Lore Earley talks about her Holistic Health Coaching Practice.
Jeffrey: I’m with Lore Earley, a holistic health coach and licensed counselor. Lore, welcome.
Lore: Hi, thank you for having me.
Jeffrey: Lore, I wonder if you could explain a little bit about your practice.
Lore: Yes. My practice has two different divisions to it. In my therapy practice, I work with people who have experienced some kind of trauma or difficult life event, and it’s seriously impacting their daily life. I have a small practice in Port St. Lucie, Florida, and I usually see my therapy clients face to face. I use some techniques that are best suited for in-person treatment.
On the health coaching side of my practice, though, I work with people that have anxiety, stress, a lot of overwhelmed feelings, but is also paired with physical somatic symptoms. For example, unexplained physical pain. They might have a lot of tension in their body. A lot of people feel nauseous all the time. It can even manifest itself as chronic disease. So my health coaching practice I can do through Skype, I can do through other distance web based modalities, unlike the actual therapy part.
Jeffrey: It sounds like you have quite a varied practice. What are some of the techniques you use to get new clients?
Lore: I do a lot of social media. I write a blog post every week, sometimes videos, so I can post on You Tube and that integrates well with the Google Plus community. I’m very consistent; I think that consistency is key. I do have a Facebook private group for clients. I also have a Facebook business page. I am not that proficient in Twitter. I’m trying to get better, but I feel like a twit when I’m tweeting, so, I’m working on that. I think that the more people that I have interacted with, the more business has actually grown. Sometimes it’s not even clients, it’s business connections that I’ve made as referral sources. The social marketing is huge. LinkedIn is also huge, especially for interacting with other professionals.
As a therapist, I can actually advertise in magazines like “Psychology Today” which is a great client generation leads. There’s also another called “HealthPro” that I advertise with, so I get therapy clients through that modality. Also local networking, I belong to an elite business networking group that is local to my area. We are a group of like-minded entrepreneurs that really hustle to try and get the word out and call people to each other. So my marketing is a nice combination of the online stuff and also the local stuff.
Plus, doing workshops, even if it’s for free. I do workshops at the local health food store. It doesn’t cost me anything, it doesn’t cost them anything. It costs me about a half hour of my time, and it also can generate client leads. Then also paid workshops. I’ll do a workshop, someone will get to know me and they’ll want to work with me further.
Jeffrey: You answered another question I had about marketing your business pretty well. The next question I have is, how do you efficiently manage your time with all the activities that you’re doing.
Lore: Oh, my goodness. Some days I manage it very well, other days not so much. I am a big feeler and to be productive I have to really feel it. I’ve got to tap into my motivation, so I tend to batch my activities. I know that Mondays are my blogging days, my writing days, my video production days. I know that Tuesday mornings are my networking, and then in the afternoon, clients. Wednesday, product development with any partners. I think batching my tasks on specific days helps. I think that also, keeping a calendar, having my to-dos, I’m a very hands-on person. I like making lists and I like crossing things off, it gives me great satisfaction to do that.
I have to say, meditation in the morning is really key for me. When I get up, I have to start my day a certain way in order to really be productive. I need to do meridian stretching and get the blood flowing. Just ten minutes of meditation helps me tap into my intuition, that feeling that I want to be productive, this is going to be a great day. It’s a positive mindset. While a lot of people might think that’s a little “woo woo, flying unicorns thing,” that really is a key to being able to get up every day and do what I need to do.
Jeffrey: I absolutely agree. I think that some sort of meditation practice really helps people deal with a lot of the pressures in our fast-paced world. The final question is, what’s the one thing you’d change about your practice if you could.
Lore: The one thing I could change about my practice if I could. That’s a good question. It would probably have to do something with client generation, because here’s the reality of being in a service based industry. Once my clients are done with services, or they’ve met their goals, they move on, which is a great thing. But it can get very tiring constantly having to generate a new client load, so for me it would be ideal to figure out some kind of recurring profit stream that would keep money coming in that would lessen the pressure of having to try and generate new clients over and over again.
Jeffrey: I think that’s a solid thing to look for in the future, but it sounds like your practice is going really well right now. I really want to thank you for all the great tips that you’ve shared with us today.
Lore: Thanks, Jeffrey.