5 Steps Wellness Practitioners Can Take to Serve Their Clients During This Time (And Get New Clients Without Feeling Gross)
Hey from the Internet!
We've always lived here, but now it seems we actually live here because this national quarantine isn't going away any time soon.
On Holisticism, we've been providing our wellness and well-being enthusiasts a lot of free content. You can sign up for our virtual workshops here.
I admitted in this post, which I wrote two weeks ago at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak in the US, that I was unclear how to best support wellness practitioners during this time — especially the ones who were offering their services to our community in the form of free workshops.
Now that we have a little space from that original shock of "holy shit, we're gonna be in our houses for the next 2 months," it's a lot easier for me to see the path ahead.
It's really clear that if you're a wellness practitioner, coach, guide, trainer, intuitive, or astrologer, you need to bring your offerings into the virtual space.
Why Practitioners Need to Go Virtual
Most pressingly, you need to make cash-money dollar bills right now. To support yourself, to support your family, to support your community.
And if a little nagging voice in your head says, "Ew! No, nobody is making money right now and it's not OK to make money right now," tell that voice to shut the eff up.
First, plenty of people are making money right now. Plenty of people have jobs they can do remotely, and have not seen a change in their pay during this crazy time. (By the way, that means they also have plenty of money to spend, because they’re sure as hell not spending it out at bars, or movie theatres, or concerts. And this is good for everyone, and our global economy.) Plenty of GOOD PEOPLE are making money right now — people who work in education, tech, medicine, and creative industries. You do not need to feel guilty for doing your job and getting paid for it.
Will you maybe need to pivot your pricing structure to make sure you're able to support your community? Maybe. But we'll get to that in a sec.
Second, if there was ever a time people needed healing and support, it is NOW. And just because you can provide that doesn't mean you need to make it free. During this time, did I expect my therapist to offer me free sessions? No. Did I expect my gyno to waive my co-pay? Absolutely not. They offered me a valuable service, that I opted to participate in because I decided it was necessary for me and my well-being.
And if I hired someone to help get me through any difficult time in my life, like when I lost a family member, or when I struggled with depression and couldn't get out of bed, I would expect to pay them for their expertise and time.
This is a difficult time for many people. And it is always a difficult time for someone. We should make accommodations and be thoughtful of people’s circumstances always, not just during a pandemic. And just because there is a pandemic doesn’t mean that we should be giving away our valuable work for zero pay. This is a time to use your judgment — offering sliding scale appointments, energetic exchange appointments, or payment plan options that extend into the time after COVID-19 to give people enough time to get back on their feet.
It's also time for practitioners to go virtual because the world will not go back to "normal" after this. COVID-19 has changed the trajectory of our industries, relationships, and economy. The new normal will come out of an evolution of what we've learned during these next few months.
Do not expect to walk back to the same business you had in February. Expect that when we come out on the other side of this, you'll have an even stronger, healthier, more aligned business that you've nurtured and created during this time.
5 Steps Practitioners Can Take to Get Their Clients To Come Back
I taught a free workshop all about bringing your wellness practice online, which you can catch here, but these are my recommendations for wellness practitioners who want to adapt to these times and prepare themselves for the evolution we'll see in this space when COVID-19 has passed.
Make yourself easy to find
This is the age of convenience, ease, and agility. You've gotta make it easy for people to find how to work with you in less than a minute once they land on your webpage.
If you don't have a website ... omg, dude. Now's the time! Get ye a Squarespace account and an Acuity account!
Link your Instagram and social channels to your website. Put your website link in your email signature.
Set up your business for Monthly Recurring Revenue
Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) is a business structure in which people pay for your services or products over a series of months. You can set up your business for MRR by:
Making your offerings available as a monthly subscription
Setting up offerings over an extended period of time where clients pay in installments or as a payment plan
Creating an offering that automatically charges your client in a certain duration; i.e. every quarter they get charged for a session with you, which they have to book
MRR is amazing for your business because it provides you SECURITY — because you know exactly how much you're on track to make each month and you don't have to do that constant hustle of finding brand new clients all the time — but also because it makes your work more accessible for clients.
You can create payment plans or installments to help people pay you over time at a rate that's do-able for their bank account.
And this is certainly a time to be sensitive to where people are at, financially. For example, we've made our program, The Infinite Well Accelerator, just $10 to get started and deferred the rest of the payments for new students until June 2020 so our practitioners can start putting to use what they learn in our class to begin making money now.
I know that with the value we provide in IWA, a practitioner could make their money back but just booking 2 appointments with a client — and so I’m happy to defer payments because I know what I’m teaching can help them do that.
Make it easy for people to pay you
Speaking of bank accounts — it's time to put on the Big Person pants and use a payment processor for your business transactions.
Using a processor like Stripe or Square is more secure and trustworthy for your clients, and makes it easy for people to pay you in one click. And that's what you want, right?
Customer service is mandatory
Yes, this is an unprecedented time. But this is not a time to be sloppy when it comes to business or how you treat your customers and clients. Prepping an automated email sequence that thanks your clients and makes it easy for them to book with you again, leave you a review, and recommend you to their friends is MASSIVELY important! It's thoughtful and professional, and really not super hard!
I show you how to create this email sequence (and even wrote one for you!) in the Infinite Well Accelerator program.
Show up
Be thoughtful with your energy and intention during these strange days. But remember — you want to have a healthy, service-oriented relationship with your clients.
It's weird to only show up when you need something — like when you need to book new sessions. Showing up consistently (every day, every week, you decide the cadence that works for you) via email and through social media is massively important in building trust and love between you and your community.
Conclusion
There's so much swirling in the ether right now.
It's normal to feel stuck, paralyzed, or anxious right now. We're ... living through a global pandemic? You're not supposed to be "doing it right," or even know what “right” looks like.
And it helps to remember that there is going to be an end to this situation that we're currently in, and that life, and love, and work will go on. In the meantime, we can prepare ourselves for that future, when we feel ready.
Grieving for our old lives, businesses, and dreams is important, too.
If you want more help bringing your wellness business online and transitioning your business from hustle-hustle-hustle every month to monthly recurring revenue that feels easy, check out the course we launched for wellness practitioners in fall 2019. We're bringing it out of the vault to help support practitioners as they transition their businesses online during this time, and will probably close the doors on it in the next few weeks.