels empty spending 5 minutes with a patient, giving them a quick adjustment, and sending them out the door, only to have them come back 2 days later when their spine goes out again.  For this chiropractor, success isn’t defined by how much money they make or by how many patients they can cram in the schedule for the week; it is defined by the degree to which they can help their patients make authentic and long-term changes that deeply impact their quality of life.

4.  Creating long-term therapeutic relationships that are based on the real-life evolution of the patient, not on maintaining care just because… that’s what you do when you see a chiropractor.

My main goal in working with chiropractors who want to become conscious entrepreneurs is to help them:

• clarify their USP (unique selling proposition)
• establish a very strong online presence
• create meaningful relationships with their patients through effective education
• generate a powerful word of mouth marketing campaign
• create diverse income streams within the practice
• leverage their time better so they have a life outside their work
• be perceived as the most credible expert in their local area

Once all of these objectives are implemented properly, I have witnessed many chiropractors build primarily cash-based practices– even in areas where everyone else is relying on insurance.  It is possible, but it takes a lot of clarity, creativity, honesty, and strong education/communication skills.

You can learn more about the coaching services I offer at:

http://www.buildyourdreampractice.net/personalcoaching

and my most comprehensive coaching package:

http://www.buildyourdreampractice.net/coachingclub.html

Kevin Doherty

http://www.buildyourdreampractice.net