EP112 :How to Attract and Cultivate Committed, High-Quality Clients for Your Practice with Joanna Sapir and Sachin Patel

Hey Sachin, and welcome to the Perfect Practice Podcast. It's my mission to use this podcast as a platform to help holistic, heart centered practitioners transform the world. I think we can all agree that the world needs more of what we have to offer now than ever before. And I want to take all the information and all the knowledge and experience that I've gained over the years and leverage the community and the contacts and the mentors that I've had over the years and share some of the most valuable nuggets that I've picked up over those years. I also want to bring special guests on so that they can share their valuable wisdom and knowledge with you as well. Each episode is going to be packed with valuable nuggets of information to help you grow both personally and professionally, all while moving you towards more impact and more freedom. I'm excited that you're here. I'm excited that you want to grow and learn. So let's jump right in. Hello my friends and welcome to Perfect Practice. Today we are having a conversation on how to attract and cultivate committed, high quality clients for your practice. My guest today is Joanna Sapir and she is going to be taking us through a framework that she uses with her clients to help them attract their dream clients, people who are committed to the care that her clients, functional medicine practitioners, wellness practitioners and so forth, are providing. Joanna, thanks for joining me today. Welcome.

Thank you. I'm really excited to be here.

Well, I want to start off by allowing you to share your journey and your story. So how did you become a practice advisor and coach? What led you into this path?

Yeah, in some ways, I think this is the culmination of all my previous paths and experience that I had. My first career, like straight out of college was teaching and I was a high school history teacher for a decade. And then I almost accidentally started a strength and conditioning gym. Now I say accidentally, but it's like I had no visions of being an entrepreneur. I had no visions of being a business owner and what that even meant. I was not one of those people trying to escape corporate or anything like that, really. I started this place because I had moved to a new county and the kind of strength training and physical training I had been doing previously didn't exist here where I lived. So I, you know, and I looked, I tried every place there was and I went, this needs to exist here. So I started this thing just so that people in my community could access it. And then all of a sudden I owned a business. And so, you know, I really wanted to provide this service for people, and I wanted them to experience it. I knew it could change their lives, but I knew nothing about business, right? And that's like so many practitioners. We want to help people. We want to provide this thing for people because we know it can change their lives. But we don't study up on the business or we don't have a background in business, and we don't know that part of it. So I sure had to, you know, learn that on the job. I made probably every mistake you could make. You know, I completely went into burnout. My business actually took off really fast, which is, you know, some people, it just struggles for a while. Mine took off, and it was just me. And I was also a single mom of two young kids at the time. And I just. I pretty much got sick, you know, like, I was not able to handle it all. And that's when I went, okay, I got to learn how to do this right? And sort of made this decision, like, let's learn everything I can about how to build an actual sustainable business rather than just this job for myself. And at that point, I decided, okay, since I just wanted this to exist, this isn't about, like, my life's work. Let's build this to be something that I can sell to somebody else, and it can exist in my community. And so that became my project. And that is what a wonderful project for learning how learning business, right, is to build a business that can be sellable and can run on its own without me. So that's what I did. And it was a very smooth, easy, simple transition to what I do now. It's like I said, the culmination of everything from teaching to running a business is mentoring now other practitioners to build their own businesses. Sustainable, profitable businesses, which so many people don't. So I got to see that firsthand myself as a client of all kinds of innovative wellness practitioners who are just brilliant at what they do, but, like, their businesses are not set up to be. To serve their clients as deeply as they could and to serve the practitioner well. So that bummed me out, and that's why I do. What I do now is to help those folks. Help. Help practitioners do this better.

Yeah, I think I can definitely relate, right. That kind of wounded experience that we have as entrepreneurs, living what we feel is our passion. And then, you know, we're so passionate, what we do, we forget to sometimes take care of ourselves or we don't set good boundaries. We're not really good at setting boundaries. I mean, you don't learn this stuff. I mean, you don't learn this, a lot of this stuff in business school. Sometimes you just have to learn it the hard way. And I love what you're doing. You're taking those experiences and then connecting the dots, looking backwards, as Steve Jobs would say, and then helping practitioners connect them, looking forwards instead of having to go through some of the challenges and hardships. Now you're a mother of teenagers, so where do they fit into this equation? Was that part of the decision making in terms of simplifying your business or and really getting clear about how you want to help people?

