by Celeste Hackett
- The Door by the Dumpster
- Making Hypnosis Warm and Fuzzy
- Find Your Website at the Grocery Store
- Smooth Talking
- Dragons, Fairies and Rainbows
- Why a Little Bigger is a Lot Better
- A FREE Gift for you
The Door by the Dumpster
One of the things I worried about once I decided to office out of my apartment in Plano, Texas, a suburb of North Dallas, was when should I tell potential clients that I work out of a home office? And, would people actually knock at my door once they realized I worked out of an UPSTAIRS apartment? After all, the complex is older, right across from the dumpster and it is THREE flights up!
I wrestled with this for quite a while before deciding to just go for it and see what would happen. I tried to put myself in their place and I wasn’t sure I would actually be willing to see a hypnotist in a home much less an apartment. Still, being the type of person who loves dancing to the tune of a different drum, I went for it anyway. After all, what did I have to lose? Well, if you saw my last article I spelled it out exactly. It only costs me $258.74 a month to run this business!
So how do you get clients to feel confident enough to come to your apartment or home for hypnosis? That is what this article is all about this quarter. Now, I am no marketing guru and I am certainly not a genius, but I can tell you what has worked for me and why I think it has worked. What I hope to offer you is stuff you can put to the test and begin using right away even if you don’t work from home. So, let’s hop to it!
I believe that potential Clients must feel comfortable and confident about YOU in order to move the relationship to the office, a handshake and the chair. Remember, most have never been to a hypnotist and have no idea what to expect. So from my very first contact with them, whatever it is, my goal is to come across friendlyand professional and I encourage you to do the same. So take the time to look closely at your earliest contact with them and then figure out how you can put them at ease and build their confidence.
Making Hypnosis Warm and Fuzzy
One of the first ways clients come in contact with you, is through the name of your business. Things are getting better fast in our industry, but let’s face it; the word hypnosis doesn’t exactly conjure, in the average mind, a professional and friendly image yet. It is for this reason that I suggest that you consider pairing the word “hypnosis” with another word that does sound friendly and safe if you intend to use “hypnosis” as part of your business name.
For me, I thought, what could sound friendlier, safer and yet still make sense for what I do than the word family? So, my business is called Family First Hypnosis. I can not tell you how many people have called me and said they chose me because they liked the name of the business because it didn’t sound weird.
I did actually think about trying to hide the word “hypnosis” and call my business Certain Changes, but I really wanted to create an image that hypnosis is safe, professional and friendly. I did it for our industry as well as for me. Currently, my thinking is that if we just shed better light on our profession through scrupulous practices, truth and good marketing, very soon we will be seeing hypnosis in the light it is due. The information age is already helping with this. The truth is really getting out at a high rate of speed these days!
Find Your Website at the Grocery Store
For many people, a website is another way clients come into contact with them. Once I decided I was definitely getting a website, I knew I had to use it, too, to create an image of friendly and professional. I looked at the top hypnosis websites in Dallas. There were none that really invited me in. To me a website should look like one of those so inviting magazines you see at the check out stand at the grocery store. Magazines that make you really want to turn the pages.
Take a look at the very consumer-friendly First Magazine the next time you are at the check out. First Magazine is so colorful and has some of the best targeted eye-grabbing headlines for women! We love it! We just gotta pick it up and turn a few pages. And who most uses hypnosis? Women.
Have you thought about targeting your websites content to the heart of women? It’s an interesting notion. My website has been heading in the “women’s magazine” direction from its inception. It has a long way to go, but what I have done already has paid off in getting clients to be impressed enough to pick up the phone. There are colorful, pretty photos on the front page and headlines that cause clients to go inside for more information.
I also believe that having a professional photo of you, on the front, with a big smile, is a very good idea. I think that having a photo shows that you are a normal person, professional, approachable person.
Smooth Talking
Oh and remember to watch your language when writing your content for your site. Go back to First magazine. They don’t talk to their women readers in industrial terms. They don’t make them think too hard or use metaphysical words or lingo only known to insiders. They speak at their level of understanding using words that speak to the sensibilities of women. Take some time to really think about this and to do some reading and investigating of your own. Don’t just take my word for it.
Dragons, Fairies and Rainbows
Also, make sure any and all images on your website are appealing and make sense to the average person. Don’t expect a visitor to understand that an image of a lotus flower, a butterfly or a dragon to mean what you want it to mean. A beautiful dragon icon may mean “this is the place to slay your dragons” to you, but to the average person, it’s just plain strange and scary, even if you put a caption that tells exactly what it means!
Why a Little Bigger is a Lot Better
Moving right along, even though I am a very frugal hypnotist, I have more than a one line listing in the Yellow Pages. I think it shows that I am a bit more serious and plan to be around awhile. There are many one-line hypnotists listed who are no longer in business. After you call a few of these one-liners and repeatedly get a “no longer at this number” recording, you really are ready to call a number from a larger seemingly more legitimate ad. It doesn’t have to be a lot larger either. My ad is only ½ inch by 1 ½ inches. It looks something like this:
FAMILY FIRST HYPNOSIS
Plano * North Dallas
www.mybusinessname.com
972-673-0110
This ad only costs me $35.00 per month. I got it when the yellow pages were running a special. I also got an on-line listing with them as well.
