Is It Time For YOU to Automate?

I am frequently asked how I manage to do so much stuff with just me in the business.
 

I always smile and say "I let machines do the work".

It was one of my pet sayings from my corporate days as well. If you embrace technology and don't run from it, there are many times when it can be your friend, saving you a lot of time and making you look really good.

You are in front of new clients all the time and if you can get the WOW effect - they will want to keep working with you too.

 

But to create a long lasting impression you need to create a miracle for them, within moments of them encountering you.

The best place to impress them is before they even come to see you.

If people get a good impression as they visit your value filled website, get drawn to click on the "book now" link and like magic find themselves booked in with you - then their first impression is good. If you WOW them in the session, it will make it incredibly easy for them to want to book with you again.

This is where technology can be your friend. Imagine how you would stand out from the crowd if you have an automated booking system that allows people to book with you anytime of the day or night. It automatically emails them a confirmation when they book. And then sends them a text to remind them of their appointment 24 hours before their treatment is due.

The lovely thing for you is, this can be going on while you are in a treatment with another client.

There is nothing more frustrating about wanting to book with someone and they have to get back to you.

This year I trialled three automated booking systems 

• Flash Appointments
  
• Clickbook
• TimeDriver 

Clickbook won because it did everything I wanted it to and I qualified for the f*r*e*e service - gotta love that price.  

Flash Appointments  also did everything and was slightly easier to use, but was $10 a month

TimeDriver  did a nice job of working in multiple time zones but wouldn't allow me to set the changeover time between sessions.

All these systems offer a free trial period and there are many other great products on the market and as always discern for self if they are right for you.

I'd have to say it took a little while for me to set it up and test it but the long term benefits have far outweighed that initial investment of time.

• No more naughty forgetful clients
  
• No to-ing and fro-ing of emails to get times set up (this used to drive me nuts!)
  
• Great reports in my inbox each day to remind me what I am doing

The system will only book people in the times I specify but I can over ride anything that is set up and book people whenever I like.

The challenges I see for someone who is a bit frightened of technology

• Trusting it can work for you - you won't know unless you try

• Letting go of your old systems - you can try before you buy

• Keeping your paper diary and forgetting to update it when you get a new booking

• Managing demand!

Seriously you wouldn't think the last point would be a problem, but there is a blog post on clickbook from someone who trialled the system for free but didn't go ahead because they got too many new clients and couldn't cope.  Good problem to have I would have thought!

Automation can also stave off the need to employ someone to answer your phones and take your appointments.  One of my clients has put a message on her answering machining telling people they can either leave her a message or book online right now.  She finds most just go and book themselves in online.

Clickbook offers people the next available appointment so you can fill gaps in the day while you are working with clients, maximising your takings for the day and not letting people down because they can't get hold of you to book.

People often comment on the ease of the booking process, which means they have been impressed.

An automated system has the potential to give you a competitive advantage over people who cling to their paper diaries.

Most who do automate, report clients loving the system and they find in most instances that people prefer the online option.

So why don't you consider making use of some downtime over the holidays and create miracles in your practice, simply by letting a machine do the work.

Full disclosure: NONE of the companies mentioned in this article pay me a commission for my recommendations - I mention them because they are quality providers

We all love our modalities right?

We all know how amazing and how much difference they can make to people, animals, the planet in general …. right?

So, if you were the one and only experience a total stranger had of your modality, what would it tell them?

A friend introduced this concept to me just last week and let me tell you the question got my attention and has smartened my act up a lot.


Let’s say for instance you are out at a social event or attending one of your kid’s school functions and someone asks you what you do?

In the next thirty seconds you have the opportunity to shine yourself, what you do and what your modality is all about………..

What will people see?

A strong, clear and confident response that gives people a sense that you are really proud of what you do and have spent the time to really understand what you do for people.  Will they see someone who is basking in the glow of having made a strong, clear decision to move forward in their practice and be someone who is a shining ambassador for the work they love to do ……

OR will the person see someone who is riddled with self doubt, lacking in self confidence, oozing the “not good enough” gene and is so unsure of themselves and what they do with their modality that all they can do is waft on, espousing fluffy and hard to understand descriptions of what their modality might do for someone.

Surprisingly, the difference between the two scenarios has nothing to do with the modality and personal confidence but more to do with the practitioner’s sales and marketing knowledge.  Weird huh!

When it comes down to it, everyone loves their modality or modalities and would fight to the death to defend them ….. but in general most practitioners are actively out in the world damaging their modality with their own self doubt and inability to clearly articulate how it can help everyday people.


Most don’t even know you can learn how to be confident and courageous.  