I mean, I think in those early days, like I said, when I started that business, they were young and the business pulled me away from them. Here I was and I had actually left the classroom teaching specifically because I wanted to spend more time with them. And that wasn't happening. So for sure they were a piece of the motivation of there's no reason why I should have to have a great business that keeps me from doing the things I love or keeps me from taking care of myself or keeps me from my family. It's definitely one of the exact problems that I find amongst practitioners that they tell me is that they don't have time for their own self care or for their closest relationships. It's like, what are we living for if not that? So definitely a message I have is you can do all of that. You can serve your clients really deeply, you can make totally enough money and you can have time for your own self care and your own families and they can even be the priority. It is totally possible with the right systems and structures in your business.

Yeah. I think you and I share a very similar philosophy which is, you know, trying don't. Instead of trying to build a life around your business, try to build a business around the life that you want and start there. Right. And set boundaries. So I'll give you an example. My son just walked in the house and it's easier as you home around this time. And so, you know, at five o' clock I shut my computer down, I shut everything down and I go into dad mode. And you know, I want to make sure that for a couple reasons. One, because they grow up so quickly. As you probably know, he's 11 and it just has gone by with a blink of an eye. And I also want him to love entrepreneurship. I don't want him to resent entrepreneurship and have him think that, hey, I can't be a great dad and I can't be all that I want to be if I'm a business owner. Right. So that's part of. I'm sensitive to that, that I want him to also love entrepreneurship and the freedom that it provides. But it starts with me being an example of that. So kudos to you for recognizing those priorities and emphasizing them with your clients. I have a question for you, and maybe we can unpack this throughout our conversation, but what are maybe some of the three key takeaways looking back? What are some key lessons that you learned that you'd want to pass forward or that you share with your clients from your personal experience?

Yeah, well, I'm going to give the three that are very systems oriented and very much what I teach practitioners to do. I'd say a first lesson and key principle is that you don't need to work with everyone that you can form your whole practice around, specifically around the people that you love working with and the ones that see the best results from your services. There simply are going to be people who are not a great fit for you. Whether that's because of the problems they have or because of even personality bits. It is okay to kindly refer them elsewhere. So you want to build systems that have some kind of filtering in place for that, that attract those ideal clients for you, the ones you love, the ones that see the best results from your services and kindly refer the other ones out, the other people elsewhere. There's always going to be a fit for them somewhere else, just like your perfect people may not be a fit for others. And you can streamline your entire business just to serve those people, to attract and serve those people. So that would be number one. Number two is once you do know who those people are, you can design programs and plans just for them that give them exactly what they need to reach their goals, to solve whatever's going on with them. And that, you know, you need that piece in place first of knowing who those folks are so that you can design those programs and plans. And then the third piece, and I think this is, you know, this sounds all businessy but it's revolutionary to folks. I think that a lot of times practitioners or people just new to business, even if they've been in business for years, though I work with people who have been in business for 10 years and still this is kind of eye opening for them, is that marketing and sales are not the same things. That's not the same thing. Right. And so a sales process seems to be missing from so many wellness practitioners businesses. Instead it's just direct to sale, like buy a session. So Anything they do for what they think is marketing is by a session. But a sales process is different than that. So a sales process is actually taking someone through some kind of step by step process. Where you are, or the way I teach it anyway, is where you're actually getting to know this person, building a relationship with them and assessing what are their needs so that you can direct them into the right program or plan that's gonna address those needs.

Great tips. I think one thing that comes up for me is this FOMO that practitioners have of narrowing down who they serve and getting very specific. Where do you think that comes from? Do you have a perspective on that? I've got a few theories, but I don't know if I've really nailed it down. But I'd love for your thoughts on that. Where does that come from?