Once you’ve got your major contact bases covered, like website and phone ad, make sure you follow up with being professional on the phone, sending a letter confirming their appointments via email or mail within 24 hours on your office letterhead and taking a credit card number on the phone to hold their appointment.
The idea of getting a credit card number on the phone came from Maureen Banyan’s Business pack. I highly recommend you get it. It is full all sorts of information you can use in addition to my advice to get clients from the phone into your door with ease that seems magical!
Once your clients have a mental image of you as a professional through the way you handle your earliest contacts with them – they won’t mind so much where you office. I actually tell them on my contact page that I have a home office and in my confirmation letter and on the phone, but all of the other impressions I’ve given them seem to cause them to overlook “home office” and by the time they realize it, they think it is worth the gamble to come on in and take a look around.
They do sometimes call me from their cell phones in the parking lot asking if the apartment is the right place. And, I guess, at this point they remember that I have their credit card number and that I told them on the phone, “I won’t charge you unless they don’t show up.” Because it isn’t too long after that that I get a knock at my door.
I have not had one person say I’m not coming up to your apartment. Also, No one has left after coming inside. I did have one man call me from the parking lot as he sat on a rumbling Harley Davidson motorcycle though. He said he didn’t know about going to a hypnotist in an apartment because the last hypnotist he went to was in a house, and to his disappointment, he was still smoking. I quickly shifted the conversation to the differences in her techniques and mine, and he forgot his misgivings. That’s when I knew it wasn’t’ about the apartment at all, but about my ability to truly help him.
Just last week, I pulled out of the complex parking lot and heard a rumbling, bumbling bike beside me. I looked over at a man smiling at me and I thought, “oh my gosh this guy is flirting with me!” Then I looked again and realized it was my client. I rolled down my window and raised my voice, “Hey, I didn’t recognize you!” He shot back, “I’m still not smoking!” Then he gave me the thumbs up and sped off. I beamed the rest of the day!
Thanks for reading. Don’t forget to collect your free gift below, and you may just get a thumbs up as you toodle around your neighborhood too one day. And, until Next Quarter remember the words of Jimmy Johnson, former coach of the Dallas Cowboys, “Do you want to be safe and good or do you want to take a chance and be great?” Hint: Taking a chance is a lot more interesting!
A FREE Gift for You
Clean Air Breather – my stop smoking script.
By Celeste Hackett, CH
You are now a non-smoker. You now love fresh clean air so you always gravitate towards air that is clean and free of toxins. You decided to be a non-smoker yourself because you want to live a healthy life filled with vitality and energy. You want to be able to breathe freely and you want to take good care of your body. You have now stopped smoking and all of the reasons you ever smoked before now just seem silly to you. It’s silly to smoke when you get so many positive benefits from being a clean air breather. You are a clean air breather now and not a smoky air breather. Clean air now fills your lungs and you love it. Clean air, fresh air, causes you to feel wonderful, energetic, and filled with new life. You love to breathe healthy clean air so much that you now know you would never purposely put smoky air in your lungs.
Your mind remembers what it was like when you were a little kid and someone was smoking around you. You hated that! You got away as fast as possible so you could breathe. Your mind got you out of there. Well now you do the same thing. You breath healthy air now because breathing smoke feels uncomfortable and just plain wrong just like when you were a kid.
Breathing clean air makes you feel great. And now you know you are a non-smoker and will be a non-smoker for the rest of your life. You are also a clean-air breather and you will be a clean air breather for the rest of your life. Sure you may sometimes come in contact with air filled with other people’s smoke – but just as soon as you can you get away and breathe clean air again. And breathing smoke is annoying to you. It makes you cringe and you stop as fast as you can! You hate smoke filled air and you hate cigarettes and you will never smoke them again.
Your lungs are an important part of your body’s engine so you make sure you give it clean oxygen to run efficiently. Good clean oxygen causes you to take deep wonderful healthy breaths and that is like fuel to you making you alive and healthy all over. Healthy air makes you feel healthy and you choose to breathe the best air you can whenever and wherever you can. It feels good to breath healthy air and every day your heart, lungs and vascular system improve and grow stronger just from your decision and your follow through of being a clean air breather.
Breathing or inhaling smoke causes you to feel uncomfortable. It feels dirty. It feels gross and makes you feel annoyed because it is un-natural for the lungs and body to enjoy having smoke inside them. Your lungs are remembering how it felt to reject smoke and nicotine and so now you do reject smoke in any form. And your mind is understanding that smoking gives you a bad feeling in your body and you don’t like that. You don’t’ like nasty smoke in your nose, you don’t like it in your sinuses, and you do NOT want it on your skin and clothes making you smell!
Your lungs, nose and sinuses now give a powerful signal to your mind to keep you away from breathing smoke and your mind gives your lungs, nose and sinuses a powerful urge to reject smoke and get to breathing clean air as soon as possible. For this reason you can not even think of smoking a cigarette. Even the idea makes you feel uncomfortable. That’s why it is easy for you to do ANYTHING other than smoke a cigarette. So you do find other things to do. ANYTHING is better than smoking a nasty cigarette!
