Business Success For Alternative Medicine Practitioners & Therapists In Private Practice

Having a successful practice demands more than technical skills, or being a great healer. You need to be able to manage a business as well. Here's some ideas and suggestions on how to do this. Also check out our tips for being more organised and motivated on our sister site.

• Communicate with Power
  by Jo Condrill
  From calming down irate customers to negotiating with vendors to giving instructions to employees, your communication skills determine your success.

• On Being A Personal Trainer
  by Jon Burch
  As a Personal Trainer I still have personal training sessions, I still attend classes regularly and I make sure my own health and fitness is as important to me as my clients.

• Getting More Web Visitors For Free
  by Jane Thurnell-Read
  You’ve got a web site, but how do you get visitors? How do you increase the traffic to your site without having to pay for it?

• Money And The Therapist
  by Jane Thurnell-Read
  Whenever I’ve said: “I like money”, I’ve seen other therapists looking either embarrassed or shocked, but why is this? Why should therapists be secretive or ambivalent about money?

• Is Your Practice Successful?
  by Jane Thurnell-Read
  Is my practice successful? Some of you will instantly answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but others will say ‘It depends what you mean by success’. So what is success? When people are asked this question, they usually include some or all of these.

• Free Images, Free Info For Your Web Site
  by Jane Thurnell-Read
  If you’re one of the many people who don’t have the time or inclination to write, and don’t have the creativity or bank balance for professional images, there are some simple solutions.

• Reiki on the Road
  by Bronwen Stiene
  Have you always wanted to travel but your budget is a little short and you're worried you'll 'feel so lonely I could die, boom boom'?Well there's something that you could take with you that might help and will always leave love and compassion strewn across the path behind you.

• 5 Key Strategies To Juggling Work And Family With Ease
  By Athena Williams-Atwood
  Are you a woman business owner struggling with the juggling? You’re committed to running a successful business while also needing to manage your family life. It can be absolutely exhausting! Bet you’re ready to take a new approach. Are you ready to juggle work and family with ease?

• 10 Tips for Telephone Success
  by Jo Ann Kirby
  The telephone is an often under-appreciated and much maligned piece of office equipment. These 10 tips will help you improve your telephone presence and presentations.

• A Basic Branding Introduction For Therapists
  by Devin Dyason
  I have found over the years that so many excellent therapists just aren’t good (to put it mildly) at branding and marketing themselves. In fact many will not even understand the concept of branding, thinking it to be a company logo or something similar.

• Getting Your Marketing Message Across
  by Robert Middleton
  How do you create a message with substance? Here's a 5-step process that will work for you.

• Eliminating Speaker Jitters
  by Sandra Schrift
  Nervousness is fear of failure. Here is the secret of conquering anxiety. Become message-centered and audience-centered, not self-centered. Stop thinking of yourself, and start thinking of your message.

• Money And Emotions
  David Krueger, M.D.
  In over 90% of the hundreds of people I have polled, their annual income would need to be roughly double its current amount for them to feel happy, content, without money problems and worries.

• Be A More Confident Practitioner
  By Jane Thurnell-Read
  The more confident you are as a practitioner the more clients you are likely to have. You are also likely to be more successful both in financial terms and in terms of getting people well. How do you achieve that fabulous confident air?

• What Makes a Good Speaker?
  by Sandra Schrift
  Therapists often get called on to give talks, so here are 10 characteristics of successful speakers by the owner of a national, professional speakers bureau.

• The Goal Setting Blueprint
  by Michael A. Jones
  Is there some goal setting formula or strategy that can be employed to increase your chances of success? Thankfully, YES! What follows is a blueprint for success in goal setting.

• Effective Communication Skills - How To Build Rapport With Everyone You Meet
  by Michael A. Jones
  Understanding people's preferred method of communication can help you to establish rapport more easily.

• Why Your Local Business Needs a Website That Can Be Found By Customers
  by Lynn VanDyke
  The truth of the matter is that EVERYONE is using the Internet in some way. People go to the Internet first when they’re thinking about purchasing something or learning about something.

• Business Card Design: The Power Of Three
  by Sean D'Souza
  The brain finds it relatively easy to grasp threes. Push that marginally up to four and the brain gets confused about where to look and what to do.

• Networking: Five Myths and Realities
  by George Torok
  Many people are frightened of networking or believe that they have to be loud and pushy. Learn the right way to network.

• The Trio of Abundance
  by Michael Lee
  Wishing alone will not lead to abundance. Here's a practical three section strategy to living abundantly.

• Why Being Fantastic Isn't Enough
  by Bryan Knight
  "Word-of-mouth will have people lining up for months to see me" Wrong. Why is being marvellous at what you do not enough to build a great business?