Yeah, well, I see a few different things going on, which is why I don't think there's one simple answer. There is definitely the kind of scarcity mindset around money. Like, well, somebody's coming to me, so of course I need to take this client for the money. Like, they're here and they wanna work with me and so on. So there's that piece and then there's also a bit of the. I liken it to the codependency triangle, but like the kind of savior kind of piece of feeling, gaining a sense of worth and love from being needed. So, you know, and trying to save people. So if you show up and you have a problem, I think, yes, I can save you. Right. And wanting to do that when still that may not be the right fit. Right. And it's also just coming from not the best energy to it. So those are two pieces I see. And what people usually see, say though, is, but I can help everyone, but I can help anyone. And so, I mean, what I say is, you can, but who really are the ones? I think when I frame it in terms of who gets the best results from your services, that helps people actually realize, oh, there are some people who really, really get the best results. And then we take apart why. Let's actually look at the last three people that were awesome clients for you, that got fantastic results. Why was that the case? And then you see these really clear patterns. Again, the patterns may have to do with something as simple as they all had this gut issue. And then you realize, like, oh, I seem to be really good at that, but it may be totally about their attitude and their commitment to coming in. Right. So you look for the patterns. It's not that there's one answer to that. And I think that practitioners kind of freak out at the idea of picking a niche because they think it's about picking, like I'm supposed to pick these people. And I think of it more like, no, once you've had experience, when you're brand new, you are going to be working with all kinds of people and there's going to be hits and there's going to be misses. And that's kind of part of the experience in the beginning, right? But once you've had, you know, multiple clients, maybe even a couple hundred, it depends on your practice. Now you have data to look at and go, okay, now we can just. We're filtering the data and actually identifying who are the folks that are really, I'm here to help, who are the ones that I am so uniquely matched for. And that's different than picking. That's like it's been picked for you, you know, so it's already there.

And I feel like we have an obligation, right, to choose people who we know can be extremely successful using our process. There's an exercise that Frank Kern has you do, and it's kind of intimidating because you write down a price of what you're charging and you basically then write down what your financial objectives are and then you write down the characteristics of what your ideal customer is. Like, what are the characteristics? And if you only, and you have to think about it through this lens, if you only got paid when these people got a result, not before they got a result, but after they got a result, how would you choose the selection process? There is a certain psychology of the person that you're going to be working with. There's perhaps a demographic in some instances. And then of course, there's a problem that they have that you have to be able to solve. Somebody could have the right demographics and the right psychology, but if you can't fix their problem, you're not going to get paid. Somebody could have a problem you can solve and they might even have the right psychology, but maybe they don't have the resources to actually solve the problem. Right. So there's a combination of things that we need to take into consideration. But I like that thought exercise of if I only got paid after this person produced a result, you would be far more selective with who you worked with. Cause then you'd only work with not just, you know, home run clients. You'd work with grand slam clients. You'd work and you'd have more certainty, more confidence, and you would be able to Back up any claims that you make because you know that this person is a ringer and they're going to get a result that you're able to provide for them. And, and of course, I'm preaching to the choir here, but you know, the, the better results we get for people, the more confidence we have and certainty we have so that we're able to shout from the mountaintop and say, hey, come and, come and work with me. I'm here to help you.

That's right. It's like a drastic change for people who are used to taking anyone, you know, for the money, like they say to when. I don't think folks realize how it actually hits our confidence because, you know, you're a great practitioner, but when there are people who are struggling, it does, it does kind of shake things up, you know, and when you focus on the, on the people who are going to get the best results. And I love that exercise you just said. That's a really good way of looking at. Changes everything. I mean, it changes everything in your practice.

Yeah. You know, one thing that you say is stop selling sessions and start creating programs. And I'm very much in alignment with that. I love to hear, you know, how you describe that process to clients or, you know, if you ever get any pushback from people, because it can be a little nerve wracking. Right. At first. I still remember when I sold my first program. You know, I went, I went from being a pay as you go or even pay for every six visits type of guy. And I would consider those packages to my first program that I sold was actually 45 visits. And the gentleman was so happy to receive the accounting discount and he was so happy to write that check. And when I got the check, I almost couldn't believe it. It was kind of like a kid at Christmas. And not because of the check, but because of what the check represented. And it represented his confidence and faith in me, his commitment to himself and the practice. And it represented for me my commitment to him as well, knowing that, hey, I can produce a result for this person. So I'd love to hear how you describe this or help your clients perhaps overcome this internal objection that they might have.