You know that cigarettes cause health problems and give off dangerous poisonous smoke. You know there is always something better to do than put dirty disgusting cough-inducing foul tasting, smelly smoke in your lungs. There is always something better to do than smoke those nasty cigarettes.
You are a non-smoker now because you love clean healthy air. You stopped using nicotine because you didn’t like what it was doing to you. You want to be healthy and you know no one can do it for you therefore you are taking responsibility and taking good care of yourself. You love your body and you love yourself and this causes you to do what is right for your health. You take care of your body and you treat it right by breathing the best air you can at all times and by avoiding – totally avoiding cigarettes, nicotine and tobacco. It feels good to be a non-smoker and you know you will be a non-smoker for the rest of your life.
Being a non-smoker makes you feel healthier and stronger in every way. Your lungs are growing cleaner and stronger as each day passes. Your heart and your vascular system is also becoming rejuvenated. It feels good to be clean. It feels good to run a clean shop to have a clean engine. You are more and more pleased with your health and energy every day.
And as each day passes you are more and more pleased that the old habit of smoking seems like it never happened. It seems like it is so far in the distant past that it was somebody else who smoked. Sometimes you may find that you can barely remember that you engaged in that old habit. All you know now is you wouldn’t ever put anything in your body that was detrimental to your health.
In fact when you encounter smoke you may cover your nose and mouth with your hand and get away! You can’t stand it. You love your body and you always treat it well now. You are growing smarter and smarter in every way and you can see that smoking and using nicotine is stupid. You love yourself and you are too intelligent to do anything but good things to your body. When you see other people smoking you feel very sorry for them. That is all you feel… And glad that you are free of those nasty, gross cigarettes. You are free of the worry, the mess, the yellow teeth, the yellow skin, the smell and the dirty taste in your mouth. You are free of the desire to have anything to do with cigarettes. In fact, you now think they are the ugliest things you have ever seen.
You feel very proud that you are a non-smoker. You now are enjoying using the money you used to spend on cigarettes for other things that make you feel good. You are happy you decided to use your own mind’s power to quit the nicotine habit. You have no desire to be around tobacco in any way shape or form. You are free. You are light and free and healthy. You no longer even think about cigarettes. You forget to remember nicotine, tobacco or cigarettes when drinking coffee. You forget to remember cigarettes when out with other smokers or when drinking alcohol or when driving or when talking on the phone. You find other things to do that are harmless to you. Like doodling or singing. ANYTHING IS BETTER than smoking! There is always something better to do than smoke a nasty old cigarette.
You are far happier than you used to be. You are so proud of yourself. You like yourself and you know now that your inner power is strong enough to help you overcome anything. You are calm and relaxed at all times. Your mind calms you and relaxes you in every situation. Anytime you need to relax even more you now either have a cup of tea, a glass of water or you take a long slow deep breath. Any time you feel stressed or bored you take the time to get a new perspective on what was bothering you and make changes so you can feel better. THAT is how you feel better, by making changes in your life and environment so you can feel better.
AND You are making any and all changes you need to make to continue being a non-smoker. You are always calm and you always have tools to maker yourself calmer. You take breaks whenever you need them and you either drink water, tea or you take a long slow deep breath. When you breathe out you find you relax just fine. That’s right taking a long deep slow breath is all you need to do to relax. When you do that you relax even more than you thought you could! And you discover that THAT was why cigarettes used to help you deal with life’s stressors! It was the exhale not the smoking all along! Every time you take a long deep breath and exhale you become as relaxed if not more than when you smoked a cigarette!
You are a non-smoker. You are a clean air breather. You breath clean fresh healthy air now. You treat your body well by giving it good things. You always treat your body well in every way. You are in control of your life. No one and nothing else has the right to control you. Not any person, any picture, any memory, any activity, any drink, any sounds, any words, or any experiences. No one and No thing has the right to control you. And nasty cigarettes have no right to control you. You are in control and you take your power back every day.
You now forget to remember smoking or cigarettes because your protective mind is keeping you and your thoughts far away from that smoke. Smoke makes you cough. Smoke make you stink. Smoke tastes bad. Smoke makes it harder to breathe freely even harder to see. Even firemen know that. That is why they where those masks when they put out fires. Because smoke is not only unhealthy, it’s dangerous and it is hard to breathe when the only air is smoke. So you want to get away from smoke!
You stay away from smoke. You find other things to do when you even think of a cigarette. You find other things to do when you even think of a cigarette. There are lots of other things to do and you have changed your mind about doing one thing and just did something else many times. So you do that now EVERY time the thought of a cigarette comes to mind. You choose air that is healthy and easy to breathe. Healthy air makes you feel peaceful and relaxed.
All desire for smoking is completely gone. You are a clean air breather, a non-smoker. You are a clean air breather, a non-smoker. You are a clean air breather, a non-smoker for the rest of your life. You are a non-smoker for the rest of your life (repeat 15 more times slowly)
