Today is April Fool’s Day… a day I hated as a kid.
I felt stupid enough on my own, and never really felt like it was necessary to have an entire day when everyone I knew was encouraged to make me feel even worse.
To be honest, as an adult, I’m no more fond of the idea behind this day than I was in the 1950’s.
That’s why I’m staging a protest by writing to you about a few things that are NOT a joke when it comes to the business of your practice. 🙂
1. Your business isn’t going to happen without you.
You can’t get a successful business from a magic lamp, a magic wand, a magic bean, a magic mirror or a magic spell… because creating your business it isn’t magic—it’s work that only you can do.
If you could hire someone to do it for you, your clients would be confused when they came for the first time—they’d be looking for the person who attracted them, not for you!
2. You aren’t going to be an overnight success.
Nobody is.
People we call “overnight successes” joke about all the years of work they put into that success before it happened “overnight.”
The truth is that there’s work involved in finding the right clients, building a great practice, and having the sustainable business that keeps you doing what you love for as long as you want to do it.
It takes time, it’s not “once and done” and you don’t get there faster by waiting to get started.
What makes the work worthwhile is that feeling inside yourself that comes from realizing that you’re earning a living by helping people in the way that only you can.
3. Putting your head in the sand won’t fix anything.
If what you’ve been doing hasn’t been bringing in enough clients to make the money you need, it’s time to put on your Big Kid Panties and have a look at what that means.
It could be that you aren’t attracting enough people, or that you don’t know how to make them see the value in working with you. Maybe you don’t know how to talk about money or you feel your insides dissolve into goo when someone says “No.”
Or maybe it’s all so painful you don’t even want to look at it, much less think about it.
At the very least, what it means is that if you don’t change anything—you’re looking at another year of not making enough money.
There’s a lot of conflicting advice out there.
You can find people who tell you all kind of things that make your inner voices go wild:
- With their system, you can make $100,000 or more in next to no time. (To make this true, all you have to do is be exactly like them.)
- Their templates work for everyone, so don’t even think about it—just use them as they are. (If THAT one were true, I wouldn’t have needed to create the programs I offer)
- If you want it enough, you’ll get it. (This one is so offensive—because I know that if it were true, you’d certainly have it by now.)
The reason you may be rolling your eyes right now is that those are the April Fool’s jokes. But don’t get caught thinking that must mean there aren’t any real answers that will work for you.
The truth is, you don’t have to live in confusion and overwhelm, you don’t have to pretend to be someone else, and you don’t have to do it alone… however, if you want it to change, you ARE the one who has to do it.
What’s your plan for that?
If you don’t have one, but you know that more clients would change everything, have a look at Heart-to-Heart. It focuses on the skills that help practitioners attract and enroll at least 80% of the clients who come for a first session
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