Yeah, well, talk about preaching to the choir. You just described exactly to me what I have the joy of witnessing in my clients. I mean, all those things you said, it's like that chunk of money, it's not really about the money. It's like, that's exciting, but it's really about this commitment they've made. Like you both have made this commitment to take this journey together, and that just changes so much about the energy. Right. It's not, oh, are you going to book your next session? Or, you know what I mean? Are they going to continue or will they come back? It's like, yeah, we're in this together. Here we go. You know? Yeah. So the way that I come at it with my clients, this is exactly the process that I. That I work with people, I help them design those programs. And the way I come at it is, you know, I think many practitioners have heard this from a business perspective, that they should be doing this, but it's always presented as this business thing. So sometimes it doesn't feel like it's in alignment for them. It feels like it's about charging people more, and they're missing the fact that it's actually how you serve your clients more deeply. And so that's where I come from is I say, all right, we've just looked at who these favorite clients of yours in the past are. Right? We've looked at that data, who you loved working with and who saw the best results from your services. Now, when you met them on day one, if you could give them a journey, if you could give them the dream service that they really needed from that first day onward, what would it look like? How long would it be? What would they be getting? What's the frequency? What are the services, all the pieces? What's the dream service that you are giving them that, you know now that they needed starting at day one? So that's how I kind of introduce the idea. And it's exciting to people. They kind of go, oh, you know, it's different than saying, charge more. And it's totally different than, like you said, selling packs of sessions. This is not that, you know, this is not about, oh, it's 10 sessions. This is about a journey. So you mentioned those 45 sessions. Well, I'm sure that that's not what you said to him is 45 sessions. What you did was lay out what that journey involved that you knew matched up with what he needed to reach his goals. Right. And that becomes super, super exciting for the practitioner. So that's how I do it.

Yeah. And that's a great reframe for people. Right. Because a lot of times we're hearing from people who enter kind of in the healthcare space with a marketing background is different than a healthcare practitioner, than teaching other people how to message and market and be storytellers. Because a lot of times it's raise Your prices. And that hits the icky button for a lot of practitioners. And it makes me cringe when I hear people say that, because they're not giving any context. They're just saying, raise your prices. And then that doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel very organic for people. Whereas instead, the question you're asking them, the exercise you're having them go through, is how can you serve more deeply? And what would that journey look like? Let's at least start that journey. What's the magical journey you want to take these people on? And then you can decide what the value is and then present it to somebody. And I know that when we present a package to somebody, there's far more value packed into it than kind of piecemealing it all together. It's like a combo, right? When you go to. Well, I'm sure you don't go, I don't go to McDonald's either. But if you go to McDonald's or a fast food restaurant, they bundle things together, which is cheaper than buying them individually because they know that those products complement one another. And so the same thing can be said for our packages as well. So that kind of organically leads into the next question, which is how does a practitioner know what program or programs to offer? What's the process that you have them go through to figure that out?

Yeah, it's like I just said, it's really taking actual individuals. And what is that process? One of the other pieces that I do with my clients is help them develop a visual framework for what they bring to their practice. So, you know, many practitioners are actually integrating multiple modalities. So even though the prospective client may come to them saying, knowing that they just do one thing, they actually do multiple things, we put that together into a framework that they can use to explain to other people how they work with folks. Again, there may be multiple modalities. It may be just multiple elements that actually contributes as well to designing the journey. So I help them map that out. So we start with, who is that ideal person? What would that dream journey look like? And we look at, again, the patterns. And so there's usually kind of phases. I imagine this is what your programs look like. First we do this, then we do this, then we do this. Right. There's some kind of phases to it. And so we map that all out. And I usually encourage people to practitioners to just start with one program for that one ideal client, you know, and that that's what they're enrolling people in. And if they're doing this in one on one services. There's always room for flexibility, right? They can always adjust things as they go. But the sales process, they're laying out what those different phases are all based on what the client needs. And that's a key piece to this is this is about providing what you as a practitioner believe your people need. So it's moving away from this idea of what do they want and what are they going to buy or what will sell and totally into what they need. And so they just, the practitioners with me anyway design that. And I say forget about how you're going to market and sell it. We're going to deal with that later. Just start with what you truly believe they need and then we develop the marketing and sales systems after that.