But the truth is the people who have mastered that level of clarity have actually gone and learnt how to do it.  I’ve invested thousand of dollars to get over myself.  To be honest I still work on it all the time because I’m naturally shy.  Very few people carry a natural ability to sell themselves but it is what makes or breaks you when you encounter new people.  

Most fail to see past the end of our nose.  

My Mum used that statement a lot when I was growing up.  It means to look past yourself and see how your actions are impacting others.  We chug along pretending to be ordinary and not really looking at the ripple effect of our work.  

But who is to say that the Mum you speak to at the school event doesn’t yet realise she has a few cancer cells starting to form in her breast due to the stress she carries in her body.  Maybe a couple of treatments with you to relieve her stress could return those cells to balance and halt that process before it even gets noticed.  

If you haven’t studied sales and marketing and don’t know how to clearly articulate what you do and how you help people at a level they understand, who knows how many don’t get to experience the amazing work you do.  

If you are in the confident category and have a practice full of people who are happily paying your fee, rebook and refer others to your practice and are fully receiving the benefits of regular visits to an alternative health and wellbeing professional.  WELL DONE!  You are very likely changing and in some instances saving lives every day.

But if you are still struggling to even articulate what you do and are still filled with fear and self doubt, don’t beat up on yourself, just know it doesn’t have to be that way.  

I was in the latter category for a very long time until I realised the ripple effect of what I do.  The reason I got really serious about being able to sell myself was simply because I couldn’t deny the power of what I do anymore.  

So I invested in many different programs to help me gain confidence in myself, so I could do the work I love.  It hasn’t come without challenges but my investment in myself and my business has bought a rich layer of satisfaction to my life and work that would never have been possible if I didn’t step out of my comfort zone and educate my weaknesses.

I found five things helped me to get over myself .... I:

1. Understood this thing is bigger than me and not really about me, I’m really only a pawn in a much larger game.
   
   
2. Connected to the undeniable reality that said I wouldn’t have been given the gifts in the first place if a higher power didn’t think I was good enough to use them.
   
   
3. Knew I had to either give up completely or get on with it completely – there was no more sitting on the fence because that was making me really uncomfortable.
   
   
4. Accepted that not everybody will like me, agree with me or even want to work with me but I need to give the ones who do the opportunity to find me because when they do a massive ripple effect ocurs.
   
   
5. Realised I didn’t want to die with the dream of helping others positively locked in the vault of my “not good enough” fears.

Also, there as was a part of me that wanted to prove wrong the PE teacher who used to shout out “and here come Beetle Bomb” in front of the whole class when I ran across the finish line last EVERYTIME and the boyfriend who used to call the me the “I’m gunna gal – gunna do this, gunna do that”.  These cruel taunts hurt and we all have these type of memories.  I’m discovering too that many therapists have serious instances of abuse in their past.  We have all had people tell us things and do things that hurt us at deep levels and make us feel less than.  They win if we don’t stand in our real truth, the truth that we are amazing and that we have special gifts that help others positively and that those gifts deserve to be experienced by those who need them.

The Universe Will Never Give You More Than You Can Handle

This saying buoyed me on and I can tell you its totally true.  Sure thing they have chucked me a couple of curved balls and I dropped some of the balls thrown at me …. but eventually by accepting the help and knowledge of others I figured out how to catch those balls fair and square.  Then of course they just adjusted the machine up a notch :-)

Everyday we are ambassadors for the modalities we love so much.  

Our work can help people at a very high level but are we actively stopping people from accessing the true benefits of a healthy, balanced lifestyle simply because we cannot deliver a confident presence when in public?

Do we continue to give an audience to those drama queens in our head that keep telling us we are not good enough?

There is a miracle in our work that deserves to be experienced by many.

But the truth is – you may be the only person some people ever encounter who is a massage therapist, or a kinesiologist or a crystal healer or a reflexologist, art therapist, reiki practitioner or any of the other thousands of modalities being practised in the world today.  I believe it is our duty to ensure it is the best experience possible and not one riddled with jargon and therapy “in talk”.

We hang out with therapists all the time, so we think everyone knows about natural therapies but I can tell you all those years back when I worked on the desk at the local tourist spa to make ends meet, people turned up every week who had never had a massage in their life.  Many thanked me afterwards for telling them the therapist would hold up a sheet while they got on the table and they would have towels draped over them while the therapist worked on specific areas.  Most importantly they wouldn’t have to wander around the spa butt naked showing off their flabby bits to total strangers.

It was always a great reminder for me to be to mindful that not everyone has encountered the same things we take for granted and it still drives me to encourage therapists to speak in language a five year old would understand.  

It is also a fine time to remember that we are ambassadors for natural therapies and how we hold ourselves in public will sometimes be the only experience people have of a professional from the “alternative” side of medicine.

How are you presenting in the world?