• Specialisation & Your USM
  by Dr Bryan Knight
  Many practitioners try to be all things to all people, with a long list of problems they treat. Here's a different view from Dr Knight.

• Take Your Therapy Practice Abroad
  by Deborah Marshall-Warren
  You may be surprised to discover that your consultancy could be as short as fourteen days. This allows you to prepare to be away more easily, and to schedule these ‘away-days’ in the sun into your overall professional and personal life. 

• Look Where You’re Going!
  by Jane Thurnell-Read
  I don’t know about you, but as a child my parents often told me to look where I was going. As a small child I was irritated by yet one more parental instruction, but thinking about it as an adult it’s a really sound piece of advice – and not just to avoid walking into other people. It’s a piece of advice for the whole of your life.

• Charismatic Communication - The Seven Keys To A Charismatic Voice
  by Desmond Guilfoyle
  There are widely shared prototypes on the qualities that constitute leadership and leaders. Individuals who 'fit' universal categories, who look and sound the part in a particular culture, will be more readily embraced by audiences than those who don't.

• Do You Need A Low-Cost, Professional Web Site?
  by Jane Thurnell-Read
  Many practitioners think having a web site is expensive, and anyway they wouldn't know how to go about it. If you’re one of these people, I’ve found a company who can hold your hand and produce a web site for you that looks good, doesn’t cost a lot and is fabulously easy to set up.

• Getting Referrals
  Alternative/complementary therapists tell me everyday that the way they generate the most new clients is through referrals. Yet they don't seem to grasp the power of this statement.

• Web Site Promotion
  by Jane Thurnell-Read
  Do you have a web site already or are you thinking of getting one? Are you concerned about web site promotion and search engine optimization? Here's some tips on how to do it better.

• Wikipedia & Therapies
  by Jane Thurnell-Read
  Have you looked up the therapy/therapies you practise in Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, written by its readers? Many people now consult this free online encyclopedia, so take a look and see what it says about therapies that you hold close to your heart.

• URLs & Emails
  by Jane Thurnell-Read
  If you have a blog or a web site, do you have the URLs in your signature on your emails, and are they properly formatted? If you don't understand the questions, let me explain.

• Promote Yourself - Start A Blog
  by Jane Thurnell-Read
  Why not start a blog yourself to promote what you do and the successes you’re having? It’s not difficult – honestly. 

• Attracting Clients
  by Jane Thurnell-Read
  Many of us are familiar with visualisation. We use it to help ourselves and other people achieve greater health and well-being. Some time ago it occurred to me that we could use this to attract clients. I've explained this technique to a number of clients, and most have reported that it has been very successful.

• Client Newsletters
  by Jane Thurnell-Read
  Sending out a regular newsletter can work very well, but for the best effect it is important that clients don't see this as simply an advert for you and your practice.

• Stimulating Existing Clients
  by Jane Thurnell-Read
  Many practitioners seem to believe that being a successful practitioner is all about technique, but this is far from the truth. Having good business skills is very important too.

• Who's Visiting Your Web Site?
  by Jane Thurnell-Read
  Here's a free web site meter that can give you all sorts of information about visitors to your web site.

• Getting Discouraged
  by Jane Thurnell-Read
  As practitioners it's easy to get discouraged, because none of us are successful all of the time. Here's some suggestions on how to deal with the lows.

• Marketing Yourself
  by Jane Thurnell-Read
  Many practitioners are technically brilliant, but do not market themselves properly. Here's a web site that may help you.

• Running A Successful Business
  by Jane Thurnell-Read
  I know some of you struggle to be successful, not because your technical knowledge is poor, but because the correct business strategies aren't in place.

• An Excellent Business Strategy
  by Jane Thurnell-Read
  I give money to charity - it's not just a moral decision, it's also a shrewd business decision.

• Encouraging Referrals
  by Jane Thurnell-Read
  Most people like to be recognised for what they do, and we can use that to stimulate client referrals.

• Free Images For Your Work
  by Jane Thurnell-Read
  Do you have a web site without many images, or a brochure or handout without many pictures? Then here's a free source of quality images.

• Instilling Client Confidence In You
  by Jane Thurnell-Read
  One often overlooked area of client management is putting in place strategies to give confirmation to the client that they've made the right decision in coming to see you.

• Thinking About The Present & The Future
  by Jane Thurnell-Read
  In the early days of running my business I used to get very stressed about the need to think about the present and the future almost at the same time.

• Managing Time
  by Jane Thurnell-Read
  Do you feel there's too much to do? Heere's a book review that may help you find a way through.