Now, is there a process? Because many people are used to paying their practitioner as they go. If you go to a typical massage therapist, you're going to go and you're going to pay for one massage at a time. If you go see your family doctor, you're going to pay for one appointment at a time. If you go see your barber, you're going to pay for one haircut or the hairdresser, you're going to pay for one styling at a time. Do you have a process that helps practitioners or a framework that helps practitioners take people who are used to paying one off for their services and then help them understand the value of a program or a package?

Definitely. Well, I think a key piece of this is the sales system. And I think that a great sales system for these kind of services, for such personal transformational services, always need to involve an in depth consultation of some sort. And so I like that to include an actual assessment. In some ways, what I hear practitioners say to me that work with me is, oh, a lot of this is like what I used to do as my first session as part of the intake. So they would just kind of take anybody. But it wasn't until the intake session that they would actually be learning in depth about them. I encourage them to pull that out into the consultation. Learning in depth, really making sure this person is the right fit for, you know, these programs that they've just designed. And I actually forget the question you asked me.

Well, how do we get people to go from, or at least our clients to see the value from paying for the payment part? Right, the payment part.

So part of that sales process is in the assessment really identifying what does this person need and when what that person needs matches up with exactly what you have to offer. It's A very natural thing to explain. So I have a whole, you know, step by step system that I teach people. But it's very, very natural that when you've uncovered their needs right there with them and for them and then say, here's what you need, boom, boom, boom, boom. And that's what this program offers. It's a pretty natural fit. So people are already seeing the whole journey. So let's say it's three months, or maybe it's six months, maybe it's nine months, whatever it is. And yes, they're committing to that whole thing. And totally the payment, I think has a. How they make payment, I think has a big, big piece of that commitment level to it. It is again, this energetic commitment. It also, for the practitioner just eliminates no shows. I hear about that when people are on the session by session approach and they don't get paid, if somebody doesn't show up for a session and people do that, they just cancel. So anyway, this eliminates that because yeah, either somebody's paying in full for the whole thing or they're paying on a monthly payment plan that's set up in that consultation. When they enroll, when they say yes, you're just plugging it in. And so if there's a monthly payment, it's just automatically deducted from their account and into yours. So they're paying regardless of when they show up. Right. The payment happens, which means people show up. People show up and do what they're supposed to do because they've already committed in that way. So I love, I really think that how people pay is actually a big piece of the success and commitment that they get.

Yeah, it's such a key component to the success of a practice's cash flow as well, because you have much more predictable months. You have the ability to kind of wow your clients as well and make sure you have the right staffing and team members and the right office setting and everything that you need in order for your business to be successful. Because that's the other thing that we need to recognize is that we want to be around. Right. We want to have longevity in our business. And if we're living week to week or visit to visit, then that's not a really good place for us to be in One of the things that we've done. We've been in business for 11 years and we've never taken anyone who pays as they go. So we've been doing cases and program fees the entire time because I realized the value to the customer because there's Value in them committing. That's what we have to realize. So we're actually doing them. We're doing them a favor because they're seeing the entire process through. There's also value in them knowing that you're going to be there to deliver the care and that there's continuity in their care. And, of course, there's also value that you're going to be able to offer them in between their sessions, too, because you know, they're going to email you, they're going to ask questions, they're going to take up some of your time, which is totally fine. But if you're paying visit by visit, then you're actually giving and dispensing your time without actually being compensated or reimbursed in any way for it. So, big proponent of case fees.

Yeah. And there's a relief that the client feels as well. And I know this because I feel it. I'm fortunate that I've been the client of some of my clients, and I love going through all the processes that I've taught them myself as a client. But there's a relief that you feel as a client when, okay, I'm taking care of this thing. Right. Like, I've committed and I'm taking care of this. And it's not like I have to make a new decision every week or every month to book a session and go pay for it. I've taken care of it. I just now follow the plan and follow the program.

