Success with Your Specialty

Anybody who knows me will tell you that I am about as ethereal as a one-ton piece of granite. I am very opened minded about energy and the nonphysical world, but in my daily life I am as anchored to the ground as anyone can be. That said, my wife has been chipping away at me about the “Power of Attraction.” In essence, ask the universe for what you want in a positive way over and over again and it will happen. She challenged me to put it to practice and I have to say, IT WORKS.

Setting goals is great, we have all been taught to do it. Some of us even write them down, but what good does it do to hide your goals? An example: I used to set session number goals for my practice based on what I need to do to survive. I would tell myself: “I need to do 4 sessions a day to pay my bills”. I would end up, month after month just barely doing 4 sessions a day, never getting ahead of that. One day, I decided you use the power of attraction and stated to everyone I knew: I’m going to be so busy by next February that I am going to have to open up a big clinic. By putting it out there in such a positive way, I was also forcing myself to think about how I could accomplish it and inviting opportunities. Turns out, I accomplished it right on time.

So what’s the moral here? If you think about and talk about your goals in a way that is not uplifting and positive, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. By putting your positive energy out there for all to see and react to, you will receive positive energy and opportunities in return. So how will you use this in your practice? I challenge you set a goal based on your dreams, not your needs, and start telling the universe that you are making it happen. Start by writing it down here in the comments, then go out and make that dream come true.

In a previous blog I talked about finding your niche. Now that you found it, how do you capitalize on it? Assuming you have the training and skills to work with your niche, the next step is getting the word out. You can start with the grass roots approach: tell everyone what you are doing. Everyone you run into is going to ask you ”what’s up/new/going on?” Tell them you are excited about this specialization you are working with now. In the case of Pregnancy Massage, you can tell them how excited you are to be helping all those future moms feel better and how rewarding it is. Then let them know if they know anyone that they think can benefit from your new skills/focus to let them know about you. You can also go online and join a local forum or group that deals with your new niche market. I participated on pregnancy and new moms forums, made connections with prenatal yoga instructors, birth coaches, and so on to bring awareness to what we were doing.

Another way to let the world know about your new specialty is to do a press release to your local news agencies. Find out your local paper and TV news editors’ emails and send them an email detailing how your new service or focus can help the local community. If you volunteer or participate in an event using your skills, send them a press release about that as well. “Massage Therapist Helps Local Athletes” is a great headline!

Set up your website to highlight your specialty. Talk about how you can solve problems within your niche’s population. Don’t talk about “neuromuscular reeducation” or “energy flow balancing,” though. Instead, talk about “relieving chronic pain through the use of your specialty technique” or “improved energy and better sleep…” Your niche wants to know how you can help them; they don’t care about the details of your techniques methods. When advertising anywhere, advertise the fact that you help that niche, not the skills you use to help them.

Use your credentials but not the initials. The general public doesn’t know what NCBTMB or APMA mean, or even what a CMT is. The do understand Nationally Certified or American Pregnancy Massage Assoc. approved provider. If you belong to, or are certified through, an organization, use their logo, but also spell it out for your clients in your web/advertising/brochure text. Tell them what it means to your clients that you belong to the organization. If the organization has a referral system, make sure you are on it.

This may seem like a lot of work, but it really isn’t. Once you’ve set these things in place, you’ll start seeing increased business in your niche.

We’ve all heard about how you have to differentiate yourself from your competition, and that the way to do it is to have a niche market. What does that really mean and how do you do it?

I see a lot of therapists looking for an extremely specialized niche that no one else is marketing too. But they run into problems finding clients in those markets. A good example is Reiki: Reiki is a very popular CEU course and many therapists are choosing to focus their massage practice on energy work. However, the reality is that it is a very small niche: Most Americans don’t know what energy work is or why they would need it. Potential clients need a lot of convincing to try it out. This makes it challenging to earn a living practicing Reiki. The same goes for a number of other modalities.

When looking for a niche that you enjoy, can earn a living doing, and that sets you apart, look for two things: 1) there is a large population of potential clients, but they are currently underserved and 2) they won’t need much convincing that they need your services. Of course, I am a big proponent of Pregnancy Massage, but it is a great example of a good nice: Over 4 Million women give birth every year here in America, and they want to feel better. That’s a huge population for a niche market. Once they know pregnancy massage exists, they are booking appointments!

So how do you tap into a niche like Pregnancy Massage? First, get educated. Just saying you do the specialized work is not enough: niche-market clients will look at your credentials. Second, advertise your credentials. Let the world know you have advanced training and that’s why they should see you instead of the other guy. Connect with local groups that are built around your niche: blogs, social clubs, fitness clubs, support groups, and so on. Let them know you specialize in helping them feel better. If your specialty has an organization built around it, join it and use their resources as well.

There are lots of large groups of people out there who need massage therapists: weekend athletes, chronically ill people, cancer patients, people who get lots of head-aches, and many more. Find them, find out how you can help them, and develop your niche.