Business Growing Funnel

Day Six of How to Attract Clients and Grow a Thriving Private Practice in 40 Days: One woman’s personal journey of applying Manifestation and Marketing principles to re-building her private practice

By Kathryn Yarborough

Today I'm going to work on the first step of my business growing funnel.

Oh boy is this going to be fun - the beginning of my marketing plan...

I learned about the idea of a business growing funnel in Marketing Your Services: A Step-by-Step Guide for Small Businesses and Professionals. It's a great marketing book if you like this sort of thing.

If you're new to marketing click this link for my Definition of Marketing for healing arts practitioners and small business owners - it can help you understand some of the basic ideas related to marketing - don't skip this!!!

Anyway...

If you think about a funnel... like one you would use to pour liquid into a container with a small whole...

Imagine that your marketing is like a business growing funnel in which you are pouring people who are your target market or ideal clients into so that through this process, some of them will be delighted to find out about your services (or products) and choose you (or your products).

I can’t believe how excited I am about doing this.

Most healing arts practitioners freak out when we start talking about marketing. Most of us don't want to - we just want to do what we love and be done with it.

Oh well - if you want your own practice or conscious business, you're going to have to market it (tell people about it) - or have some great people in your life who do it for you.

When I read Anthony Putman's book Marketing Your Services: A Step-by-Step Guide for Small Businesses and Professionals about ten years ago, I thought, "I can do this." It made marketing sound easy.

About ten years later...

...I'm here to tell you that marketing is easy in some ways and isn't in others... it just depends on your strengths and weaknesses... and whether or not you're willing to grow and learn.

If you want help with it, check out Manifestation Coaching with me or consider taking my Attracting Clients or Customers Workshop in Columbia, MD.

Okay… so here are the some of the steps of the business growing funnel... And what I'm planning on doing to grow my Breath of Life coaching practice.

1. Identify my target market – or the people I love working with who want and need the service I’m offering and who are willing to pay me for that service.


2. Identify ways to communicate my message to them and let them know about my services.


3. Identify what I’ll say or write in my message that will help them know I’m talking to them and how my service will benefit them.


4. Identify ways they can “try” me or my services


5. Identify how I define “clients” and what I’ll say to “tryers” to help them choose to become clients.


6. Identify ways to invite my clients or tryers to refer their friends and family to my Breath of Life presentation, workshop, and private sessions.

So who are my most likely target markets for Breath of Life coaching? As I brainstorm right now here's who comes up for me...

• Healing arts practitioners – I love working with these folks and many of them are open to doing their own personal development work
• People who go to new thought churches
• People who are interested in alternative modalities for healing
• People dealing with some kind of pain who are looking for relief

Oh gosh now comes one of the hard part of the business growing funnel!!! I have to decide which of these groups to focus my marketing time and money on connecting with.

I know that the reason to do this is so I can focus the way I market my services and the language I use in my marketing to these people, but…

It’s so hard to narrow my focus. I DON’T WANT TO!!! I want to offer my services to everyone!

Kathryn (I’m talking to myself)… Kathryn you KNOW that if you pick one of these groups (and you should!) that doesn’t mean you won’t work with other people… it just means you’ll focus your marketing time and money on getting the message to these people.

Let’s just do the “Identify Your Ideal Target Market” worksheet to help you make the best decision at this point… okay?

Later...

...I compared these 4 groups using the “Identify Your Ideal Target Market” worksheet - which you’ll get if you take an Attract Clients workshops with me – and low and behold my ideal target market is healing arts practitioners.

I think it’s because I really enjoy working with them, they’re more likely to get the potency of breath and movement, and they’ll make excellent references or they’ll want to take the training to be Breath of Life coaches themselves!

Coming in 2nd is people in new thought communities. So I think I’ll create a plan for marketing to them as well. Why not?

Well Kathryn (I’m talking to myself again!), remember... the reason to do this is to make sure you’re using your time and money wisely.

I know and…

And I want to do presentations to new thought communities and share the Breath of Life with them. I think and hope they will run with it because it’s like a marriage made in heaven – they’re spiritual, they’ve expanded their minds, and many of them haven’t yet integrated the body piece.

Okay… we’re in the planning stage for the business growing funnel right now (I sometimes say we because it feels like there are several parts of me talking to each other)… so let’s work for now with the healing arts practitioners then come back and do a plan for people in new thought communities. Make sense?

Sounds like a plan!

If you want to find out more about my 40 day journey go from this page on the business growing funnel to my overview and pick the next topic you'd like to read about!

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