Yeah, it's kind of like, you know, there's some examples that I give for people to give them some context, because in some areas of our life, we pay visit by visit. Right. Like a haircut is an example. In fact, funny story, my first job was barbering in university, and I needed to buy a sport coat for our, I guess our prom, our equivalent to our prom. And at the time, I didn't have the money, but I'm like, man, that's a lot of haircuts. For me to cut hair, I'd have to be here and here all weekend to pay for this coat. So I said, why don't I just start selling prepaid haircuts? So I was actually selling prepaid haircuts, and I would sell a package of three haircuts. So I started. I always sell. I've been selling case fees and program fees for a long time because it's not like, unless your hair falls out, you're going to be back in a month to get a haircut. So they're saving money. I get to buy the sport coat that I needed for the party and everyone wins. So it was a good situation. But you know, in, in other areas of our life, we pay for the case, right? So if you're building a deck, you don't pay the guy for every plank he nails down, right. You pay for the entire project and then you're relieved by knowing that, hey, this is going to get done. When you get a new roof, you don't pay for each shingle, you pay for the entire roof. So there's many examples that we can use like that. And in situations you wouldn't want to do that, right? Like you wouldn't want to say, hey, I'll pay you tomorrow, and then they'll pay you the next day and I'll pay the next day. Because that person actually isn't even committed to you. Right. They might go find someone else who's willing to pay them in advance for care or willing to pay for the whole package. So just to give the listeners some opportunities to think of examples in their life where they do pay for the whole package. Or even when you go on an all inclusive vacation, you write that check once and then you go on the vacation and you get to enjoy yourself and you don't have to look at the bill. I recently went to Puerto Rico on a trip and it was not an all inclusive. So every time you're getting that dinner bill, you're painfully signing that check off to your room and then you get a bill at the end and it's a shocker, right? You're like, oh my God, how did that add up so quickly? Whereas if it was all inclusive, then I wouldn't have to think about it and I can actually enjoy myself liberally for the entire vacation. So I think the same can be said for people who are in a group program as well.

Yeah, yeah. And when I talk about programs, I don't simply mean group. I mean, they might be group programs if that's how you're running your practice or you're at that stage of practice. But this can be for one on one as well.

Yeah, sorry, I misspoke there. I meant, you know, programs, just in general. So let's talk about the difference between marketing and sales, because these are two, like really almost swear words in the health and wellness space. Right. So how do you define marketing, how do you define sales and how do you differentiate the two?

Yeah, well, I mean, at first I just want to say I think the biggest mistake that people make in general is thinking that marketing is Everything that, like, I think that most people who, you know, heart centered practitioners who just want to work with their clients, what they think is if I'm going to learn how to, you know, do business, it's, I have to learn how to do marketing. And it's almost like they don't realize there's all this other stuff, the pricing and the packaging and how you serve your clients. Your fulfillment systems are totally, totally important. Your finances, management. So there's so many aspects of business that, that you should learn. Marketing is just one piece of it. So I, I just find that people lump everything and they think everything, you know, everything business is marketing. And that's, that's not the case. I define marketing as how you, your visibility. It's how you attract attention, it's how you generate leads. Leads are not what I call prospects. They're not prospective clients and they're not clients. Leads are simply people who have come into your world, they became aware of you. Anybody listening to us right now? Right. This is, this is marketing. It's attracting attention and engaging with people and starting to build a relationship. But sales is. Once somebody has actually said, hey, I'm interested in your services, I'm interested in learning more, I'm interested in potentially working with you. So there's some kind of line there. For me, that line is crossed when you offer an invitation to somebody to have a conversation with you. That's how I initiated the sales pipeline. For me, it's a discovery. Call me personally. Many of my clients have an assessment session, a phone consultation. There's all different names you can call it, but it's an initial, it's an initial invitation to actually talk about working with you or talk about your problems or goals or whatever they are. Everything before that to me is the marketing that's nurturing, building relationships, and at the top of all that is getting in front of new people. So how you attract an audience, it's the sales piece that most people don't have at all. So when I mean really classic stuff I see out there is somebody goes, okay, I need clients, so I need to do marketing. And they go and they start putting flyers out, whether in real life or online and flyers just selling their services. So they're trying to sell to strangers, they're trying to sell to people who never were offered an invitation. Right. And I'm sure you've heard the analogy of it's like asking somebody to marry you on a first date. I think about it as just walking up to somebody on the street and Asking them to marry you, you know, I mean, just like you don't, you have no idea if they even need your services or if they're at all the right fit. Like you don't, you don't know anything and, and you're trying to, you're trying to sell your services to them. So don't do that.

