This question was sent from Holly Wright – Trinity Mind, Body & Soul Fitness, LLC, South Carolina, USA, www.trinitymbsfitness.com
I have recently opened my Reiki Practice and I don’t know how to go about getting clients- any ideas? I am in a more conservative area, but with a large retirement community.
Hi Holly,
Congratulations on opening you new Reiki practice! This certainly is an exciting time for you to begin your journey to your authentic future. The challenge you face in finding clients is, unfortunately, not unique. Reiki, and many other holistic practices, are not main stream enough to benefit from traditional marketing tactics such as flyers and newspaper advertisements. There are, however, a few really great strategies you can use to build your client base that have proven to be very successful for other practitioners.
The first and most critical step is to create a positive awareness of the health and well-being benefits Reiki provides. There are a few ways to do this. You’ll want to start with putting some really good information about all the good things Reiki provides – stress relief, more energy, reduces pain, etc. Add a few real-client testimonials as well. This gives apprehensive newcomers someone to mentally connect with and provides validation that Reiki is not just some hocus pocus kind of treatment.
Next, you could take that content you created for your website and turn into a flyer –don’t forget to include those testimonials – and ask some of the local businesses if you could leave them for their clients, and you could place some of their flyers or business cards at your place of business in return. You’ll want to carefully choose which businesses you approach. Try to stay within complimentary areas of business such as gyms, hair or nail salons, tanning salons, etc. These are great places to work with due to the high volume of traffic they generally produce. These types of businesses are also more likely to agree to cross-promote with you than doctors or other professionals.
One of my favorite, and most successful promotional strategies, is to approach some of your local businesses and offer a free “Wellness Lunch Hour Treatment Day”. Start with the small – medium sized businesses then work your way up. This works best if the business owner or manager will allow for a full week rather than just one day, but it’s better than nothing! What you’ll do is provide free 30 minute Reiki treatments between the hours of 11:00 am and 1:00 pm. I suggest focusing on the head and neck regions during these sessions as they are likely the most receptive areas to Reiki energy in this situation, and can easily be done with a comfortable chair rather than a massage table if you cannot bring the table.
This type of event is very appealing to many business owners as it positions them as a company that really cares about their employees’ health and well-being. This is how you need to sell it to the business owner as well. Your best bet is to first try to see if they have a human resources department or manager and speak to them.
Make sure you bring those informational flyers and lots of business cards with you. Try to book a follow up appointment when finishing up with the client. If they are not able to commit right away, provide them with a discount coupon for their first visit with you. Another thing you could offer is an additional discount coupon that they can give to a friend as well. You’ll have a captive audience for about 2-5 minutes once you’ve concluded their free treatment, so make the most out of it and sell them on the health and well-being benefits of Reiki. This type of information is especially import to communicate when dealing with conservative communities where holistic therapies are not well known.
The key is to create a real connection with people in a way they can relate to and that isn’t too far out of their comfort zone or personal belief systems.
I hope you’ll find this information useful.
Best of luck on your path to living your passion Holly!
Would you like to have your business featured here? Send me a short write-up about your business and current challenges and I will provide useful and easy to implement tips to help you.
Wishing you inspiration& success,
Robbin
{ 0 comments… add one now }