Yeah, don't do that. So do you like, in regards to sales, I'm sure you're encouraging a call, right? Or it could be in person, obviously. Are you encouraging people to make an offer at that first visit or using a two visit strategy where you put a program together and then present the program at the review of findings? Or maybe using a combination. Any thoughts on that?

Sure, yeah. Let me share just a little brief outline of my sales system. I have five stages to it and so I have two different versions. One is for like brick and mortar in person businesses and one is for online businesses. So I'll just share the brick and mortar in person. One is just a little bit more complex. So on that one, practitioners that work with me, what we build is the initial invitation is an offer for a free phone consultation. And that's brief, it's like 15 minutes. And so that's on all their, you know, that's on, that's on any online directories they're in, it's on their website. If they're talking to somebody in person or a networking meeting and somebody shows interest, they say, you know, yeah, let's talk. Would you like to schedule a free phone consultation? And in that phone consultation, that's our pre qualifying process. And so it's scripted, I help them script that out and they get really good at it. And that's something they can pass on to an admin once the practitioner has gotten good at it and understands how it works. But that's the qualification process to really just make sure that this person is within target of, of an ideal client. And when they qualify, then they're invited to an in person assessment and like full consultation. And so that one, the person comes into the office and there's some, like I said, assessment process going on. So if these are hands on practitioners, sometimes it actually involves a hands on assessment, but it always involves as well some kind of interview process to really get to understand what's going on with this person, how's the situation impacting their life, what is it they really want? And I encourage people to go deeper. I know that you probably use a process like this, right. But what I find is, let's just Say, so I work with a number of bodyworkers who, you know, people are coming to them in pain with physical pain. But I try to push people. Like, we're going deeper than that. Like, okay, so the guy says his shoulder hurts. But like we got to find out. Like you're going to be addressing, trying to find the root cause of that for sure as part of your process, right? Maybe not in the assessment, but through, through the journey. So you're going to be trying to discover this, but you have to understand, you have to learn in this interview process how is that impacting his life? Like, who cares? So your shoulder hurts? Why does that matter? You know, I mean I used to, so I used to own a gym, you know, and occasionally I would get somebody who'd say something like, well, I want to have six pack abs. And it's like, I mean, it's kind of cliche. But the thing is, I'd say, okay, but why? Like, who cares that you. I mean, Got it. Okay, that's, but that's just surface level. Like we want to understand, like, why is that important to you? And they might give some answer, like, because I want to look good. Okay, well why? All right, what's that about? And like you actually want to get to those layers that are about. There might be some actual real purpose there or you know, fulfilling some deep emotional need. And that's what we want to get to. Like you're going to be working with this person. You need to know that what is that about for them that's building this relationship. So to me, that's all part of that consultation process. I should have mentioned that one of my steps in my sales system is before they even come in for the consultation is we do. I have what I call a prime and prep campaign. So via email they get a series of emails that really introduce them to your practice. This is where you actually share your own personal story and your journey and you prep them for what's coming in the consultation and the fact that you're going to be asking them to make a decision if they're the right fit and so on. You show them case studies as well. So there's a little campaign in there. So by the time they get into the office and are doing the consultation, they've been qualified and they've been primed and prepped for what's going to happen and really nurtured. And we see as long as they're the right fit for you in the consultation, you have to determine that. And there are going to be some cases where even though they qualified, you know, you realize, nope, this is, you know, I should refer them elsewhere. So that's going to happen sometimes. But when they're a good fit for you, you're going to have really high conversion rates with that process.

Awesome. And how do you recommend the best way for people to. To really. To really nurture these individuals after the yes or the no? Do you have a process for that?

Yeah, I mean, I have my clients design an onboarding process. Right. And so what I like to say is, what's the big hug? You know, the big hug that you give them? Like, we're in this together now. You're part. You're inside. Here we go. And, you know, what do you want to share with them? And so we do that in simple automated ways. You know, series of emails that go out. But then also, what are all the other touch points? Whether it's people from your team reaching out, whether it's you, you know, what. What are all those pieces and just making it really easy for them. That looks so different. Practice by practice in terms of what you're giving. Sometimes there's free gifts involved, you know, or a swag bag if it's in person or something like that. So all different pieces there. But I actually encourage, for the whole program that onboarding kind of transfer into what's into basically client experience and client results. Like what? How can you really help this person be as successful as possible? What kind of. You were talking about it between sessions. What are they getting between sessions that are going to really, really help them? So, yeah, so that actually I have these five stages of my predictable sales system. And the fifth stage is the onboarding.

Yeah, that's such a huge part of the process that sometimes gets overlooked because we put so much energy and emphasis into the marketing and the nurturing and the sales. But then we forget that that's actually as challenging as that can be. I don't want to dismiss the effort that goes into that because it does require a lot of lift. But the yes is like the easy part.

It's just the beginning.

It's just the beginning. They're saying, yes, I want you to help me. And now you got to actually help them. And you probably read the book how to Never Lose a Customer by Joey Coleman. Have you read that book? Yeah. So we kind of adopt. We didn't even know we were doing the eight steps that he talks about until after I read the book. And I was like, oh, like, wow, we're actually doing these things. But having once somebody says yes, you have to make sure that you address any buyer's remorse, because that usually happens within the first few hours and days of that decision. And you have to do something that reinforces that decision, letting them know, hey, you're in the right place. And it doesn't have to be anything extravagant. It could be something as simple as a text that shows your enthusiasm or an email, or even like a dub video or a personal video that you know where you're sharing that enthusiasm, that they're taking action. And that's all people need, right? The extra mile is often an inch. It doesn't have to be anything crazy or excessively time consuming, but it does have to be thoughtful. So you can do things that are thoughtful that don't take up a lot of time or resource. This has been very, very enlightening. I love the alignment in the way we think and the way you kind of put your processes together. There's so much more I'm sure that we can unpack. And I know you've got a lot of tools that you share with clients, so I'd love to know, first of all, where can people follow you? I know you're on Instagram, so maybe if you want to share where we can follow you. And then also if there's a special gift that you want to offer to our listeners, then I'd love for you to share that as well and we'll be sure to put that into the show. Notes.

Yeah, I think the best place to follow me would actually be to find my podcast. I'm surprisingly not like major in social media, definitely not Instagram, which I like to use as an example to say you can have a really great business without a strong social media presence. Because it's true in some cases. But my podcast is called the Business Revolution for Practitioners and that's a great place to get free content. But then I also have a masterclass to offer your listeners and that is where I share my entire framework for getting long term clients and creating steady, predictable income in your business. It's called the Client Champion Formula and you can get the masterclass for free@joannasapir.com clientchampion awesome.

Thank you so much. This has been a great conversation and I appreciate you sharing and taking time out of your busy schedule. And here's to making people healthy, happy and whole again. And us practitioners and business owners deserve that just as much as the clients that we're trying to help. So make sure you're taking good care of yourself, all of our listeners, and that way you can take great care of other people. Joanna, is there anything you want to share before we jump off?

Just to add to what you're saying? It's make it a win win. That's what. That's what to do with this. Make it a win win.

Awesome. So we'll share those show notes or share the links in the show notes and I'll add the podcast as well. Thank you for all the work that you're doing and I appreciate you once again for sharing your insights. Have an awesome, awesome rest of your day.

Thank you too. You too, Satchin.

I'll talk to you soon. Bye for now. Sarah.